During the Second World War a group of brave Frenchmen joined the Waffen-SS to fight for Europe against Bolshevism. From 1943, the first SS Batallion of French Grenadiers was formed, composed mainly of volunteers from Vichy France. They used the name and shield of Charlemagne for having been the king who united Germany and France under the same authority.
The Charlemagne Division participated in important battles against the Red Army on the eastern front. On March 3, 1945, the French were decimated by the Belarusian army at Körlin. Finally they fought until the last man in Berlin, between the months of April and May of 1945, defending the ruins of the German chancellery before the brutal attack of the Soviet forces.