28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonien - Upgrade To Division - Final Battles

Final Battles

As was the case with Langemarck, the Allied invasion of Belgium in 1944 had resulted in an influx of new volunteers. Together with the Langemarck, the Wallonien Sturmbrigade was upgraded to become the 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonien in October 1944. Despite this upgrade in status, the actual strength of the Wallonien remained that of a reinforced brigade, around 8,000 men. The division was first sent to Southern Hanover then to Braunschweig to continue training. The new Walloon recruits were joined by Frenchmen from the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism and Spaniards of the Blue Division. Most of the new recruits lacked any military training, so only about 4,000 men were ready for action. These men were formed into a Kampfgruppe and sent to the region near Stargard and Stettin in Pomerania, joining the XXIX Panzer Corps, a part of Felix Steiner's XI SS Panzer Army.

The Wallonien was scheduled to take part in Operation Sonnenwende, the major offensive to relieve German troops encircled at Arnswalde. Wallonien was to operate in the area between the Madu See and the Plone See (Pomerania), covering the flank of the main attack. The offensive was launched on the 15th of February 1945, and met with initial success. However, after the III SS (Germanic) Panzer Corps reached Arnswalde, the situation changed and the Soviet defence began to solidify. Despite the XI Panzer Army causing heavy casualties, the offensive stalled. In heavy fighting, the Wallonien sustained as well as inflicted heavy losses, and eventually began a fighting withdrawal.

The Soviet counter-offensive, launched on 1 March, pushed the Wallonien before it, and over the next few weeks was in almost constant combat throughout Central Pomerania until it reached the Oder near Stettin. The Wallonien, fighting alongside the Langemarck managed to hold a thin strip of land on the eastern bank of the Oder until it was forced back across the river in early April, 1945. At this point the Walloons held a council of war and released those volunteers who no longer wished to continue the hopeless fight. 23 Officers and 625 men chose to remain, and they assembled in one last battalion, plentifully equipped with machine guns, panzerfausts, mortars, and automatic rifles. At the end of March, a second battalion had been formed from men of the artillery and engineer units who had come forward from their technical schools, but this formation appears to have never been committed to battle. The Langemarck (Flemish), who had also consolidated their remaining troops into two heavily armed battalions and an artillery section, was merged with the Wallonien under command of its tactical leader, SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Hellebaut. Joining the French- and Dutch-speaking Belgians was one German battalion and a section of tank destroyers. Langemarck's SS-Standartenführer Schellong commanded the artillery and one of the Flemish battalions.

After the final Soviet offensive of 20 April 1945, the Belgians held as best they could, but were soon swept aside by the advancing Soviets. After several unsuccessful counter-attacks, the Belgian units realised all was lost and Degrelle ordered his troops to make it to Lübeck, where they eventually surrendered to British troops. Degrelle himself then drove with his bodyguard into Denmark. In a very risky action with a Heinkel He-111 aeroplane with very little fuel, Degrelle then flew from Norway to Spain where he spent the rest of his life in exile. Belgium convicted him of treason in absentia and condemned him to death by firing squad. Degrelle died in 1994.