The Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism (, LVF) was a unit of the German Army during World War II consisting of collaborationist volunteers from France. Officially designated the 638th Infantry Regiment (Infanterieregiment 638), it was one of several foreign volunteer units formed in German-occupied Western Europe to participate in the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
Created in July 1941, the LVF originated as an initiative by a coalition of far-right factions including Marcel Déat's National Popular Rally, Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party, Eugène Deloncle's Social Revolutionary Movement and Pierre Costantini's French League. In contrast to the conservative and authoritarian Vichy regime, which considered itself neutral, the LVF's founders explicitly supported Nazi ideology and collaboration with Nazi Germany. The LVF was tolerated by Vichy and received limited personal endorsement from its leading figures.
Smaller than originally anticipated, the LVF was sent to the Eastern Front in October 1941. It performed poorly in combat during the Battle of Moscow in November and December 1941 and suffered heavy losses. Its constituent battalions were subsequently split up and only reconstituted into a single formation in September 1943. For most of its existence, it participated in so-called bandit-fighting operations (Bandenbekämpfung) behind the front line in German-occupied Byelorussia and Ukraine and participated in the violent repression of Soviet partisans and associated atrocities against the civilian population.
Over the course of its existence, 5,800 men served in the unit, although its strength never exceeded 2,300. After the Allied landings in Normandy and Liberation of France, the LVF was disbanded in September 1944 and its remaining personnel incorporated into the Waffen-SS in the short-lived SS "Charlemagne" Waffen-Grenadier Brigade.
Background
France declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939 at the same time as the United Kingdom. It was invaded and occupied by German forces after a disastrous military campaign in May and June 1940 in which 600,000 civilians and soldiers were killed, and a further 1.8 million soldiers were detained as prisoners of war in Germany. Critics of the country's pre-war republican regime attributed the national humiliation to the failure of parliamentary democracy and the corrupting influence of liberal individualism, communism, freemasonry and Jews. Countering these threats were among the main organising principles of the "National Revolution" declared by the authoritarian Vichy regime under Marshal Philippe Pétain in the aftermath of the defeat.
Although a puppet state whose direct control over French territory was limited to the southern "free zone" (zone libre), the Vichy regime considered itself to be neutral and not part of an alliance with Germany. The Vichy regime could not control large parts of French territory under direct German occupation, notably the northern "occupied zone" (zone occupée). More extreme right-wing French political factions (groupuscules) centred on Paris in the zone occupée often shared a more explicitly Nazi and pro-German ideology than Vichy. These groups only enjoyed the support of a tiny fraction of the French population. The historian Julian Jackson estimates the peak number of adherents to these radical groups at a maximum of 220,000 in 1942. Although there had been interest within the German Foreign Ministry about closer ties with France after the defeat, these were vetoed by Adolf Hitler, who wanted total freedom to decide on the country's future after the war and was determined to keep the Vichy regime weak.