The 5th SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade Wallonien or 5. SS-Freiwilligen-Sturmbrigade Wallonien was a Belgian Waffen SS volunteer brigade comprising volunteers of Walloon background. It saw action on the Eastern Front during World War II.
In September of 1944, the Sturmbrigade had its status raised to that of a division, but its strength never reached more than a brigade.
Before the outbreak of World War II, Fascism was quite popular in Belgium, including the French speaking region of Wallonia. Leon Degrelle, owner of a newspaper, and before the war known as an ardent Catholic, had founded the Rexist party in 1930. The Rexists watched the rise of Adolf Hitler’s NSDAP in Germany through the 1930’s and campaigned strongly for similar changes in their own country, some even fighting for the establishment of an independent Walloon nation.
When the Germans launched Fall Gelb in May 1940, the Belgian authorities placed Degrelle in custody to prevent him assisting the advancing enemy by raising dissent. Soon after Belgium’s capitulation, Degrelle was released and he immediately set about the work of furthering the Rexist party’s aims of an independent Walloon state. Despite his efforts, Degrelle’s Rexists were largely ignored by the Germans, who were focusing their efforts on rousing the Flemings to their cause. Degrelle, seeing that Germany was not interested in his Rexists, began using his excellent oratory powers to gather a fighting force together for the expected Crusade against Bolshevism.
The unit, consisting mostly of men from the Formations de Combat, the paramilitary arm of the Rexist Party, was christened Corps Franc Wallonie (Walloon Free Corps). While Degrelle was in Paris campaigning for recognition of his party, the Germans ordered the formation of Wallonische Legion for service in the east. Degrelle rushed back to find that his pretensions of military leadership were not to be. Command of the Legion, which had absorbed the Corps Franc Wallonie, was to go to Captain-Commandant Georges Jacobs, a retired Belgian colonial officer.
Degrelle’s lack of military training meant that his request to be commissioned as an officer was denied, and so he signed on as a private soldier. On 8 August 1941, the Legion, now 860 strong, was sent to Meseritz in East Prussia for basic training. In early October, the Legion was incorporated into the Heer as 373. (Wallonische) Infanterie Battalion. On 15 October, the Battalion was ordered to the front, to operate as a part of Army Group South currently advancing through Ukraine.
