This is my final note on Free France’s Lion, General Philippe Leclerc, at least for the time being. As I have observed in these notes, Leclerc was a man of sterling character. It shines forth from the pages of William Mortimer Moore’s biography.
General Leclerc’s leadership of France’s Second Armored Division essentially came to an end in Munich and Berchtesgaden in April and May 1945. At Leclerc’s request the division had been redeployed to Germany with General Alexander Patch’s Seventh Army. Moore writes that Leclerc was happy to be back with the Americans. Leclerc “told his men that their conduct in Germany must be impeccable…They were to do honor to their uniforms, even though, and especially, because the collapse of the Third Reich had brought the French a chance to settle accounts.”
Once the Germans surrendered Munich, Leclerc’s forces were the only armored division capable of further advances in southern Germany. Near Munich, Langlade’s tactical group of the division was among the first to hear of the Dachau concentration camp. Leclerc sent several officers to visit and report back. They were horrified by what they saw. “At once Leclerc ordered the division’s medical staff to attend to French inmates and,” Moore writes, “after seeing the misery for himself, Leclerc was highly skeptical that the Germans had known nothing.”
I’ve mentioned several times that Leclerc was an observant Catholic. According to Moore, he attended mass at the church nearest Dachau and then confronted the priest in front of the choir: “Using his interpreter, though he spoke German perfectly well, Leclerc asked the priest how he could allow such horrors near his parish. The priest swore by Almighty God he had no idea.”
“You dare to tell me you do not know? With all that smoke?”
Moore writes that the priest was visibly quaking as Leclerc turned away in disgust while muttering, “Unbelievable! Unbelievable!”
On June 22 the division held a parade for itself in Fontainebleau and Leclerc made his farewell speech as he turned the division over to Louis Dio. Leclerc concluded that speech:
I am leaving you. But I am not removing the badge of our division from my uniform. I am keeping that. It will be my best medal. I ask you also to keep it. And when you feel your energy flagging think back to Kufra, Alencon, Paris and Strasbourg. Re-find your comrades and your leaders, and continue to nurture in this country the patriotism that was your own motivation.
According to Moore, Leclerc and his men had never lost a battle: “General Charles de Gaulle’s extraordinary character had opened the door for the Free French, but none of them would have enjoyed such success if it had not been for the exceptional military qualities and unfailing personal commitment of Philippe Leclerc.”
