Edgar Puaud
| Edgar Joseph Alexandre Puaud | |
|---|---|
| Born |
29 October 1889 Orléans, France |
| Died | March 1945 (aged 55) Greifenberg, Germany |
| Allegiance |
 France Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch |
 Waffen-SS
|
| Years of service | 1909–40 1941–45 |
| Rank |
 Oberführer
|
| Commands held |
Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism SS Division Charlemagne |
| Battles/wars |
World War I World War II |
Edgar Joseph Alexandre Puaud (29 October 1889 – March 1945) was a French army officer, who, in 1945, briefly became commander of the Charlemagne Division, a French unit of the Waffen-SS which fought alongside the German Army against the Soviet Union.
Puaud was born in Orléans, and joined the French Army as a private soldier in 1909. By 1914 he was a sergeant, and was selected to attend the military academy at Saint-Maixent for officer training. On the outbreak of World War I, however, he and fellow "aspirants" were immediately given commissions. During the course of the war he was promoted from Sub-Lieutenant to Captain, and won the Croix de guerre and the Legion of Honour. After 1918 he served with the French army of occupation in the Rhineland, then with the French Foreign Legion in Morocco, Syria and French Indo-China.
By 1939 he was a major, based at Septfonds in the south-west of France, and as a result did not see action during the German invasion of 1940. Following the French defeat in 1940, he served in the much-reduced "Armistice Army" in Vichy France.
Although Puaud was initially hostile to French collaboration with the German occupiers, his attitude changed following the German invasion of the Soviet Union and war which ensued in June 1941. He accepted the collaborationist argument that "Bolshevism" was a greater threat to French interests than the Germans. In October 1941, he joined the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism (Legion des Volontaires Français Contre le Bolchevisme, LVF), which was fighting on the eastern front, as a battalion commander.
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