the brigade. The Western Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944 and began to advance rapidly towards Belgium. On the Eastern Front, the brigade was hurriedly redeployed in July from its temporary camp in Franconia to participate in the Battle of Tannenberg Line outside Narva alongside other units of the SS from Western Europe including Flanders. In the aftermath of the Allied liberation in September 1944, Degrelle managed to have the brigade upgraded to division-status, after drafting Rexist refugees fleeing the Allied advance and Belgian volunteers from the paramilitary National Socialist Motor Corps (Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, NSKK). The new 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonia (28. SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Division Wallonien) was created in October 1944. It numbered fewer than 4,000 men, making it considerably understrength. French soldiers and Spaniards from the Blue Legion were folded into the unit to increase its numbers. Early in 1945, the Wallonia Division was deployed to the defence of Pomerania. It participated in fighting at Stargard on 5 February. By the end of the month, it had been reduced to only 700 men and was thrown into a costly attack on the Russian bridgehead at the Oder river in which it lost a further 650 men. In the aftermath of this failure, some of the survivors were evacuated by sea to German-occupied Denmark and headed for Schleswig-Holstein. Degrelle met with Himmler at Plön but was not given any tangible orders and fled to Norway. The surviving personnel of the division surrendered to the British Army at Lübeck to escape capture by Soviet forces. Commanders Captain-Commandant Georges Jacobs (August 1941 – January 1942) Captain Pierre Pauly (January 1942 – March 1942) Captain George Tchekhoff (March 1942 – April 1942) SS-Sturmbannführer Lucien Lippert (April 1942 – 13 February 1944) SS-Sturmbannführer Léon Degrelle as political leader of the unit SS-Oberführer Karl Burk (21 June 1944 – 18 September 1944) SS-Standartenführer Léon Degrelle (18 September 1944 – 8 May 1945) Post-war activities Altogether, between 7,000 and 8,000 men served in the Walloon Legion between 1941 and 1944, slightly less than the number of Flemish who served in comparable formations. Some 1,337 were killed, representing about a fifth of its total strength. However, its maximum field strength had never exceeded 2,000 men. In the final weeks of the war, Degrelle fled to German-occupied Norway and flew to Francoist Spain where, sentenced to death in absentia, he remained in exile until his death in