Lucien Lippert

Lucien Lippert was a Belgian soldier who collaborated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. He served as the first commander of the Walloon Legion, a collaborationist military unit recruited from French-speaking Belgians, which was later incorporated into the Waffen-SS. Following its transfer, Lippert became the inaugural commander of the SS Sturmbrigade Wallonien, the first Walloon formation within the SS.

In April 1942, he was appointed commanding officer of the legion. After the unit was absorbed into the Waffen-SS and reorganised as the SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade Wallonien, Lippert was promoted in June 1943 to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer and placed in command of the newly formed brigade.

Lippert was killed in action in February 1944 near the village of Novo-Buda in central Ukraine. He was succeeded as commander by Léon Degrelle.

He was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class in 1942.

Transfer to the Waffen SS In 1943, the Walloon Legion was reorganised and incorporated into the Waffen-SS, becoming the SS-Freiwilligen-Sturmbrigade Wallonien (SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade Wallonien). To command the newly restructured brigade, Lippert was promoted in June 1943 to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (major), making him the first Walloon commander of an SS formation. Under his leadership, the brigade continued combat operations in Soviet territories, particularly in Ukraine, where it was deployed in defensive and anti-partisan operations amid increasingly difficult strategic conditions for German forces.

Death Lippert was killed in action in February 1944 near the village of Novo-Buda in central Ukraine. Following his death, command of the SS Walloon unit passed to Léon Degrelle, who later became the most well-known figure associated with Walloon SS collaboration. Lippert did not live to see the formation expanded into a full SS division later in 1944, and he left no memoirs or major personal writings, contributing to the scarcity of detailed personal documentation about his motivations or private life.

Legacy Lippert is remembered chiefly for his role as the first military commander of the Walloon SS brigade. Due to his early death and relatively low political profile, historians discuss him mainly within broader studies of Belgian and Western European collaboration or within works centred on the Rexist movement and its military units. While recognised as an important organisational and disciplinary figure in the legion's early development, his name did not achieve the post-war notoriety or mythic status that later surrounded Degrelle, and analyses of Lippert emphasise his function as a field commander rather than a leading political ideologue.