First of all, it is a known fact that 70% of the French Foreign legion after 1945 consisted of former German Wehrmacht and SS soldiers. (the number went down later, but even today a considerable amount of Germans serve there)  It was an easy way for Germans after the War to avoid prosecution or simply continue their "job" as soldiers which wasnt possible in Germany until 1955 when the German Army was reestablished. 

 

German soldiers  were also responsible for turning the Vietnamese "Construction" Army (mainly used for building roads and infrastructure prior to 1945) into a functioning, disciplined fighting force.

From 1945-1954 the Legion Etrangere recruited 30,000 - 35,000 Germans. Most of them were WWII veterans. During the 1st Indochina War c. 40-50% of the LE personell in South-Eastern Asia were Germans.

Among the last 7000 soldiers that left Vietnam in 1954 after the peace treaty, 1600 were German. 

BS. The story is pure fiction - based on the fact that there was a high number of German WWII veterans in the Legion - ... making good horror stories for kids - maybe - but thats all.  

Hello

 

I was reading your post, I am a screenwritier living in Australia doing research about  German soldiers fighting in IndoChina with the Foreign legion, you say your father knew the person in question in relation to the novel: Devils Guard. Did your father serve in Indochina with the French? Any information you could pass my way in terms of research would be greatly appreciated.

 

best regards

 

Tom

In my mind the facts are overwhelming that many German veterns served in the FFL in SEAsia. However, the fact that after the publication of the DEVIL'S GUARD the author published a couple sequels to cash in on the popularity of his book somewhat dims the possibility that the original story was a narration of true events. Just a money spinner loosely based on some convincing facts, as one poster stated above.

 

Not really sure where you are getting your information from mate, but I have been researching this subject for tow years now and the evidence of Germans serving in the French Foreign Legion in Indochina is startling and embarrassing for some. A very interesting subject full of stories that should be told.

I am getting the information from my own experience. I was in the Legion and later in other units of the Armée de Terre and also DGSE. There is no question that there were and are "Germans" in the Legion (I am also "half-German" by the way). In fact the way the Legion operates has been strongly influenced by German officers after the second world war.
However the book mentioned is pathetic nonsense ...  obviously written by somebody who obviously was not able to get over the fact that the "nordic/mythic vision" with all their light marches didn't bring them the "Endsieg". There is nothing embarassing about germans in the Legion - its part of our history - and they were excellent soldiers. But a book like this does more damage  to their memory than it would do good. As a story writer you might be very careful not to discuss these aspects on a too abstract/too general level. There was a difference between Wehrmacht and SS and GESTAPO and there is a difference between military operators (who view their role as a profession and usually have a very clear picture about the damage they do - well, have to, however would avoid where they can) and ideologically "polluted" persons who see themselves as "Herrenrasse" and have fun doing damage to others because the feel everybody else is inferior to them.

I would hope, that in your publications your are careful not to mix these things ...

 

 

 

 

Not really sure where you are getting your information from mate, but I have been researching this subject for tow years now and the evidence of Germans serving in the French Foreign Legion in Indochina is startling and embarrassing for some. A very interesting subject full of stories that should be told.

I think that there were Germans , a good number of Germans, in the legion, but the question is whether they were Wehrmacht or Gestapo. In the book, the narrator claimed that everything was the same as in Nazi Germany, even the interrogators/torturers were Gestapo and everything was identical except the portrait of Hitler on the wall. The hard thing is to determine if they were Gestapo or general army. I really don't see any way of deciding the question. However, DEVIL's GUARD is not a reliable source.

 

Definitely sounds like fiction to me. Such people would be filtered out with varying degrees of success from the start and over time. Certainly, some probably made it, but they wouldn't get away with making an identical method of operation - the French FL is French, not Third Reich German... while there would probably be a diluted Wehrmacht athmosphere the SS, those that hustled through, would have been isolated. Not that the Wehrmacht wasn't involved in atrocities. I wonder if they were subject to any reeducation, and how their mindscapes changed after WWII?

Seems like a book that was made to cash in on the neonazi segments of population.

The first book is basically factual, based on tapes. The following ones are not, they just Elford hoping to follow up on his amazing success and luck of having met the the man as stated.
He wrote the speech parts "" Whereas the author taped it all out like most of it is written. 

Great read! Not PC today though... even though it is a most sort after book.

Tilt!  Publishers avoid its reprint.

The difference between Communism and National Socialism is simple. The Communists won and wrote their version of history as victors do....  

I have just completed a 250,000 word MS on the cold war... some of it true, some of it not.

Just need a publisher... Tilt! Not easy...

Just because they're both totalitarian on the XY scale of liberalism/totalitarianism-capitalism/communalism doesn't mean they're the same... sounds like you're attempting some shoddy relativism here. I'm intrigued by your mention of a cold war book though.

 

As for Communism and Nazism all they have in common is totalitarianism and a horrific bodycount (higher on the communist side but they had more time and space and unrivaled on the Nazi side in pure ingenuity of suffering). Nazism is rather centrist in it's economic policy.

 

Anyone knows this...

Was France losing in Algeria? I checked on Portugal's colonies recently and they were doing very well economically and militarily until the revolutionary privates screwed over their military, economic, political leaders and their subsequently improverished and doubly wartorn dictatorship ex-colonies (pure demographics and the consequences of disrupting the economies).