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Really seems cool and also speaking of possible stories you could go for could do ones in the time of the Iran Hostage Crisis or escapes from Iran during that time like the ones of Ross Perot and Argo the real incident are good examples. Anyway may want to tell the team on that for interests or this other one that got a movie made about it named Not Without My Daughter and a book about that with a person named Betty Mahmoody anyway really can also check that out as well and get it as fast as you can.
"Most likely highly exaggerated." Man, what a piece of propaganda this video is. Especially considering how many escaped to South America. Especially considering how 1,000's joined the U. S in Operation Paperclip. War Criminals. This video is a sham.
@@josephr4761 it actually does. US in Korea never graped anyone , while Dutchmen in Indonesia did it everywhere same with French in Vietnam. I guess it’s just European culture
Former German soldiers were most desirable manpower pool to choose from. They mostly hated communism and would fight it, especially after crushing defeat by Soviet Union. They also been doing anti-partisant warfare in occupied Europe. It was all along the cold calculation of France.
My grandfather fought in the Korean War and his Platoon Sgt was an old German Sgt that was in the German Army on the Eastern Front. His leadership and experience helped a lot of the young soldiers through the war.
@@benjaminlathem2745 As someone German who also works as Historian for the IFZ in Munich, i immediately rolled my Eyes when i saw the Thumbnail with that weird "Hollywood Movie Dumb Skinhead Style" Tattoo on the Man's Chest. Having interviewed many Waffen-SS Soldiers of all kinds of European Countries, all of them found American Neo-Nazis, their Tattoos and how they dress up basically "cringe" and that they would love to hit them in the Face So i assume that's why it's unhinged, and it definitely is. It's sad when Thumbnails have to become so dumb just to get a bit more Clicks Prost & Cheers from Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps
One of my grandathers best friends was a German who had lived in England before the war, fought with the German Army in WW2 then joined the FFL. He moved back to the UK afterwards. He and my grandfather (former Gordon Highlander) were quite the pair at getting into old man mischief, especially at pubs around Edinburgh.
This sounds like a pair of gents I shared a few pints with in the ‘70s in Edinburgh. I was a student that had done a years contract in Africa as a merc after serving in Vietnam.
On of the Waffen SS soldier who fought in Vietnam war but for americans was Lauri Thorni, a Winter War hero.He fought in Winter war against SSSR, in ww2 against SSSR for Germans, and in Vietnam War again against SSSR for americans.He died in Vietnam.
The FFL accepts almost everybody and when the the Bundeswehr was activated in 1955 a lot of their high ranking officers were WW2 vets within the Waffen SS & the Wehrmacht.
@@wirdnichtverraten9432 NATO back then made exceptions to some German Officers. They needed leaders for the Bundeswehr, combat hardened and experienced fighting against the Communists. The Germans weren't the enemy anymore.
@@wirdnichtverraten9432 No, practically all officers (80%) and nearly half of the NCOs of the Bundeswehr were former Wehrmacht personnel. The Waffen-SS was a different story.
Yeah, this was weird. The french would actually come to POW camps after the war and offer this guys a place in the legion, don't forget that most of them were still pretty young and the only trade they ever learned was being a soldier.
I had heard about this before. I don't remember how exactly, but that was when finding out that "La Légion Marche vers le Front" and "SS Marschiert in feindesland" are incredibly similar and a possible explanation is that SS brought it into the legion's repertoire, although changed.
@@JeffEbe-te2xs recruiting Germans is one thing, recruiting SS is another one. I looked briefly, "SS marschiert" which is related to "Lied der Legion Condor", but not much other older germans songs. So pretty much SS brought it into the legion.... actually maybe via the SS Charlemagne (french SS division), so they may not even have been germans
Nah the guys from legion Charlemagne were mostly massacred in Berlin in the last few days or executed on the spot by the advancing french army in 1945, some managed to slip through, and they basically lived in secrecy in isolated villages for the rest of their lives@@Brocojohn
This is a german song. Correct but it was adopted before the war. It is not a ss song but german army song. Actually a lot of legion songs were imported by german soldiers. The most famous is i had a comrade.
@@oliviervece6121there's a beautiful Song of the german legionnaires in Indochina, saying that It was Better in Russia (meaning USSR)...at least there where no french officers over there😢
My grandfather cousin married an English man who joined the foreign legion, he fought in Indochina, Egypt, and Algeria. He remembered serving with ex Waffen Ss men
I actually knew one of these men. He was my best friends father in law who immigrated to the US with his wife in the 1960’s after serving 15 years with the French Foreign Legion. I spent many hours sipping Jägermeister with him and listening to all him talk of all his experiences. He’s been gone ten years now and I really wish I recorded it all on video or at least audio. He was an interesting old dude.
Not only former Waffen-SS joined the FFL. Also former Allied personnel joined them like Americans, British, Soviets and so on. Or former 2nd Spanish Republic personnel or exiles who chose to follow Marechal Leclerc to Indochina and Algeria (at least some former La Española company personnel did iirc). Must've been quite the strange realization to have some of them trying to actively kill one another some years before and then be fighting together side by side versus the Viet Minh and the ALN.
After WWII lots of Wehrmacht vets joined the FFL and were sent to Indochina where their expertise was much needed and appreciated. It is said that they represented up to 70% of the FFL manpower but at this time the communists where pretty powerfull in France and they supported the Vietminh. They started to pretend that the FFL had enlisted thousands of former SS to discredit the french government and its intervention in Indochina, so much so that the army had to investigate on the germans in the FFL. The result showed that hundreds of former SS had been prevented from enlisting and they only found a few dozens in the FFL ranks in Indochina. Most were then sacked despite the protestations of the FFL commanding officers who praised the excellent job these men were doing, claiming that their knowledge and experience saved the lives of thousands of young french soldiers. Nowadays their legacy in the FFL still lives on, its most visible part being the numerous chants that are basically translations of Wehrmacht and Waffen SS chants like the "Panzerlied" or "SS marschiert in Feindesland".
Most Germans serving in the legion were actually just regular German citizens with no prior military background. West Germany didn't have an army until 1955, so any German wanting to join the military would have to go to Francd. Additionally, Germans serving in the legion has been a common practice since before WW2. The narrative of former SS members in the legion being elite and highly sought-after is a lie.
Over a thousand former SS troops (Dutch) fought in Korea and in the former Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. If they volunteered to go, their civic rights would be and were restored. So a few thousand SS troops in the French Foreign Legion doesn't seem such a stretch to me at all. Note: many regular German army troops were also involved in mass executions of civilians on the Eastern Front. It's a myth that the German army was squaky clean. *Radical Evil: How We Became Mass Murderers*
@@tavish4699 I thought you would say that. How about civilians who were rounded up and shot simply because they were Jews? A German veteran's comment in the video: "We never thought there would be villages where the entire population were Jews."
@@tavish4699 Nothing makes civilians into partisans faster than the German army policy of hostage-killing. What's the point of being a neutral civilian if the Germans are actively shooting your compatriots for the "crime" that is a partisan killing ONE German soldier. Yugoslavia became just that because of that specific German policy...
My father was in the British Army Intelligence Corps in the early 60s. One of the senior NCOs was Czech and held the Iron Cross. He had removed the swastika from it and wore it on his dress uniform.
It is possible, Czechs in the Sudetenland who were in a Czech-German marriage could apply for Reich citizenship. In my opinion, it was a clear collaborator, because the recruited Czechs from Silesia did not want to fight, but they had to, because Germany considered the inhabitants of Silesia to be Germans.
I remember watching "The Deadliest Warrior" TV series about 15 years ago that set up battles between hypothetical opponents. They were famous for showing some weird, off-the-wall matchups. (One episode showed Al Capone vs. Jesse James. Another showed Sun Tzu vs. Vlad the Impaler.) But I also remembered a 'what-if?' matchup showing the Viet Cong vs. the Waffen SS, thinking that this one "kind-of, sort-of" really happened, since so many former members of the Waffen SS had joined the Légion étrangère in the aftermath of WW2. If nothing else, this Infographic shows that what I thought might not be too far-fetched, after all. Thanks for making this! My like is in the 4.4Ks
that book is based on 'the devil's regiment', the memoires of a waffen SS colonel that fought his way across europe from hungary after the capitulation, he and his men were inducted into the legion.
A French General (I believe it was Raoul Salan) stated "if I had ten thousand former SS soldiers I would have been victorious at Dien Bien Phu". A number of these German Foreign Legionaires went on to fight in Algeria as well.
I doubt he said that .. SS were not good fighters only fanatics with good equipment and weak results. That's why the wehrmacht hated them, they were wasting precious ressource killing mostly civilians and indirectly encouraging guerilla.
"Sacre bleu! I knoiux yoiux from someouiere.." "Nein! Ich... * Cough *, I haev neva met du in mine life, mon ami. Fine dae for baugette, wine, and cigarette; non?"
@@Briselance because in some cases victor can force the historians (who's job is write down what actually happened) to change it to suit their desired narrative or some times it is actually the historians who change and wrote history in a way suit their desired narrative.
One of the most famous (though not as appreciated today) song is "La légion marche vers le front" (The Legion marches towards the front). It's the same melody and almost a word by word translation of "SS marshiert in Feindesland" (The SS marches in enemy country). There are a few others that are quite similar to Wehrmacht songs... I've been told it's still sung in private but not on official occasions. And I mean, that's not like they could miss it...
Do you know Hélie de Saint Marc? He was a former French resistant who was deported in concentration camp, and became officier in the FFL after WW2. He had to lead former german soldiers in Indochina. Imagine how difficult this should be, after almost dying in Buchenwald...
This video was enlightening, well done Simple History. The Foreign French Legion is a very interesting military unit due to the fact it also recruits criminals(granted, they restricted the recruitment to allow petty criminals but still) and civilians of foreign countries. As a sidenote the thumbnail is crazy to say the least.
When i joined the army in France one of the first song I had to learn was "Les troupes d'assauts" which is an airborne version of "La Légion marche", which is also a Legion version of "Teufelslied "
I don’t think their primary motive for joining the FFL was to hide. After WW2 they were unemployed and literally had nothing to go back to. Many would have found their homes in Germany were a pile of rubble and all their relatives dead. Many would have been soldiers from the age of 18 (some even younger) and many of the high ranking officers were professional career soldiers. Both never worked a different job, no trade. The FFL gave them employment (doing what they knew… soldering), a roof over their head and food.
Look up the 33rd SS battalion, all French volunteers. Left the eastern front with approximately 800 men, arrived in Berlin 1945 with 600 and escaped Berlin with less than 35 men accounted for. The ONLY SS unit that did not surrender at the end of the war. Most were hunted down when they returned to France after the war and were executed. There were less than 10 survivors that lived to die of natural causes.
During the French Indochina War, nearly nine out of ten Legionnaires were German... Wehrmacht, Waffen SS mostly. I actually met one in Brisbane 20 odd years ago. Turns out Otto was one of the very few that made it out of Dien Bien Phu, as it was being overrun by the Viet Minh. At the end of WW2 the French gave German POW's a choice....clear minefields, bust up concrete bunkers with a sledgehammer or join the Legion. Most joined the Legion.
I used to have a paperback copy of a book called " Devils Guard " the pen name was Hans Joseph Wagmuller . It was about the SS in Indo-China after WW2 .
And that's also why many a song of the French Army and of the French Foreign Legion has at least the same tune and approximatively-translated lyrics as German Army songs from the late XIXth century onwards, sometimes even drinking and popular songs from the Napoleonic Era and before. Check out《La Légion marche》(SS marschiert im Feindesland/Die Teufelsang), 《le soleil brille》(Rott scheine die Sonne/Fallschirmjägerlied)《les képis blancs》(Panzerlied),《L'Edelweiss》(Die Edelweiss), 《il est un moulin》(forgot the title in German, but you'll find it on Google in a jiffy), amongst those I can name at the moment. And there are others.
They can still choose to enlist like so, though. And for French nationals, they are enlisted under another name and another French-speaking nationality. Or yet another nationality, if they are fluent enough to pass as being actually from that country in question.
@@Briselance Yes, if they choose, they have to ask for it. Before it was a blanket, 'everyone' does it. HRC in Brussels accused the french government of crimes by forcing people to change their identity. so it was done away with.
The Legion never cared about your politics or your past. Just your fighting abilities and loyalty to the Legion. They aren’t sent to hand out parking tickets.
In his book "Street Without Joy" (which narrated France's war in Indochina), French journalist Bernard Fall refuted the exaggerated reports of huge number of Germans joining the Foreign Legion.
a veteran of French army during this period, says me " german veterans was never naked chest due to tatoo ! " for some of them, Indochina was better than Russia or DDR ! the relation between french and german was good, same situation for weapons, a lot of germans guns have been re used by French army in Indochina, Algeria...thanks to make this part of History better knowed !
My father fought in Vietnam from 1948 to 1951within the 1st Chasseur (Cavalry), participating in the biggest French defeat in this war (RC 4, That Khe, Dong Khe, Langson, Cao Bang). He, (like all French units) fought alongside the Legion. He mentioned Germans in the Foreign Legion, but his main story was during a Camerone celebration, the crew of a U-Boot mimicking the attack of a convoy by re-organizing the tables in the, let's call it the pub. What is sure is a lot of French actual military songs came from these German soldiers.
Steve Irwin: Now embrace your French nature and quietly surrender. Winston Churchill: I was saving the planet from an Axis of Darkness, while you were back home opening National Parks! Yes!
According to The Devils Guard, German prisoners were given a choice of years in prison, hard labor or both. However they could instead join the legion as an alternative. Also it was not a choice just for SS soldiers, Army and paratroopers also.
04:50 Mercenaries? Aye, but... nay. They enlist under the uniform of the French armed forces, are bound to French military laws and, thus, are not a private military company. Ergo, not mercenary. They are foreign volunteers, just like the foreign nationals enlisting in the US armed forces in order to obtain a green card. Not mercenaries.
They didnt hid at all. My great uncle was a colonel in the Légion in Indochine, had some belgian, german SS among his men, some former axis cossacks too. It was common knowledge and not even socially criticized by the time. I still have brass knuckles offered to him by a Wallonie vet and a kindjal from a former anti-bolshevik cossack.
hi, i Have Suggestions for next episode. can you do it.?! (Animation). 01: Murder Happened In Room 1046 02: Queen Mary Ship Ghost Stories. 03:House Borley Rectory. 04: The Myrtles Plantation Ghosts
I watched a video once talking about the intake process and interviews. One guy came from Poland and he had to be smuggled there because he was not allowed to leave Poland because of his past. The interviewer said though he was there illegally this was the type of person they were looking for. It showed how determined he was to leave his past behind.
my grandfather was a french SS member, after the war he joined the guard and served in indochina. I have his information if you guys would be interested? diary, service information in the french national army, then SS, then legion.
Side note, there were lots of foreigners in the SS. From Dutch, Belgians, Frenchmen all the way to Romanians. Every country had some guys who willingly joined. Many of them just committed minecraft like the austrian painter at the end of WW2.
Even in Viet Minh, there have been numerous reports of foreign soldiers from the French Foreign Legion deserting and joining the Viet Minh army They were formed into a separate regiment and were given the name "New Vietnamese" by Ho Chi Minh, the most prominent of these were German and Japanese military advisors, they were also given Vietnamese names and fought alongside the Viet Minh.
@ElMuay-j9k vi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi%E1%BA%BFn_s%C4%A9_%22Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam_m%E1%BB%9Bi%22 There's no English for this so you have to use translate to read
A few months ago, in a forest near Paris, I was training in an outdoor fitness park open to the public. While I was training, an elderly person was there too. I was impressed by her physical health. In talking to him I learned that he was a former lieutenant in the Foreign Legion and that after the Second World War they had a lot of former Wehrmacht and SS soldiers who joined them. He told me that of all the soldiers he had to lead, the former German soldiers were by far the best.
In Indochina in the foreign legion (about 70,000 legionaries participated in the entire conflict) the two most numerous nationalities were the Germans (20,000/30,000) followed by the Italians (7,000/10,000)
There were lot of ex-German soldier joined the French foreign legion for sure, they even adopted "Panzerlied" into French version as one of Songs of the French foreign legion .
My uncle (German) joined the Legion 1955 at the Age of 20 - many Germans did at that time because of lacking opportunities in post WW2 Germany. He confirmed that even 10 years after the war legion ranks were filled with former SS. He was telling stories of whole companies proudly singing SS-marching songs in the heat of the Algeria-War in the late 50’s. I have legion song booklets from his retirement in the 80’s enlisting SS-Bangers like “Erika” and “SS marschiert im Feindesleind” - stuff that’s heavily censored in Germany for good reasons
No other armed service have that specific practice hence you can differentiate those folks out from the crowd. It's no different from US recruiting officers weeding out gang members from the pool through their tattoos...
Hey Simple History do a video about the Dutch who fought in the Waffen SS during World War 2 that fought in the Dutch Military during the Indonesian Revolution and the Korean War.
I’ve heard many of the Germans in the foreign legion would sometimes claim to have been ss to have a more fierce reputation, like a rotc guy claiming to be a navy seal
Being a soldier in the Waffen SS did not necessarily mean you would be tried for war crimes. If they were captured by the Soviets? That's a whole different story.
The Czechs also fought in Indochina, having fled after the communists came to power in 1948. Then there was such a paradox that they served in the legion alongside the Germans, who were enemies three years ago. And Czechoslovakia fell victim already in 1938, when it had to give up its border in favor of Germany and then by occupation in 1939.
French nationals have to enlist under an assumed identity. Others can choose an assumed identity too, and it is not mandatory anymore but still strongly advised. Besides, who is going to bother with investigating and reporting this?
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Alright and hey there
Like video
Really seems cool and also speaking of possible stories you could go for could do ones in the time of the Iran Hostage Crisis or escapes from Iran during that time like the ones of Ross Perot and Argo the real incident are good examples. Anyway may want to tell the team on that for interests or this other one that got a movie made about it named Not Without My Daughter and a book about that with a person named Betty Mahmoody anyway really can also check that out as well and get it as fast as you can.
Yoo i remember playing this game years ago
"Most likely highly exaggerated."
Man, what a piece of propaganda this video is.
Especially considering how many escaped to South America.
Especially considering how 1,000's joined the U. S in Operation Paperclip. War Criminals.
This video is a sham.
Nearly a thousand Dutchmen who served in the Waffen-SS during the war fought in the Dutch East Indies and Korea after the Second World War.
Not nearly as much in Indonesia as in Korea, but, yes.
Highly trained and battle hardened soldiers. And they had no choice as to keep fighting because most of dutch people saw them as traitors.
Hence the war crimes (in Indonesia at least)!
@@partymariner War crimes happen in every war, it doesn't take a specific group to commit them.
@@josephr4761 it actually does. US in Korea never graped anyone , while Dutchmen in Indonesia did it everywhere same with French in Vietnam. I guess it’s just European culture
Former German soldiers were most desirable manpower pool to choose from. They mostly hated communism and would fight it, especially after crushing defeat by Soviet Union. They also been doing anti-partisant warfare in occupied Europe. It was all along the cold calculation of France.
1400 Germans legionnaires switched side and joined the Vietminh during Indochina war
Imagine being able to survive World War 2 as an SS soldier, only to be killed by a newbie Viet Minh soldier. LOL
Anti-Partisan*
But yes you're right, especially former SS members were extremely valued mercenaries.
@@ZhangHanzhong Looking at the kill to death ratio most of them would not have been killed by the Viet Minh.
@@ZhangHanzhongServes them right for being the occupying force and Nazis.
My grandfather fought in the Korean War and his Platoon Sgt was an old German Sgt that was in the German Army on the Eastern Front. His leadership and experience helped a lot of the young soldiers through the war.
Do you mean the US Army ?
@ nope, after WWII there were a good amount of Germans that immigrated to the US. Some of them joined the US military and fought in Korea.
@@stevenmorris2293i have the same question
Fought there with which army??
1:45 lost it when Patrick Bateman showed up
lol
fr
That explains a lot.
😂😂😂😂
Nah, address him by his shown character
I'm not sure how to feel about Simple History thumbnails getting progressively more unhinged over the years. They are funny though.
Makes me think of Infographics Show, which is generally not a good thing...
@@chicagotypewriter2094 infographics however have very very clunky animations to go with it,SH feels more natural even with its silly thumbnails.
What unhinged about it?
@@benjaminlathem2745
As someone German who also works as Historian for the IFZ in Munich, i immediately rolled my Eyes when i saw the Thumbnail with that weird "Hollywood Movie Dumb Skinhead Style" Tattoo on the Man's Chest.
Having interviewed many Waffen-SS Soldiers of all kinds of European Countries, all of them found American Neo-Nazis, their Tattoos and how they dress up basically "cringe" and that they would love to hit them in the Face
So i assume that's why it's unhinged, and it definitely is. It's sad when Thumbnails have to become so dumb just to get a bit more Clicks
Prost & Cheers from Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps
What a stupid comment
One of my grandathers best friends was a German who had lived in England before the war, fought with the German Army in WW2 then joined the FFL. He moved back to the UK afterwards. He and my grandfather (former Gordon Highlander) were quite the pair at getting into old man mischief, especially at pubs around Edinburgh.
This sounds like a pair of gents I shared a few pints with in the ‘70s in Edinburgh. I was a student that had done a years contract in Africa as a merc after serving in Vietnam.
When is France not in shambles?
When France control Europe
Before napoleon
@@ShockeyfishUh… They weren’t exactly on good times after the Seven Years War
@@Shockeyfish They were in shambles too... literally. They were fragmented as a matter of fact.
Never
So the battle between Waffen SS and Viet Cong did happen?!
Technically,Yes? I don’t know man…
Technically Yes. The Legion was active in the Indochina War right after WWII.
Technically yes
Check out Karel Gott's version of Paint It Black... It's pretty awesome.
Yes i saw that episode of Deadliest Warrior too lol.
On of the Waffen SS soldier who fought in Vietnam war but for americans was Lauri Thorni, a Winter War hero.He fought in Winter war against SSSR, in ww2 against SSSR for Germans, and in Vietnam War again against SSSR for americans.He died in Vietnam.
We remember
@@kyledunn6853 WE REMEMBER
A loser of three wars
Shout, Lauri Törni's name
A soldier of three armies knows the game
Yeah there were former ss officers that served in the Australian army in Vietnam also
The FFL accepts almost everybody and when the the Bundeswehr was activated in 1955 a lot of their high ranking officers were WW2 vets within the Waffen SS & the Wehrmacht.
But the Officers and NCO's who served as the first soldiers of the new Bundeswehr were hand picked and they had a background check.
Soviet army had a lot of former germans
@@wirdnichtverraten9432 NATO back then made exceptions to some German Officers. They needed leaders for the Bundeswehr, combat hardened and experienced fighting against the Communists. The Germans weren't the enemy anymore.
@@TheJole88 I did hear about that in a documentary about the Germans who sided with the Communists during the War.
@@wirdnichtverraten9432
No, practically all officers (80%) and nearly half of the NCOs of the Bundeswehr were former Wehrmacht personnel. The Waffen-SS was a different story.
They didnt hide... they were activly recruted by the french to fight for them in asia...
Yeah, this was weird. The french would actually come to POW camps after the war and offer this guys a place in the legion, don't forget that most of them were still pretty young and the only trade they ever learned was being a soldier.
Patrick Bateman in the recruitment tho 😂💀
I had heard about this before. I don't remember how exactly, but that was when finding out that "La Légion Marche vers le Front" and "SS Marschiert in feindesland" are incredibly similar and a possible explanation is that SS brought it into the legion's repertoire, although changed.
The Leigion also recruited Germans after the 1st world war
@@JeffEbe-te2xs recruiting Germans is one thing, recruiting SS is another one. I looked briefly, "SS marschiert" which is related to "Lied der Legion Condor", but not much other older germans songs. So pretty much SS brought it into the legion.... actually maybe via the SS Charlemagne (french SS division), so they may not even have been germans
Nah the guys from legion Charlemagne were mostly massacred in Berlin in the last few days or executed on the spot by the advancing french army in 1945, some managed to slip through, and they basically lived in secrecy in isolated villages for the rest of their lives@@Brocojohn
This is a german song. Correct but it was adopted before the war. It is not a ss song but german army song. Actually a lot of legion songs were imported by german soldiers. The most famous is i had a comrade.
@@oliviervece6121there's a beautiful Song of the german legionnaires in Indochina, saying that It was Better in Russia (meaning USSR)...at least there where no french officers over there😢
My grandfather cousin married an English man who joined the foreign legion, he fought in Indochina, Egypt, and Algeria. He remembered serving with ex Waffen Ss men
I actually knew one of these men. He was my best friends father in law who immigrated to the US with his wife in the 1960’s after serving 15 years with the French Foreign Legion. I spent many hours sipping Jägermeister with him and listening to all him talk of all his experiences. He’s been gone ten years now and I really wish I recorded it all on video or at least audio. He was an interesting old dude.
Not only former Waffen-SS joined the FFL. Also former Allied personnel joined them like Americans, British, Soviets and so on. Or former 2nd Spanish Republic personnel or exiles who chose to follow Marechal Leclerc to Indochina and Algeria (at least some former La Española company personnel did iirc). Must've been quite the strange realization to have some of them trying to actively kill one another some years before and then be fighting together side by side versus the Viet Minh and the ALN.
After WWII lots of Wehrmacht vets joined the FFL and were sent to Indochina where their expertise was much needed and appreciated. It is said that they represented up to 70% of the FFL manpower but at this time the communists where pretty powerfull in France and they supported the Vietminh. They started to pretend that the FFL had enlisted thousands of former SS to discredit the french government and its intervention in Indochina, so much so that the army had to investigate on the germans in the FFL. The result showed that hundreds of former SS had been prevented from enlisting and they only found a few dozens in the FFL ranks in Indochina. Most were then sacked despite the protestations of the FFL commanding officers who praised the excellent job these men were doing, claiming that their knowledge and experience saved the lives of thousands of young french soldiers.
Nowadays their legacy in the FFL still lives on, its most visible part being the numerous chants that are basically translations of Wehrmacht and Waffen SS chants like the "Panzerlied" or "SS marschiert in Feindesland".
@@patoche6974 en anglais FFL veut dire French Foreign Legion... 😑
Most Germans serving in the legion were actually just regular German citizens with no prior military background. West Germany didn't have an army until 1955, so any German wanting to join the military would have to go to Francd. Additionally, Germans serving in the legion has been a common practice since before WW2. The narrative of former SS members in the legion being elite and highly sought-after is a lie.
Over a thousand former SS troops (Dutch) fought in Korea and in the former Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.
If they volunteered to go, their civic rights would be and were restored.
So a few thousand SS troops in the French Foreign Legion doesn't seem such a stretch to me at all.
Note: many regular German army troops were also involved in mass executions of civilians on the Eastern Front.
It's a myth that the German army was squaky clean.
*Radical Evil: How We Became Mass Murderers*
frenchman here : this history is 100% true
What you call civilians I call partisans
@@tavish4699 I thought you would say that. How about civilians who were rounded up and shot simply because they were Jews?
A German veteran's comment in the video:
"We never thought there would be villages where the entire population were Jews."
Nobody was squeaky clean in ww2, including america. Japan committed the worst atrocities, Germany and Soviet union were the 2nd worst
@@tavish4699 Nothing makes civilians into partisans faster than the German army policy of hostage-killing. What's the point of being a neutral civilian if the Germans are actively shooting your compatriots for the "crime" that is a partisan killing ONE German soldier. Yugoslavia became just that because of that specific German policy...
Switching teams irl 💀 0:29
😂
My father was in the British Army Intelligence Corps in the early 60s. One of the senior NCOs was Czech and held the Iron Cross. He had removed the swastika from it and wore it on his dress uniform.
It is possible, Czechs in the Sudetenland who were in a Czech-German marriage could apply for Reich citizenship. In my opinion, it was a clear collaborator, because the recruited Czechs from Silesia did not want to fight, but they had to, because Germany considered the inhabitants of Silesia to be Germans.
@@bmwmanyjak8652lots of the Silesians were germans actually or they minimum saw themselves as such.
I remember watching "The Deadliest Warrior" TV series about 15 years ago that set up battles between hypothetical opponents. They were famous for showing some weird, off-the-wall matchups. (One episode showed Al Capone vs. Jesse James. Another showed Sun Tzu vs. Vlad the Impaler.) But I also remembered a 'what-if?' matchup showing the Viet Cong vs. the Waffen SS, thinking that this one "kind-of, sort-of" really happened, since so many former members of the Waffen SS had joined the Légion étrangère in the aftermath of WW2.
If nothing else, this Infographic shows that what I thought might not be too far-fetched, after all. Thanks for making this!
My like is in the 4.4Ks
Dude stop with that dam lies, they didn’t “hide” the legion happily took them in their ranks
Correct.
Yes, listen to the march for 2rep.
I read a great book called "the devils guard" losely based on this. A good read
He mentioned it here at 7:54 and said it's widely acknowledged as a work of fiction.
that book is based on 'the devil's regiment', the memoires of a waffen SS colonel that fought his way across europe from hungary after the capitulation, he and his men were inducted into the legion.
@@kutter_ttl6786 I commented before I watched the video lol
That book was hilarious!
It was indeed a good read. Those ss men were very crafty
They really did just say aight man we’ll take you just be quiet
Former waffen SS volunteers fought in Korea and Indochina
A French General (I believe it was Raoul Salan) stated "if I had ten thousand former SS soldiers I would have been victorious at Dien Bien Phu".
A number of these German Foreign Legionaires went on to fight in Algeria as well.
Colored me surprise they last all 3 wars lol
@@angelcabeza6464 USA lost Korea, Vietnam and Iraq..
@@zrussUSA did not lost on Korea, it was more like a tie than an actual victory and defeat
What a BS also we know why France loose Indochina and Algeria
I doubt he said that .. SS were not good fighters only fanatics with good equipment and weak results. That's why the wehrmacht hated them, they were wasting precious ressource killing mostly civilians and indirectly encouraging guerilla.
"Sacre bleu! I knoiux yoiux from someouiere.."
"Nein! Ich... * Cough *, I haev neva met du in mine life, mon ami. Fine dae for baugette, wine, and cigarette; non?"
《Hmm ... tu es un peu sus, toi ...》🤨🤨
The only soldiers to defend Berlin to the end and the bunker of the other mustachioed man were French Waffen SS from the Charlemagne Division.
My husband told me it wasn’t just the Foreign legion they ran to the Congo and South Africa
Brazil. There is an area which is practically German in Santa Catarina.
@@charlesbrown4941the germans were in Brasil even before WWII, please check your sources. Also Gremio (Football Club) was founded by germans
"History is not written by the victors it's written by those who write stuff down"-Max Miller Tasting History
Exactly. That "History is written by the victors" has been blown way out of any proportion, to the point of it now being a platitude.
And oh boy, did the nazis write down a lot of stuff...
@@Briselance because in some cases victor can force the historians (who's job is write down what actually happened) to change it to suit their desired narrative or some times it is actually the historians who change and wrote history in a way suit their desired narrative.
One of the most famous (though not as appreciated today) song is "La légion marche vers le front" (The Legion marches towards the front). It's the same melody and almost a word by word translation of "SS marshiert in Feindesland" (The SS marches in enemy country). There are a few others that are quite similar to Wehrmacht songs...
I've been told it's still sung in private but not on official occasions.
And I mean, that's not like they could miss it...
"History can say whatever it wants but rarely does it remembers anything correctly" -Lawkeeper Equity Mlp Ace Attorney EOJ
Do you know Hélie de Saint Marc? He was a former French resistant who was deported in concentration camp, and became officier in the FFL after WW2. He had to lead former german soldiers in Indochina. Imagine how difficult this should be, after almost dying in Buchenwald...
They were blessed to have such talented men. They were hardly hiding for the most part.
Do a video on FRENCH Waffen SS Division *_"Charlemagne"_* !!!
I read the devils guard and the sequel book, very good read, the books made the rounds in my American infantry unit.
What was it about?
They are fiction, the Legion did not work that way. Nice read fiction though
This video was enlightening, well done Simple History. The Foreign French Legion is a very interesting military unit due to the fact it also recruits criminals(granted, they restricted the recruitment to allow petty criminals but still) and civilians of foreign countries. As a sidenote the thumbnail is crazy to say the least.
When i joined the army in France one of the first song I had to learn was "Les troupes d'assauts" which is an airborne version of "La Légion marche", which is also a Legion version of "Teufelslied "
Quite a few also served in the US Army Special Forces because at the time, it was the closest thing we had to a Foreign Legion
Misread that and thought the title said "The Waffle SS"! 😅
Yummy and lethal
lol me too
same
A swastika shaped waffle
Waffle House now has a different meaning🤣
I don’t think their primary motive for joining the FFL was to hide. After WW2 they were unemployed and literally had nothing to go back to. Many would have found their homes in Germany were a pile of rubble and all their relatives dead. Many would have been soldiers from the age of 18 (some even younger) and many of the high ranking officers were professional career soldiers. Both never worked a different job, no trade.
The FFL gave them employment (doing what they knew… soldering), a roof over their head and food.
Look up the 33rd SS battalion, all French volunteers. Left the eastern front with approximately 800 men, arrived in Berlin 1945 with 600 and escaped Berlin with less than 35 men accounted for. The ONLY SS unit that did not surrender at the end of the war.
Most were hunted down when they returned to France after the war and were executed. There were less than 10 survivors that lived to die of natural causes.
Henri Fenet
During the French Indochina War, nearly nine out of ten Legionnaires were German... Wehrmacht, Waffen SS mostly. I actually met one in Brisbane 20 odd years ago. Turns out Otto was one of the very few that made it out of Dien Bien Phu, as it was being overrun by the Viet Minh. At the end of WW2 the French gave German POW's a choice....clear minefields, bust up concrete bunkers with a sledgehammer or join the Legion. Most joined the Legion.
I used to have a paperback copy of a book called " Devils Guard " the pen name was
Hans Joseph Wagmuller .
It was about the SS in Indo-China after WW2 .
I see that is why i see a lot of French soldiers in indochina with german surnames
And that's also why many a song of the French Army and of the French Foreign Legion has at least the same tune and approximatively-translated lyrics as German Army songs from the late XIXth century onwards, sometimes even drinking and popular songs from the Napoleonic Era and before.
Check out《La Légion marche》(SS marschiert im Feindesland/Die Teufelsang), 《le soleil brille》(Rott scheine die Sonne/Fallschirmjägerlied)《les képis blancs》(Panzerlied),《L'Edelweiss》(Die Edelweiss), 《il est un moulin》(forgot the title in German, but you'll find it on Google in a jiffy), amongst those I can name at the moment. And there are others.
@2:40 no longer a requirement, you have to ask for it, the HRC in Brussels saw to that.
They can still choose to enlist like so, though. And for French nationals, they are enlisted under another name and another French-speaking nationality. Or yet another nationality, if they are fluent enough to pass as being actually from that country in question.
@@Briselance Yes, if they choose, they have to ask for it. Before it was a blanket, 'everyone' does it. HRC in Brussels accused the french government of crimes by forcing people to change their identity. so it was done away with.
The Legion never cared about your politics or your past. Just your fighting abilities and loyalty to the Legion. They aren’t sent to hand out parking tickets.
I got distracted watching this and burnt my hash browns
RIP
I love ur vids I learn much of ur vids keep making these videos ur one of my favorite history RUclipsrs! ❤
The Devils Guard goes into great depth about this and was an AMAZING book.
In his book "Street Without Joy" (which narrated France's war in Indochina), French journalist Bernard Fall refuted the exaggerated reports of huge number of Germans joining the Foreign Legion.
a veteran of French army during this period, says me " german veterans was never naked chest due to tatoo ! " for some of them, Indochina was better than Russia or DDR ! the relation between french and german was good, same situation for weapons, a lot of germans guns have been re used by French army in Indochina, Algeria...thanks to make this part of History better knowed !
Nice video
My father fought in Vietnam from 1948 to 1951within the 1st Chasseur (Cavalry), participating in the biggest French defeat in this war (RC 4, That Khe, Dong Khe, Langson, Cao Bang). He, (like all French units) fought alongside the Legion. He mentioned Germans in the Foreign Legion, but his main story was during a Camerone celebration, the crew of a U-Boot mimicking the attack of a convoy by re-organizing the tables in the, let's call it the pub. What is sure is a lot of French actual military songs came from these German soldiers.
airborne all the way - trooper checking in hoooooyyyaaaaa
Great video🔥
GREAT VIDEO!
OMG! Patrick Bateman being a part of a history!
Interesting video! Thanks!
Gr8 show. Didn't realize this. ✌️
I thought this was going to be a video on the SS-Charlemagne or the Nordland division.
Speaking of which, that would be a good video to do.
"In the aftermatch of WWII France was in shambles" Well, at least unlike the east and central Europe they were liberated!
Steve Irwin: Now embrace your French nature and quietly surrender.
Winston Churchill: I was saving the planet from an Axis of Darkness, while you were back home opening National Parks! Yes!
Stupid and ridiculous...
According to The Devils Guard, German prisoners were given a choice of years in prison, hard labor or both. However they could instead join the legion as an alternative. Also it was not a choice just for SS soldiers, Army and paratroopers also.
This is very simple history!
they didnt hide there, whole units were recruted by the legion, they also sing many former german war songs in french version to this day.
04:50
Mercenaries? Aye, but... nay.
They enlist under the uniform of the French armed forces, are bound to French military laws and, thus, are not a private military company. Ergo, not mercenary.
They are foreign volunteers, just like the foreign nationals enlisting in the US armed forces in order to obtain a green card. Not mercenaries.
They didnt hid at all. My great uncle was a colonel in the Légion in Indochine, had some belgian, german SS among his men, some former axis cossacks too. It was common knowledge and not even socially criticized by the time. I still have brass knuckles offered to him by a Wallonie vet and a kindjal from a former anti-bolshevik cossack.
My favorite Sunday morning cartoons!!
Nick Brokhusen wrote in his memoir that some of his Montagnards Strikers where fluent in German after they served with the FFL in Vietnam.
hi, i Have Suggestions for next episode. can you do it.?! (Animation).
01: Murder Happened In Room 1046
02: Queen Mary Ship Ghost Stories.
03:House Borley Rectory.
04: The Myrtles Plantation Ghosts
I watched a video once talking about the intake process and interviews. One guy came from Poland and he had to be smuggled there because he was not allowed to leave Poland because of his past. The interviewer said though he was there illegally this was the type of person they were looking for. It showed how determined he was to leave his past behind.
I’ve been watching simple history so long, I forgot when I saw their videos for the first time
my grandfather was a french SS member, after the war he joined the guard and served in indochina. I have his information if you guys would be interested? diary, service information in the french national army, then SS, then legion.
c'est interressant ca, si le journal est numerisé, ya moyen d'en avoir une copie?
Side note, there were lots of foreigners in the SS. From Dutch, Belgians, Frenchmen all the way to Romanians. Every country had some guys who willingly joined. Many of them just committed minecraft like the austrian painter at the end of WW2.
I was hoping it was war thunder 3:00
Wow! Very interesting. I had no idea.
Even in Viet Minh, there have been numerous reports of foreign soldiers from the French Foreign Legion deserting and joining the Viet Minh army
They were formed into a separate regiment and were given the name "New Vietnamese" by Ho Chi Minh, the most prominent of these were German and Japanese military advisors, they were also given Vietnamese names and fought alongside the Viet Minh.
Sources please? Cant find anything about that
@ElMuay-j9k vi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi%E1%BA%BFn_s%C4%A9_%22Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam_m%E1%BB%9Bi%22
There's no English for this so you have to use translate to read
Idea: if not already, could you please make a video about the Easter Rising?
A few months ago, in a forest near Paris, I was training in an outdoor fitness park open to the public. While I was training, an elderly person was there too. I was impressed by her physical health.
In talking to him I learned that he was a former lieutenant in the Foreign Legion and that after the Second World War they had a lot of former Wehrmacht and SS soldiers who joined them.
He told me that of all the soldiers he had to lead, the former German soldiers were by far the best.
2:38 i thought that guy's legs were invisible for a second
That's cool showing Christian Bale in his character from American Physico
There were a lot of Germans who were in the Navy or Airforce that suddenly found themselves voluntold to be in the Waffen-SS at the end of the war.
What do you mean exactly?
Rh notations wasn't a thing back then so the video is incorrect. The tatooes would only have been A, B, 0 or AB.
Once the Cold War started the Germans were our friends and desperately needed.
I forgive you Germany!
wait till u find out about nasa
America had operation paper clip, I'm not surprised other countries would use Germans after the war
In Indochina in the foreign legion (about 70,000 legionaries participated in the entire conflict) the two most numerous nationalities were the Germans (20,000/30,000) followed by the Italians (7,000/10,000)
There were lot of ex-German soldier joined the French foreign legion for sure, they even adopted "Panzerlied" into French version as one of Songs of the French foreign legion .
My uncle (German) joined the Legion 1955 at the Age of 20 - many Germans did at that time because of lacking opportunities in post WW2 Germany. He confirmed that even 10 years after the war legion ranks were filled with former SS. He was telling stories of whole companies proudly singing SS-marching songs in the heat of the Algeria-War in the late 50’s. I have legion song booklets from his retirement in the 80’s enlisting SS-Bangers like “Erika” and “SS marschiert im Feindesleind” - stuff that’s heavily censored in Germany for good reasons
Rejecting them... on the basis of a blood group number being tattooed on your arm?? How ridiculous.
No other armed service have that specific practice hence you can differentiate those folks out from the crowd. It's no different from US recruiting officers weeding out gang members from the pool through their tattoos...
A soldier that was in Waffen SS wasn't a criminal. He just fought for his country
Hey Simple History do a video about the Dutch who fought in the Waffen SS during World War 2 that fought in the Dutch Military during the Indonesian Revolution and the Korean War.
I’ve heard many of the Germans in the foreign legion would sometimes claim to have been ss to have a more fierce reputation, like a rotc guy claiming to be a navy seal
Being a soldier in the Waffen SS did not necessarily mean you would be tried for war crimes. If they were captured by the Soviets? That's a whole different story.
Who else Loves his vids
Bro was literally spy from tf2❤❤❤❤❤
The Czechs also fought in Indochina, having fled after the communists came to power in 1948. Then there was such a paradox that they served in the legion alongside the Germans, who were enemies three years ago. And Czechoslovakia fell victim already in 1938, when it had to give up its border in favor of Germany and then by occupation in 1939.
They didn't exactly "hide". Everybody knew they were there.
This video is riddled with inaccuracies. You don't need to join under a declared identity anymore
French nationals have to enlist under an assumed identity.
Others can choose an assumed identity too, and it is not mandatory anymore but still strongly advised.
Besides, who is going to bother with investigating and reporting this?