I read this book a when I was a teen, my dad recommended it.
It is supposed to be a true story of a SS guerrilla hunter who when the war ends escapes Germany and joins the French foreign legion. The Legion took in many Nazi’s apparently since there where enough to form a whole battalion in Indochina (Vietnam).
The author claims the text is what was dictated to him over 18 days, and only the names are changed. The main character of the story is interesting, and the tactics he uses are disturbing.
I am reading the book again now, having forgotten most of it.
Here is an example of his tactics. A French garrison is under siege by 600 Vietminh; they have 50 French prisoners and have demanded the surrender of the garrison of 100 men. They tell them to surrender of they will kill a prisoner every 5 minutes. They hack the men up with machetes in plain site of the garrison.
The German is sent to help, and has only 100 men, so he rounds up all the families (the Vietminh where from local villages) and lines the women and children on a ridge over looking the 600 VM, then tells the to surrender or he starts killing their families in the same manner the VM where killing the French. He didn’t have to wait long before the VM killed their political officers and leader and surrendered. He didn’t kill any of the women and children, but would have. He executed on the spot the VM who did surrender.
His whole tactic book comes from what he learned fighting Russian communist guerrillas during WW2. He answers their atrocities with bigger ones, they kill one Frenchmen or German and 10 of them die, etc. It got me thinking.
We look at the SS and inhuman villains, and they are. The execution of the Jews, was a terrible and inexcusable thing, but he claims the Waffen SS did not like to be associated with the camp guards and killers in the normal SS, and in the end a good portion of the waffen SS was drafted and no worse then the normal German army.
Are his tactics any worse then the bombing of cities that had nothing but German civilians? WW2 was a total war, we flattened cities without much concern for the non combatants on the ground so why do we look down upon tactics like the ones listed above? Why is using the tactics of your enemy a bad thing?
I know this would be a bad thing now, since we try and minimize the damage done to civilians in war, but why the double standard for WW2?
The book is called Devil’s Guard by Robert Elford. I would recommend it but I looked it up on Amazon to see how others rated it and if anyone was disputing weather it was true. It is out of print and goes used for over 90$ bucks… lol the average price was 130$. I am selling one of my two copies! Every reviewer gave it 5 stars.
Anyone here ever read it?
Please don’t call me a Nazi sympathizer, I am not, I think what they did was very terrible, in a war of terrible things.
