Wehrmacht Veterans in other Armies of the World

[Mannet]

and how many Germans, ex Wehrmacht or other, e.g. scientists worked for Soviet Union?

[Edward L. Hsiao]

US Army veteran Kurt Dressler,who was a German submariner during World War II and serve the in the US Army in the Korean War and Vietnam War, had died in 2019 at the age of 91. Source is from Stars and Stripes. Dressler had served in the US Army for 21 years. No mention of what U-Boat that he served. He was born in 1928. If anyone have more information on Kurt Dressler, please feel free to contribute. I want to know what Dressler done while in the Germany navy during WWII.

Edward L.Hsiao

[Annelie]

Quite an interesting history.....escaped from POW camp in US and was given choice (shipped back or join military)

https://www.stripes.com/ex-german-sailo ... 1-1.606204

At least the article gives place of birth which may help ID his military history.

[Edward L. Hsiao]

At the age of 16 Kurt Dressler was drafted into the German Navy in 1944. The U-boat service had accepted Dressler when he was 16 or 17?! I'm not sure.
Edward L. Hsiao

[Hohlladung]

Hi,
I found another one:

Uffz. Bernhard Ellwanger, III./SG 77

He was one of the four pilots, who bombed the Prague Radio Station on May 8th, 1945 occupied by Czech partisans.

Joined the French Foreign Legion. Paratrooper in the 3°BEP and served in Indochine.
Basic training in Philippsville/Algeria 1950.
The jumped out of Ju-52. Due to his pilot history, his nickname in the FFL was "Stuka".
(Source: Jägerblatt 2/1989)

Best regards
Armin

[Edward L. Hsiao]

Bernhard Ellwanger had later wrote his memoirs about his war adventures.

Edward L. Hsiao

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

The Czechs do not mention the radio station being bombed on 8 May.

However, they do say it was bombed by an Me262 on 6 May, which seems a bit unlikely.

What aircraft did Ellwanger claim he was flying on this occasion?

Cheers,

Sid

[Hohlladung]

Hi Sid,

FW-190. See:

https://books.google.de/books?id=N2CqCw ... 77&f=false

Best regards
Armin

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Hohlladung,

That agrees with the aircraft of the unit he belonged to.

So, either the Czechs were wrong, and the radio station was bombed on 8 May and they just didn't notice, or the Germans got the day wrong.

Cheers,

Sid.

[gebhk]

I am surprised that the highly visible footprint veterans of the 3rd Reich left on the French Foreign Legion song repertoire hasn't been mentioned so far!

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi gebhk,

Never too late: viewtopic.php?t=235573

Cheers,

sid.

[kulasec]

Hello, you can also add the Czechoslowak Army. These Veterans were from so called Hultschiner Ländchen (Upper Silesia), after the war this smal country was put into the new established Czechoslowak Republic.
After the war many returned veterans of the Wehrmacht, born there, mainly prisoners from western POW camps, were ambushed into the Czechoslowak Army, so like my granddad.

cheers

[Mannet]

very interesting information about czechoslovak army.
And how about Germans in French Foreign Legion during Algerian and Suez crisis?

[BernardO]

Towards the end of the war, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) received reports from its agents in France that there were Soviet soldiers fighting with the Wehrmacht. when some surrendered to the Maquis they were interrogated. SOE officers went over to France and learned about their background. Hundreds of thousands had surrendered to the Germans on the Eastern front and suffered all kinds of deprivation, starvation, disease and beatings in prison camps. Given the option of fighting with the Wehrmacht or die, most did.
When many failed to shoot to kill the Red Army soldiers, Hitler reportedly ordered their transport to the Western Front. SOE's Russian Section had a plan to recruit anti-Nazi Soviet pows and train them for missions in France and Germany. Some were to encourage other Soviet soldiers to defect to the Allies. Others were to contact Soviet civilians who were being forced to work in mines, factories and on farms to go slow and disrupt the German war effort.
Over 50 were trained and waiting for permission to be infiltrated. SOE invited the NKVD, Soviet military intelligence, to assist in the planning but, when it was discovered that SOE had already used Soviet pows without the Soviet's knowledge, an international incident resulted. The Soviets treated all soldiers who failed to comply with Stalin's order to save their last bullet to kill themselves as traitors. A formal complaint was lodged with Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary. SOE was forced to abandon its plans. The Soviet soldiers, termed MAMBAS, were returned to the prisoner of war camp and await deportation to the Soviet Union where they faced execution or decades in the gulags.

Although the MAMBAS fought with the Germans and were willing to fight with the British, they didn't.

The Soviets' personnel and mission files are in the National Archives in Kew and I have used them to write a documentary history of Operation MAMBA and the decline of Anglo-Soviet relations at the end of the war.