Germans in the FFL

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Not very long thereafter, French prestige was again challenged in Algeria.

France had to leave this African colonial possession in 1962. The failure of the EDC, to some extent, might not be considered such a bad thing for West Germany. Just several months after the death of the EDC, West Germany was invited to join NATO – a broader transatlantic defense system. More importantly, being a member of NATO, West Germany would not be restricted strictly as much as in the structure of the EDC. The EDC was indeed, like other realistic projects, watched closely by Adenauer due to the fact that he tried to grab any possible chance to rescue German international prestige and credit not only in economics and politics but also in military terms. He also argued in the SZ on 12 and 13 December 1953 and in some other writings that a neutral Germany would mean a victory for the communists and the Soviets over Western Europe. He was a man who advocated the politics of strength, the theory that the stronger party would always win. Finally, West Germany’s goal was to firmly integrate into the West in order to reach a further goal: German reunification.

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The issue of the recruitment of Germans for the FFL, including tactics of recruitment, increasing numbers of Germans joining the legion and German minors serving in the legion, was the central topic of many West German newspapers. The West German press estimated the number troops stationed in Indochina at 150,000, of which many were Germans but no exact number was counted.³²² However, the SPD believed the number of 80,000 Germans serving in FFL in Indochina from 1946.³²³ Those Germans involved in the recruitment had to be brought to justice, the Chancellor declared. Moreover, he also requested an amendment of the Criminal Law. In the meantime, Bundestag SPD members condemned the so-called “brutal actions” of the French occupation authority in recruiting young Germans into the foreign legion. They were joined in this by the communists in the parliament.³²⁴

Regarding their transportation to the battlefields, all newspapers agreed that young Germans were gathered in Landau, then transported to Marseille, and then to Saigon or North Africa.³²⁵ They were categorized as the third or fourth class of society. They were divided into two groups: group one included those who were jobless, parentless, homeless and unsure for future. Group two contained those who had unclear reasons such as arguments with girlfriends, not enough money to buy motorcycles or they were simply interested in adventures.³²⁶

The West German press also worried about the legal consequences of the French recruitment. On 13.5.1954 DZ questioned whether the French occupation authority on West German soil was not outside the scope of the Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch) or at least whether this matter should be ruled on (by the Allied High Commission)? Article 141 of the Criminal Code stipulated that whoever recruited a German for military service to a foreign power would be punished

322 FAZ, 16. Oktober 1950.

323 This accounted for more than 50% of the troops of the FFL.

324 FAZ, 30. Januar 1953.

325 Landau is a small city in the modern state of Rhineland-Pfalz which was in the French occupational zone after 1945; Marseille – a harbor city in southern France.

326 DZ, 13. Mai 1954.

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with imprisonment from three months to three years. Unfortunately, after WW II the Allied Control Council repealed many former German laws including paragraph 141 and there were no articles in the Basic Law against recruitment for foreign military service. It can be argued that the Allied Control Council Law Nr.

11 limited West German actions against the recruitment.³²⁷ Again, the country’s lack of full sovereignty should be remembered. On the one hand, as an occupied state, it was impossible for West Germany to solve its foreign affairs. On the other hand, this limitation was the result of the Adenauer government.³²⁸

At the same time, the French occupation authority confirmed that they had no official policy of recruiting Germans for their foreign legion. In the SZ on 10 May 54, French officials admitted to only 18,000 Germans serving in the FFL.

However, the SPD asserted that the number must have been 90,000. They also noted that 80,000 of them had been fighting in Indochina. The French communists even accused the French military leaders of recruiting former SS officers into the legion.³²⁹ At the end of June 1954, the French Foreign Minister downplayed that number by stating that at Dien Bien Phu, around 1,600 Germans or German-speaking people were engaged. The West German press reported that diplomatic representatives in Paris had officially requested the French authority to take good care of them after the fall of Dien Bien Phu. However, SPD deputies were not convinced by the number or satisfied with the solutions and demanded to continue improving the situation.³³⁰

How the minors were recruited and how they must be realeased were questions intensively debated in the West German press. The French authority claimed that they had freed from 150 to 200 German minors but only twelve of them had travelled to West Germany. In fact, no one really knew the exact

327 See more at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/Enactments/02LAW11.pdf, (online accessed on 23 July 2012).

328 Jason Verber, op. cit., p. 97.

329 SZ, 04 Juni 1954. See also: Eckard Michels, op.cit.

330 FAZ, 30. Juni 1954.

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number of German minors serving in the FFL. State Secretary Hallstein affirmed that this problem would be talked over in detail with his French counterpart.³³¹

Thus, the problem of Germans in the FFL was examined regularly in the West German press during the first Indochina War. However, the second phase of the conflict received far greater attention. This reflected the increasing concerns among West Germans on the war in the Far East, where many Germans were serving for the French colonial interests. It could be inferred that Adenauer and his government never wanted to push this issue too far, as they did not want to put the relationship with France at risk.

According to the West German press, the important issue of Germans in the FFL served as a very typical example of the problem of post-war German society. Each picture of Germans reflected in the West German newspapers was one of a multi-faceted West German society. The destiny of Germans in the FFL was considered to be one of the reasons to analyze government attitudes towards the war in Indochina. We might not see clearly the attitudes of the West German public towards the French colonial war if we did not analyze it through the lens of the West German press. This was to answer the question of under what circumstances and by what means was France able to maintain colonial possession in Indochina during the unavoidable wave of decolonization after WW II. This in turn also led to the reactions of the federal government and other political organizations towards the problem of German rearmament and future West German strategies.

From the above study, we find that West Germany and Indochina had some common points: both were seeking full sovereignty, freedom and independence from occupiers and colonizers. All in all, the first Indochina War to some extent played as a factor causing debates both in the government and in public opinion. These demonstrated the realities and tendencies of the very complicated political life of post-war Germany in the early 1950s.

331 FAZ, 17. Juli 1954.

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5.2. The first Indochina War in the memoirs of former French legionnaires