WW3 in 1945

Do you find this credible?


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    83
They did indeed:

Wiki says:

Following World War II, many French-speaking German former soldiers joined the Foreign Legion to pursue a military career, an option no longer possible in Germany including French German soldiers of Malgré-nous. It would have been considered problematic if the men from Alsace-Lorraine did not speak French. These French-speaking former German soldiers made up as much as 60 percent of the Legion during the war in Indochina. Contrary to popular belief however, French policy was to exclude former members of the Waffen-SS, and candidates for induction were refused if they exhibited the tell-tale blood type tattoo, or even a scar that might be masking it.

The high percentage of Germans was contrary to normal policy concerning a single dominant nationality, and in more recent times Germans have made up a much smaller percentage of the Foreign Legion's composition.

So, not so much 'Beau Geste' but surely a lot of German troops. How efficient was the screening process if the individual recruitment centers had to make numbers, one can wonder.
 
A case in point:

a range of Japanese troops were used by the UK especially as guards etc shortly after the conflicts ending in Asia. Now (sic!) I can't find any references.

As far as my memory goes, it was rather upsetting to the local population to have endured Japanese occupation and then still be governed by Japanese forces.

The parallel to using SS in Unthinkable
 
That Churchill also had wanted to arm 200,000 former German troops would not sit well in France either.

There was never actually any given number of Germans who would be recruited - only "10 divisions" at some later date. Equipped to western standards this corresponds to something like 350,000 to 400,000 in total, maybe less if only the combat elements are German.
 
10 divisions of former German troops is a LOT. Would conscription have been used?

Insofar as the German commanders had 'experience' in fighting the Russians, maybe Steiner should be in overall command of all land forces?

Monty and Bradley could report to Steiner?

If 10 divisions is indeed mentioned, then it would be near impossible to round up that many Germans willing to have another go at it. Baltic SS would be a solution, but that is a poisoned drink to begin with.
 
10 divisions of former German troops is a LOT. Would conscription have been used?

You could probably have got far more than that just from trawling POW camps and offering them the choice between sitting in the camp or sticking on a nice new uniform and having a go at the Russians with British/American logistics, air support and artillery instead of what they'd had before.
 
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