Devil's Guard - Fact or Fiction?

Fact or Fiction?

It is debatable as to whether or not the book is exaggerated fact, or outright fiction. The book is presented by Elford as the words of Wagemueller, who lived in Nepal at the time of the book's publication. In the preamble, Elford claims to have met the man and arranged for him to dictate the events of his military life into a microphone over 18 days. It is documented that ex-SS soldiers both joined the French Foreign Legion and fought in the French Indochina War until approximately 1947 when France began to crack down, although the book's claim that a unit was composed solely of Germans is unsupported by evidence presented by many Legion historians, records and books (such as Bernard Fall's Hell in a Very Small Place and Street Without Joy) on the French Indochina War. Skeptics have stated that the "Nazis in Indochina" myth came from communist bloc sources during the war. Elford claims his only contribution to the book is in the capacity of an editor, changing the names of soldiers and military verbiage. Critics however, point to the fact that much of the military power possessed by the characters is anachronistic, the SS seems to have almost superhuman-fighting ability and the heavy anti-communist dialogue (as well as supposed war crimes being committed by whosoever the protagonists kill en masse). The access to military records should also allow for the exact tracing of units in which Wagemueller and his comrades served, but only the name of Wagemueller's unit in eastern Europe, the 21st Special Partisanjaeger Commando, is mentioned in Devil's Guard. Supporters point to the fact that Elford is following Wagemueller's request that his details not be made traceable. Critics also point to the serialization of the book (it spawned two sequels, despite the fact the original ended towards the end of the war, 700 days from Dien Bien Phu in 1954 according to the narrator). Wagemueller ends up fighting for the US later in the series, after spending time in Tibet (his officers in New Caledonia). Devil's Guard mentions the book The Jungle is Neutral about British commandos fighting behind Japanese lines as a source of reference for the Nazi battalion. Many of the tactics used by Wagemueller's troops were taken directly from 'The Jungle is Neutral,' as well as the tactics used by French commando Roger Vanderberghe, commander of Commando 24 of the French GCMA special forces. Specifically, Vanderberghe's use of Viet Minh 'pajama' uniforms' to walk right into Viet Minh camps to attack.

According to several different sources in the gun show industry, a man who traveled U.S. gun shows claimed to be the books central character, Wagemueller. He often discussed facts of the books when asked, as well as his time in the German army and Indochina.

The man, who went by the name Hans Schwartz, traveled displaying his possessions, such as his Hitler Youth knife and other artifacts from World War II. These same information providers stated that he died in early-1999. A search of the U.S social security death index does indeed show the death of a 'Hans A. Schwartz' in Jan. 1999. There is no way, however, to verify this was the accurate in any way. An interesting note, however, is that the age Hans states his age as early in the book matches what the birthday (1908) of the 'Hans Schwartz' from the SSDI would be.