The Brits Who Fought For Hitler

[Jerry B]

I have this book, Hitler's Bastard: Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia Eric Pleasants (edited by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitlers-Bast...itlers+bastard

"Of all the extraordinary individual accounts that have come out of the Second World War and its aftermath, few can compare with that of Eric Pleasants, a member of the 'bastard' British wing of Hitler's SS - the British Free Corps. In this compelling autobiography, Pleasants writes of the bizarre and traumatic years he spent as a prisoner of the twentieth century's most notorious dictators.

A life-long pacifist, Pleasants spent the early years of the war on occupied Jersey. He was imprisoned by the Nazis for petty crimes and the years that followed held a whirlwind of unexpected turns. He lived life on the run in occupied Paris, was captured and recruited into the British Free Corps of the Waffen SS, found love with a young German woman, witnessed the bombing of Dresden and attempted to escape from Soviet troops along the sewers of Berlin. When the war ended, Pleasants found himself on the Communist side of the Iron Curtain. By now a strong man in a travelling circus, he was arrested by the KGB on charges of espionage and sentenced to 25 years' slave labour in the notorious camps of Artic Russia.

Only with Stalin's death in 1953 was Pleasants finally released from his unique kind of purgatory, after nearly half a lifetime of peripatetic nightmare. He died in 1998 at the age of 87. Hitler's Bastard remains a remarkable testimony to his imperishable will to survive."

it was an interesting read, but some of it did not ring true IMHO.

[TrondK]

The detail i wonder about must be how many Freecorps collartabs that were made- the factories for sure must have a minimum number to produce and leave in a depot for future use.

Maybe a box will be found in a cellar or attic in the future..

[Glenn66]

And if such a box is ever found they will no doubt be declared fake by all the many experts. Without an attributed original to compare with, how could any such hoard find ever be authenticated?

[Spitace41]

I have this book, Hitler's Bastard: Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia Eric Pleasants (edited by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting)

Hitler's Bastard: Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting: Amazon.co.uk: Eric Pleasants: Books

"Of all the extraordinary individual accounts that have come out of the Second World War and its aftermath, few can compare with that of Eric Pleasants, a member of the 'bastard' British wing of Hitler's SS - the British Free Corps. In this compelling autobiography, Pleasants writes of the bizarre and traumatic years he spent as a prisoner of the twentieth century's most notorious dictators.

A life-long pacifist, Pleasants spent the early years of the war on occupied Jersey. He was imprisoned by the Nazis for petty crimes and the years that followed held a whirlwind of unexpected turns. He lived life on the run in occupied Paris, was captured and recruited into the British Free Corps of the Waffen SS, found love with a young German woman, witnessed the bombing of Dresden and attempted to escape from Soviet troops along the sewers of Berlin. When the war ended, Pleasants found himself on the Communist side of the Iron Curtain. By now a strong man in a travelling circus, he was arrested by the KGB on charges of espionage and sentenced to 25 years' slave labour in the notorious camps of Artic Russia.

Only with Stalin's death in 1953 was Pleasants finally released from his unique kind of purgatory, after nearly half a lifetime of peripatetic nightmare. He died in 1998 at the age of 87. Hitler's Bastard remains a remarkable testimony to his imperishable will to survive."

it was an interesting read, but some of it did not ring true IMHO.

Sounds a bit like the book Devil's Guard, supposedly the memoirs of an ex- SS man fighting in Indochina for the French Foreign Legion. I would like to read the book at some point as it sounds interesting. Like all these stories, it probably has a ring of truth with a few scattered embelishments for good effect.

[Glenn66]

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story!

[reneblacky]

any uniforms still around or are all of them repros. Wouldnt of thought many if any would of made it out the war without being burnt.
How much would one be worth if found?

really!

[sandgroper]

Any uniforms still around or are all of them repros. Wouldnt of thought many if any would of made it out the war without being burnt.
How much would one be worth if found?

If any of them did turn up and were somehow proven to be original they would, of course, be priceless.

[StefanM]

I have this book, Hitler's Bastard: Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia Eric Pleasants (edited by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting)...

.... it was an interesting read, but some of it did not ring true IMHO.

I guess one would have to compare the original typescript manuscript against the published final book to see what additional input the two editors had during the preparation of the final manuscript for publication. Most typescripts by non-professional authors are almost unfit for publication and often require complete rewrites, to fill-in the missing gaps, for continuity and overall structure etc. It requires a great deal of editorial skill and fact-checking research to get these books fit for publication and often if the books are published decades after the original manuscript was written "later knowledge" and embellishments can inadvertently creep into the book. Which is why I prefer unpolished contemporaneously published memoirs...warts-and-all

[Adrian]

Different aspects of the Britisches Freikorps have been discussed on the forum in the past, use the search button. Uniforms have been discussed in the SS forum.

[StefanM]

"The Camp" a German produced newspaper produced specifically for recruiting british PoWs to a British Free Corps.

"The Camp" was launched from a Berlin suburb on in 1940 edited by Axel Meerburg with stories that refelected "The German point of view" for example on world Jewry`s "treacherous exploitation of Anglo-Saxon patriotism". This copy is number 225 and covers the period 3 -13 December 1944.

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This issue of "The Camp" is up for auction estimate Estimate: £100 - £200 at Mullock's Auctions