American Free Corps

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The American Free Corps, also called the "George Washington Brigade", was a unit of the Waffen-SS which was created for the purpose of propaganda. It was to be composed of recruits, mostly United States prisoners of war.

In reality, the German authorities made no effort to create an exclusive unit of US volunteers. Nevertheless, it is certainly the case that a small number of United States nationals did serve in the German Armed Forces in various units, including the Waffen-SS. Information about them remains fragmentary and no real effort was made by the US authorities to investigate the matter and trace the volunteers after the war, as opposed to the efforts by other countries like Britain. It is believed that at least eight Americans serving in the German armed forces were killed during their service.

The most famous propagandist associated with this pseudo-unit was Second Lieutenant Martin James Monti, who defected from the US Army Air Corps, and worked as a propaganda broadcaster under the pseudonym Martin Wiethaupt. After the war he was sentenced to 25 years for treason but was released in 1960.

Peter Delaney (aka Pierre de la Ney du Vair), a Louisiana-born SS-Haupsturmführer in SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers who is believed to have served in Légion des Volontaires Français. He met Monti and probably arranged for him to enter the Waffen-SS. Delaney was killed in 1945.

This unit was cited by the author Kurt Vonnegut in his novel Slaughterhouse Five and perpetuated by fantasists ever since. In reality, Vonnegut had been a prisoner of war in Dresden and had seen, or heard of, recruiting efforts by members of the British Free Corps who were based in the town at the time. The unit also appears in the novel The Eagle Has Flown by Jack Higgins.