Leo Kessler--Schirmer's Death Legion

[ripper]

Schirmer's Death Legion by Leo Kessler (Futura, 1983)

Blurb:

'Blow the bugle, beat the drum Clear the streets, here comes Wo-tan...'

They were the boche, Mercier's boche, recruited into the Foreign Legion from the teeming POW camps in the defeated Germany of 1945. SS men,
they were branded as criminals, with no future
save death.

For ten years Colonel Schirmer's feared Headhunter battalion had fought in the steaming
jungles of Indo-China. Now they had been
brought to Algeria. For if anybody could stop the
new rebellion which had just erupted there Schirmer's
Headhunters could...



It has been probably 30 years since I read a Leo Kessler book, but inspired by my recent reading of a couple of Sven Hassel books I thought I would give him another go.

I think this is the last in the SS Wotan series, or at least the ending makes it seem to be. It is 1956 and Colonel Schirmer and his ex-SS headhunters have been employed in the French Foreign Legion since the end of World War II. After being in the thick of the action in Indo-China, Schirmer's group are now in Algeria, desperately trying to suppress the FLN insurgents. They are tasked with finding and eliminating a rebel army hiding out in the Red Oasis, though no-one actually knows exactly where it is. Ageing and weary after 17 years of almost continuous warfare, Schirmer and his men face a brutal enemy in the rebels plus the harsh, unforgiving climate of the desert.

I read through this fairly short book in three sessions. It is simply written, with not much in the way of twists and turns, though, as usual in this kind of thing, there is some treachery afoot. The action is fairly frequent and described graphically, though not quite as graphically as it would have been in a Shaun Hutson book. The characters are all well defined and Kessler makes them likeable, particularly Schirmer and Schulz, who get the most to do. These are not 'nice' men in any sense of the word. Indeed, one is an ex-Gestapo interrogator, who the other headhunters despise, though he is still one of them, and I think it was a tribute to Kessler that I was rooting for them throughout the book, particularly Schirmer and Schulz. Overall, I enjoyed the book and I shall seek out more of Schirmer and co's adventures.

[jackball74]

Thanks for the post - always enjoy novels about the fighting in Indochina and Algeria!

[ripper]

Hi Jackball. Have you tried the "Devil's Guard" series by George Elford?