Ernst Frey

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Ernst Frey (10 June 1915 – 13 January 1994), also known as Nguyễn Dân and Hồ Chí Dân, was an Austrian soldier who served in the French Foreign Legion before defecting to the Vietnam People's Army. Frey commanded the 4th Military Region and 9th Military Region and was among the first colonels of the Vietnam People's Army. During the First Indochina War, he served as an assistant to Võ Nguyên Giáp, the then-Minister of Defense of North Vietnam and then-commander-in-chief of the Vietnam People's Army. Born in Vienna in 1915, Frey became involved in the Austrian communist movement as a teenager and was imprisoned several times for his political activities. In 1938, he fled Austria and joined the French Foreign Legion, serving in Algeria and later French Indochina. In French Indochina, he established a communist group with some Legion members, in turn joining the Indochinese Communist Party. After the August Revolution in 1945, he took part in the Vietnamese revolutionary movement against the...

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