Indian Legion
The Indian Legion, officially the Free India Legion or 950th Infantry Regiment, was a military unit raised during the Second World War initially as part of the German Army and later the Waffen-SS from August 1944. Intended to serve as a liberation force for British-ruled India, it was made up of Indian prisoners of war and expatriates in Europe. Owing to its origins in the Indian independence movement, it was known also as the "Tiger Legion", and the "Azad Hind Fauj". As part of the Waffen-SS it was known as the Indian Volunteer Legion of the Waffen-SS. The transfer to the Waffen-SS was never fully executed and many members of the division refused to wear the new uniforms and insignia.
Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose initiated the legion's formation, as part of his efforts to win India's independence by waging war against Britain, when he came to Berlin in 1941 seeking German aid. The initial recruits in 1941 were volunteers from the Indian students resident in Germany at the time, and a handful of the Indian prisoners of war who had been captured during the North African campaign. It later drew a larger number of Indian prisoners of war as volunteers.
Though it was initially raised as an assault group that would form a pathfinder to a German–Indian joint invasion of the western frontiers of British India, only a small contingent was ever put to its original intended purpose. A small contingent, including much of the Indian officer corps and enlisted leadership, was transferred to the Indian National Army in South-East Asia. The majority of the troops of the Indian Legion were given only non-combat duties in the Netherlands and in France until the Allied invasion. They saw action in the retreat from the Allied advance across France, fighting mostly against the French Resistance. One company was sent to Italy in 1944, where it saw action against British and Polish troops and undertook anti-partisan operations.
At the time of the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, the remaining men of the Indian Legion made efforts to march to neutral Switzerland over the Alps, but they were captured by American and French troops and eventually shipped back to India to face charges of treason. After the uproar the trials of Indians who served with the Axis caused among civilians and the military of British India, the legion members' trials were not completed.
Background
The idea of raising an armed force that would fight its way into India to bring down the British Raj goes back to the First World War, when the Ghadar Party and the then nascent Indian Independence League formulated plans to initiate rebellion in the British Indian Army from Punjab to Hong Kong with German support. This plan failed after information leaked to British intelligence, but only after many attempts at mutiny, and a 1915 mutiny of Indian troops in Singapore. During World War II, all three of the major Axis powers sought to support armed revolutionary activities in India, and aided the recruitment of a military force from Indian prisoners of war captured while serving in the British Indian Army, and Indian expatriates.The most notable and successful Indian force to fight with the Axis was the Indian National Army in southeast Asia, that came into being with the support of the Japanese Empire in April 1942. Fascist Italy also created the Azad Hindustan Battalion in February 1942. This unit was formed from Indian POWs from their Centro I POW camp, and Italians previously resident in India and Persia, and ultimately served under the Ragruppamento Centri Militari alongside units of Arabs and colonial Italians. However, the effort had little acceptance from the Indians in the unit, who did not wish to serve under Italian officers. After Italy lost the Second Battle of El Alamein, the Indians mutinied when told to fight in Libya. Consequently, the remnants of the battalion were disbanded in November 1942.
Although the Indian National Congress, the organisation leading the struggle for Indian independence, had passed resolutions conditionally supporting the fight against fascism, some Indian public opinion was more hostile toward Britain's unilateral decision to declare India a belligerent on the side of the Allies. Among the more rebellious Indian political leaders of the time was Subhas Chandra Bose, a former INC president, who was viewed as a potent enough threat by the British that he was arrested when the war started. Bose escaped from house arrest in India in January 1941 and made his way through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union, with some help from Germany's military intelligence service, the Abwehr. Bose, ideologically a Communist was inclined to the Soviet Union for aid.
Once he reached Moscow, he did not receive the expected Soviet support for his plans for a popular uprising in India. The Soviets were navigating a complex geopolitical and strategic web and did not want to break any potential alliance with the Allies in case of an impending German invasion. The German ambassador in Moscow, Count von der Schulenberg, soon arranged for Bose to go to Berlin. He arrived at the beginning of April 1941, and he met with foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and later Adolf Hitler. In Berlin, Bose set up the Free India Centre and Azad Hind Radio, which commenced broadcasting to Indians on shortwave radio frequencies, reaching tens of thousands of Indians who had shortwave receivers. Soon Bose's aim became to raise an army, which he imagined would march into India with German forces and trigger the downfall of the Raj.
Origin
The first troops of the Indian Legion were recruited from Indian POWs captured at El Mekili, Libya during the battles for Tobruk. The German forces in the Western Desert selected a core group of 27 POWs as potential officers and they were flown to Berlin in May 1941, to be followed, after the Centro I experiment, by POWs being transferred from the Italian forces to Germany. The number of POWs transferred to Germany grew to about 10,000 who were eventually housed at Annaburg camp, where Bose first met with them. A first group of 300 volunteers from the POWs and Indians expatriates in Germany were sent to Frankenberg camp near Chemnitz, to train and convince arriving POWs to join the legion.As the numbers of POWs joining the legion swelled, the legion was moved to Königsbrück for further training. It was at Königsbrück that uniforms were first issued, in German feldgrau with the badge of the leaping tiger of Azad Hind. The formation of the Indian National Army was announced by the German Propaganda Ministry in January 1942. It did not, however, take oath until 26 August 1942, as the Legion Freies Indien of the German Army. By May 1943, the numbers had swelled, aided by the enlistment as volunteers of Indian expatriates.
Overall, there were about 15,000 Indian POWs in Europe, primarily held in Germany by 1943. While some remained loyal to the King-Emperor and treated Bose and the Legion with contempt, most were at least somewhat sympathetic to Bose's cause. While approximately 2,000 became legionnaires, some others did not complete their training owing to various reasons and circumstances. The maximum size of the Legion was 4,500.
Bose sought and obtained agreement from the German High Command for the rather remarkable terms under which the Legion would serve in German military. German soldiers would train the Indians in all branches of infantry and motorized units in using weapons under the strictest military discipline, in the same way a German formation was trained; the Indian legionnaires were not to be mixed with any German structures; they were not to be sent to any front other than in India for fighting against the British, but would be allowed to fight in self-defence at any other place. In all other respects, the legionnaires would enjoy the same facilities and amenities regarding pay, clothing, food, leave, etc., as German soldiers. As for the unit's eventual deployments in the Netherlands and France, they were ostensibly for training purposes, according to Bose's plans for the unit to be trained in some aspects of coastal defence. After the invasion of France by the Allies, the unit was ordered back to Germany, so that it would not participate in fighting for German military interests.
Organization
Composition
The British Indian Army organised regiments and units on the basis of religion and regional or caste identity. Bose sought to end this practice and build up one unified Indian identity among the men who would fight for independence. Consequently, the Indian Legion was organised as mixed units so that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs all served side by side. Sources gave varying demographics for the Legion. Most sources put the demographics at two third Hindus, and one third other religions such as Muslims, Sikhs and Christians. According to reports the unit consisted of 59 percent Hindus, 25 percent Muslims, 14 percent Sikhs and 2 percent Christians and Buddhists.. Compared to the distribution in the British Indian Army fighting the Germans, where Muslims made up 34 percent, Hindus 41 percent, and Sikhs 11 percent with Gurkhas and others making up 14 percent, the Indian Legion had a high proportion of Hindus and Sikhs and comparatively few Muslims.The success of Bose's idea of developing a unified national identity was evident when Heinrich Himmler proposed in late 1943, after Bose's departure, that the Muslim soldiers of the I.R. 950 be recruited into the new Handschar Division. The commander of the SS Head Office, Gottlob Berger, was obliged to point out that while the Bosnians of the "Handschar" perceived themselves as European, Indian Muslims perceived themselves as Indians. Hitler, however, showed little enthusiasm for the I.R. 950, at one stage insisting that their weapons be handed over to the newly created 18th SS Horst Wessel Division, exclaiming that "…the Indian Legion is a joke!"