Hitler's secret Indian army

Hitler's secret Indian army
By Mike Thomson
BBC News

In the closing stages of World War II, as Allied and French resistance forces were driving Hitler's now demoralised forces from France, three senior German officers defected.

Legionnaires were recruited from German POW camps
The information they gave British intelligence was considered so sensitive that in 1945 it was locked away, not due to be released until the year 2021.

Now, 17 years early, the BBC's Document programme has been given special access to this secret file.

It reveals how thousands of Indian soldiers who had joined Britain in the fight against fascism swapped their oaths to the British king for others to Adolf Hitler - an astonishing tale of loyalty, despair and betrayal that threatened to rock British rule in India, known as the Raj.

The story the German officers told their interrogators began in Berlin on 3 April 1941. This was the date that the left-wing Indian revolutionary leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, arrived in the German capital.

Bose, who had been arrested 11 times by the British in India, had fled the Raj with one mission in mind. That was to seek Hitler's help in pushing the British out of India.


He wanted 500 volunteers who would be trained in Germany and then parachuted into India. Everyone raised their hands. Thousands of us volunteered




Lieutenant Barwant Singh
Six months later, with the help of the German foreign ministry, he had set up what he called "The Free India Centre", from where he published leaflets, wrote speeches and organised broadcasts in support of his cause.

By the end of 1941, Hitler's regime officially recognised his provisional "Free India Government" in exile, and even agreed to help Chandra Bose raise an army to fight for his cause. It was to be called "The Free India Legion".

Bose hoped to raise a force of about 100,000 men which, when armed and kitted out by the Germans, could be used to invade British India.

He decided to raise them by going on recruiting visits to Prisoner-of-War camps in Germany which, at that time, were home to tens of thousands of Indian soldiers captured by Rommel in North Africa.

Volunteers

Finally, by August 1942, Bose's recruitment drive got fully into swing. Mass ceremonies were held in which dozens of Indian POWs joined in mass oaths of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.


Chandra Bose did not live to see Indian independence
These are the words that were used by men that had formally sworn an oath to the British king: "I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose."

I managed to track down one of Bose's former recruits, Lieutenant Barwant Singh, who can still remember the Indian revolutionary arriving at his prisoner of war camp.

"He was introduced to us as a leader from our country who wanted to talk to us," he said.

"He wanted 500 volunteers who would be trained in Germany and then parachuted into India. Everyone raised their hands. Thousands of us volunteered."




Demoralised

In all 3,000 Indian prisoners of war signed up for the Free India Legion.

But instead of being delighted, Bose was worried. A left-wing admirer of Russia, he was devastated when Hitler's tanks rolled across the Soviet border.

Matters were made even worse by the fact that after Stalingrad it became clear that the now-retreating German army would be in no position to offer Bose help in driving the British from faraway India.

When the Indian revolutionary met Hitler in May 1942 his suspicions were confirmed, and he came to believe that the Nazi leader was more interested in using his men to win propaganda victories than military ones.

So, in February 1943, Bose turned his back on his legionnaires and slipped secretly away aboard a submarine bound for Japan.


Rudolf Hartog remembers parting with his Indian friends
There, with Japanese help, he was to raise a force of 60,000 men to march on India.

Back in Germany the men he had recruited were left leaderless and demoralised. After much dissent and even a mutiny, the German High Command despatched them first to Holland and then south-west France, where they were told to help fortify the coast for an expected allied landing.

After D-Day, the Free India Legion, which had now been drafted into Himmler's Waffen SS, were in headlong retreat through France, along with regular German units.

It was during this time that they gained a wild and loathsome reputation amongst the civilian population.

The former French Resistance fighter, Henri Gendreaux, remembers the Legion passing through his home town of Ruffec: "I do remember several cases of rape. A lady and her two daughters were raped and in another case they even shot dead a little two-year-old girl."

Finally, instead of driving the British from India, the Free India Legion were themselves driven from France and then Germany.

Their German military translator at the time was Private Rudolf Hartog, who is now 80.

"The last day we were together an armoured tank appeared. I thought, my goodness, what can I do? I'm finished," he said.

"But he only wanted to collect the Indians. We embraced each other and cried. You see that was the end."




Mutinies

A year later the Indian legionnaires were sent back to India, where all were released after short jail sentences.

But when the British put three of their senior officers on trial near Delhi there were mutinies in the army and protests on the streets.

With the British now aware that the Indian army could no longer be relied upon by the Raj to do its bidding, independence followed soon after.

Not that Subhas Chandra Bose was to see the day he had fought so hard for. He died in 1945.

Since then little has been heard of Lieutenant Barwant Singh and his fellow legionnaires.

At the end of the war the BBC was forbidden from broadcasting their story and this remarkable saga was locked away in the archives, until now. Not that Lieutenant Singh has ever forgotten those dramatic days.

"In front of my eyes I can see how we all looked, how we would all sing and how we all talked about what eventually would happen to us all," he said.

Excellent piece! SnF

I'm curious as to what else was in that secret file.

More Info here:-

germanmilitariacollectibles.com...

Link?

Clearly a copy and paste job.

Anyway I've heard of this, so why do they claim it has only just been revealed?

Like I saw on BBC News a while back about a supposed Anglo-French Union which was proposed in 1940 during Germany's assault on France. Apparently it had only just come to light, but that can't have been true since I'd already read about such a thing.

reply to post by Kram09


it is a BBC news article, The first 3 lines explain it.

reply to post by maddy21


Yeah but the OP has just copied and pasted an entire article....

You're supposed to just paste an extract and then post the link to the article and offer your opinion or thoughts on the matter.

reply to post by Kram09


Not much opinions i can give on that matter, that's why i just bolded the points i found interesting...

I thought the Nazi military was in India looking for the Vimana?

The British didn't mind the Nazi's digging around in their India for it?

reply to post by maddy21


So it's an utterly pointless thread then.

Goodbye!

reply to post by Kram09


The usual self righteous point scoring statements.. When will people ever learn to talk properly...

reply to post by maddy21


I already did and that's kind of ironic coming from you, who never bothered to offer your thoughts on an entire article you just copied and pasted.

This isent exactly new news. The German military of WWII pretty much included troops of every race, ethnic background, and religion. They had an entire Waffen SS division made up of Bosnian Muslims, another division made up of French Nazis, Norwegian SS volunteers, Russians who hated the Commies made up entire Wehrmacht divisions, tens of thousands of Cossacks in both the Waffen SS and the Wehrmacht, Albanians, and so forth. Rumor has it that they even had a platoon sized "British Legion" within the Waffen SS. My grandfather was a US Army Air Force aircrew member who was shot down over Czechoslovakia in 1945 and claimed that the Germans were even looking for American POWs who wanted to switch sides. He claims none took the offer, although the US Army CID has said at least a dozen American POWs deserted to the Germans during World War II ... all served on the Eastern Front and none survived the war.

The Japanese also had the "Indian National Army" made up of Indian POWs from the British Army ... most joined just so they could desert and rejoin the British and other Allied forces.

reply to post by Kram09


I thought you said good bye ? If you do wanna stay around i am hoping you next post is actually on topic and not repeating them same line the 4th time...



@Chris : Correct , Bose left to Japan then created the Indian national army with help of Subash Chandra Bose using British Indian Army POW''s .. Sad Bose died in a plane crash 2 years before Indian independence,,,

News or No News, if you feel like commenting on the article, you may chose to do so or else dont.

It doesnt get any simpler than that.

The article just goes to show how much information that might still be out there about WWI and WWII that is waiting to be uncovered. If not anything, this might be a brief lesson in History which many folks on ATS might not be aware of.

reply to post by Kram09


QUICK!!! Someone get the new Thread Police a siren, badge, and single bullet for his gun (which he must keep in his front shirt pocket)!!! I am surprised that someone so hung up on rules would sport a "Vendetta" avatar. Strong in this one, the irony is.

On Topic: very interesting piece, OP. I am intruiged at how easily Hitler seemed to want to form a bond with a known socialist. The left/right paradigm that has poisoned our current world had it roots in this era. The Nazis (extreme right wing) hated the Soviets (extreme left wing), and vice versa. The hate was enough to drive the USSR into the arms of the west.

A very interesting juxtaposition, to say the least.

I guess this is Nazi propaganda then - www.youtube.com...

reply to post by maddy21


That and the BBC has a memory like a punch-drunk goldfish when it comes to "secret history" - recently they announced a "British Schindler" as if they completely forgot about (to name but one) Nicholas Winton and several other figures who had helped Jews escape Europe, most of which THE BBC THEMSELVES HAVE PUBLICISED.

[/historynnerdrage]

a reply to: maddy21

Excellent work sir. 10Apr2019; So lets fast forward to a potential connection to AOC and the Justice Democrats along with her Chief of Staff Saikat Chakrabarth has been filmed wearing a tee shirt with the face of Subbas Chandra Bose on it. He obviously picked it out specifically for a reason. This group seems to have a terrorist agenda and promotes Nazi style tactics.