The Indian Legion in Europe and its Destiny

Der Indische Legion

Rudolf Hartog, in his book "The Sign of the Tiger" provides a vivid insider account of the formation, the activities and the significance of the Indian Legion that was formed by His excellency Herr Subhas Chandra Bose. He expresses his profound admiration as to how Bose, coming to Germany as a fugitive, developed a significant presence so as to establish a propaganda centre, an office and a well equipped and well trained army with all the help and support from the German Army, even without being an active Nazi sympathizer or collaborator. In fact much of the help came from the anti Nazi camp, and as Hartog recalls, many of the German staff of the Free India office had joined the service so as to escape the Nazis, as this was one office that was free of any direct Nazi influence and intervention. The story of Indian Legion is one of an incredible journey backed by determination, courage, persistence, and an inspirational leadership on one hand, and a sense of betrayal, lack of purpose, insubordination and a sad end of a vision on the other hand. In many ways, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was possibly let down by the German authorities, viz. the Nazis, which led to a less than heroic end for the Indian Legion troopers, in comparison with their more valiant brothers in arms in the Indian National Army. None in India knew about the Legion. The British historians and the Government and intelligence machinery tried their best to  behave as if the Legion did not exist, it was merely a figment of imagination or a willful distortion of facts by the Germans. They had their reasons though. Any such news of desertion from the allied forces in the theater of European war could have severe repercussions in the Indian Army ranks. Some of the historians also tried their best to undermine its purpose and activities. William Shirer in his Rise and Fall of Third Reich quotes Hitler on Indian Legion, "Indian Legion is a joke. There are Indians who wouldn't kill a louse, who would rather let themselves to be eaten up. They won't kill an Englishman either. I consider it nonsense to put them opposite the English." Shirer does not think it worthwhile to dig deeper into the Legion's role.

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The Zentrale Freies Indien or the Free India Centre was established in Berlin, Lichtenstein Allee no. 10 and was inaugurated on 2nd Nov, 1941. The staff soon grew to be thirty five and the effort was focused on broadcasting propaganda to India, supported by ten German experts, through the Azad Hind Radio in various Indian local languages. In his original plan to the foreign office, Bose did not mention about setting up a contingent of Indian troops on the German soil. However few Indian prisoners of war had been brought to Berlin. Bose met the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop at the Hotel Imperial in Vienna on 29th April 1941 where he added the possibility of setting up an Indian contingent drawn from the Indian prisoners of war, largely to undermine the loyalty of the British Indian Army. In a meeting with Walter Harbich in the Hotel Esplanade, Bose made the plan concrete. Walter Harbich was to train an Indo German commando unit for possible operations in the North West Frontier Province area, to support the Operation Tiger (German plan of advancing into India via Afghanistan). With Rommel's invincible march in the Africa and with German victory in the Europe, the plan seemed a good fit to the overall military strategy of the Axis power.

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In 1941 everything was going good for the Axis powers. Japan had developed a formidable presence on the Pacific islands and was busy in liberating Asia from the European colonial powers. German blitzkrieg was unstoppable in the East Europe and in Mediterranean and Germany was planning for the Operation Barbarossa and the Operation Tiger. It had conquered Greece and against a stubborn resistance, Crete. In Iraq the pro German government of Rashid Ali el Gailani was in power and in occupied France, Vichy was at the helm. So loyal French troops had been deployed in the Middle East Asian countries like Syria. General Rommel, the desert fox, was rapidly advancing towards Egypt and the fall of Egypt seemed imminent. The whole of British position in the Asia was threatened and the oil fields were to fall in German hands. The German plan, as formulated by General Halder, was to launch a three pronged attack from Libya/Egypt, Bulgaria/Turkey and the Caucasus and set up an operational base in Afghanistan to threaten India from the North West. It would enable the British to come to the table for negotiations. However the situations did not go as per the plan as the Nazi leadership failed to understand the strategic importance of Asia. Reinforcements and support were lacking and British soon recovered their ground in the Middle East. Germany got more and more entangled in Russia, culminating in a fierce battle in Stalingrad, where the Barbarossa was decidedly lost, inflicting severe blow to the German capabilities of pushing any further.

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Afghanistan was the centre stage for Operation Tiger. The mountainous terrains had many tribes who did not submit to the British. The German plan was to foment rebellion with the help of these tribes and a sizable no. of German and Italian undercover agents were operating in these areas. Italians had a long standing connection with the Fakir of Ipi, who was one such rebel leader of the tribe of the Masuds in Waziristan. Baurat Wenger, who was to accompany Bose in his journey to Berlin, was one such agent and their base was the German legation in Kabul that corresponded with the foreign office in Berlin. Large scale sabotage was planned as part of the revolutionary activities. It is to be noted that Netaji had a similar plan and hence he had traveled to Kabul and also tried to connect the Bengal Volunteers with the North West rebel leaders. Because of the treachery of Bhagat Ram Talwar, the scheme had failed. The Nazi leadership plan was to first finish off Russia and then advance from the Caucasus to the Afghanistan. The German plan did not materialize despite spending a huge amount of money, on account of the ambiguous position of the Government in Kabul whom they could not fully trust and also the lack of trust and cooperation between the Germans and the Italians operating there. The original plan was to start a series of sabotage activities, parachute dropping of the troops to carry out commando style operations starting with the Bajaur area.  With the failure of the Operation Tiger, Subhas Bose had to abandon his plan of campaign from the Afghanistan and instead set his sight on the Far East.

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Subhas Chandra Bose went to the camp of Indian PoW in Meseritz, managed by Walter Harbich. Bose had advised Harbich on organizing the troops without differentiating on religious or caste grounds as was the norm with the British Indian troops who were segregated along those lines. The command was drawn from the volunteers who were mostly Indians in exile or the prisoners of war from France and North Africa. They were trained for commando operations like wireless technology, sabotage, parachute jumping, mountain warfare etc. Major Swami, who later accompanied Bose to South East Asia, was to get trained here. However the commandos in this camp never got to participate in actual warfare and they were later merged into the Indian Legion that was set up mostly with the prisoners of war camp in Koenigsbruck, set up in December, 1942.

In Italy Iqbal Shidei, who was a supporter of Jinnah and Muslim League, had set up an Indian Legion in Italy with the Indian prisoners of war. He used to broadcast daily to India on his Himalaya radio and also had a very cordial relationship with the Italian foreign Ministry. Shidei was also unfavourably disposed towards the fiercely Nationalistic and Unity advocate Bose. So initially Germans had to choose between them and ultimately Bose triumphed because of his strength of character which won him many friends on the German side and also because he had a sound plan. A joint declaration was made in Berlin in a conference in December 1941 by the Germans and the Italians in which Bose participated on the second day, and it was agreed to hand over the Indian Legion wholly to the Germans for setting up and training. Italians however did not handover all the prisoners of war and maintained a small battalion on their soil under Shidei. However after a mutiny in their ranks the whole division was transferred to Germany.

From Annaburg camp, the Indian PoW from Rommel's North Africa theater were moved to Koenigsbruck. Subhas Chandra Bose had visited the Annaburg camp in December 1941 to win over the men. Initially he did not get much response owing to the hostile attitude of the NCOs. Free India centre volunteers however continued their propaganda and by January 1942 about two hundred were identified and around sixty eight were brought to the camp in Frankenberg. The first fifteen were specially trained by Free India Centre in Berlin and Bose himself addressed them. No coercion was used to recruit volunteers. There was a plan to make the Legion a part of the Sonderstab F, the special forces that was supposed to march to Caucasus under Felmy's command. This was stationed in Greece. Originally it was supposed to go to India via West Asia. Subhas Chandra Bose was completely against the plan of including Indian Legion in the Sonderstab F and ultimately his wish prevailed. Propaganda and recruitment for the Legion from among the Indian prisoners of war was exclusively with the Free India Centre volunteers. By November 1942, the Indian Legion had grown to be 1300 strong in two battalions. Training of the troops progressed rapidly under their German commanders and officers like Kritter and Major Krappe. One of the stumbling blocks was the language as the Legionaries neither had a good grasp of German nor English. Hindustani was adopted as the common language and the German instructors had to learn the equivalent words for proper communication. The overall process of communication and understanding was very challenging at first, since the Germans and the Indians belonged to two vastly different cultures and norms. The German commanding officers had to overlook many behavior in their Indian men which would have led to court martial for German soldiers. By October 1942 the troop was well trained to hold a maneuver where Bose and Japanese military attache Col. Yamamoto were present. The men were sworn under the new flag with Tri Colour and the Springing Tiger. In their arm patch of the uniform was a Springing Tiger insignia on the right sleeve. The Legion was officially known by the name Infanterie Regiment (Ind) IR 950.

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By the beginning of the February 1943, the size of the legion had grown to be about two thousand. There were Hindus, Muslims and Sikh soldiers - almost 59% was Hindu, another 25% Muslim and 20% Sikh. According to an estimate there were about 3115 Legionaries by 1944. The Legion was supposed to maintain a code of unity, in that there should be no differentiation in terms of religion and caste. All the unit were mixed in contrast with the British Indian Army which had maintained strict division according to religion, caste or creed. In that respect it was supposed to form the convention for the Army of the independent India. The Legion, according to the vision of Bose, was to fight only for Indian independence. Subhas Bose obtained an agreement with the German Government that Indian Legion could not be deployed against any forces other than the British. The Legion would be specially trained to become a core army when India became independent. It would foster a spirit of unity and harmony among the different Indian races. There were practical problems as the diets of different sections were different, as also the method of slaughter of animals, and the holidays. There were some frictions and feuds leading to killings in few cases. On an overall basis however the Legionaries came to accept this spirit and it helped them later under extremely difficult circumstances. Bose had also laid the condition that all who volunteered for the Legion were supposed to start as an ordinary soldier. This caused problem as the higher rank PoW did not want to join. In the course of time many Legionaries were promoted as officers. There were problems galore. For instance any harsh treatment of the soldiers would be misinterpreted by the soldiers as discriminatory and the Germans, who were not particularly adept in cross cultural sensitivity, had a hard time dealing with such issues. On one instance several soldiers had laid down their arms. Such discipline issues needed to be treated carefully and over a period of time better understanding developed between the officers and the men.

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One more problem of the Legion was that their oath was to both Subhas Chandra Bose and to Adolf Hitler. This was unique in the history of German military. Another difficulty was Subhas's condition that the Legion was only to be deployed against the British army and not for furthering German interests elsewhere, so that the legionaries felt that they were fighting for the freedom of India. There was a proposal of deploying the troops in the battles of North Africa. That however did not materialize. It was not because of Rommel refusing to have the legionaries in his ranks as has been claimed by the British historians, but because the campaign there had already ended. The other major problem was Subhas Chandra Bose's secret departure from Germany for the Far East. Bose had not communicated to the legionaries, nor to the Free India Centre on his plan, for obvious reasons of secrecy. But this could be misconstrued in some quarters as his irresponsibility in leaving the legionaries in the lurch. But Bose had planned his succession in Free India Centre. The task of the Free India Centre was not merely broadcasting over Azad Hind radio, but also to carry out propaganda among the prisoners of war, recruiting them for the Legion and getting new volunteers. It had among its Indian staff Major Swami, Habibur Rahman, N.G Ganpuley,  N.R Vyas, Girija Mukherjee and Bose's close confidante A.C.N Nambiar. Habibur Rahman, N.G Swamy and Abid Hasan Safrani had accompanied Bose to the Far East. Nambiar therefore became Bose's deputy in the centre. It was also decided to continue with the propaganda within the Legion, by publication of newspapers, radio broadcasts, and also by bringing out a  periodical called Bhaiband. The Legion had its own broadcasting station with daily transmission to the troops, called Bhaiband transmission. Legion also had its own marching song - "Age ao, kadam badhao, milkar sare bhai". Gallantry medals were also designed for the Legion. The highest order, the Sher-i-Hind was awarded to the Legion Commander Kurt Krappe in September 1944. Azad Hind stamps were also issued in preparation for the National Government of Subhas Chandra Bose.

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