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.
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.
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.
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 mush 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.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/3684288.stm
