Indische Legion

Indische Legion

The Legion Freies Indien (German: "Free India Legion") or Indische Freiwilligen-Legion Regiment 950 ("Indian Volunteer Legion Regiment 950"), referred to colloquially as the Indische Legion ("Indian Legion"), variously known also as the Tiger Legion and the Azad Hind Fauj (Hindi: "Free India Army"), was an Indian military unit raised in 1941 in Germany attached to the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) and later from August 1944 attached to the Waffen-SS, ostensibly according to the concept of an Indian liberation force during World War II by its co-founder the prominent Subhas Chandra Bose chairman of the Indian National Congress and a leader of the Indian independence movement, who in 1941 came to Berlin having just escaped British house arrest in India. The initial recruits were Indian student volunteers resident in Germany at the time, and a handful from the Indian prisoners of war (POWs) captured by Rommel during his North Africa Campaign. It would later draw a larger number of Indian POWs as volunteers.

Raised initially as an assault group that would form a pathfinder to a German/Indian invasion of the western frontiers of British India, only a small contingent was ever put to its original intended purpose when a hundred of the legionnaires were parachuted into eastern Iran in 'Operation Bajadere' to infiltrate into India through Baluchistan and commence sabotage operations against the British in preparation for an anticipated national revolt. A majority of the troops of the Indian Legion were only ever stationed in Europe – mostly in non-combat duties – from the Netherlands, to Atlantic Wall duties in France until the Allied invasion of France. A small contingent, including the leadership and the officer corps, was transferred to Azad Hind ("Free India") after its formation and saw action in the INA's Burma Campaign.

The unit saw action against British and Polish troops and also undertook anti-partisan operations in Italy in 1944.

At the time of the surrender of the Third Reich in 1945, remaining troops of the Indian Legion made efforts to march to neutral Switzerland over the Alps, but these efforts proved futile as they were captured by American and French troops and eventually shipped back to India to face charges of treason.