Indische Legion - Origin

Origin

The first troops of the Indian Legion were derived from Rommel's Indian POWs captured at El Mekili, Libya during the Battles for Tobruk. The Italians established three POW camps to accommodate and indoctrinate these captured POWs – Centro A established for Arabs, Centro I for Indians and Centro T for Tunisians. At Centro I the Italians established a Battaglione Hazad Hindouston (Free Indian Battalion) but the Indians refused to serve under Italian officers and the experiment was disbanded. The German forces in the Western Desert then 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 to Germany. The number of POWs grew to about 10,000 who were eventually housed at a camp known as Annaburg, where Subhash Bose first met with these prisoners. From these, a group of approximately 6,000 men were transferred to the Frankenburg camp, from which a further core of 300 soldiers were sent to Königsbrück for training and induction. It was at Königsbrück that uniforms were 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 in Germany.