Grunnleggende opplysninger
Den indiske legionen var en militær enhet opprettet under andre verdenskrig i det tredje riket. Den var ment å tjene som en befriende styrke for britisk-styrte India, den var sammensatt av indiske krigsfanger, nasjonalistiske/uavhengighetsfrivillige og immigranter i Europa.
På grunn av sin opprinnelse i den indiske uavhengighetsbevegelsen, ble den også kjent som "Tiger Legion" og "Azad Hind Fauj".
Opprinnelig dannet som en del av den tyske hæren, fra august 1944 ble den offisielt tildelt Waffen-SS.
Den indiske uavhengighetslederen Subhas Chandra Bose satte i gang dannelsen av legionen som en del av hans forsøk på å frigjøre India ved å slippe løs krig med Storbritannia da han ankom Berlin i 1941 og ba om hjelp fra tyskerne.
De opprinnelige rekruttene i 1941 var frivillige fra indiske studenter bosatt i Tyskland på den tiden, og en håndfull indiske krigsfanger som ble tatt til fange under den nordafrikanske kampanjen.
Det ville senere tiltrekke flere indiske krigsfanger som frivillige.
The Volunteer Hindu Legion (Ger. Indische Freiwilligen-Legion der Waffen-SS ) is a military unit composed of Hindus and operating within the Waffen-SS structure during World War II. Its formation was closely related to the activity of the Hindu politician, with extremely nationalist views, Subhas Chandra Bose, who in 1942 obtained the consent of Adolf Hitler to recruit British prisoners captured by the Axis troops during the fighting in North Africa. As there were quite a lot of Indians among them, do About 3,000 people were pre-qualified for the Volunteer Legion, but after the selection this number dropped to 300. It is worth adding, however, that at the beginning of 1943 the number of soldiers in the formation was about 2,000. Interestingly, the unit (at the beginning of 1943) was composed of both Muslims and Hindu people, and the command language was English! In 1943, the unit (already known as the 950th Infantry Regiment) was transferred to the Netherlands, and shortly later to France. From June 1944, the unit performed a guard duty on the Atlantic Wall in the Bordeaux region. However, as the Allied armies advanced, the Volunteer Hindu Legion was withdrawn to Germany, where it remained until March 1945. The soldiers of the Legion, in the face of the inevitable defeat of the Third Reich, decided to try to escape to Switzerland, but it failed and were captured by American and French troops. Later, they were handed over to British troops, sent back to India and tried for treason.
Feil i beskrivelsen? Meld problemet
...