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|dates=1942–May 1945 |branch= |type=Infantry |role= |size=2600 (maximum) |nickname="Tiger Legion" "Azad Hind Fauj" |command_structure= |garrison= |garrison_label= |equipment= |equipment_label= |anniversaries= |motto= |colors= |colors_label= |battles=World War II *Operation Bajadere *Atlantic Wall *Italian Front *Retreat from France |battles_label=Engagements |notable_commanders= }} The Indian Legion ((ドイツ語:Indische Legion)), officially the Free India Legion ((ドイツ語:Legion Freies Indien)) or Infantry Regiment 950 (Indian) ((ドイツ語:Infanterie-Regiment 950 (indisches), I.R. 950)) and later the Indian Volunteer Legion of the Waffen-SS ((ドイツ語:Indische Freiwilligen Legion der Waffen-SS)), was a military unit raised during World War II in Nazi Germany. Intended to serve as a liberation force for British-ruled India, it was made up of Indian prisoners of war and expatriates in Europe. Because of its origins in the Indian independence movement, it was known also as the "Tiger Legion", and the "Azad Hind Fauj". Initially raised as part of the German Army, it was part of the ''Waffen-SS'' from August 1944. Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose initiated the legion's formation, as part of his efforts to win India's independence by waging war against Britain, when he came to Berlin in 1941 seeking German aid. The initial recruits in 1941 were volunteers from the Indian students resident in Germany at the time, and a handful of the Indian prisoners of war who had been captured during the North Africa Campaign. It would later draw a larger number of Indian prisoners of war as volunteers. Though it was initially raised as an assault group that would form a pathfinder to a German-Indian joint invasion of the western frontiers of British India, only a small contingent was ever put to its original intended purpose. A hundred legionnaires were parachuted into eastern Iran under Operation Bajadere and infiltrated into Baluchistan Province to undertake sabotage operations, which they reportedly did successfully, but with insignificant effect. A small contingent, including much of the Indian officer corps and enlisted leadership, was transferred to the Indian National Army in south-east Asia. The majority of the troops of the Indian Legion were only ever stationed in Europe in non-combat duties, in the Netherlands, and in France until the Allied invasion. They saw action in the retreat from the Allied advance across France, fighting mostly against the French Resistance. One company was sent to Italy in 1944, where it saw action against British and Polish troops and undertook anti-partisan operations. At the time of the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, the remaining men 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. Because of the uproar the trials of Indians who served with the Axis caused among civilians and the military of British India, the legion members' trials were not completed. The Legion is not to be confused with Bose's Indian National Army aligned with the Japanese in Burma. ==Background== The idea of raising an armed force that would fight its way into India to bring down the British Raj goes back to World War I, when the Ghadar Party and the nascent Indian Independence League formulated plans to initiate rebellion in the British Indian Army from Punjab to Hong Kong with German support. This plan failed after information leaked to British intelligence, but only after many attempts at mutiny, and a 1915 mutiny of Indian troops in Singapore. During World War II, all three of the major Axis Powers sought to support armed revolutionary activities in India, and aided the recruitment of a military force from Indian POWs captured while serving in the British Indian Army and Indian expatriates. The most famous and successful Indian force to fight with the Axis was the Indian National Army (INA) in southeast Asia, that came into being with the support of the Japanese Empire in April 1942. Fascist Italy also created the Azad Hindustan Battalion ((イタリア語:Battaglione Azad Hindoustan) in February 1942. This unit was formed from Indian POWs from their ''Centro I'' POW camp, and Italians previously resident in India and Persia, and ultimately served under the ''Ragruppamento Centri Militari'' alongside units of Arabs and colonial Italians. However, the effort had little acceptance from the Indians in the unit, who did not wish to serve under Italian officers. After the Italian loss at the Second Battle of El Alamein, the Indians mutinied when told to fight in Libya. Consequently, the remnants of the battalion were disbanded in November 1942.〔 Although the Indian National Congress (INC), the organisation leading the struggle for Indian independence, had passed resolutions conditionally supporting the fight against fascism, some Indian public opinion was more hostile toward Britain's unilateral decision to declare India a belligerent on the side of the Allies. Among the more rebellious Indian political leaders of the time was Subhas Chandra Bose, a former INC president, who was viewed as a potent enough threat by the British that he was arrested when the war started. Bose escaped from house arrest in India in January 1941 and made his way through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union, with some help from Germany's military intelligence, the Abwehr. Once he reached Moscow, he did not receive the expected Soviet support for his plans for a popular uprising in India, and the German ambassador in Moscow, Count von der Schulenberg, soon arranged for Bose to go to Berlin. He arrived at the beginning of April 1941, and he met with foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and later Adolf Hitler. In Berlin, Bose set up the Free India Centre and Azad Hind Radio, which commenced broadcasting to Indians on shortwave frequencies, reaching tens of thousands of Indians who had the requisite receiver.〔 Soon Bose's aim became to raise an army, which he imagined would march into India with German forces and trigger the downfall of the Raj. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Indian Legion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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