I never knew this!

[A. F Medic]

Indian Wehrmacht volunteer.....

Information

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[Ken The Kanuck]

I'm not overly surprised as some Indians hated the British with a passion. What is more surprising is the number of Indians and Nepalese who fought for the British since the British basically occupied thier country and made second class citizens out of them.

Very brave warriors they were too.

KTK

[A. F Medic]

I would suspect that the volunteer soldier spoke the "Queen's English" and would have to make the transition to German quickly. Unless they were all in one German unit with an interpreter.

[Gibbs505]

I'm not overly surprised as some Indians hated the British with a passion. What is more surprising is the number of Indians and Nepalese who fought for the British since the British basically occupied thier country and made second class citizens out of them.

Very brave warriors they were too.

KTK

The soldiers that I have spoken to who fought beside the 1st indian div in Italy had the greatest regard for them!

[gunner]

The " Wehrmacht " had a huge number of "Alien-soldiers" in their row`s . Like indian, russian, french, persian and so on. And often they fought much more forcefully than our own soldiers. So they had their own brigades and divisons
like the SS-Divisones Wiking, Wallonie and Skanderberg.

Regards,

Gunner

[Bill H]

The Germans made a concerted effort to play on the Indian's resentment of the British, and had some, but not much, success in formenting resistance and recruiting Indians to fight the British.

[Jim K]

Few Indians supported Hitler in spite of their hatred of the British, but some did. It was the same with the Irish; although I know of no Irish who actually fought in the German army, many supported Germany in other ways. Again, not out of love for Hitler but because of hatred for the British, on the theory that any enemy of my enemy is my friend.

One person who fell into that trap was Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, who was so blatantly anti-British and pro-German that after FDR appointed him ambassador to Britain for his campaign contributions, Churchill told FDR to remove him or he (Churchill) would declare him persona non grata (unwelcome person), a huge insult to an ambassador and to the country he represents.

FDR recalled Kennedy and ended the flap.

The Nazis also courted the Moslems, building on their shared hatred of the Jews. The rabidly anti-Jewish Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent most of the war as an honored guest of Hitler.

Jim

[TDH]

Lindberg was another that was more pro german.

[goo]

lindberg vindicated himself...
...
Charles Lindbergh and the 475th Fighter Group

[Critch]

The Japanese had some luck at recruiting Indian soldiers, although I suspect not much. A German POW being held in India in the First World War was able to foment a rebellion that ended in mass executions of Indians by the British.

It is still amazing how many Indians, Pakistanis etc fought for an Empire that many hated..and since I am not a close student of this, it's entirely possible that there were huge groups of Indians etc who wanted to stay in the Empire.