Indian Wehrmacht volunteer.....
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...eersinNo-1.jpg
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Indian Wehrmacht volunteer.....
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...eersinNo-1.jpg
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
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.
The soldiers that I have spoken to who fought beside the 1st indian div in Italy had the greatest regard for them!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken The Kanuck
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
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.
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
Lindberg was another that was more pro german.
lindberg vindicated himself...
...
Charles Lindbergh and the 475th Fighter Group
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.
Although I am no expert I have always had an interest in India. This was probably because as a kid our grandparents lived with us and Gramps had served in India. Like many old guys he loved to talk about his early years and some of the most interesting and exciting I believe were the ones he spent in India. Anyhow when I grew older I had a chance to visit India and I got to see quite a bit of the place. I flew into Calcutta from Burma and then flew to Katmandu and looked around Nepal a bit. From there I took a train to New Delhi and then more trains and buses down through Agra to Bombay from there a boat down to Goa and from Goa a bus to Madras. From there trains back to Calcutta and from there narrow gauge railway to Darjeeling. From there trains back across northern India through Varanasi and back to New Delhi. From there up to the Kashmir and then back down to the Punjab before departing for Afghanistan.
So I had a pretty good look around the joint and I believe that many people would of liked it if the British stayed, especially a group who call themselves Anglo-Indians.
Given the Indian caste system, this created a very nice caste for the middle management types to occupy.
KTK