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The Legion Freies Indien, or the Indische Legion, variously known as the Tiger Legion, the Free India Legion (in English), the Azad Hind Legion, and the Indische Freiwilligen-Legion Regiment 950 or the I.R 950 (Indisches Infanterie Regiment 950) was an Indian armed unit raised in 1941 attached to the Wehrmacht, ostensibly according to the concept of an Indian Liberation force during World War II by Subhash Chandra Bose in Nazi Germany. The initial recruits were Indian student volunteers resident in Germany at the time, and a handful from the Indian PoWs captured by Rommel during his North Africa Campaign. It would later draw a larger number of Indian PoWs as volunteers. Raised initially as an assault group that would form a pathfinder to a German/Indian invasion of the western frontiers of British India, only a small contingent ever was put into its original intended purpose when a hundred of the Legionnaires were parachuted into eastern Iran to infiltrate into India through Baluchistan and commence sabotage operations against the British in preparation for the anticipated national revolt. A majority of the troops of the Free India Legion were only ever stationed in Europe -mostly in non-combat duties- from Netherlands, to Atlantic Wall duties in France till the Allied Invasion of France. A small contingent, including the leadership and the officer corps, was also transferred to Azad Hind after its formation and saw action in the INA’s Burma Campaign. Although it has been alleged to have been a colloaborationst Herr Unit, the unit was not deployed as a part of the Nazi War effort or defences in Europe but did see actions against British and Polish troops and also undertook anti-partisan operations in Italy in 1944. At the time of the surrender of the Third Reich in 1945, remaining troops of the Free India 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.
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Netaji's Quotes
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Compromises are inherently Anti-Progressive
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‘No real change in history has ever been acheived by discussions’
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‘Give me blood and I shall give you freedom’
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‘As soldiers, you will always have to cherish and live up to the three-ideals of faithfulness, duty and sacrifice.'Netaji
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‘One individual may die for an idea; but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives. That is how the wheel of evolution moves on and the ideas and dreams of one nation are bequeathed to the next’
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