Hitler's plans for India
Further information: Indische Legion and Azad Hind
Hitler's views on India were disparaging.[57] He considered the British colonial rule of the subcontinent as an exemplary one and intended the German rule in the occupied East to resemble it.[57] Hitler thought little of the Indian independence movement, declaring the freedom fighters of being racially inferior "Asiatic jugglers".[57] As early as 1930 he spoke of the Indian freedom movement as the rebellion of the "lower Indian race against the superior English Nordic race", and that the British were free to deal with any subversive Indian activists as they liked.[58] In 1937 he told the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax that the British should "shoot Gandhi, and if this doesn't suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of the Congress, and if that doesn't suffice shoot 200, and so on, as you make it clear that you mean business."[58] Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg stated that although the Vedic culture was Aryan in origin, any Nordic blood had long since been lost due to racial mixing.[57] Like Hitler, he viewed the British rule in India as being desirable.[57]
During the first years of the war in Europe, as Hitler sought out to reach an arrangement with Britain, he held the notion that India should remain under British control after the war, as in his mind the only alternative was a Soviet occupation of the subcontinent.[57] As Britain had rejected German peace offers, Hitler ordered on 17 February 1941 to prepare a military study for a post-Barbarossa operation in Afghanistan against India.[43] The goal of this operation was not so much to conquer the subcontinent, but to threaten British military positions there to force Britain to come to terms.[43] A week later the Afghanistan operation was the subject of a discussion between head of the Army General Staff Franz Halder, Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres Walter von Brauchitsch and chief of the Operationsabteilung OKH Adolf Heusinger.[59] In an assessment produced on 7 April 1941, Halder estimated that the operation would require 17 divisions and one separate regiment.[59]
Indian revolutionary Subhas Chandra Bose escaped from India on 17 January 1941 and arrived in Berlin via Moscow.[60] There he proposed organizing an Indian national government in exile and urged the Axis to declare their support for the Indian cause.[60] He eventually managed to extract such promises from Japan after the Fall of Singapore and later on from Italy as well, but the Germans refused.[58] Bose was granted an audience with Mussolini, but Hitler refused to see him, although he did acquire access to Joachim von Ribbentrop after much difficulty.[58] The German Foreign Ministry was sceptical of any such endeavours, as the German goal was to use Bose for propaganda and subversive activity, especially following the model of the 1941 pro-Axis coup in Iraq.[61] These propaganda measures included anti-Raj radio broadcasts and the recruitment of Indian prisoners of war for the "Free India Legion".[62] Bose eventually met with Hitler on 29 May 1942.[63] During the discussion, which mostly consisted of Hitler monologuing to Bose,[58] Hitler expressed his scepticism for India's readiness for a rebellion against the Raj, and his fears of a Soviet takeover of India.[63] He stated that if Germany had to do anything about India it would first have to conquer Russia, for the road to India could only be accomplished through that country,[58] although he did promise to financially support Bose and help relocate him to the Far East.[63] Bose later described the encounter by stating that it was impossible to get Hitler involved in any serious political discussion.[58]
On 18 January 1942, it was decided that the Indian subcontinent was to be divided between the Axis powers. Germany was to take the part of British India which is today approximately Pakistan, while the rest was marked for Japan.[64]
