Person · Nazi dictator · Germany
Adolf Hitler
Also known as Hitler
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of Nazi Germany, transformed Germany into a totalitarian dictatorship and unleashed World War II in Europe. His racist and antisemitic ideology culminated in the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered. His connection to India came through Subhas Chandra Bose, who, following the logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” sought Axis support to overthrow the British Raj. Bose met Hitler in Berlin in 1942, seeking German assistance for India’s independence.
- Date
- 1889–1945
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Nazi Germany
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (2)
- Met atSubhas Chandra Bose
Subhas Chandra Bose met Adolf Hitler at the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia on 27 May 1942. Bose had reached Berlin via a U-boat from Madagascar after escaping house arrest in Calcutta in January 1941 and spent 1941-43 raising the Indian Legion (Legion Freies Indien) from Indian POWs captured in North Africa. Hitler was unenthusiastic about an Indian political project, offered no public endorsement, and in February 1943 the German Navy transferred Bose to a Japanese submarine off Madagascar for the onward voyage to Tokyo and the Azad Hind government.
- Publicly debated withMohandās Karamchand Gandhi
Gandhi wrote to Hitler twice — on 23 July 1939 and again on 24 December 1940 — addressing him as 'Dear Friend' and appealing in the name of non-violence to pull Europe back from war and settle international disputes without arms. The British authorities blocked the 1939 letter from leaving India; the 1940 letter reached Berlin via diplomatic channels but was never acknowledged. The letters sit beside Gandhi's wartime correspondence with Roosevelt, Churchill and Mussolini as part of his consistent satyagraha practice of addressing even the most unlikely interlocutor as morally reachable, and were in no sense an endorsement.
Sources
Standard biography.
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