Subhas Chandra Bose in Nazi Germany

April 3, 1941, a man claiming to be an Italian diplomat arrived in Berlin, demanding a meeting with Ernst Woermann, the German undersecretary of state. Woermann admitted the man and listened carefully to his plans. The diplomat spoke of establishing a government in exile that could launch a military strike against a shared enemy. The government he planned would be Indian, and the target would be British India. "Orlando Mazzotta" was in fact Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian leftist radical nationalist and former president of the Indian National Congress. Just a few months earlier Bose had escaped from Calcutta with the help of German and Italian officials. One of India's national icons, practically on par with Gandhi, Bose eventually became a hero of the anticolonial resistance and recuited thousands to fight for his cause. Despite the strategic benefits of partnering with Bose, the Nazis did not know what to do with him, and the rebel's irrepressible radicalism only further complicated their overlapping aims. Very little has been published on Bose's activities in Nazi Germany and his overtures to fascist regimes. Romain Hayes is the first to focus exclusively on Bose's interactions with Nazi Germany during the Second World War, making extensive use of German, Indian, and British sources, including memoranda, notes, minutes, reports, telegrams, letters, and broadcasts. He also relies on fresh materials unearthed from recently released German archives.