Internal Affairs). The first members of the legion were drawn from
Indian prisoners of war captured in North Africa as well as Indians
living in Germany. Further efforts by Bose produced 6,000 addi-
tional volunteers, although the nucleus of the new army was limited
to 300 people sent to a special training facility at Königsbrück near
Dresden.
The Abwehr envisioned a campaign that would advance via the
Caucasus into India and spark an anti-British revolt. In a preparatory
move, Operation bajadere was launched in January 1942, paradrop-
ping an elite force of 100 into eastern Persia (Iran) so they could
commit acts of sabotage in their homeland. Yet the later German
reversals at El Alamein and Stalingrad meant that the planned offen-
sive had little chance of materializing. The main body of the Indische
Legion was surreptitiously transferred to Southeast Asia and became
part of the failed Japanese invasion of India through Burma. Those
soldiers remaining in Europe were absorbed into the Waffen-SS in
August 1944.INFORMATIONSSTELLE III (INF III). The intelligence service of
the German Foreign Office during World War II, Informationsstelle
III (Information Post III) was formed by Foreign Minister Joachim
von Ribbentrop in order to lessen his dependence on the Abwehr and
Sicherheitsdienst for secret information and to improve his personal
standing with Adolf Hitler. Operations began in April 1941 under the
direction of Andor Hencke, a career diplomat then serving in Berlin.
Forswearing “active espionage” and relying instead on information
obtained from German newspaper and wire service correspondents,
businesspeople, and local German residents, Hencke established
acquisition posts in the missions located in neutral countries as well
as those aligned with Germany. A particular emphasis was placed
on the Balkans. Yet by 1943, owing in part to courier problems, the
quality and quantity of the reports had declined significantly, and
the service was terminated prior to the end of the war. Hencke later
conceded that the accomplishments of Inf III were of “no great sig-
nificance.”
INOFFIZIELLE MITARBEITER (IM). Informers working for the
Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), the Inoffizielle Mitarbei-
204 • INFORMATIONSSTELLE III