#aryan invasion

[meluhha]

Oraon claimed that they were settled in Gujurat, then they were expelled from there. Then they settled in Kalinjar, where they fought with Lowrik Sowrik of Palipiri and were defeated. Then they came to Rohtasgarh and were driven out by Muslims during the reign of Akbar. Then they settled in Chotanagpur. According to Dalton, Oraon were settled in Chotanagpur before the reign of Akbar and possibly some Oraon were in Rohtas hills when Rohtasgarh fort was constructed by Muslims. According to him the Oraon language is similar to Tamil, but some words spoken by Oraon are of Sanskrit origin due to their living with Sanskrit and Prakrit speaking people in the past

Kurukh/Oraon ppl of the eastern/central hills of India & of the Kol uprising

[metamatar]

here's some contextual reading on what the hindu right's recent fixations with history are by marxist historian irfan habib.

this is a layman's overview of the scientific discourses that hindutva seeks to discredit

[shut-up-rabert]

Do you think the Aryan Invasion Theory is true? I watching Mahabharata (star plus) and they kept using Aryavarta which reminded me of the Aryan race that Hilter used and so I did a little research and obviously he had no idea what he was talking about but what I found on the theory was a bit unsettling. I always believed that Hinduism/Sanskrit/Vedas originated in India (Indus Valley) but this theory seems to have genetic research to support it and it set off my whole belief system and gave me an identity crisis for some reason

Well, I am not really big on this theory because it has zilch proof to it as far as I have seen, only theories.

A simplified take on the same is the Indian Express article on Rakhigarhi excavation.

Other than that, there was this lengthy India Today article on the same excavation that gave me a headache because it won’t go to the fucking point, but I suppose it is in favour of the theory? I don’t know man, it’s fucking long and I did not read it all, just understood that IVC people from 4500 were native and that apparently we have outsider DNA.

There is no proof of any migration other than those based on change in genetic make up, a more plausible theory of which I explain later.

The interesting thing is, that the said Aryan invasion Theory first pinned us to be central asians from 1500BC and now we are Iranian farmers. It completely ignores the fact that Indians have little genes in common with Europeans who we supposedly come from moreso with South Indians (and I mean much more, we have almost the same gene combination except a few), and seems as if the India today article, based on the same premise of “Aryans had this one gene (r1 to be more specific) common with Iranians that Indus people did not have” fails to realise that people from the northwest of Indian subcontinent can have common genes with the bordering land for other reasons aswell because no shit sherlock, people fuck💀

I mean, how else do you explain the much higher genetic connection to south indians?

Another factor they use for the theory is the simultaneous developement of modern day Hinduism and Zorastrianism, but that too can be chalked upto influence rather than migration, given that Hinduism is actually older by a little margin (oldest living religion) and for the theory to be true, the migration should have gone westward instead.

Heck, the influence thing can easily exclude the theory altogther, because Iran is close to what are now the areas of IVC, and them slowly influencing the culture during or after IVC when they became more civil, (in 4000BC) or us doing the same, or even intermixing of the two will make more sense than AIT.

The migration of these Aryans cannot be proven otherwise aswell because there lies no proof for same. Literally none. The archeologist in the India today article and few others uphold it yet are unable to prove it beyond circumstantial evidence that makes more sense when turned against the theory rather than its favour, like the Iranian thing I mentioned. It might also very well be a migration to eastwards in Hind from the western part, because the Vedas were written before the supposed “Vedic Aryan invaders” happened and they are clearly neither Monotheistic nor Tribal, and align more with the Indic religions, so I digress they came from Central Asia or Iran.

Plus, the Vedas were written by the "aryans" on banks of saraswati, and the saraswati dried up centuries before they "destroyed IVC and took over". Another interesting thing is that Saraswati flew through the IVC sooooo.... yeah, maybe it all can be summed up to people fucking🫠

The thing is, we are locals, this culture was very much developed here on this land. Vedas, Sanskrit, Sanatan, there is a reason you do not see traces of them elsewhere, and I am certain this theory is BS because of the little I have read, because it has nothing to prove for itself.

But other than that, this particular subject was never of my interest because of how lengthy it was, and I fucking sucked at history, so may I suggest asking others who do think of this topic as often. I only know @tiananmen-square-orgy to be my nerdy mutual on this topic, and if finnie cannot help you I'll try geting you connected to a friend who is not on tumblr yet can help becuase of his extensive knowledge.

[youaremysunshine-court]

defenestrating myself

[gemsofindology]

Horse Rockart in Pandavahara Gumpha, Khurda, Odisha

Horse Rockart in Pandavahara Gumpha, Khurda, Odisha is a powerful testament against the fake Aryan Invasion Theory. Its survival now hinges on combating rampant mining activities. #Archaeology

[fayrobertsuk]

[Image description: a screenshot of two tags reading #to be fair to him #the man may have been a howling penis of the first order but you nevertheless have to admit that his books are also very bad. End image description.]

This whole thread has me realising all over again quite how much of my knowledge of the world and British history is because I’m Not English, and that my friends have been vastly kept in the dark about their own heritage. 

The disrespect toward indigenous peoples is what popped put at me today in one of your posts. I wonder how long the English have been looking down on the Welsh. We're the Saxons like that or is it the Normans who really thought they were better than everyone else. Cause it seems like it goes back a long way.

Oh, both, just in different ways. The Normals were imperialist, the Saxons were more theft and landgrab.

Something that makes me want to start hurling knives is the INCREDIBLY COMMON English myth that the Anglo-Saxons were a sweet innocent indigenous British people who were conquered and bullied by those mean nasty Normans (and Vikings), and because the Normans came over via France, that means everything was actually THEIR fault, and the true English i.e. the Anglo-Saxons, were victims too :(

When I say it's incredibly common, by the way, I really mean it. Enormous numbers of modern day English people believe this. I've seen BBC programs about the Viking invasions that claimed without a trace of irony that the Vikings would take slaves from "the native Anglo-Saxons". I've literally had English people comment this shit on posts of mine about Celtophobia and Welsh history. Like I'm there describing how the last Prince of Wales was locked in a wooden cage in Bristol Castle at the age of eight and lived out the remainder of his life there until his fifties so the Welsh would know their place, and some snivelling English cunt will straight up write a message going "Teehee really it was the Normans not the English though and they conquered the poor Anglo-Saxons too, poor England uwu"

Anyway in the dying days of the Roman empire in Britain one of the leading reasons for Rome abandoning Britannia was the constant waves of Anglo-Saxon invaders. There were so many the east coast of Britain became known as the Saxon Shore. There were so many the Romans built a line of forts that were and are literally called Saxon Shore Forts. There were so many that an official, historically documented, paid governmental position in Roman Britain was the Count of the Saxon Shore, i.e. the guy responsible for keeping the bastards out.

Rome had banned native military, of course, so when they then withdrew and took the armies with them, the people left had no defences against the incoming waves of Angles, Saxons and Jutes. England fell pretty quickly, Angles in the north, Saxons in the south, Jutes primarily in the east, I believe. What stopped their westward expansion was the Brythonic Celtic nations living in modern day Wales. And this is the origin of the Welsh dragon - those separate kingdoms needed a banner that united them, and represented Not Saxon. An anti-Saxon force. They chose a red dragon.

This is also the origin of King Arthur. An anti-Saxon king of the Brythons, who would repel these Germanic invaders. (It was several centuries later that England realised they should probably steal the term 'British', because otherwise they were marking themselves as 'not native'.)

Anyway the saving grace of the Anglo-Saxons in the end was actually that they were whiny little bitches who gave up trying to fight in Wales with its difficult mountains and fought each other instead. The whole sorry tale of the Heptarchy is the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fighting like cats in a bag, while Saxon king Offa built a dyke along the Welsh border and went "WELL YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED OVER HERE" and every Welsh king went "...we literally didn't want to conquer you anyway, you spectacularly sad and stupid man"

Oh, and of course, there's the name 'Wales'. Given to us specifically by the Anglo-Saxons. And translated by centuries of English scholars, mostly very smugly, as 'foreigners'. A fun bit of early propaganda, look - foreigners in our own country that they tried and failed to steal.

All of which is a circuitous way of saying - yeah, it goes way back.

[pigeonflavouredcake]

My Grimoire Research Library

this is a list of my major resource I've referenced/am currently referencing in my big grimoire project. For books I'll be linking the Goodreads page, for pdfs, websites and videos i'll link them directly.

There are plenty of generalised practitioner resources that can work for everyone but as I have Irish ancestry and worship Hellenic deities quite a few of my resources are centred around Celtic Ireland, ancient Greece and the Olympic mythos. If you follow other sects of paganism you are more than welcome to reblog with your own list of resources.

Parts of my grimoire discuss topics of new age spiritualism, dangerous conspiracy theories, and bigotry in witchcraft so some resources in this list focus on that.

Books

Apollodorus - The Library of Greek Mythology

Astrea Taylor - Intuitive Witchcraft

Dee Dee Chainey & Willow Winsham - Treasury of Folklore: Woodlands and Forests

John Ferguson - Among The Gods: An Archaeological Exploration of Ancient Greek Religion

Katharine Briggs - The Fairies in Tradition and Literature

Kevin Danaher - The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs

Laura O'Brien - Fairy Faith in Ireland

Lindsey C. Watson - Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome

Nicholas Culpeper - Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Plutarch - The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives

R.B. Parkinson - A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Around the World

Rachel Patterson - Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness

Raleigh Briggs - Make Your Place: Affordable & Sustainable Nesting Skills

Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass

Ronald Hutton - The Witch: A History of Fear in Ancient Times

Rosemary Ellen Guiley - The Encyclopaedia of Witches and Witchcraft

Thomas N. Mitchell - Athens: A History of the World's First Democracy

Walter Stephens - Demon Lovers: Witchcraft S3x and the Crisis of Belief

Yvonne P. Chireau - Black Magic: Religion and The African American Conjuring Tradition

PDFs

Anti Defamation League - Hate on Display: Hate Symbols Database

Brandy Williams - White Light, Black Magic: Racism in Esoteric Thought

Cambridge SU Women’s Campaign - How to Spot TERF Ideology 2.0.

Blogs and Websites

Anti Defamation League

B. Ricardo Brown - Until Darwin: Science and the Origins of Race

Dr. S. Deacon Ritterbush - Dr Beachcomb

Folklore Thursday

Freedom of Mind Resource Centre - Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control

Institute for Strategic Dialogue

Royal Horticultural Society

The Duchas Project -National Folklore Collection

Vivienne Mackie - Vivscelticconnections

YouTube Videos

ContraPoints - Gender Critical

Emma Thorne Videos - Christian Fundie Says Halloween is SATANIC!

Owen Morgan (Telltale) - The Source Of All Conspiracies: A 1902 Document Called "The Protocols"

The Belief it or Not Podcast - Ep. 40 Satanic Panic, Ep 92. Wicca

Wendigoon - The Conspiracy Theory Iceberg

Other videos I haven't referenced but you may still want to check out

Atun-Shei Films - Ancient Aryans: The History of Crackpot N@zi Archaeology

Belief It Or Not - Ep. 90 - Logical Fallacies

Dragon Talisman - Tarot Documentary (A re-upload of the 1997 documentary Strictly Supernatural: Tarot and Astrology)

Lindsay Ellis - Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia

Overly Sarcastic Productions - Miscellaneous Myths Playlist

Owen Morgan (Telltale) - SATANIC PANIC! 90s Video Slanders Satanists | Pagan Invasion Saga | Part 1

ReignBot - How Ouija Boards Became "Evil" | Obscura Archive Ep. 2

Ryan Beard - Demi Lovato Promoted a R4cist Lizard Cult

Super Eyepatch Wolf - The Bizarre World of Fake Psychics, Faith Healers and Mediums

Weird Reads with Emily Louise -The Infamous Hoaxes Iceberg Playlist

Wendigoon - The True Stories of the Warren Hauntings: The Conjuring, Annabelle, Amityville, and Other Encounters

[mutant-distraction]

3 thousands years old Figures from Marlik Civilization North of Iran Before the Invasion Of Aryan Ethnics

it is noticeable these Figures have 6 Fingers and Toes

Our telegram channel: https://t.me/iahaofficial

[fanonical]

okay, so here's the thing with the daleks.

the daleks are nazis. like, that's not subtext, that's not implication, it is literally text. in the fourth doctor serial genesis of the daleks, one of the major kaled bad guys wears a literal actual iron cross as part of his costume, and in their debut, the daleks, they are presented as being fascists determined to completely exterminate the thals from existing, seemingly just because they were thals. hell, the story makes note of the fact that the attractive blonde thals are seen as being hideous and mutated by both them and the daleks - deliberately subverting the nazi ideal of the 'perfect aryan' look.

terry nation, the creator of the daleks, had an fixation on nazis. he lived during world war two, and the idea keeps cropping up in his work. daleks want everyone to be like them, daleks think they are 'superior' and are the 'masters' of the universe. notably, the images of a deserted, abandoned london in the next dalek serial, dalek invasion of earth, are based on fears of a nazi occupation of london. this would have been clearer to adult viewers in the 1960s, who would themselves have been around for world war two, and would be familiar with the ideology and attitudes to it.

so we have this bad guy who wants to exterminate all other species because they are different to the daleks, and see themselves as superior. the trouble is that, while this can make them scary as villains, it does force writers into a corner where individual daleks cannot really have their own personalities. daleks are meant to all be the same, that's part of their thing. but that means that we can't have character exploration for any dalek characters, they are one-note evil bastards. they also don't have faces, so they will always be inherently inhuman to the viewer

enter davros. now we have a charismatic leader for the daleks, one who has a face and can emote, and one the audience can identify as a person. but that starts to take a little bit away from what makes the daleks scary. they're all the same, apart from this one guy, who is either superior to the superior race or is somehow meant to lead them. he's a person, he has frailties. he can be silly and campy

the thing with the daleks is that they sometimes fall over into being just generic movie monsters, rather than specifically fascists, and i think this evolution from being very clear metaphors to just another monster is interesting

[meluhha]

Alexander Balwinder Iskander Jaswinder

ever wonder why Punjabi names end in -nder or rather, why that isn’t unique to Punjabi?

[kambakht-dil]

Doesn't matter if you are a right wined or left winged individual, everyone should watch this documentary atleast once. Leave your biases behind for 1.5 hrs and listen to what this guy has to say.

Absolutely amazing work with proper citations and all

You hate brahmins? watch this! Love brahmins and think they did nothing wrong? watch this!

Hate Manusmriti and wanna burn the shit out of it? watch the video

Think that caste discrimination was started by British/Mughals? Watch the damn video

Believe in Aryan invasion theory? Think the north Indians started the north-south divide or wanna know how the term Dravidians came to life? Watch the fucking video

i'll even tag some blogs so this can reach a wider audience

@drowning-in-ichor @rhysaka @mrityuloknative @mizutaama @magic-coffee

[hindulivesmatter]

I used to think Hinduism could be reformed but seeing y’all sanatanis clownery has me convinced that only Periyar-style radical atheism can help this country. Y’all are the damn problem

We should shift to "Periyar-style radical atheism"..... Right....

E.V.Ramaswami (aka Periyar) was honestly what I'd call a Hinduphobic, perverted idiot. What he preached bordered on the verge of insanity to the point where Jawaharlal Nehru called him a lunatic. Former Tamil Nadu chief ministers late C.N.Annadurai and M.G.Ramachandran, who were once close supporters of Periyar, had parted company with him later because of his unjust and unethical policies and behaviour.

But, my apologies, his teachings are the only thing that can help this country, hmm?

Let's look at some fun facts about him, shall we?

Some things Ramaswami did:

Paraded naked idols of gods and goddesses.

Married his own daughter. His second wife was his adopted daughter. Wow.

Used every opportunity to condemn the Hindu Gods and ridicule Hindu customs and traditions, while keeping a steady silence on Islam and Christianity.

Organised a procession in Salem in Tamil Nadu with big cutouts of Ram, Sita and Hanuman garlanded with slippers.

Reportedly used to tell his followers that if they encountered Brahmin and a snake on the road, they should kill the Brahmin first.

Was very pro British. He wanted the British to rule India and didn’t join the independence moment

Was responsible for starting reverse casteism against the minority brahmin community in the Hindu fold

Was a firm believer of Aryan invasion theory

This is the man you want to follow. This man has absolutely no respect for the religion you wish to see "reformed".

And we're the clowns? Please. Literally all we have asked for is to stop the destruction of our temples and respect our history and culture, and you fuckers take that as a personal insult.

If us speaking of about history and all the crimes that have been committed us makes you uncomfortable, maybe you're the damn problem.

Take your Hinduphobic ass somewhere else, and let us live in peace, you dickhead.

[Exhibit 43]

[beguines]

These thinkers, many of whom were educated in foreign European capitals, would build on the orientalist fascination of European philosophers and scholars who spoke dolefully of the loss of "an archaic Hindu civilization." The Indian subcontinent, these British, French, and German scholars contended, had once been the cradle of all humanity and that "humanism" itself had been lifted out of Hindu values. They argued that Hindu society had faltered, lost its zeal, and through patriotism and nationalism would find reinvigoration. Among these, Dayananda Saraswati (1824–83), Aurobindo (1872–1950), Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), as well as organizations like the Arya Samaj (Society of Aryans; formed in 1875) and the Hindu Mahasabha (1915), were the most prominent. As a collective, they sought to both resurrect a "forgotten" and "erased" glory of India's Hindu past as well as reformulate Hindus as a respectable, palatable, and intelligible community. To accomplish this project, author Jyotirmaya Sharma says the quartet of thinkers appeared to agree on several ideas they argued would resuscitate the Hindu identity.

First, it meant transforming Hinduism into a codified religion, founded on racial and doctrinal unity. It was foreigner, after all, who had diluted the nation from its Hindu core and made India insular; it was now the duty to recast India anew in the vision of a glorious past. Hinduism was therefore India and India was only Hindu. "Binding them all together was a singular vision of Hindu India and its destiny," Sharma writes. All questions on religion were to be henceforth directed to the Vedas and the so-called golden age (400–600 CE), in what Sharma describes, as "the end of theology." "There was little scope for a diversity of opinions, practices, rituals, observances, and individual choices," Sharma argues. Or as author Anustap Basu explains, "it meant compacting a pantheon of a million gods in axiomatic Hindu icons like Rama or Krishna, absorbing errant, syncretic pieties, and picturing a singular Hindu telos."

Second, it involved recasting Hinduism as masculine, aggressive, and militarily proficient. As Sharma writes, "Hindus had to live and die for an ideal." According to this logic, the Muslim "invasions" and British colonial rule had only succeeded because Hindus had lost their way. The philosophers argued that Hindus would have to adapt, fight back, or perish. Third, to treat Hinduism as the most perfect of faiths, or as the mother of all religions. Fourth, to be forever vigilant of threats from "outsiders." The vilification of Muslims was therefore central to the revitalization of the Hindu quest for self-preservation. But this notion of self-preservation was also contingent on the creation of a majority community (for without it there would be nothing to protect). "Those who did not fall in line had to be marginalized, ignored, harassed, and if need arose, eliminated," Sharma writes. Fifth, the answers to all questions were to be found in the Vedas. The final feature was the authorization to be blunt and harsh when dealing with enemies.

Scholars argue that the codification of the Hindu identity itself was the consolidation of an upper caste identity. In other words, Hindu nationalism itself was a caste project that had instrumentalized the British Census of the late nineteenth century to include all of the different religious and cultural rituals that existed in colonial India under the banner of "Hinduism." Not only did the census compress the different castes and tribal communities into the category of "Hindu," it allowed upper caste Brahmins the opportunity to wield control over all as well as promulgate a fiction that there had once been a unified Hindu civilization. These were the origins of Hindu majoritarianism. "These Brahminical scholars and leaders who talk about Hindutva being the religion of all castes must realize that the Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, and Scheduled Tribes of this country have nothing in common with the Hindus," Dalit writer and activist Kancha Ilaiah argues.

Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

[science-fiction-is-real]

I'm sorry, my Tolkien girlies, but we do need to actually acknowledge that Tolkein's books are actually and actively racist.

Like. It's racist. Ok.

The idea that some races of people are inherently bad.

The constant framing of "the west" as a good and free and fair world that needs constant defence from invasion of corruption from the south and the east.

The idea that populations who align with your geopolitical enemies are purely doing so either because they themselves are evil or because they are brainwashed and lack capacity for free thought and agency.

It is actually racist. And Tolkein didn't really have any excuses for it.

Many people try to defend Tolkein as an anti racist because of a letter he wrote to a Nazi rejecting antisemitism and the notion of an Aryan race. But not buying into Nazi race science is an extremely low bar, and doesn't excuse all of the race science nonsense that actually exists in the book.

For example, I have just gotten done reading the chapter "The Council of Elrond" where the characters openly discuss how the men of Numenor literally had more pure and superior genetics which blessed their descendants with long life, but how this lifespan had decreased over time due to their descendants mixing with "lesser" men. In this chapter we also listen to Boromir go on a racist tirade about Gondor being attacked by savagery from the east. Not just that Gondor is having border disputes with a geopolitical enemy. No. The people attacking Gondor are eastern savages who will corrupt the whole world if they manage to take ground.

And Jesus Christ. Obviously it is ok if you enjoy Tolkein's books. There are positive themes in the books as well, sometimes even liberatory themes too. I don't think liking Tolkein's work despite his clear racism has the same ethical baggage, as say, liking the work of JK Rowling despite her transphobia. As Rowling is actively campaigning against trans rights at this moment and you are actively helping that process when you give her money, whereas Tolkein is obviously dead.

I don't know. As a Tolkein fan myself, I'm not sure how to wrestle with this moral complexity.

But also you really really need to not allow your enjoyment of a work to get in the way of understanding its reactionary themes and elements. You need to be able to analyze media as it is or you will passively absorb its propagandistic effects uncritically. (And all art is propaganda by the way.)

This does actually have real life implications. How many self-described liberals gleefully reblogged memes comparing Russian soldiers to orcs when discussing the Ukraine war? People who swore up and down that they were good progressives and anti racists, and that they actually hated colonialism which was why they were supporting Ukraine in the first place. But still they very uncritically, without a second thought, described the foot soldiers of America's geopolitical enemies as Orcs, savagely attacking the good and pure Western country as they invaded from the East?

My good friend, do you not understand that when Tolkein wrote about Orcs, he projecting his own orientalist anxieties about those very same Russian people? Do you not see how cold war anxiety and the specter of eastern communism may have influenced Tolkein's depiction of western nations in his world as good and free and noble while the East was corrupted and brainwashed? My friend, you are doing a racism. You are doing the same racism that Tolkein did, for the same reasons, against the same people.

The fact that "Lord of the Rings" is racist is interesting. It helps us see the text more clearly as a work of British literature, as a work of the early - mid 20th century. It helps us see it in the light of the world wars that Tolkein survived, the Red Scare paranoia of the era, and the complex geopolitical moment of the time and place where he wrote LOTR.

And if we ignore the negative elements in a text we enjoy, we also are depriving ourselves of a more rich and interesting understanding of the text. We intellectually stunt ourselves when we say "no, not my face, he can't be problematic," and close ourselves off to seeing the full spectrum of color contained within a work.

It also makes it interesting to observe how people all over the world, including many people of color and people from colonized and poor countries, have enjoyed the work and engaged with it.

I am literally arguing that you will enjoy the literature more if you acknowledge and attempt to understand even the morally repugnant elements of it.

I am a Tolkein fan. I love LOTR and the Hobbit. And I will continue to read these books and draw fan art and participate in the fandom. Maybe that makes me a bad person, or maybe that just makes me a chick with a hobby. But please for the love of Christ. Can we stop ignoring the big racist Oliphant in the room?

[memories-of-ancients]

The Non-German defenders of the Atlantic Wall,

In 1942 Germany began construction of the Atlantic Wall in order to defend its territorial conquests from a possible Allied amphibious invasion.  The wall consisted of various fortifications, mines, tank barriers, mortars, artillery pieces, machine gun nests, pillboxes, and bunkers, and was designed to fend off a beach landing. On June 6th, 1944 Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy and quickly overran these defenses.  Thousands of German soldiers were captured, but surprisingly many of those captured were not German at all.

At the very beginning of the war Germany upheld its Nazi belief in pure Aryanism, believing themselves to be the superior super race. However as the war dragged on, that sentiment gave way as casualties grew, manpower shortages worsened, and it was becoming clearer that Germany was losing to the Allies. Both the Wehrmacht and the SS began to accept foreign volunteers with many of these foreign troops being sent to garrison the defenses of the Atlantic Wall.  These soldiers came from all over Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.  

The reasons for volunteering were varied, some political, many as a necessity for survival.  By far the most numerous foreign volunteers were those from the Soviet Union. Some volunteered because they were disgruntled with Soviet rule, for example the Russian Liberation Army which joined the Wehrmacht to oppose communism in Russia. However most volunteered as an alternative to spending the rest of the war as a POW.  Soviet POWs were treated terribly during the war. Often the Germans dealt with Soviet POWs by erecting open air prisons in which thousands would be confined. Thousands would be forced into the prison, where they would be exposed to elements, given little food, and basically be left to die of starvation, disease, or exposure.

During the war, around 3.5 million Soviets prisoners would die in these camps or in concentration camps. For many Soviet POWs, service with the German Army was the only way to avoid such a horrible fate. Typically, these troops were often not very reliable in combat as they were not very motivated to sacrifice life and limb for their conquerors. In some cases they proved to by a grave liability, such as the case of a battalion of soldiers from Georgia which manned the Atlantic Wall defenses on the Dutch island of Texel, who in 1945 openly revolted against the Germans.

One notable extreme was the Indian Legion, also known as the Azad Regiment, which consisted of volunteers from India who believed that a German victory would secure India’s independence from the British Empire. 

As well as many thousands of foreign volunteers, there were also many thousands of foreign conscripts who were forcibly made to serve in the German Army.

By far the most numerous conscripts were Polish.  Before World War I many parts of Poland had been a part of Prussia, and later the German Empire. When Germany re-conquered these territories they considered many of the people living there to be ethnic Germans.  As such, they were considered full citizens of the Reich and thus were subject to German draft laws.  Many still believed themselves to be German and thus were willing to fight for the German cause, however many spoke Polish, had adopted Polish customs, and identified themselves as Polish. Regardless, refusing to obey the draft laws could result in serious consequences, not only for the individual but his family as well. Around 500,000 Polish were conscripted into the Wehrmacht, with many serving on the Atlantic Wall. Like the Soviets, the Polish also were not the best soldiers for Germany as they were often unwilling to fight for their taskmasters. Around 85,000 would defect to the Free Polish Forces during the Normandy invasion and subsequent advance to Paris. In addition to Polish Troops, a number of Czechs considered ethnic Germans would be conscripted as well. In the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan this is demonstrated in a scene in which two "German" soldiers are surrendering to a pair of American soldiers. The Americans mock them before gunning them down. What many viewers may not relize is that they were not Germans, but Czechs, and were shouting in Czech that they were Czechs who didn't kill anyone, and just wanted to surrender.

By far the most interesting extreme in this instance were a group of Koreans who were captured by American forces during the D-Day invasion. For three decades Japan had occupied Korea, and the men were forcibly conscripted into the Japanese Imperial Army. In 1939 Japan attempted to invade the Soviet Union through Mongolia, but were badly beaten at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. The Koreans were captured and sent to the gulags, but with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, were then forced to join the Red Army and fight on the Eastern Front.  They were then captured by the Germans, conscripted into the German Army, and forced to man the defenses of the Atlantic Wall at Normandy.

Overall, one in six defenders of the Atlantic Wall were not German. Nothing demonstrates the diversity of these defenders more than the photo below of a group Wehrmacht soldiers captured during D-Day

Front Row (from left to right):  a Yugoslav; an Italian; a Turk; Polish

Back Row (from left to right): a German; a Czech; a Russian who was forced into the army when the Nazis occupied his town; and a Mongolian.

[scotianostra]

2nd March 1938 saw the arrest by MI5 of Jessie Jordan, the Dundee hairdresser who would later be convicted as a spy for Nazi Germany.

It is thought Jessie allied with the Nazis in order to get her daughter officially recognised as being of true Aryan descent — something that hadn’t happened previously because of Jessie’s illegitimate birth. She had been married to a German and lived there for several years until they divorced in 1937 when she returned home.

She was a low-level agent, and in addition to handling mail from America, she compiled a map of coastal defences between Montrose and North Berwick, which she had planned to pass on to Germany.

However, one of her colleagues, who had grown suspicious of Jessie, discovered the map — and when Dundee police began investigating, they realised MI5 were already on her trail.

A letter forwarded to Hamburg by Jessie was marked with her address, which allowed the investigation to convict her and track down other Nazi agents in America.

A New York spy ring was rumbled by the FBI off the back of her mistakes — marking the first time the US and the UK had worked together on intelligence at a time when the two nations still actively spied on each other.

She was paid with £5 notes which at the time were still uncommon — it would be like one of our £100 notes today. The serial numbers on them allowed you to trace it through the system and so they were able to find the bank in the Netherlands where they had been withdrawn by the Germans.

She wasn’t much of a spy. She left a trail of evidence, but she only had around a week of training. She was very quickly found out in art by one of the women who worked in the hairdressers, Mary Curran.

The entire tale, encompassing Jessie’s arrest right up to the conviction of the New York spies, was dramatized in 1939 for the Warner Brothers’ film Confessions of a Nazi Spy. It was the first Hollywood film to strongly criticise Hitler’s regime and sparked a change in the way Americans perceived Germany prior to the Second World War.

She was found guilty of espionage and in May 1939 was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. She was initially sent to Saughton Prison, during which time she became unwell and underwent an invasive operation that included a sub-total hysterectomy. When the Second World War started, she was transferred to Aberdeen Prison.

During her time in prison, Jordan was described by her Dundee solicitor J. R. Bond as “a model prisoner, who showed off her needlework and exhibited no interest in an appeal.” Bond further noted that “she is not in the least depressed.” As a result of this good behaviour, Jordan was granted early release in 1941, but was immediately arrested and interned as an enemy alien. She remained in this internment throughout the war, and after the war ended she was deported to Germany. Jordan died in Hamburg in 1954.