Hitler and the Arabs
The untold story of the alliance between Hitler’s Reich and radical Islam.
In December 1942, Berlin founded the Islamic Central Institute. The inaugural address was given by Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. In it, he identified the common enemies of Germany and Islam: the Jews, Britain, and America. He hailed the opportunity for Muslims to free themselves from oppression.
This was the peak of the anomalous alliance between Nazi Germany and the Islamic Arab world. What was this strange relationship between fascist Germany and Islamic Palestine? And how should it be interpreted, given the ongoing War on Terror?
The Nazis
The Nazis hated the Jews, but they were also opposed to organized religion in general. Hitler tolerated Catholicism and Protestantism in Germany, mostly for political reasons, but he ultimately saw the churches as a threat to the Nazi regime.
Given their anti-religious background, it would seem ludicrous that the Nazis would align themselves with religious zealots. But the Mufti and the Fürher both had common enemies, which laid the groundwork for an alliance.
The Mufti
In May 1921, the British colonial authorities in Mandate Palestine appointed him as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Amin was named the chairman of Palestine’s Supreme Muslim Council a year later.
He received command over the Mandate’s sharia courts, religious funding, as well as custody over some of Islam’s holiest sites. This gave him significant political sway over the Muslims of Palestine. He soon emerged as a figurehead for Islam across the globe.
It was a strange choice by the British. But at this point, the British saw him as a moderate. He was an Arab nationalist who had served in the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in 1916. He demonstrated a willingness to cooperate with colonial authorities. Before the revolt, he had served in the Ottoman army, but had defected to the British cause in WWI. Amin came from a rich family that benefited from British colonial rule, and it was hoped that he would maintain the imperial status quo.
Mandatory Palestine
But the Middle East was extremely volatile. After the Great War, the British promised Emir Faisal his own pan-Arab state. Pan-Arabism was an ideology that had emerged in the late 19th century, and it called for a unified ethnic Arab nation. It was one of the driving factors that allowed the British to unify the Arabs against Ottoman rule.
At the same time, the Jews were forming their own pan-ethnic ideology, called Zionism. After centuries of persecution in Europe, the Zionists called for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
With the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the British promised to create a Zionist homeland. Faisal met with Zionist leaders, and allowed for a Jewish state. The Arab leader did so with some stipulations. He asked that the Jewish state stay within the area of Arab independence, and be closely conjoined with that cause. Pressured by colonial France, the British reneged on their promises to both the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East. The whole thing came apart, just as al-Husseini became the Grand Mufti.
The Mufti was initially receptive to British rule, but he became increasingly alarmed by Jewish immigration into Arab lands. In 1928, the Supreme Muslim Council alleged a Zionist conspiracy to destroy Islam’s holy sites on the Temple Mount. This led to violent clashes a year later, with 113 Jews and 116 Arabs killed in August 1929. In December 1931, the Mufti organized a World Islamic Congress in Jerusalem, calling for a boycott on trade with Jews. He denounced Zionism as “an aggression, detrimental to Muslim well-being.”
The British continued to permit an influx of Jews into Palestine. Both sides, Jews and Arabs alike, became increasingly vocal and violent in their demands. The British were unwilling to commit fully to either side of the conflict. So the Mufti decided to speak with Hitler’s Germany instead.
Hitler meets the Arabs
A week after passing the Enabling Act in March of 1933, the Mufti met with Heinrich Wolff, the German consul general in Jerusalem. The Mufti praised the new regime in Germany, and called on Muslims to export fascist and anti-democratic ideals across the world.
A month later, a second meeting near the Dead Sea, the Mufti and the sheiks of Palestine expressed approval for Hitler’s Jew-killings in Germany. Still, at this point, the Nazi-Arab alliance is mostly just words.
Al-Husseini hated the Jews, but he still wanted a political solution, not a violent military one. In 1933, he refused a request by Muhammad al-Qassam, a Syrian preacher and Arab nationalist, to join a jihad against the British.
On the other hand, Hitler’s Germany had little interest in meddling in the Middle East. They wanted to expel their Jewish population, and encouraged Jewish emigration into Palestine. The Nazis didn’t want to jeopardize this plan by angering the British, so they budded out of Palestine. In June 1933, the Nazis declined to assist a pro-Nazi Arab nationalist party.
By the end of 1935, the situation in Palestine deteriorated rapidly. Al-Qassam was killed by British police, sparking a general strike among the Arabs. The Mufti reluctantly turned against the British, calling for an end to Jewish immigration. Britain responded by arresting the Mufti and outlawing his Higher Committee. He fled Palestine in October 1937.
The Mufti fled to Syria and Lebanon, then under a French Mandate. Pressured by the French, he fled to Iraq in October 1939. Once again, he fell into the Axis orbit. Iraq was an independent monarchy. Its leader was aligned with the British, but many subordinate leaders favored Nazi Germany. Iraq became an exile for exiled Arab nationalists. There, Al-Husseini became allies with Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, who planned a coup in Iraq.
The Iraq Question
The Mufti sent his private secretary to Berlin in January 1941, with a letter to Hitler. He emphasized the role that a pro-German regime in Iraq could play in disrupting British communications and supplying oil to the Reich.
With German troops fighting in North Africa, Hitler expressed interest in aligning with the Mufti. The Fürher responded on April 3, pledging military support for anti-British revolts by the Arabs. Given the green light, the coup took place on April 1.
Distracted by the impending invasion of the USSR, Hitler sent little more than a token force from the Luftwaffe, along with some ammo shipments. The plotters were successful, and Rashid Ali installed himself as prime minister. The coup was quickly reversed, when the British and their Jordanian allies decisively defeated them in May.
Al-Husseini was forced to flee Iraq. Passing through Iran, Turkey, and Italy, he arrived in Berlin on November 6. On November 28, the Mufti was invited to meet Hitler. In this meeting, the Fürher and the Mufti rallied against their common enemies: the Bolsheviks, the British, and the Jews. Amin assured Hitler of Arab support for Nazi Germany, but the Fürher refused to issue a written commitment for Arab independence.
Propaganda wars
Hitler felt it was too early for such considerations. He wanted to focus on destroying Judeo-Bolshevism in Europe. After that, the Reich’s next objective would be to destroy the Jews in the Arab world. Hitler cared little about Arab independence. He was much more interested in Mufti as a source of anti-British propaganda.
The Germans had already been targeting the Arabs with propaganda since 1939, when a Nazi radio station was founded in Zeesen. Located in a small town southwest of Berlin, it was one of the finest in the world. Nazi stations targeted an estimated 90,000 shortwave radios in the Middle East and North Africa. Radios were crucial for propaganda, since most of the Arabs were illiterate. Radios were often installed in cafes, markets, and other public spaces. They reached a large audience. The stations were staffed by German Orientalist scholars, and by native Arab speakers. Programs began with Quranic verses, and presented WWII as a battle of the common enemies between Nazi Germany and Islam.
The Mufti himself was central in this propaganda effort. In summer of 1942, Ribbentrop decided to step up Nazi propaganda with coincide with Rommel’s success in North Africa. On June 16, the Mufti made a broadcast, condemning the British as agents of Jewish capitalism. In July, 200,000 leaflets were flown to North Africa, with an appeal from the Mufti for Muslims to wage jihad against the Allies.
Nazi propagandists attempted to synchronize Nazism with Islamic beliefs. They drew commonalities between the two ideologies. Hitler saw the Arabs as racially inferior, but he did admire Islam as a religion. To Hitler, both Nazism and Islam embodied the values of strength, discipline, practicality, and community. Hitler liked how Islam was a faith by the sword, and saw commonality between the Early Arab Conquests and his own aggressive expansionism. At least that was what Albert Speer claimed after the war.
Ultimately, Nazi Germany’s interest in the Arab world came from the mundane need for manpower. When the Allies landed in North Africa, propagandists worked tirelessly. They invoked images of the Crusades, Axis propaganda presented Operation Torch as an act of Anglo-Saxon and Jewish aggression against the Arab Muslim world. The Nazis urged the Arabs to join their fight against the Jews, warning that the British would resettle the Jews at the expense of the Arabs in Palestine.
Berlin’s Islamic Institute
The Nazi Foreign Office saw the Islamic Central Institute as an expedient way to cement ties with the Arabs. With support of exiles, such as al-Husseini, it was a propaganda field day for the Axis powers. The opening ceremony was heavily laden with religious overtones.
The opening day, December 18, was the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. It was attended by Muslim troops of the Wehrmacht’s Azerbaijani Legion. The opening address, approved by Rippentrop and broadcast across North Africa and the Middle East, was given by the Mufti.
Hitler’s overtures to the Arab world were not very effective. Many more Muslims served in the British Empire and the French French armies than did for Nazi Germany or the Mufti. The Axis powers had little to show for their efforts. The Allies had been in North Africa for two and a half years, and the Axis powers were unable to kick them out.
Husseini would continue to support Nazi Germany throughout the rest of the war. He met with Heinrich Himmler, and even toured concentration camps. The Mufti recruited Muslims into the SS. Even with those efforts, the Mufti’s words rang hollow to Muslims across Cairo, Benghazi, and East Jerusalem.
Conclusion
While little came of the mutual sympathy between Nazi Germany and the Arab world, the existence of such a relationship is deeply disturbing. It reveals a lot about the synergy between fascism and Islamic totalitarianism, both then and now.
In the modern-day War on Terror, radical Islam largely reflects the influence of European fascism. When al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11, they were sheltered and aided by the Taliban’s totalitarian regime. The US went to war against Saddam’s Iraq, whose Ba’athist regime had hints of Hitlerism written all over it. So does Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, which has repeatedly deployed chemical weapons against civilians. The Middle East is further threatened by the growing hegemony of Iran, a Shia clericalist dictatorship that regularly chants “Death to America” and aspires to genocide against Israel’s Jews.
Today, the US faced many adversaries from the Arab world. America is the empire of liberty, and a beacon of hope and freedom to the world. Since that fateful day in 2001, America has found herself in an irrepressible conflict against Islamofascism, which is committed to dismantling democratic and liberal values.
The alliance between Hitler and the Palestinian Mufti is much more than just a historical curiosity. It is a warning, with clear implications for the West’s present-day crusade against jihadism.
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