Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world

One notable example was the Anglo-Iraqi War, when the Golden Square (a political clique of four generals led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani) overthrew the pro-British 'Abd al-Ilah regency in Iraq and installed a pro-Axis government which was swiftly overthrown by British forces with the help of local Christian Assyrian levies.

[26] After a meeting with al-Husseini, Hitler remarked:With his blonde hair and blue eyes, he gives the impression, despite his shrew-like face, of a man whose ancestors were more likely to have been Aryans, and who perhaps is descended from the best Roman blood...In sheer intelligence he almost comes close to the Japanese.

[56] In April 1939, Nazi German Field Marshal Hermann Göring made an official visit to Tripoli, where he held discussions with the Italian colonial governor general of Libya, Italo Balbo.

[79] The two most noted Arab politicians who actively collaborated with the Nazis were the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini,[11][page needed][80] and the Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.

[107] On 20 January 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials met at a villa in Wannsee, a Berlin suburb, to coordinate the execution of the "Final Solution" (Endlösung) of the "Jewish question".

[121] Dr. Boumendjel, an Algerian politician, in a letter to local Jewish leaders, wrote: I can assure you that, in general, the Muslims have understood that it would be inappropriate for them to rejoice in the special measures of which the Jews of Algeria are the victims.

In the April 1943 session of the Oran Conseil général, the regional governing body, all the Muslim members signed a declaration affirming their "sincere friendly understanding with Frenchmen of the Israelite religion" and their support for restoring the Crémieux decree.

I would like to conclude simply by paying homage not only to the Muslim militants, and in particular to the organizers, but also to the Jews who knew how to thwart all of Deriko's and his deputy's petty attempts to provoke incidents among Arabs and Jews.Fascism was denounced by many in Egyptian society.

[158][159] Taha Hussein, the famous Egyptian academic and twenty-one time Nobel Prize in Literature nominee,[160] criticized the lack of freedom of thought in Nazi Germany, writing "They live like a society of insects.

It is therefore a duty more than a right for anyone who believes in spiritual, moral, and religious values, and in liberty, to stand up as the adversary of that man and that regime, and to mobilize every resource against both so that humanity may one day recover its civilization intact and its conscience in integrity.

[172] The Egyptian journalist and poet Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad was an outspoken critic of Nazism and a supporter of liberal democracy; he even fled to Sudan in an attempt to avoid being captured by the German army during the invasion of Egypt for publishing his anti-Nazi book "Hitler in the Balance".

The article argued that dictatorship, a nation led by "strength" and "virtue" instead of "words", was needed for Iraq, citing Atatürk's Turkey, Hitler's Germany, and Mussolini's Italy as examples as 'unselfish' rulers making strong decisions based on 'virtue'.

[228] On 1 April 1941, the day after General Erwin Rommel launched his Tunisian offensive, the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état, led by a secret alliance of nationalist politicians called the Golden Square, overthrew the pro-British Kingdom of Iraq.

al-Sabawi ordered Kadoori to instruct the Jewish community to lock themselves in their homes for a few days, stay off the telephones, cook enough food for a three-day journey, pack a single suitcase and prepare for transport to detention centers.

The situation of the English in the Middle East will be rendered more precarious, in the event of major German operations, if more British forces are tied down at the right moment by civil commotion or revolt.

[243] During the Spanish Civil War, around 700 Arabs volunteered for the Republicans,[244] including the Iraqis Nuri Roufeal Kotani and his compatriot Setty Abraham Horresh, who traveled from Syria to Lebanon to France, finally crossing the Pyrenees to fight fascism.

The violation of liberties, the intrusion into homes, the plundering of possessions, the beating and even murder of people are, your Excellency, acts which not only contravene law and justice but run counter to this nation's natural disposition for generosity, gallantry, and highmindedness...

While thus expressing our disapproval, we do not in the least deny the existence of traiors who belong to the Jewish sect and who have made common cause with the wicked band of 'Abd-ul-Ilāh and Nurī as-Sa'īd and their henchmen but we feel that punishment should be meted out to them according to the provisions of the law.

[317] Ali Abdel Halik, another Arab communist, left for Spain immediately after being freed from prison and later died from his wounds in a hospital in Albacete; he was treated by Hana Srulovici, a Jewish volunteer nurse from Palestine.

His broadcasts included anti-fascist content and lectures by Arab intellectuals, such as Ibrahim 'Abd al-Qadir al-Mazani and 'Azmi al-Nashashibi, who openly criticized German and Italian policies and supported collaboration with Great Britain.

His numerous letters which appealed to various governmental authorities to prevent Jewish emigration to Palestine have been widely republished and they have also been cited as documentary evidence of his collaboration with the Nazis and his participative support of their actions.

For instance, in June 1943, al-Husseini recommended to the Hungarian minister that it would be better to send the Jewish population of Hungary to the Nazi concentration camps in Poland rather than let them find asylum in Palestine (it is not entirely clear whether al-Husseini was aware of the extermination camps in Poland, e.g. Auschwitz, at this time): I ask your Excellency to permit me to draw your attention to the necessity of preventing the Jews from leaving your country for Palestine, and if there are reasons which make their removal necessary, it would be indispensable and infinitely preferable to send them to other countries where they would find themselves under active control, for example, in Poland...[332]Achcar quotes al-Husseini's memoirs about these efforts to influence the Axis powers to prevent emigration of Eastern European Jews to Palestine: We combatted this enterprise by writing to Ribbentrop, Himmler, and Hitler, and, thereafter, the governments of Italy, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and other countries.

[338]Al-Husseini helped organize Arab students and North African emigres in Germany into the Free Arabian Legion in the German Army that hunted down Allied parachutists in the Balkans and fought on the Russian front.

The full, correctly translated al-Jundi quote was: We were racialists, admiring Nazism, reading its books and the source of its thought, particularly Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation and H.S.

He made no place for socialist values in his political philosophy and had greater affinities for Nazi or even ancient Roman thought, categorizing people as slaves or masters, nobles or plebeians.

"[351]Achcar believes that Aflaq was more invested in communism during his time in 1930s France, citing the fact he was on the four member editorial committee of the communist paper Al-tali'a, which produced antifascist articles such as "The Nazi Brutes Murder Their Adversaries" and "Everyday Racism under Hitler".

[358] The founder and leader of the party, Ahmed Hussein had visited Nazi Germany, where he praised the Reichsarbeitsdienst, the organized labor service, as 'a return to true Islamic society, when there was no employer and no employee but all were brothers co-operating together.

[371] The Israeli historian Israel Gershoni, author of Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism – Attraction and Repulsion, described how the Arab–Israeli conflict has created a war of narratives, in which history is used for modern political purposes, overemphasizing the importance of certain events in an attempt to paint an image of eager collaboration: The grand mufti of Jerusalem al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and his active involvement in the Jewish genocide have figured prominently in Israeli efforts to prove the tangible collaboration between the "Arab world" and Nazis.

On the Israeli-Jewish side, it has triggered an emphasis on Holocaust denial and extensive, sometimes disproportionate, study of the intimate Nazi-mufti collaboration that is embodied by Husayni's unabashed enthusiasm for Nazi antisemitism and his historical role in the atrocities.

Achcar states: The Zionist narrative of the Arab world is based centrally around one figure who is ubiquitous in this whole issue – the Jerusalem Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who collaborated with the Nazis.