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arab leaders in wartime berlin

In some of the recent literature on the Third Reich and the Arab world, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husayni is portrayed as an Arab equivalent to Hitler or to other top Nazi party officials. He sometimes appears as the spokesperson for a singular Arab world in North Africa and the Middle East during the Second World War, a role he in fact never tired of claiming for himself. Some of the recent literature also implies that al-Husayni’s hatred of Jews was a reflection of a historically and deeply rooted, cultural and political anti-Semitism among the Islamic-Arab population. Of course, his embrace of Nazi Germany, its leadership and policies, in particular with regard to the Jews before and during the Second World War, is certainly well documented and undeniable.¹ That he did come to understand, accept, and support the Nazi genocide against the Jews in Europe is clear, even if in reality he did not speak for all Arabs. His own particular views and aims were not necessarily a re flec-tion of a uniform, monolithic Arab naflec-tionalism, which given its many vari-ations and movements then and now, did not exist.² It should also be remembered that al-Husayni was one of the relatively few primary contacts that Hitler’s government was able to establish with Arab notables and leaders

1 See most recently Rubin and Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists.

2 Again, see the growing body of scholarly literature from the past decade or so by scholars in the field of modern Middle Eastern history on the topic of the Arabs and National Socialism, referred to in the Introduction, among them: Stefan Wild (ed.), Die Welt des Islams, Special Theme Issue:

“Islamofascism”? 52 (2012); Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust; Litvak and Webman, From Empathy to Denial; Gershoni and Nordbruch, Sympathie und Schrecken; Nordbruch, Nazism in Syria and Lebanon; and Höpp, Wien, and Wildangel (eds.), Blind für die Geschichte?. See also the essays in the special edition of Geschichte und Gesellschaft 37 (2011). See also most recently Rubin and Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists, 175ff.

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and with Arab nationalism in general during the war years. This was possible, moreover, because the Mufti and a few other Arab leaders were able to escape the Middle East and to live in Berlin as exiles for much of the war, while most of the Arab world remained outside of Axis control and influence. For the purposes of this study, the Mufti and other Arab exiles in Berlin together constitute a useful lens into the vicissitudes and ultimate intent of German Middle East policy during the Second World War. However, they are perhaps somewhat less so in any effort to fully understand the larger complexities of Arab attitudes toward Hitler, National Socialism, and the Holocaust.

As stated in the Introduction, this study does not attempt to offer an analysis of, and general conclusions about, the reception of National Socialism and its policies among the Arab populations of the Middle East and North Africa before and during the Second World War. It does, however, consider the attitudes and activities of Amin al-Husayni and the few other Arabs during their exile in Berlin and Rome in some detail, particularly between the fall of 1941 and the end of the war. Because of their exile in Berlin and in Rome during the war years, from late 1941 to 1945, there exists a substantial documentary record in German and other European languages that provides insight, particularly into the Mufti’s views and activities. More important for this study, the relationship between those Arab exiles and their host govern-ments in Berlin and Rome sheds considerable light on the real intent and policies of the German government during those years. Therefore, this chapter will address the wartime relationship of the two most important Arab person-alities living in exile in Berlin and Rome, Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, the Iraqi nationalist and leader of the short-lived coup in Baghdad in April 1941, with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. This relationship will be examined within the important context of al-Husayni and al-Gaylani’s activities in Berlin and Rome beginning in November 1941. From the perspective of specifically German interests and aims in the Middle East from January1933, through their arrival in Rome and Berlin in the fall of 1941, to their increasing isolation and eventual irrele-vance in Nazi policy following the collapse of the Axis in North Africa in 1943, al-Husayni and al-Gaylani remained figures whose usefulness and role in German Middle East policy was strictly controlled, limited, usually uncertain, and relatively brief.³Moreover, among the relatively small group of Arab exiles living and operating in Berlin and Rome during the war, Nazi authorities would quickly learn that political and cultural outlooks and goals even among this relative handful of Arabs were varied, and anything but homogenous.

The German Foreign Office in Berlin was the state agency in charge of overseeing al-Husayni, al-Gaylani, and other Arabs in exile in wartime Berlin.

3 See for example Peter Wien,“Arabs and Fascism: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives,” in Die Welt des Islams (Special Theme Issue on‘Islamofascism’), 52 (2012): 332–333.

The records of the Foreign Office in Berlin clearly demonstrate its operational assumption that the exiled Arab community was at a minimum divided into two distinct political groups, each under the control of its own leader. In April 1942, for example, the diplomat Erich von Granow, at the time stationed at the German embassy in Rome, sent to the Foreign Office in Berlin a list with brief biographical sketches that he had composed of individual Arabs living in both Berlin and Rome who were working with either the Mufti or with al-Gaylani. He described the two groups as living and working separately from eachother:“The clearly visible division of the Arabs in Berlin into two camps, the one around the Grand Mufti and the other around Rashid Ali, is even more pronounced in Rome. . .”⁴Von Granow also describes important professional, generational, ideological, and cultural differences between the two groups, differences that reflected not only those between the two leaders themselves, but also the considerable diversity of the larger Arab world. Most of all, he contrasted the more secular and western inclinations of al-Gaylani and the generally older people around him with the more Islamic and pan-Arab tendencies of the Mufti and a somewhat younger group of people in his camp.

Indeed, the German embassy in Rome had responded a week before to com-plaints from the Mufti about Arab comments in Berlin that were critical of the Mufti and his positions, criticism that was allegedly supported by Fritz Grobba in the German Foreign Office. Von Granow’s response from Rome reflects some of the frustrations among German officials with the differences in Arab opinion and objectives that were prevalent just in Berlin and Rome:“I didn’t let these remarks go unanswered, and replied right away that ambassador Dr. Grobba along with all German civil servants involved in this matter were driven by purely objective motives to achieve a fair balance between the often conflicting views and wishes of the Arabs.”⁵

Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was clearly the more well-known and infamous of the two main Arab leaders living in exile in Berlin and Rome during the war. He was born into an influential and wealthy land-owning family from Jerusalem in 1895. By the nineteenth century, members of the al-Husayni family had become prominent religious leaders, jurists, and educators active in Ottoman and local Palestinian government.

Following the First World War, al-Husayni championed pan-Arab nationalism and independence, and was an ardent opponent of the two central elements of the postwar settlement in the Middle East, namely, the Anglo-French Mandates in the Fertile Crescent and the Jewish National Home in the Palestine Mandate.

Indeed, he had spoken out against Jewish immigration and settlement in

4 Zentrum Moderner Orient/Berlin (hereafter ZMO): Nachlaß Höpp, 1.27, Gesandtschaftsrat Dr. Granow (Rom) an das AA/Berlin,“Arabische Mitarbeiter Raschid Ali el-Gailanis und des Grossmuftis,” 14. April 1942.

5 ZMO: Nachlaß Höpp, 1.27, Gesandtschaftsrat Dr. Granow (ROM) an das AA/Berlin, “Besch-werde des Grossmuftis über des arabischen Rundfunksprecher Yunis Bahri,” 8. April 1942.

Palestine even before 1914. A devout Muslim who did not separate religion from politics, al-Husayni initially favored an Arab state that would join Palestine and Syria upon the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918; but postwar Anglo-French determination to control the Fertile Crescent, as well as the implementation of the 1917 Balfour Declaration’s promise of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, frustrated his hopes. Mindful of British power, he chose initially to focus his political activities on opposing Zionist efforts in Palestine rather than on immediate resistance to British rule.⁶He helped organ-ize demonstrations in early 1920 throughout the Palestine Mandate against the Jewish National Home. When these demonstrations turned violent and the British sought to arrest him, hefled first to Damascus and then to Transjordan.

Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner in the new Palestine Mandate, and a determined advocate of an accommodation between Jews and Arabs there, granted al-Husayni a pardon and allowed him to return to Palestine. In April 1921, al-Husayni succeeded to the position of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Disputes over the control of religious sites in Jerusalem led to Arab violence that soon engulfed Palestine in 1928–1929. This violence was soon followed by the Arab revolt and general strike that broke out in April 1936 and lasted until the summer of 1939. Between his elevation to the office of Mufti in 1921 and the outbreak of the Arab revolt in 1936, al-Husayni had actually discour-aged violence and sought cooperation with British authorities in hopes of derailing Zionist efforts to build up the Jewish National Home. He also tried to use his religious authority to promote the Palestinian national cause and, in particular, his own political position in the larger Arab world. Although he was not directly involved in the outbreak of the Arab general strike and revolt in Palestine in April 1936, the Mufti soon came to support violence against Britain and, particularly, against the Jews in the wake of Britain’s efforts to suppress the revolt. He denounced the Royal (Peel) Commission’s July 1937 plan to partition Palestine into nominally independent Arab and Jewish states. As the violence in Palestine intensified after publication of the partition plan, and fearing arrest by the British authorities, al-Husayni fled to Lebanon in October 1937, from which he tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to continue leading the revolt. Like the Zionist movement, but obviously for very different reasons, he rejected Britain’s May 1939 White Paper that would have guaranteed a permanent two-thirds Arab majority in a future, independent Palestinian state.

The outbreak of war in Europe in September forced him to leave Lebanon for Iraq, which had gained nominal independence in 1930 when Britain formally ended its Iraq Mandate and direct control. Rapid German victories in Europe in 1939 and 1940 led al-Husayni to conclude that an Axis victory over Britain and France was imminent and the likely key to finally ending both British

6 See Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem, 33–49.

domination of much of the Arab world and the Jewish National Home in Palestine. From Baghdad he continued to seek Axis diplomatic and material support in 1940 and 1941 for a regional Arab revolt against Britain, as outlined in the previous chapter. He encouraged the Germans to send armed forces to Iraq after al-Gaylani’s pro-Axis seizure of power in a Baghdad coup in April 1941. However, al-Gaylani’s short-lived coup, crushed by British forces a month later, forced the Mufti toflee to Iran, from which he eventually made his way via Turkey to Italy, and then to Germany, in the fall of that year.

As observed in earlier chapters, the Mufti had established contact with German consular officials in Palestine not long after Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933. His sporadic contact with German Consul-Generals Heinrich Wolff and Walter Döhle in Jerusalem between 1933 and his move to Lebanon in 1937 did not yield the public endorsement and material support from Germany that he had hoped to obtain for the Arab cause in Palestine and in the larger Arab world. With regard to Palestine, Nazi policy before the war was based on maintaining the geopolitical status quo in the region and, particularly, on promoting the emigration of Jews from Germany to Palestine. As concluded in the previous chapters, the small amount of Germanfinancial support for the Arab revolt that reached Palestine via other Arab states beginning in mid 1938 was meant merely to distract Britain from the crises in central Europe rather than to actually promote Arab independence in Palestine. That support never approached the level he had hoped to receive from Berlin. As previously noted, this support was something about which British officials in Palestine and the Fertile Crescent were aware, but that did not seem particularly worrisome to the British government. Beyond recognizing a recent upswing in German inter-est and activity in Palinter-estine, the British government, responding to quinter-estions in Parliament about German activities in Palestine in December 1938, had concluded: “. . .we have no direct proof of financial assistance being given to the Arabs from German sources, in the same way as there is no evidence of the supply of arms. . .”⁷ This response in Parliament seemed to recognize German activity in Palestine as part of a general increase in German propa-ganda throughout the Arab world, as part of Berlin’s effort to distract Britain and France from the situation in central Europe. It is difficult to know what role if any al-Husayni played in those German activities in Palestine in 1938 and 1939 from his exile in Beirut, especially since he was living in an area that was still under direct French mandatory rule. But it is certainly clear that prior to the outbreak of war in 1939, the Nazi regime remainedfirmly committed to the continuation of Jewish emigration from central Europe to Palestine, and had not yet committed itself to altering or otherwise compromising the imperial positions of Britain and France in the Middle East.

7 NAL: FO371/21871-E7394, HMG answer to question from MP Mander, December 14, 1938.