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JC
4/3/2002 (16:29) |
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http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/mufti4.htm
However the Mufti was not satisfied with unofficial or moral help from the Nazis. What he wanted were official statements. On 21 July 1937, he tried to establish an even closer relationship with Germany when he paid a visit to the new German Consul-General, Döhle, in Palestine. He repeated his former support for Germany and 'wanted to know to what extent the Third Reich was prepared to support the Arab movement against the Jews'. Though the Germans officially refused to change their policy, they gave more attention to Palestine. In September 1937 two young SS officers, Karl Adolf Eichmann and Herbert Hagen, were sent to Palestine. They had the clear objective of getting 'acquainted with the country and the life and to establish contact with people' among others the Mufti. Although he had already escaped arrests from the British authorities and was not seeking refuge among the Lebanese Muslims he soon found himself well established as a German agent.
They must have got along fine because in 1938, according to Brenner, the Mufti was already on the payroll of Abwehr II, the German counterintelligence and sabotage division. However, Yisraeli dates his reception of German money from as early as 1936. In 1938 the Abwehr II had plans to deliver shiploads of arms to the Mufti, by way of Saudi Arabia and later Iraq. However, they cancelled the cargo because of British protest. Since the Axis could not extend their claws deeper into Palestine's political life, Iraq became the victim through the Mufti's massive organisation. The Iraqis accepted him as an Arab national hero and he soon established his headquarters in Baghdad. The Iraqi government sponsored his activities as well as private 'charity' organisations, special taxation on every Iraqi governmental official, vast sums of Palestinian Arab donations. Added to all this were large contributions from Germany and Italy, Saudi-Arabia and Egypt. This allowed him to live a life in luxury and continue his propaganda against the British and Jews. His propaganda succeeded in establishing a group of pro-Axis officials. Early in 1941 the Mufti and the 'Golden Square' pro-German army officers, led by General Rashid Ali, forced the Iraqi Prime Minister, the pro-British Nuri Said Pasha, to resign. In May he declared jihad against Britain. This meant that the Muslims, at least his supporters, were committed in the fight against Britain, 'the greatest foe of Islam'. The pro-Axis coup had proved successful, but it did not last for long. In a few months British troops had crushed the rebellion and the Mufti had to vanish again; this time his destination was Germany, via Iran, Turkey and Mussolini's office in Rome.
The Mufti in Berlin
The Mufti had blamed the Iraqi Jews for the unsuccessful coup d'etat in Iraq. He called them 'the fifth column in Iraq', the very ones whose ancestors had lived there since the Babylonian captivity. Some Iraqi soldiers and civilians agreed with the Mufti and attacked the Jews who had gathered in public to cheer the new government. The results were horrifying: around 600 Jews, some say 179, were killed, thousands injured in the farhud and 586 shops and warehouses looted. A committee of inquiry, appointed by the Iraqi government, discovered that Haj Amin had been one of the main figures behind the pogrom. Since Haj Amin had adopted the policy of blaming Jews for everything that went wrong, there was no surprise that he allied himself with the Nazi government in Berlin.
On 20 November 1941 the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, received him in Berlin. Their talks were the basis for the meeting with Hitler the following day. Details of the Mufti's conversation with hitler were documented in the Mufti's diary and by the Germans, given in the appendix. The main themes were:
The Mufti... The Arabs are Germany's natural friends... They are therefore prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in a war, not only negatively by the commission of act of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion... In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for the independence and the unity of Palestine, Syria and Iraq. ... The Führer... Germany was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time direct a similar appeal to non European nations as well.
The Führer did not give, however, official support to the Arab cause, mainly because of 'military reasons'. He proposed, however, as soon as the German armies would pass into the Southern Caucasus the Arabs would be liberated from the British yoke and
Germany's objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power... The moment that Germany's tank divisions and air squadrons had made their appearance south of Caucasus, the public appeal requested by the Grand Mufti could go out to the Arab world.
The master plan of Hitler and the Mufti was, thus, first to solve the Jewish problem in Europe and subsequently tackle the problem in the Middle East. The Mufti raised no objections, he fully and gladly participated in the destruction of European Jewry. However, he had to wait until the German armies would enter the Caucasus for the destruction of the Mizrachi Jews who had been living in the Middle East since time immemorial.
The Mufti's part of the deal was to raise support for Germany among the Muslims in the Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Middle East. For that purpose the Germans founded the 'Arab Bureau', under his leadership, in Berlin.
The Mufti's activities in the Third Reich
The Berlin based headquarters of the Mufti controlled almost a world-wide net of collaborators. Sponsored by German money he extended his claws to the Middle East, as well as to other areas where Muslims lived. His main activities were: 1) Radio propaganda; 2) Espionage and fifth column activities in the Middle East; 3) Organising Muslims into military units in Axis-occupied countries; and 4) Establishing some German controlled Arab Legions and the Arab Brigade. He visited the Balkans, had his picture taken saluting Hitler, met Ante Pavelic, the Croatian 'butcher' and dictator, and was even in touch with Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Also, he was in charge of supervising Axis propaganda to Muslims all over the world and
himself went on the radio on several occasions and his broadcasts were among the most violent pro-Axis utterances ever produced. He had at his disposal no less than six 'freedom stations'... urging the Arabs of Palestine and Moslems all over the world, including those in the United States, to rise against the Allies, join the fifth column, commit acts of sabotage, and kill the Jews... In addition, Haj Amin supplied the Middle East with propaganda papers and pamphlets in Arabic.
His greatest achievement was, however, the recruitment of tens of thousands of the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania to the Waffen SS. His Arab Legions later participated in massacring tens of thousands of partisan Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. In 1943 there were 20,000 Muslims under arms in 'his' division of the Waffen SS, the Handschar. (See: George Lepre, Himmler's Bosnian Division. The Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943-1945, Schiffer Military History, Atglen, PA, 1997). Nevertheless, the Balkan adventure was only his spare-time activity because his main interest was the fight against World Jewry. In the annual protest against the Balfour Declaration, which in 1943 was staged in the large Luftwaffe hall in Berlin, the Mufti attacked the 'Anglo-Saxon and Jewish conspiracy' phrase he so frequently used, and said:
The Treaty of Versailles was a disaster for the Germans as well as for the Arabs. But the Germans know how to get rid of the Jews. That which brings us close to the Germans and sets us in their camp is that up to day.
On 1 March 1944 he added in a broadcast from Berlin: 'Arabs! Rise as one and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor.' The Mufti did not only intend to massacre the Yishuv Jewry, his hatred of the World Jewry had already driven him to participate in the Nazi Final Solution.
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