Nazis and Arabs?

One odd thing that I've seen in a lot of "Nazis win" AH is a tie between the Arabs and the Nazis.

This seems a bit odd to me. I mean, given that the Italians are killing thousands of Libyans to continue settling it with Italians, there's something that makes the Israel-Palestine conflict look like Woodstock (especially if the Vichy Regime follows suit in Algeria, and it will almost certainly do).

And, of course, Arabs don't exactly rate that high on the scale of racial purity.

So why would Nazis and the Arabs possibly do anything but glare at each other?

It has to do with the hatred of Jews shared by the Nazis and many modern Arabs, it is often forgotten before the creation of Israel, the Jews and Arabs got along quite well.

My bet, if Hitler wins World War II he'd set his target on Istanbul and Jerusalem, these after all are important Christian cities, and Hitler played the Christian card to the hilt. He also needed war to survive I think. Now assuming he takes Istanbul will it be a gift to the Italians? Here is the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire? or would it be more German living space

There were some diplomatic connections between the leaders of the Arab world and the Third Reich. They deliberately cultivated a relationship with the Palestinians in particular. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Amin al-Husseini, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and, IIRC, the late Yasser Arafat's uncle) traveled to Berlin to meet with Adolf Hitler and deliver radio propaganda in favor of the Third Reich.



I'm sure Grimm knows more about this than I do. The connections between the Third Reich and the Arab nationalist movement were similar to those between the Third Reich and fifth columns in India, the US, and elsewhere. I'm not sure if one can extrapolate a Arab National Socialist state out of all this, but there were a few attempts at political parties based upon the fascist model (these, however, were largely failures - like the Hizb as-suuri al-ijtimaa3i al-waTni, the Syrian National Socialist Party, whose symbol is a stylized swastika, formed from two crescents).

I've always found some of the more plausible german victory scenarios have the germans "siding" with the arabs to cause trouble for the british. If they can do things like back the golden square in iraq (skorzeny in baghdad, anybody?) and propagandize about post-war british designs for the region, plus send U-boats full of guns to palestine, etc, it could get better for the british.

Also- A POD around/before the death of Ataturk (who, if I remember right, warned Inonu against getting involved in any coming european war) could see turkey as a minor axis member.

Yes, there were some Arabs who didn't like Jews during WW2, especially in Israel, who didn't like that the Jews wanted to settle there again. And of course, they hated the British and French "oppressors". The Nazis could've used them to fight against Britain if they had won the war against the Soviet Union or used a Mediterranean strategy instead of Barbarossa in 1941 (see my new thread). Of course, I expect that the Nazis would've double-crossed the Arabs afterwards. (Unless some wackos in the SS - they existed - who were extremely fond of some Islamic ideas [Jihad, assassins] would've made him think otherwise, but I think that the oil there would've been more important than anything else for Hitler.)

Leo Caesius said:

There were some diplomatic connections between the leaders of the Arab world and the Third Reich. They deliberately cultivated a relationship with the Palestinians in particular. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Amin al-Husseini, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and, IIRC, the late Yasser Arafat's uncle) traveled to Berlin to meet with Adolf Hitler and deliver radio propaganda in favor of the Third Reich.

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And Irgun members had contacts with Germany via Italy and proposed creation of Israel which would form relations with Germany. So no need for finger pointing and "other side was cooperating with Germans".

Xen, that's a matter of opinion. I suspect that the vast majority of Sephardic Jews felt they got along great with the Arabs in roughly the same sense that the African-Americans felt they got along well with southern whites under Jim Crow.

Leo, yep, and also helped recruit for Himmler's 'Muslim Legion' in the SS, and died wanted as a war criminal by three Balkan nations. Ironically, he was never a valid candidate for the position of Mufti in the first place, and came in FOURTH in the selection, yet got the job. That was the start of the 80+ year joyride he and his nephew would drag the most cosmopoliton and economically advanced of all the Arab nationalities on.

Obviously there would have been a clear point to a Nazi effort to undermine or outright invade the Middle East in conjunction with Arab support. However, as Faelin noted, it has always astounded me that so many Arab leaders, including Nassar and Sadat, were so eager to welcome any power partnered with the Italians in Libya.

Alas, aktarian, a powerful case can be made for pro-Nazi sympathies on the part of many of the Arab leaders of the time. A great POD might be where some visionary Arab(Nassar?) realizes that things are slowly improving under the British and NO ONE associated with Mussolini can be good news for the Arabs, therefore he throws all his influence behind the British.

For one thing, would so many Jews have gotten military training, with prominent British officers well aware that said training WOULD go against them at some point, if the Egyptians had declared war on Hitler and offered a proper military force to the British?

Of course, while it might have made sense in the politico-military sphere to work with the Arabs, we are talking about Hitler. By the same token, it would have been totally sensible to finish the British prior to hitting Russia, but waiting for Hitler to let reality dominate his planning was never the wisest.

And if such a deal had been worked out, there's not a doubt in my mind that the Arabs would have lived to regret it's success. Or, far more likely, the Arabs as a race would NOT have lived to regret a Nazi success. Or the Poles, or Gypsies, or Russians, or Africans...

aktarian said:

And Irgun members had contacts with Germany via Italy and proposed creation of Israel which would form relations with Germany. So no need for finger pointing and "other side was cooperating with Germans".

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Relax, Aktarian. I was trying very hard to state the facts without taking sides. There's no need to fly off the handle. Since this thread wasn't about "Nazis and Israelis" I didn't think that the Irgun was relevant. At any rate, Scott's question related to post-war Nazi designs on the Arab world, and I think it's safe to say that Irgun would not play a big role in them.

I could have mentioned such luminaries as Ezra Pound, P.G. Wodehouse, and Subhas Chandra Bose, as well, but I didn't think they were relevant.

I don't think the Nazis will attempt to exterminate the Arabs, kin with the Jews or not. Nazi ideology was focused on "Lebensraum" in Soviet Russia, so it will be quite a long time before they run out of room up there...

Now, I can imagine back-stabbing of many Arab nationalists if it means the continuation of colonial rule by the Reich's satellites (Vichy France, Italy, etc), but Rashid Ali in Iraq would make a useful ally.

Though technically not Arab, the Shah of Iran would be useful too. Remember, one of the titles of the Shah was "Light of the Aryans" and Hitler would love that...

Matt Quinn said:

Though technically not Arab, the Shah of Iran would be useful too. Remember, one of the titles of the Shah was "Light of the Aryans" and Hitler would love that...

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It's a good question as to whether the Shah would consider someone like Hitler an Aryan. The Iranian definition is very different from the Nazi one.

I remember being lectured by Dastur-ji Kotwal (one of the chief Zoroastrian mobeds) about how the Iranians were not really Aryan. In his thick Gujrati accent, he told me that the Iranians had intermingled with other people (that is to say, the Arabs) and were therefore no longer Aryan - the Parsis, on the other hand, remained pure Aryan thanks to their strong prescriptions against intermarriage.

This is all BS, of course.

I know a guy named Gino (who is Sephardic, from Libya) who hates Arabs. Actually, hate is perhaps too strong a word. He, like every other non-Arab group in the Middle East, looks down on them. He considers them stupid and dirty (you hear Persians and Turks making the same complaint). Oddly enough, the guy is the spitting image of Moammar Qaddhafi. Then again, he was a member of Giovani Fascisti, so perhaps he doesn't have the most objective opinion.

aktarian said:

And Irgun members had contacts with Germany via Italy and proposed creation of Israel which would form relations with Germany. So no need for finger pointing and "other side was cooperating with Germans".

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The problem is probably a majority of Arabs were pro-Nazi.

Brilliantlight said:

The problem is probably a majority of Arabs were pro-Nazi.

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I'm curious. Was there anything in the Arab world on the plight of Libyans, or was that ignored?

I'm ignorant. What "plight of the Libyans"? Is this something more than the fact they were occupied by the Italians and Germans?

Brilliantlight said:

The problem is probably a majority of Arabs were pro-Nazi.

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Were they pro-Nazi or were they pro-whoever was against Brits?

zoomar said:

I'm ignorant. What "plight of the Libyans"? Is this something more than the fact they were occupied by the Italians and Germans?

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Italy, under Mussolini, was colonizing Libya with the plan to put half a million settlers in Libya by 1960, confiscating the best territory for Italians and removing the libyans in any way, shape or form. It was about a million in 1930, so we can expect a majority Italian state in Libya no matter what.

aktarian said:

Were they pro-Nazi or were they pro-whoever was against Brits?

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Considering how many Arab leaders had ties to Himmler and Hitler probably pro-Nazi. The Indians, for example, had very few examples of people connected to the Nazi party even though they were also in the British Empire.

Brilliantlight said:

Considering how many Arab leaders had ties to Himmler and Hitler probably pro-Nazi. The Indians, for example, had very few examples of people connected to the Nazi party even though they were also in the British Empire.

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Considering how many Indian soldiers defected to the Axis Powers, to fight in the Azad Hind Fauj, and that the SS itself had an entire regiment of Indian soldiers in Europe (Regiment 950, led by the Iranist Karl Hoffmann), I find this statement rather questionable. There were so many Indian soldiers fighting for the Axis Powers that the Brits abandoned the idea of prosecuting any of them with the exception of the higher ranking officers, given the overwhelming amount of sympathy that many of the Indians had for their countrymen who had defected to fight Britain.

In the Middle East, there was no analogous "Free Arab Army." Beyond Amin al-Husseini, who were these "Arab leaders" who had ties to Himmler and Hitler?

Leo Caesius said:

Considering how many Indian soldiers defected to the Axis Powers, to fight in the Azad Hind Fauj, and that the SS itself had an entire regiment of Indian soldiers in Europe (Regiment 950, led by the Iranist Karl Hoffmann), I find this statement rather questionable. There were so many Indian soldiers fighting for the Axis Powers that the Brits abandoned the idea of prosecuting any of them with the exception of the higher ranking officers, given the overwhelming amount of sympathy that many of the Indians had for their countrymen who had defected to fight Britain.

In the Middle East, there was no analogous "Free Arab Army." Beyond Amin al-Husseini, who were these "Arab leaders" who had ties to Himmler and Hitler?

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Rashid Ali, I believe. He was dictator of Iraq for about two weeks before the Brits nailed him to the wall.

Leo Caesius said:

Considering how many Indian soldiers defected to the Axis Powers, to fight in the Azad Hind Fauj, and that the SS itself had an entire regiment of Indian soldiers in Europe (Regiment 950, led by the Iranist Karl Hoffmann), I find this statement rather questionable. There were so many Indian soldiers fighting for the Axis Powers that the Brits abandoned the idea of prosecuting any of them with the exception of the higher ranking officers, given the overwhelming amount of sympathy that many of the Indians had for their countrymen who had defected to fight Britain.

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Mostly for Japan not Germany.

Might I note that just because Hitler or Himmler formed a regiment, so-called, of a particular group, does not actually mean that they had a regiment of them in the traditional sense. Traditional as in X men equals a regiment. I seem to recall units that were formed by the Nazis whose actual membership at any one time would have barely earned the title of 'squad'.