The Round Tablette 28 March 2013 2

The Round Tablette 28 March 2013 — 2 Thursday, 28 March 2013 consulted about the fates of their 26:09 Volume 21 Number 9 regions, the native people and, Published by WW II History Round Table especially, their leaders resented being Edited by Dr. Connie Harris ruled by another Empire. www.mn-ww2roundtable.org

Welcome to the second March Before World War II, the Nazi meeting of the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch Regime had little interest in the World War II History Round Table. Middle East, even though the Tonight’s speaker is Francis Nicosia, Mediterranean Sea and its portals – the Professor of History and Raul Hilberg Straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Canal, were the key to Britain’s Indian Studies at the University of Vermont. Empire and Far Eastern colonies. Once The author of the upcoming book war began, the Nazis realized that Hitler’s Germany and the Middle East, these critical transportation routes he will talk about German objectives in were vulnerable to attack, and that the Middle East and Allied Operations breaking them would yield immense in the region. harm to the British war effort.

The problems of the Middle East in The Nazi’s greatest ally in the the Twentieth (or Twenty-first) century region was the Grand Mufti of began turmoil of World War I. (The Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who Paris Peace Conference bequeathed to fought the British and persecuted the the world many problems – including Jewish population of Palestine Vietnam.) Shortly before the war ended, throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He British Foreign Secretary Arthur was exiled from Palestine for his role Balfour wrote a letter to the Baron in the 1936-1939 revolt against the Rothschild advocating a Jewish British. He first fled to Lebanon and Homeland in Palestine. This letter, also then to Iraq, before finally escaping to published in British newspapers, was Germany in 1941, where he became written into the Treaty of Sèvres the foremost Nazi collaborator in the between the Ottoman Empire, which Arab world. Ironically, the Nazi’s encompassed most of today’s Middle placed Arabs amongst the undesirable East, and the Allies. The Great Powers races alongside the Jews (both are set up a Mandate system for former Semitic “races”). holdings of the defeated powers that Al-Husseini met with Adolf Hitler they deemed not quite ready for full in November 1941. He and the statehood. Turkey became a state in its Germans agreed that he would spread own right, but the rest of the Empire pro-Nazi propaganda, set up spy rings was divided between the British and the in Europe and the Middle East, and French. The French took control in establish Muslim Nazi SS and Lebanon and Syria, and the British in Wehrmacht divisions in the Balkans Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq. Not and North Africa. Through his contacts, he provided the Nazis with a

The Round Tablette 28 March 2013 — 2 forty-eight hour notice of the Allied gained strength from the horrific reve- landings in North Africa, which the lations of the Holocaust in Europe and Wehrmacht ignored. The Mufti also the resulting guilt. Unlike Ho Chi raised three divisions of Muslims in the Minh’s letters and pleadings, the Tru- Balkans, the largest being the 13 man Administration did not ignore the Waffen-SS Division. calls for a sovereign Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1948, the United States Militarily, the Middle East had the became the first country to recognize potential to be a highly active theater of the new state of Israel, born in battle operations. Many thought the Germans with the surrounding Arab states. would invade the area for the oil re- sources of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In- Further Reading: stead the two powers that engaged in Francis R. Nicosia, Zionism and Anti- Semitism in Nazi Germany (New York: the most action were Great Britain and Cambridge University Press, 2008). Italy. For the first few months of the Francis R. Nicosia, The Third Reich and the war the theater remained quiet until Palestine Question (Austin, TX: University of Italy declared war on France and Britain Texas Press, 1985). on June 10, 1940. Even though the Ital- Norman Goda, Tomorrow the World: Hitler, ians outnumbered the Allied forces in Northwest Africa, and the Path toward America. (College Station, TX: Texas A&M the region, they proved no match for the University Press, 1998.) British Commonwealth forces. By early Jeffrey Herf, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab 1941 the Italians were on the verge of World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, being defeated and their colonies in 2009). Ethiopia and Somaliland were occu- Wolfgang Schwanitz, (ed.). Germany and pied. The Italians were saved though by the Middle East, 1871-1945 (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2004). the intervention of the German Afrika Edwin Black, The Farhud: Roots of the Korps commanded by Erwin Rommel. Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust It took another year and a half, to expel (Washington D.C: Dialog Press, 2010) the Axis forces out of North Africa, af- ter which the Middle East once again Announcements: Twin Cities Civil War Round Table - became a backwater for military opera- May 21, 2013 the Petersburg Campaign - tions. www.tccwrt.com - [email protected] St Croix Valley Civil War Round Table - April 22, 2013 Herman Haupt - Steve Anderson - 715-386- The Nazi designs for the Middle 1268 – [email protected] East were based on far-flung dreams of Rochester WWII History Round Table –507-280- 9970; www.ww2roundtable-rochester.org world conquest. Their racial ideology Fort Snelling Civil War Symposium 13 April regarding Jews, discredited in the West, 2013, http://www.tccwrt.com/symposium.html or became widely accepted in the Arab [email protected] Minnesota Military Museum, Camp Ripley, 15000 world. Jewish-Arab relations remain Hwy 115, Little Falls, MN 56345, 320-616-6050, poisoned by this anti-Semitism (that http://www.mnmilitarymuseum.org/ Air Show - Eden Prairie - July, 13-14, 2013; both Arabs and Jews are Semites is be- http://www.airexpo-mn.org/ - 952-746-6100 side the point). At war’s end, the push Honor Flight - Jerry Kyser - for a Jewish Homeland in Palestine crazyjerry45@hotmail - 651-338-2717

The Round Tablette 28 March 2013 — 2 CAF - Commemorative Air Force - Round Table Schedule 2013 www.cafmn.org or Bill at 952-201-8400 11 Apr. Mobilizing the National Guard in Minnesota Air Guard Museum - WW2 www.mnangmuseum.org 612-713-2523 9 May Kampfgruppe Peiper at Malmedy Friends of Ft. Snelling, www.fortsnelling.com Fagen Museum in Granite Falls, www.fagenfighter- If you are a veteran, or know a veteran, of one swwiimuseum.org. 320-564-6644 of these campaigns – contact Don Patton at cell World War II Weekend, Historic Fort Snelling, 8-9 612-867-5144 or [email protected] June 2013, http://events.mnhs.org/calendar/index.cfm Civil War Weekend, Historic Fort Snelling, 17-18 Au- gust 2013, http://events.mnhs.org/calendar/index.cfm