Nazi Germany and the Arab World This book considers the evolving strategic interests and foreign policy intent of the Third Reich toward the Arabic-speaking world, from Hitler’s assumption of power in January 1933 to 1944, a year following the final Axis defeat in and expulsion from North Africa in May 1943. It does so within the context of two central, interconnected issues in the larger history of National Socialism and the Third Reich, namely Nazi geopolitical interests and ambitions and the regime’s racial ideology and policy. This book defines the relatively limited geopolitical interests of Nazi Germany in the Middle East and North Africa within the context of its relationships with the other European great powers and its policies with regard to the Arabs and Jews who lived in those areas. francis r. nicosia is Professor of History and the Raul Hilberg Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany (Cambridge, 2008); the coeditor of Jewish Life in Nazi Germany: Dilemmas and Responses (2010); and the coauthor of The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust (2000). Nicosia was a Revson Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum from 2000 to 2001 and a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar in Berlin from 1992 to 1993 and from 2006 to 2007. He received the Carnegie Foundation’s Vermont Professor of the Year award in 2000 and the Holocaust Educational Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2014. Nazi Germany and the Arab World FRANCIS R. NICOSIA University of Vermont 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107067127 © Francis R. Nicosia 2015 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Nicosia, Francis R., 1944– Nazi Germany and the Arab world / Francis R. Nicosia. pages cm isbn 978-1-107-06712-7 (Hardback) 1. Arab countries–Foreign relations–Germany. 2. Germany–Foreign relations–Arab countries. 3. National socialism and Islam. I. Title. ds63.2.g4n53 2014 327.430170492709043–dc23 2014026178 isbn 978-1-107-06712-7 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. For Joseph and Patrick Die mohammedanisch-arabische Kulturperiode ist das Verbindungsglied zwischen der untergegangenen griechisch-römischen und der alten Kultur überhaupt und der seit dem Renaissancezeitalter aufgeblühten europäischen Kultur. Die letztere hätte ohne dieses Bindeglied schwerlich so bald ihre heutige Höhe erreicht. (The era of Islamic-Arab culture represents the link between the fallen Greek-Roman and generally the culture of antiquity, and the European culture that has blossomed since the period of the Renaissance. Without this link, the latter would not have easily reached its high position of today.) August Bebel, Die Mohammedanisch-Arabische Kulturperiode, Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Wolfgang G. Schwanitz (Berlin: Edition Ost, 1999), 169. Als völkischer Mann, der den Wert des Menschentums nach rassischen Grundlagen abschätzt, darf ich schon aus der Erkenntnis der rassischen Minderwertigkeit dieser sogennanten “unterdrückten Nationen” nicht das Schicksal des eigenen Volkes mit dem ihren verketten. (As a folkish man who estimates the value of humanity on racial bases, I may not, simply because of my knowledge of their racial inferiority, link my own people’s fate with that of these so-called “oppressed nations.”) Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Jubiläumsausgabe anläßlich der Vollendung des 50. Lebensjahres des Führers (München: Zentralverlag der NSDAP/Frz. Eher Nachf., 1939), 655. Unsere Sender wiegeln die Araber auf. Jetzt wollen wir mal Oberst Lawrence spielen. (Our radio stations are inciting the Arabs. Now we want to play Colonel Lawrence.) Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Elke Fröhlich Hrsg., Teil I, Bd. 9, Bearbeitet von Hartmut Mehringer (Berlin: K.G. Sauer Verlag, 1995), 252. Contents List of Illustrations page ix Abbreviations xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 1 Continuity and Departure: Imperial and Weimar Germany 18 Imperial Germany and the First World War 18 The Weimar Years 28 2 Hitler, Race, and the World Beyond Europe 46 Race and the European Great Powers 46 Race and “Colonial Peoples” 54 3 Germany and the Arab World, 1933–1937 62 Hitler’s “Englandpolitik” 62 Arab Overtures, Nazi Responses 70 The Arab Revolt and German Arms 79 A Jewish State 89 4 The Coming of War, 1938–1939 101 Continuity and Departure in Hitler’s “Englandpolitik” 101 Germany, Italy, and the Middle East 116 Arms Exports 127 5 From the Periphery to the Center, 1940–1941 135 From the Periphery 135 To the Center 154 6 The Axis and Arab Independence, 1941–1942 180 Arab Leaders in Wartime Berlin 180 The Elusive Axis Declaration 188 vii viii Contents Anticipation of Victory: Fall 1942 204 The Mufti and North Africa 216 7 Collapse and Irrelevance, 1943–1944 222 North Africa, Continuity, and Collapse 222 The Jewish Question, the Middle East, and Palestine 239 Postscript: Handschar 257 Conclusions 265 Bibliography 281 Index 293 Illustrations 1.1 Map: Ottoman Empire 1914 page 20 1.2 Map: North Africa 1914 21 1.3 Map: The Sykes-Picot Agreement 1916 24 1.4 Map: Anglo-French Mandates in the Fertile Crescent 1922 26 3.1 Fritz Grobba (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 77 3.2 Ernst von Weizsäcker (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 92 3.3 Map: Peel Partition Plan 1937 96 3.4 Werner–Otto von Hentig (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 97 4.1 Joachim von Ribbentrop (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 102 4.2 Ernst Woermann (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 109 4.3 Mussolini meets with Hitler in Munich (25 September 1937). Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Berlin. 117 5.1 Adolf Hitler meets with Francisco Franco at Hendaye (October 1940). Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Berlin. 143 5.2 Otto Abetz (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 153 5.3 Adolf Hitler meets with Henri Philippe Pétain at Montoire (October 1940). Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Berlin. 154 5.4 Erwin Rommel and Afrikakorps arrive in Tripoli (February 1941). Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Berlin. 156 5.5 Rudolph Rahn (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 174 ix x List of Illustrations 6.1 Hitler receives the Mufti Amin al-Husayni in Berlin (November 1941). Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Berlin. 193 6.2 The Mufti Amin al-Husayni and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani in Berlin on the first anniversary of the coup in Iraq (April 1942). Courtesy Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. 201 6.3 Erwin Ettel (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 213 6.4 Walter Schellenberg (September 1943). Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Berlin. 217 7.1 Jews rounded up by the Germans in Tunis for forced labor, marching to the port of Bizaret (December 1942). Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Berlin, and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. 240 7.2 Simon Brod, Jewish Agency for Palestine representative in Istanbul, and Jewish refugees from Transnistria (May 1944). Courtesy United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. 246 7.3 Eberhard von Thadden (no date). Courtesy Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin. 254 7.4 Grand Mufti with Bosnian volunteers for Muslim Waffen-SS Division (November 1943). Courtesy Bundesarchiv, Berlin. 262 Abbreviations AA Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office) ADAP Akten zur deutschen Auswärtigen Politik, 1918–1945 BA-MA Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau BArch Bundesarchiv, Berlin DB Deutsche Botschaft (German Embassy) DG Deutsche Gesandtschaft (German Embassy) DGK Deutsches General-Konsulat (German Consulate-General) IfZ Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich NAL National Archives, London NARA National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party) OKH Oberkommando des Heeres (Supreme Command of the Army) OKW Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Supreme Command of the Armed Forces) PA Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin RSHA Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) SD Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) in the SS USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. WZO World Zionist Organization ZMO Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin xi Acknowledgments I wish to express my appreciation for the support of the scholars, archivists, librarians, and support staffs of the various research and archival institutions at which I was able to conduct the research for this book. These institutions, which include the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (German