126 National Socialism in the Arab Near East

Home , Das Neue Deutschland, Fritz Grobba, Mein Kampf in Arabic, Young Egypt Party (1933)

126

NATIONAL SOCIALISM IN THE ARAB NEAR EAST BETWEEN 1933 AND 1939*

STEFAN WILD Bonn

This article concentrates on the reception of National-Socialist ideas and ideology in the Arab Near East during the inter-war period. While the political relations between this area and the Third Reich during World War II have been studied thoroughly, the period before 1939 has only more recently found attention.2 The reception, discussion and importance of National-Socialist ideas and concepts has been investiga- ted even less. This article sees the transfer of these ideas against the background of a general philo-German atmosphere, which dates back to Turco-Prus- sian relations in the late 19th century, the connections of the Young Turks with Germany and the influence of German nationalistic ideology on the development of Arab nationalist theory.

' This article is an enlarged versionof a paper read at the Colloquiumon the MiddleEast in the Inter-War Period: The Interaction of Political, Economicand Cultural Development which was organized by the Institut fur EuropaischeGeschichte in Bad Homburg (August 29-September2, 1984).I have receivedinformation and help from so many people that I can name only the most important ones: Dr. Maria Keipert (Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amts, Bonn), Dr. F.P. Harald Neubert (Bonn), Prof. Dr. Mustafa Maher (Cairo), Dr. Gudrun Kramer (Munchen),Prof. Dr. H. Grotzfeld (Mfnster), Dr. Aliya Susa (Baghdad). For help with the English wording I am indebted to Mrs. C. Beamish (London). I Hirszowicz( 1 966),Tillmann ( 1 965),Schroder ( 1 975),Nicosia ( 1 980). 2 Nicosia (1979),Neubert (1977),Wallach (1975).The basic work on German Foreign Policy of this period, Hans-AdolfJacobsen, National.sozialistischeAussenpolitik 1933-1938 (Frankfurt-Berlin 1968) hardly ever mentions the Arab Near East. For more recent developmentsin international research on German Foreign Policy of the Third Reich in general see WolfgangMichalka (ed.), Nationalvoziali,5tischeAussenpolitik, Darmstadt 1978 and Klaus Hildebrand, DeutschenAu.s.senpolitik 1933-1945, 4th edition, Stuttgart 1980, 183fi'.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 127

The means by which attitudes, slogans and ideas were imported and the forms they took are discussed in two subsections: I. In the "General background" National-Socialist or Fascist trends and concepts in the programs and documents of political parties and movements (Baath, Kataeb, Young Egypt, Syrian Social Nationalist Party, Futuwwa) are dealt with. II. In this section, the history and importance of four Arabic translations of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf between 1933 and 1939 in Beirut, Baghdad, Cairo and Berlin are analysed.

I. GENERAL BACKGROUND

On May 5, 1942 three Iraqi nationalists, who had been condemned to death by an Iraqi court for their participation in Rashid Ali al-Kailani's coup d'etat went to the gallows. To mourn their death, a 16 year old boy in Basra wrote a poem after the fashion of the Classical Arab elegy- qasida. It was called Shuhadä' al-hurrijyah (Martyrs of Freedom) and one of its lines ran:

The confederatesof the English have shed their blood But in Berlin a lion is watching them.3 .

The three men hanged were, and still are, considered by most Iraqis to have been loyal Iraqi nationalists who lost their life for a worthy cause. In the eyes of the English and of most European observers at the time they were Hitler's agents. The "watching lion" in Berlin in the line quoted, symbolizes Adolf Hitler. The verse would not be very remarkable, were it not for the fact that its author later acquired fame as one of the most gifted poets in the Arabic language: Badr Shakir al- Sayyab (1926-1964). His elegy on the three nationalists as well as his view of Hitler expressed an admiration which went well beyond the Arab world to countries as far apart as Turkey, Iran and India. This sentiment had been growing since the end of World War I, in which the Ottoman Empire had paid the price for taking sides with Germany. It had become particulary intense since Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and was not

3 araga rabibu dima'ahunr/wa-lakinna Jr`Barlinalailhan yurdgibuh, in DïwanBadr Shdkir al-Sayyäb, Vol. 2, Beirut 1974, Oär al-' Auda,p. Ill.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 128

confined to any social class. Nationalism and Socialism were concepts which had considerable attraction for intellectuals and politicians in this area-no less than in Europe. A doctrine which purported to combine nationalism and socialism and amalgamate them into a National Socia- lism could be expected to find even more favour. And so we find the same Iraqi poet remembering his political activity in his teen-age days:

We began to spread propaganda for Russia, for communism and for the Nazis at the same time. The Axis powers would defeat the Allies and together with the Axis Russia would triumph. Then communismwould spread all over Iraq-bringing happiness to the poor and to the starving peasants...44

For the uneducated masses the situation was similar. In the first months of World War Two shops in the towns of Syria would frequently show posters with Arabic slogans saying: "In heaven God is your ruler, on earth Hitler".5 And in the streets of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus a popular verse in the local dialect said:

No more 'Monsieur', no more 'Mister'- God in heaven, on earth Hitler !6

The pro-German sentiment dates back to the l9th century and the ties 7 of Prussia with the military establishment of the Ottoman Empire.' Helmut von Moltke and other carefully chosen officers moulded the Ottoman army long before sultan Abdulhamit II (1876-1909). To guard the straits, cannons manufactured by Krupp were imported and installed and the German Mauser rifle "replaced the archaic carbines used by the Ottomans". 8 Germany had priviledged relations with the Young Turks, and Colmar von der Goltz (1843-1916) commanded Ottoman forces in

4 saufa yantasir al-mihwar àld wa-saufatanta.sir Rusiya ?!OQ/:u af-shuyü'iyyal-ìruq fa-hushra li-l-fuqard'bushra li-l-falldhFnal-djäïïn, from the series of articles Kuntushuvciiiyan "I was a Communist" in the newspaperal-Hurriyya, no. 1441, August 16, 1959,here quoted according to lhsan 'Abbas, Badr Shukir al-Sayyäb.Dirdsa.ft ha-i7dtihTwa-shïrihï, Beirut 1969,Oär al- Thaqâfa,p. 86. S Shirdar Telkaz in Great Britain and the East (May 8, 1 94 1here ), quoted according to Schechtman( 1 965)85. 6 In Syrian colloquial approximately:bala misyü bald mister.ff .s-.samaAllcrh, w-ùl-ard Hitler, Schechtman(1965) 84 quoting Raoul Aglion, The FightingFrench, New York 1943, Raoul Aglion was head of the Propaganda-bureau of France Libre. Slightly different versions of this are mentioned in ' slogan Lipschits ( 1962) Wilhelm van Kampen, Studien zur deutschen Turkeipolitikin der Zeit WilhelmsII, Diss. Phil., Kiel 1968; Stanford J. Shaw & Ezel Kural Shaw, History qf'the Ottoman Empireand Modern Turkey,vol. 11,London 1977,245. $ Shaw ibid.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 129

Iraq against the British in World War I. Franz von Papen (1879-1969) was a highranking officer ("Leiter der Operationsabteilung") in the Heeresgruppe Falkenhayn which served in an advisory capacity in the Ottoman Army in Mesopotamia and Palestine. There, he became acquainted with General Mustafa Kernal. In the Thirties, the same Franz von Papen became for a short while German Reichskanzler; he was vicechancellor in Hitler's cabinet and after the R6hm-Putsch was sent to Vienna, then in April 1939 to Ankara, where he acted as German ambassador of the Third Reich until August 1944. He played an important role in Ankara as a point of contact between the Iraqi nationalists, the anti-English followers of Rashid 'Ali al-Kail-ani and the 9 "Grand-Mufti of Palestine", Hajj Amin al-Husaini.9 The principal reason why Abdulhamit had opted for the Germans as his main military experts and advisers was, of course, that Germany was seen as having no direct colonial or territorial ambitions in the area. This was an important point of sympathy. There was also the rivalry between the European powers in and before World War I, on which the Ottoman Empire tried to play. The stance of Kaiser Wilhelm II attests to this-the Egyptian emir of poets Ahmad Shauqi (1868-1932) praised the German Kaiser.1 Wilhelm II had visited Syria in the autumn of 1898. In a famous speech made in Damascus the Kaiser cleverly touched on all the topics which could strengthen German-Ottoman friendship: the greatest of all European kings, friend of the Sultan and friend of the Muslims, enemy of Russia, England and France payed his reverence to the great Salahaldin by visiting his tomb in Damascus 11. The concept of the hero-leader who would lead the Muslims, the Arabs, the - suppressed peoples of the East towards political salvation was already being formed. 1 2 Une model for such a za `im was certainly Wilhelm II. Sherif Hussein, during his rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, had the Turkish military orchestra arrested in Taif in 1915. When T.E. Lawrence and Ronald Storrs visited Hussein, the orchestra played

9 See Franz von Papen, Der Wahrheiteinc: Gas.se. Innsbruck 1952,499ff. '° Fuad Hasanein Ali, Saugi der Füst der Dichter, in: Rudi Paret (ed.), Orientalisti,sche Studien.Enno Littmann zu seinem60. Geburt.stag,Leiden 1935,p. 139-148. " Werner Endc, Weri.st ein Glaubensheld,wer ist ein Ketzer?Konkurrierende Geschichts- bilder in der modernenLiteratur is/amischer WI 23-24 70ff. 12 Ldnder, (1983-1984), Cf. Anis S5'lgh, Al-za'ïm vi,afikrat al-zi`ama ./r`tdrtkhind al-hadtth, in: al-I:Iiwär (Beirut) 17 (July-Aug. 1965)45-68. Later the word za'Tmcould easily translate words such as "duce" or "Fuhrer" (OM 1 7/ 1 937/50).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 130

Martin Luther's "Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott" as well as "Deut- schland, Deutschland uber alles" in their honour. 3 A second basic factor in the sympathy between the Germans and the Arab speaking parts of the Ottoman Empire, was connected with the special development of Arab nationalism. On the ideological level the father of Arab nationalism, SäW al-Husri (1882-1968), was exposed to the ideas of Herder and Fichte during his stay in Paris. 14 German nationalism seemed an obvious model for Arab nationalism. Before 1871 there had been a German history, a German language, a German culture-but no German state. German nationalism therefore was perceived as an example showing that a nation could be a nation without being or at least prior to having become a state. The Arab states and Arab regions under foreign control could therefore legitimately aspire to being or becoming an Arab nation without having or before having an Arab state. Al-Husri who voiced these ideas for the first time in lectures given in the Twenties, had carefully studied the history of different nationalisms in Europe. For the Arab nation the most important bond was the classical Arabic language. The way to build national Arab awareness was national education-and Husri quoted Fichte's proposal of a German national education after the German defeat by the French in 1806.15 Fichte is therefore a main ideological influence on Sati' al- Husri and was perceived as such. In the list of the principal sources of Baath ideology in the memoirs of the Syrian Baathist Fa' iz Isma-'i-1, the Arabic translation of Fichte's Reden an die Deutsche Nation figures 6 prominently. 1 In the following section I shall describe five parties and movements in the Arab word which to a greater or lesser degree had taken over certain elements of National Socialism or Fascism, namely the Baath Party, the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, the Kataeb (kata'ib), Young Egypt (Misr al-Fatih) and the Futuwwa. I shall then concentrate briefly on ideological factors like the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche, the concept of the "strong nation", racialism and European antisemitism.

'3 T.E. Lawrence,Seven Pillar.sof Wi.sdnrrt,London 1969, 75. 14 Tibi (197 1 113ff.) 's ibid. 137. ' 6 Fayiz AI-Bidäyiit,Damascus 1980.Maktab a1-di'äyawa-l-nashr wa-1-1'15m. Hizb al-Ba'th al-'arabï al-ishtlr5k!. Min tärïkh al-hizb. p. 35. He lists Fichte's Speeches (khutab)as one of the intellectualsources of Baath-thinkingand states that they had been translated from the French into Arabic by a Dr. Wahib, but had not been printed.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 131

A) Parties and movements

1. The Baath-party Michel 'Aflaq (born 1912), one of the founders of the Baath-Party, had come into contact with Nazi ideas while studying at the Sorbonne between 1928 and 1932. Hitler's political program combining Nationa- lism and Socialism fascinated the young 'Aftaq; he bought Grosclaude's translation of A. Rosenberg's Mythos des Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. 17 Sdmi al-Jundi, a founder member of the Baath party describes in his memoirs how Michel 'Aflaq and Zaki Arsuzi formed a political group in Damascus between 1939 and 1940 which wa.s the nucleus of the later Baath-party; they spent long sessions discussing "democracy, Commu- nism and Nazism, beginning with Descartes and ending with H.S. Chamberlain". Sami al-Jundi writes:

Whoeverhas lived during this period in Damascuswill appreciate the inclination of the Arab people to Nazism, for Nazism was the power which could serve as its champion, and he who is defeated will by nature love the victor.

In this fascination with Nietzsche, Chamberlain and Fichte, Hitler also found his place:

We were racialists, admiring Nazism, reading its books and the source of its thought, particularly Nietzsche's Thus spake Zarathustra, Fichte's Addre.ssesto the GermanNation and H.S. Chamberlain's Foundationsof the NineteenthCentury which revolveson the race. We were the first to think of translating Mein Kampf 18

In al-Jundi's rather sweeping statement, at least the last assertion is incorrect. There had been translations of Mein Kampf into Arabic well before 1939.19 The same group from what was later to become the Baath-party searched Damascus for Alfred Rosenberg's Mythos de.s Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, and finally found a copy of Grosclaude's French translation mentioned above.

17Eric Rouleau, The Syrian Enigma. What is the Baath? in: New Left Review (1967), no. 45, 53-65,quoted in Tibi (1971) 189f.and 264. 1 Sami al-Djundi, al-Ba'th, Beirut 1969 p.27f. here quoted in the translation of Elie Kedourie, Arab Political Menioirs and Other Studies, 200, cf. Rabinovich (1975) 197; Hanna ( 1 975)39. 'v see below p. 147ff.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 132

2. Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party One of the parties most directly influenced by German National Socialism was the Syrian Social(ist) Nationalist Party, also known by the French initials of its former name PPS (Parti Populaire Syrien). 2 Its founder Antan Sa'ädah (1904-1949), a Syrian Orthodox, hailed from a Lebanese mountain village near Beirut and the party started out as a group of students and teachers at the American University of Beirut in 1931. The party's program was "Syrian" nationalism-as opposed to pan-Arab nationalism as well as to Lebanese nationalism; for Antun Sa'adah "Lebanon" was part of Greater Syria. The party's ideology, "Social Nationalism", was secular, nationalist, out-spokenly totalitarian, with a life-long leader-Sa'adah himself-at its head. Further ingredients of this ideology were a Social darwinistic doctrine of the survival of the fittest, the superiority of certain races over others and a strong emphasis on military power. , Sa°£dah's anti-French and anti-confessionalist stand attracted many, mainly Christian intellectuals, to the Party. Somewhere between 1930 and 1934 Sa'-id 'Aql (born 1912) poet, lawyer and journalist and at that time member of the SSNP, wrote a party hymn which was to be the future national anthem. The refrain ended in the words "Syria, Syria above all" and the tune was "Deutschland, Deutschland uber 1 It seems that four years later, Antun Sa'adah visited Italy and Germany on an "information tour" to Syrian emigrants in North and South America. The French authorities accused the SSNP of being subservient to Nazi ideology and the Nazi regime, and Sa°£dah of being an agent of the German and Italian governments and arrested party- members in Beirut, Tripoli and Homs.22 I have not been able to find corroboration for any actual contact between Sa'adah and German party leaders in the German archives. Another aspect in which the SSNP was probably influenced by a Fascist model was the establishment of a militia. The rigid discipline of the 1938 Reichsparteitag, where Arab

2° Labib ZuwiyyaYamak, The Syrian Social NationalistPart.v. An IdeologicalAnalysis, Cambridge, Mass. 1966( = Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs XIV). 2' 1 DjamflSawaya, Nuslz'utal-flizb al-qaumt al-sürï, in: Kamâl Djunbuidt (ed.), ald haqiq(.ital-qaçliyya ul-guumiyyu al-idjtima'iyya al-siiriyya (Light on the Real Issue of Syrian Social Nationalism), Beirut, 1962,pp. 142-49,here quoted according to Kemal H. Karpat (ed.), Politicaland Social Thoughtin the ContemporaryMiddle East, London 1968, 100. 22OM 19 ( 1939) 651.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 133 delegations were present, its emphasis on youth, mass-demonstrations and para-military and military marches, as well as earlier the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, with all the glamour of flags, physical fitness and youthful athletic discipline were a powerful incentive to many leaders in the Arab world to attempt to set up similar organizations.

3. Kataeb

In many instances, the impression created by the well organized mass rallies was probably more important than purely ideological influences. At the Olympic Games 1936 two Lebanese represented the Soccer- Federation of Lebanon in Berlin. Later one of them, whose name was Pierre Jumayyil (1905-1984), remembered:

We orientals are by nature an unruly and individualisticpeople. In Germany, I witnessed the perfect conduct of a whole, unifiednation. z3

The Lebanese movement and party which was created by Pierre Jumayyil in 1936 bore some resemblance to the organization which he had admired in Berlin. The points of resemblance are unmistakably there (para-military discipline, flags, parades, absolute leadership etc.), but they do not go very deep. The name, however, bore witness to this influence: al-katd'ib al-lubndniyya. Katd'ib was the Arabic translation of the French phalanges, corresponding to the Spanish falanjes. Pierre Jumayyil's travelling companion to the Olympic games had been Hus- sain Sij'an, who in reaction to the mainly Maronite Christian Katd'ib founded in 1939 the Muslim counterorganization Najjäda. These para- military organizations initiated what has been called the "era of shirts" in the Arab world: blue, green and iron-grey shirts in Egypt, gray and white shirts in Syria, khaki shirts in Iraq and tan shirts in Lebanon were modelled after Hitler's Brown Shirts and Mussolini's Black Shirts.24

4. Young Egypt In Egypt we find in the Thirties the "Young Egypt"-party (Misr al- Fatdh), which for a time bore some resemblance to National Socialism 5 in Germany and Fascism in Italy. 2 z3 John P. Entelis, Pluralism and Party Transformationin Lebanon. Al-Kata'ib 1936- 1970.Leiden 1974,46. 24 Entelis ibid., 44. 25 James P. Jankowski, EgyPt'.s YoungRebel.s. "Young Egypt": 1933-1952.Stanford 1975; Shamir (1975) 202ff.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 134

From its beginnings in the early Thirties the party shared many outward appearances with the European fascists: a uniform (green shirts), a salute (outstretched right arm, palm open and finger pointing to the sky), a flag, a para-military organization which demanded absolute obedience to a leader. Like the PPS in Syria, Young Egypt used ultra-nationalist slogans, based on "Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles": In the case of Young Egypt "Egypt, Egypt, above all...".26 In spite of all this, there was rarely if ever any close co-operation between German officials and Young Egypt. When in 1934 Ahmad Hussayn payed a visit to the German envoy in Cairo, Eberhard von Stohrer, "in order to express his sympathy for the new Germany," the ambassador "refused to see the young man, when Hussayn asked for a second meeting and also reported their one conversation to the Egyptian Department of Public Security. 1127 There seems to have been no clandes- 8 tine collaboration with the Axis powers in the later Thirties. The climax of admiration was reached in 1938, when Ahmad Hussain visited Europe and Germany. In an open letter to Adolf Hitler Ahmad Hussain called the Reichsarbeitsdienst (German Labor Front)

a return to true Islamicsociety, when there was no employerand no employeebut when all were brothers co-operating together.z99

In a second open letter to Hitler, Ahmad Hussayn probably expressed the opinions of many when he stated: .

In Egypt we sufferedin our foreign policy and our international standing exactly what Germany was sufferingin her first years after the War. Egypt belonged to those peoples which greeted the news of your success with a sense of great relief: it increased her confidence in herself and strengthened her belief in her approaching success in the realizationof the national goals, to which she aspires, i.e. that Egypt become a lofty state, consistingof Egypt and the Sudan, a confederate of the Arab states and a leader of Islam in the shadow of its beloved king. You have improved the situation of the members of this people by ending the terrible unemployment,by guaranteeing work to the workers, and first and foremost by the fact that you ended the class struggle by making the people feel itself one people, first in the army, then in the compulsorywork where the rich work next to the poor, the doctor next to the engineerand the baker and the farmer, where all work on the same basis of equality with their hands and their bodies on German land to serve all Germans. You have abolished factionalism (td'ifiyya) between workers and employers, between workers and farmers, betweenworkers and civil servants and betweenthe workers among themselvesby

26 Jankowski 15. 2? ibid. 20. ?8 ibid. 33. . 29 ibid. 59f.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 135 everybody joining the one front to work-without any difference between professions, between one worker and the other, between director and small employee-all are workers and members of one family, that is the family of good, common work. There are no more disputes, quarrels, no strikes, no more closing of factories but co-operation, mutual assistance and brotherliness.All this has rendered Germany good service... This system has also brought good effects to the workers themselves,their wages have risen, the splendour of life lies within their grasp, they are assured of their livelihood.Thus you have triumphed for ever in your country over communism. And, last but not least you created the physical,mental and social culture for the Youth of your country and for their children, boys and girls, in these houses and camps which you have spread over the country to make them strong members of a social body, which will be able to make a step forward in their country and in humanity.3°

This open letter, written in Arabic and printed on July 24, 1938- probably in Berlin-summarizes the reasons why many Arab nationalists admired Hitler and his Third Reich at this point: his economic policy, his authoritarian and egalitarian ideology, his victory against communism. Germany had become in a short time a powerful, united nation; the para-military Arbeitsdienst, the youth camps seemed to indicate a model which countries like Egypt could adopt to achieve similar results. A year later in Cairo, Ahmad Hussayn invited the German chancellor to embrace Islam, or at least to study its principles. Ahmad Hussayn's view of Europe-including Germany-had been clouded by the perspective of a coming war:

Islam will liberate Egypt of the foreign yoke, it will redeem all the orient, will break the chains of foreign powers, will spread peace all over Europe and will avoid the catastrophe which Europe is heading for .31

There actually was never the symbiosis that some of the preceding passages seem to imply. In 1937, Fathi Ridwan, the second important figure in the party, published an extremely critical biography of Musso- lini. 32 During the Munich crisis in 1938 Ahmad Hussayn wrote in the party's official paper:

if war breaks out now, after all the efforts and sacrificeswhich England and France have made and which Czechoslovakiahas accepted, the meaning of all this is that Hitler is a madman who wishes to destroy the world in order to satisfy his arrogance and his desires. 333

3o A copy or this Arabic letter or speech (khitab) can be found in the Archives of the DeutschesAuswartiges Amt, Akten betreffendArabien, Pol. VII, 26, Bd. 1, 293. 310M 20 (1940) 175. 32 Jankowski (1975) 58. 33 Jankowski ( 1 975)33.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 136

5. Futuwwah

The futuwwah-movement in Iraq was a youth-organization, not a political party. 34 The Futuwwah was an official youth movement which comprised all students of the higher classes of high schools. They received a paramilitary training. Dr. Sami Shaukat (born 1893), Direc- tor General of the Iraqi Ministry of Education had been ordered by Prime Minister Nuri Sa'ïd to educate Iraqi youth in a military spirit after the German model. Sami Shaukat claimed that the Iraqi paramili- 5 tary youth movement Futuwwah comprised 63,000 members. 3 An important aspect was military power. The same Sami Shaukat had declared in 1933 in an address given to the students of the Central Secondary School in Baghdad:

The nation which does not excel in the Profession of Death with iron and fire will be forced to die under the hooves of the horses and under the boots of a foreignsoldiery. If to live is just, killing in self-defenceis is also just. Had Mustafa Kemal not had for his revolutionin Anatolia forty thousand officerstrained in the Professionof Death, we would not have seenTurkey restoring in the twentiethcentury the gloriesof YavouzSultan Selim. Had not Pahlavi had thousands of officerswell versed in the sacred profession we would not have seen him restoring the glory of Darius. And had Musolini not had tens of thousands of Black Shirts well versed in the Professionof Death he would not have been able to put on the temples of Victor Emanuel the crown of the first Caesars of Roma...Sixty years ago, Prussia used to dream of uniting the German people. What is there to prevent Iraq, who fulfilled her desire for independence ten years ago, from dreaming to unite all the Arab countries?36

When the Reichsjugendfiihrer Baldur von Schirach visited Iraq, Persia, Syria and Turkey in December 1937, 3' he stressed in Baghdad that the Boy Scouts' Movement in Iraq was influenced by Great Britain, whereas the Futuwwah was a purely Iraqi affair. 38 He suggested furthermore that the paramilitary training should be intensified. A delegation of the Futuwwah participated in the march of the Hitler-Jugend at the Partei- tag in Nuremberg in September 1938. Impressed by the Olympic Games in Berlin, an Iraqi Olympic Committee was formed. The Dam al-'Irdq of 1936 defined the Futuwwah as "a modern military organization based on the most modern system, which imbues youth with military spirit and the spirit of sacrifice, love of dicipline and obedience to orders". 31

34 Cf. Ettore Rossi. L 'istituzi(Jnescolastica militare nell' Irug, in: OM 20 ( 1940)297-302. 35 F. Grobba (1941)46f. ;( 1967), 181 . 36 Haim ( 1 976)98f. OM 18 8 ( 1938)10f. cf also Rabinovich in Wallach ( 1975)192, 196. Grobba (1941) 46. 39 OM 18 (1938) 10f.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 137

Sdmi Shaukat also developed anti-Jewish ideas, which are heavily indebted to German anti-Semitism. In a book These are our Aims, published in Baghdad in 1939, he calls the annihilation of the Jews in Iraq a prerequisite for Iraqi national revival.

He "obliquely establishes the necessity for their annihilation with the help of the Hegelianidea of the state. The enemiesof the state are both external and internal, and the internal enemiesare more dangerous than the external. The jews are internal enemies in Arab countries sincethey have betrayed their Semiticrace and deservethe treatment meted out to traitors".4°

B) Ideological factors

1. The influence of Nietzsche On a philosophical and literary level, the most important German name symbolizing the idolization of strenght, of eternal struggle and the social-darwinist ideology of the survival of the fittest is that of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Friedrich Nietzsche had some influence on Ara- bic literature in the Twenties and Thirties and even later. Because he was portrayed in German Nazi sources as the spiritual father and forerunner of many aspects of National Socialism, sensitive Arab as well as European minds saw in the translation of Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra by Felix Faris (Alexandria 1938) a fascist influence. There were two ideological points on which the Nazi ideology drew regular criticism; one was its exaggerated nationalism, the other the doctrine of racial superiority.

2. "Strong nation" Whereas the concept of a strong nation as such had an obvious attraction for the awakening nationalisms of colonized peoples, the overstating of the nationalist cause as seen in the "above all" slogans of the PPS and Young Egypt did not fail to draw criticism from more Islam-oriented political organizations like the Muslim Brothers, the strongest and in the end much more successful competitors of Young Egypt. Hasan al-Banna', the founder of the Muslim Brethren wrote in 1938 on this subject:

In the contemporaryworld there are many ideologies(da 'awat),most of which are based on a sentimentof nationalist fanaticism qaumiyya)which seducesat present the

11 Haim (1955), 311.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 138 hearts of the peoples. In Germany Hitler preaches Aryan nationalism, in Italy Mussolini calls for Latin nationalism, thereby coloring Italian fascism, Ataturk extols Turanian Nationalismand propagates it in Turkey, and the English, pretending their country to be the oldest democracy in the world, think that Anglo-Saxon blood is so perfect that no other race can compare with it. This is the reason for the slogans "Germany above all..." or "Italy above all" and "Rule Britannia..." and other shuubite sloganscalling the peoples of this age..." 411 . In a different context Hasan al-Banna' writes:

If what is meant by "nationalism" is racial self-aggrandizementto a degree which leads to the disparagementof other races, aggressionagainst them and their victimizationfor the sake of the nation's glory and its continued existence,as preached for exampleby Germany and Italy; nay more, as claimed by every nation which preaches its superiority over all others-then this too is a reprehensibleidea' 142

In some instances Communism and National Socialism were put on the same level and were rejected on Islamic grounds. Taufiq Khalid, the mufti of Beirut, was reported to have stated:

I as a Muslim and as an Arab have received an education which is opposed to the principlesof Nazism and Communism. In fact, Islam is a religion of consultation (shurd) which is opposed to the octroy of the will of an individualor of individualson the peoples. As Islam opposes violenceon earth and the spirit dominating the Siegfried-lineup to the Far East is a spirit of violence,violence of individuals or of a group against a people and then violenceof a people against other peoples,the defeat of the enemiesof the Allieswould mean the defeat of this spirit.'3

Sometimes Arab nationalism tried to steer clear of all European ideologies. The "Conference of the Arab Students in Europe", which was held in Brussels in December 1938 stated the aims of the Arab movement:

These aims are to liberate and unite the Arab homeland, to found political, economic and social organizations more sound than the existing ones and to attempt afterward to work for the good of the human collectivityand its progress. These aims are to be realized by definitemeans drawn from the preparednessof the Arabs and their particular situation, as well as from the experienceof the West. They willbe realizedwithout subscribingto any particular creed of the Modern Western nations such as Fascism, Communism or Democracy.44

41 Insdniyyat al-isliimiyya(The Humanism of the Islamic Call) Cairo 1938, quoted in 'Abdalrahmdn al-'Isawi, Li-mjdht7ani Muslim?(Why am I a Muslim?),Cairo 1954, 3-8. 4? Charles Wendell (transl.), Five Tracts of Hasan al-Banna' (1906-1949).A selection ,frnm the Majmü'àt RasA'll al-lmdm al-Shahid?Hasan al-Banna'. Los Angeles 1978 (= Universityof California Publications, Near Eastern Studies 20), 113. 43 OM 20 ( 1940)377f. 44 Haim (1976) 101.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 139

3. Racialism and European antisemitism . The consequences of Hitler's racial doctrine and its implications for Arabs were not immediately discernible to Arab eyes. The whole concept of race seemed to have had very little appeal. In October 1933 the local all-German "Ortsgruppe" of the NSDAP in Cairo stated:

Fiir das Vcrstandnis der Rassentheorie ist der Bildungsgradder breiten Masse nicht fortschrittlichgenug. Das Verstandnisfur die Gefahren des Judentums ist hier noch nicht geweckt. 54

For a planned official Arabic translation of Mein Kampf the German envoy in Baghdad, Fritz Grobba proposed to replace the words antisemitism and antisemitic (in the English version of Mein Kampf which served as original) by antijudaism and antijudaic.46 In the discussions about the modifications an Arabic Mein Kampf would have to undergo, Hitler even consented to modify some of his more scandalous racialist statements in it. The Nuremberg laws, outlawing marriages between "Aryans" and "Non-Aryans" aroused extreme irritation in Egypt47. The Nazi doctrine of Aryan superiority over all Non-Aryans was an irritating obstacle for German propaganda in the Near East. The German Consul General in Beirut reported in a letter dated November 4, 1938

...Immerhin IaBtsich nicht leugen,daB die Liigenmeldungender feindlichenPropaganda hier einen guten Nahrboden finden.Als besonderszugkrdftig fur die feindlichePropaganda hat sich offenbar die m.W. von jfdischer Seite erfundene Behauptung erwiesen, der Nationalsozialismushabe eine Rassenskalaaufgestellt, innerhalb derer die Araber auf der 14. Stufe standen. Letzter Tage hat das vom Oberkommissariatunterhaltene und sattsam bekannte Office Arabe in Damaskus folgendeangeblich aus Alexandrienstammende Meldung in die hiesige Presse ausgegeben: "Das Buch 'Mein Kampf von Hitler ist in einer arabischen Llbersetzungerschienen und wird zum geringenPreis von 30 Mills. verkauft. Der Obersetzer hat naturlich das Kapitel, das auf die Einstufung der Araber unter die niedrigen Rassen Bezug hat, hierbei wegge- lassen."" Unter Bezugnahmeauf die dortigen Bemuhungen,eine gute arabische ljbersetzung des Buches 'Mein Kampf fertigstellen zu lassen, darf ich anheim geben, in Alexandria die Richtigkeit vorstehender Meldung nachprüfen zu lassen. Ferner wurde ich es fur zweckmaBighalten, entweder die Reichsvertretungen in den arabischen Landern mit Material zu versorgen, das sie instand setzt, dieser unsinnigen aber zweifellos sehr schddlichenBehauptung entgegen zu treten, oder aber die Vertretungendes DNB (Deut-

45 Krämer 278. 46 see below 154. _ 47 Kramer 306.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 140

schesNachrichten Buro S.W.)in Jerusalemund Kairo zu veranlassen,einmal ein wirkungs- volles Dementi herauszubringen. 48

The same reproach was made only weeks later in Egypt. The German envoy in Cairo, von Ow-Wachendorf reported:

Die im Bericht des Generalkonsulats Beirut wiedergegebeneAul3erung aber eine im Werk "Mein Kampf' angeblich enthaltene Einstufung der Araber unter die niedrigen Rassen erscheint hier neuerdings auch wieder in einem Flugblatt der jadisch-bolschewi- stisch beeinflussten"Ligue Pacifisted'Alexandrie", in der (allerdingsohne Bezugnahmeauf "Mein Kampf') w6rtlich gesagt wird: "N'oublions pas que dans la liste raciste nous venons au "quatorzi?me rang" un peu avant les singes." Um diesen schadlichen, den Beziehungen zu den arabischen Landern abtraglichen Unterstellungen wirksam entgegentreten zu k6nnen, beehre ich mich, den Antrag des Generalkonsulats,die Reichsvertretungenin den arabischen Landern-und insbesondere auch die hiesigeGesandtschaft-mit Material zu versehen,das sie in den Stand setzt, diesen Behauptungenentgegenzutreten, nachdriicklichst zu unterstutzen.49

Although Hitler's Mein Kampf stated categorically that the only master race was the Aryan, and that the "lower races" were there to be enslaved and dominated by the Aryans, a catalogue of races was not to be found in Mein Kampf: Hitler's true opinion of the Arabs however, was expressed in a non-official remark to the German army command in 1939:

Wir werden weiterhin die Unruhe in Fernost und in Arabien schfren. Denken wir als Herren und sehen in diesen V61kernbestenfalls lackierte Halbaffen. die die Knute spilren wollen. So

Hitler had nevertheless given his permission for passages "offending the mentality and the sensitivity of race-conscious Arabs" to be elimina- ted from Arabic translations of Mein Kampf. As far as the race-catalo-

48 AAPa Pol. VII (36) Arabien, vol. 1, DGK Beirut to AA, Nov. 4, 1938. 49 AAPa Pol. VII (36) Arabien, vol. 1, DG Cairo to AA, January 3, 1939. 5° ADAP 1918-1945,Serie D, vol. 7, p. 1 72quoted by Tillmann 58 and Kramer 306. This "Aufzeichung" is unusual in its outspokenness.About Turkey Hitler is reported to have said: "Nach Kemals Tod wird die Turkei von Kretins und Halbidioten regiert", and about Japan: "Den Abfall Japans miissenwir in Kauf nehmen.Ich habe Japan ein ganzes Jahr Zeit gegeben. Der Kaiser ist ein Gegenstuck zum letzten Zaren, schwach, feige, entschlussios. Mag er der Revolution anheimfallen." This "Aufzeichnung" was not submitted as evidence at the Nuremberg trial. The other (parallel?) version of the "Ansprache des Fuhrers vor den Oberbefehishabern am 22.8.1939" contains only the followingallusion to the Arab world: "Neben den personlichenFaktoren ist die politische Lage fiir uns gfnstig. Im Mittelmeer Rivalitaten zwischen Italien und Frankreich und England, in Ostasien Spannung zwischenJapan und England, im Orient Spannung, die zur Alarmierung der mohammedanischenWelt ffhrt" (ADAP 1918-1946,Serie D, Vol. 7, 168.).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 141 gue was concerned, the German Foreign Office instructed the German Consul in Beirut:

Wie schon das Propaganda Ministerium habe auch ich mich eingehend mit der Frage befasst, welche Bewandtnises mit dem sog. Rassenkatalog hat. Im authentischen Partei- schrifttum ist er jedenfallsnicht zu finden. Allerdingssoll der Stellvertreterdes Fuhrers wie mir Ob.Reg. Rat Knothe mitteilt, Ausfiihrungengemacht haben, die den Ausgangspunkt der durch unsere Feinde freudig aufgerufenen Missverst5ndnissebilden konnen. Ich bin noch dabei festzustellen,was und unter welchen Umstdnden von wem gesagt wurde. Jedenfalls sind Sie ermachtigt, diese v6lllg unsinnigen Behauptungen, denen auch von anderer Stelle entgegen getreten werden wird, auch Ihrerseits Liigen zu strafen. 5I

During the Eichmann-trial in Jerusalem in 1961 the accused gave the following account on the position of the Arabs within Hitler's "racial theory":

Q.: This theory also established second-classAryans, like the Slavs, while only "first class" Aryans belonged to the "Master-race". To which race did the Mufti belong? A.: From a radical racial view-point, to the Semitic race. Therefore, the expression, "antisemite" was not used, but rather "anti-Jewish". If the racial theory had been used correctly, it should have applied to the Arab peoples too, but I'm not sure if it would have been applied to all of them. Q.: But no steps were taken against the Arabs on racial grounds? That is, when politics were more important, the racial background of the Arabs could be forgotten? A.: The Arabs were not included in the category against which sanctions were to be executed."2

There is a cruel irony in the fact that even oriental "Aryans" were not safe. In April 1933, nine Iranian students were beaten up by a SA-group in a small German town because they were taken for Jews. The Iranian press suspected that in the German dichotomy between master-races and slave-races Iranians would fall under the second group in spite of their Aryan origin. Thus, even people who were closely collaborating with National Socialism like Emir Shakib Arslan had their reserves on the racialist aspects of Hitler's ideology. Shakib Arslan wrote in 1935 under the title L'Allemagne ne gagne rien d des pareilles rnanifestations. Que mal ont.fait a I'Allemagne les musulman.s et les asiatiques'? an attack on A. Rosenberg's Myth of' the Twentieth Century. He started with the assertion:

On sait que, de tous les peuplesde 1'Europe,les Allemandsrestent le peuple le moins hai dans le monde musulman. On peut dire meme qu'ils sont assez sympathiques, que les musulmansen general souhaitent a I'Allemagnetout le bien possibleet penchent par nature 5 AAPa Pol. VII Arabien, vol. I, AA to DGK Beirut, Nov. 1938. s2 22, Quoted according to Lipschits (1962) 189. 53 Hirschfeld (1980) 139f.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 142 a faire des affairs avec les Allemands.Soit parce que I'Allemagnea ete l'alliee de l'Empire Ottoman pendant la plus grande des guerres, soit par ce qu'elle n'a pas eu des colonies importantes ou les musulmansgemissaient sous le jougeuropeen comme ils gemissentsous le joug des autres grandes puissancescolonisatrices, sa popularite en pays musulmans est un fait incontestable.

Then he takes Rosenberg's Mvthus to task; Rosenberg demands

that the British power in India and Suez be maintained where it fulfils its function as guardian of Europe against Muslim and Asian pressure.

Shakib Arslan explains this position as an attempt to gain Great Britain's sympathy and he ends his critical article by saying:

Ce sont des declarations qui blessent des centaines des millions d'hommes sans aucun avantage reel pour I' Allemagnc.Nous ne croyons pas que les Allemands, dans leur ensemble,trouvent necessaireun pareil langage,dont I'effetest d'abord d'agrandir le foss6 entre I'Asieet I'Europe, et ensuitede convaincrel'Asie d'une part et le monde musulmande l'autre, que 1'Allemagne,qu'on croyait innocentc, ne leur est pas moins hostile que les autres. 54

In spite of all this, the resistance against Zionism in mandatory Palestine believed for a long time that it had found a reliable ally in Hitler and his Party. After the 1932 elections the Palestine newspaper al-Jdmi `a al- 'arabiyy?a wrote: l

It is well known that Herr Hitler and his party are the most violent adversaries of the Jews. Therefore, if Hitler wins the elections,the Jews assume that Germany will becomea centre of hatred against the Jews, a phenomenon which is called Antisemitism.The Jews think that their life will become more miserable than in Tsarist Russia. As far as the position of the Arabs towards these elections is concerned, we do not have the right to vote, but we can expressa wish and a hope. Perhaps becausethe Jews are our enemiesour wish and our hope rests of course on Hitler-according to the rule: My enemy's enemy is my friend.s 5

There were, however, albeit more rarely, dissenting voices, which corre- lated rising antisemitism in Germany with increased Jewish emigration to Palestine. The paper al-Kirmil wrote in an open letter to Hitler

If you have come to the conviction that the Jews are the sole cause for these evil things and you want to force them to emigration by all means-then we can only hope that you will not force the Jews to emigrate so that they will not come to us. sb

La Nation Arabe (Geneva) V, May-June 1935.348f. . 55 Abbasi 168.. 56 Abbasi 171.... '

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 143

The pro-Axis sentiment in Palestine was analysed by a Palestinian-Arab newspaper in 1937 in the following way: ..

Palestinian-Arabhostility towards Italy goes back to the period of the AbyssinianWar, that is before the Palestinian revolution and not to a period six months ago. The daily manifestationsof sympathy with Germany and Italy exist after the relations betweenthese two states and England have become tense. They are not caused by propaganda or by money receivednor by enthusiasm for these two countries. They are much more a protest against England. As al-Ahram has justly observed: had the Peel report been favorable to the Arabs, no trace of the socalledFascist propaganda in Palestinewould have been left. 57

The German Consulate in Jerusalem reported much stronger sympa- thies-for the Germans in general and for the "Ffhrer" in particular.

Ausschlaggebendfiir die bei den Arabern Deutschland gegeniiberjetzt bestehenden Sympathienist aber die Bewunderung,welche unser Fuhrer genief3t.Gerade die Unruhezei- ten boten mir ofter Gelegenheitfestzustellen, wie weit diese Sympathieverbreitet ist. Wenn man sich bei einer bedrohlichen Haltung einer arabischen Volksmengeals Deutscher zu erkennen gab, war dies im Allgemeinenschon ein Freibrief fur ungehindertesPassieren. Wenn man sich aber durch den deutschen Gruss "Heil Hitler" auswies,schlug die Haltung der Araber meist in Begeisterungum und der Deutsche kam zu Ovationen, bei denen die Araber den deutschenGruss sturmischerwiderten. Die Begeisterungfur unsren Fuhrer und das neue Deutschland ist wohl deshalb so verbreitet, weil die palastinensischenAraber in ihrem Kampf um ihre Existenz einen arabischen "Fuhrer" ersehnen und weil sie sich im Kampf gegendie Juden in einer Front mit den Deutschen fuhlen.58 .

After Hitler's victory in 1933 elections, there were at least two attempts to establish with German help Arab off-shoots of the NSDAP in Arab countries. In April 1933 the German Consul General in Jerusalem, Heinrich Wolff, was contacted by the Palestine correspondent of the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahrdm, Joseph Francis, who acted as a spokes- man for a group of Palestinian Arabs. In the same month, the German envoy in Baghdad, Fritz Grobba, was approached by `Abdalghaffur al- Badn, an anti-sharifian ex-officer and editor of the Baghdad newspaper al-Istiqldl. 19 Both requested German assistance in establishing such a party. In both cases the answer was negative. The Auswartiges Amt stated in the case of the Palestinian group:

A direct connection between Mr. Francis and members of the Ortsgruppen of the NSDAP in Palestinewould be regrettable, as German citizensthen would be suspectedof interfering in the domestic affairs of Palestine.60

57 OM 17 7 (1937)305: Filastin 21.-25.5.1937. 58 AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol. 1, DGK Jerusalem to AA, March 22, 1937. s9 Nicosia (1980) 355. bo ibid.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 144

Thus, paradoxically enough, it was the German side which effectively stopped all efforts to create Arab cells of National Socialists parties. As far as the Near East was concerned, the overriding idea behind this policy was the wish not to encroach on British positions in the Near East. " 1 . For the same reason, not all demonstrations of sympathy towards Hitler's Germany were viewed favorably by the German side. When at the maulid-celebrations in Jerusalem in 1937 German and Italian flags were flown and in some cases also portraits of Fauzi Qawuqdji, Musso- lini and Hitler were shown, the reaction of the German Consulate was reticent:

Ich betrachte diesen arabischen Versuch,durch Hissung deutscher Flaggen und Ausstellen von Bildern des Fuhrers ihren Unwillenuber die Englander und die Juden zum Ausdruck zu bringen, als wenigerfreulich und als einen gewissenMissbrauch. Die Englanderdurften sich aber daraber im Klaren sein, dass man von deutscher Seite zu der Durchfuhrungdieser Demonstration nicht beigetragenhat und dass es sich um eine von langer Hand vorberei- tete rein arabischeAktion handelt. Die judischePresse hat dieseDemonstration ausfiihrlich behandelt und unter anderem darauf hingewiesen,dass die Begeisterungder Araber fur den Fuhrer widersinnig ware, weil dieser alle Semiten, also auch die Araber, hasse. Die arabische Pressehat hierauf nicht reagiert.Von deutscher Seitesind arabischeAnfragen auf LJberlassungdeutscher Flaggen abschlagigbeschieden worden. Von einer Einwirkungauf die Araber, eine Benutzung der deutschen Bilder und Flaggen zu unterlassen, habe ich vorerst abgesehen.6z

The Palestinian paper al-Jfmi°a al-Isldmiyya wrote on January 1, 1938:

Many Arabs consider that Germany is a friend of the Arabs. This friendshipis perhaps the result of the German hatred of Jews. Germany's anti-Jewishpolicy has caused a strong outflow of emigrants to Palestine-German Jews. This is the good that Germany did us.633

The accusation that Palestinian resistance against Zionist immigration was Fascist or Nazi, was rejected, especially, it seems by groups who hoped for an arrangement with the British:

The Arab Palestinians do not need Fascists or Nazis, to be motivated against the Zionists.The hatred against the Zionist plan in Palestinecame into being long before there was Nazism or Fascism.64

However, the Haavara agreement which regulated Jewish emigration from Germany to Palestine was never commented on, let alone criticised 61 For the German Palestine-policysee Francis R. Nicosia, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question(forthcoming). bz AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol. 1, DGK Jerusalem to AA, June 4, 1937. 63 Hirszowicz42 without reference. 64 Abbasi 172.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 145 in the Palestinian Press.65 And the image of Hitler's personality remai- ned positive: his short cut to military power had-according to the Palestinian paper al-Kirmil-its only precedent in the military achieve- 66 ments of the Prophet. The man who dominated Palestinian resistance to Zionism and who during the Second World War became an unhappy symbol of close collaboration between National Socialism and the Arabs, Hajj Amin al- Husaini, made clear that he welcomed the new regime in Germany and hoped for the spread of "fascist, antidemocratic leadership to other countries" 6' and also approved of the anti-Jewish measures of the new regime. It is true that the Mufti also appealed "for a German-Jewish policy which would direct German Jews away from, not towards Palestine" 68. The German Consul General in Jerusalem Wolff observed "that the Arabs were too primitive politically to fully appreciate the fact that Germany and German Jewish policy were greatly intensifying their problems. 1169 Francis Nicosia has shown in detail that Germany refused consis- tently in this period to become involved in anti-British policy in the Near East. When Fauzi al-Qawuqji approached the German envoy in Baghdad, Fritz Grobba, to obtain arms for the Arab rebellion in Palestine, he was answered that relations with Great Britain were more important to the Hitler-government than possible gains of sympathy in the Arab wold. 70 The Arabs were given general sympathy for plans of self-determination-not more. The channels of transmission of National-Socialist and Fascist ideas to the Arab Near East were manifold. There was the deliberate attempt to spread these ideas via the usual diplomatic channels and the media. Broadcasts in Arabic from Germany started relatively late-in April 1939. The program consisted of recital of passages from the Koran, Arabic music, Arabic literary texts and political commentaries. One of the Arab speakers was Yunus al-Bahri, who later wrote his memoirs

Abbasi 175 and AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, DGK Jerusalem to AA, March 22, 1937. 66 Abbasi 173. 6' Quoted Nicosia (1980) 353; AAPa Pol. Abt. III Politik 2-Palastina, vol. 1, DGK Jerusalem to AA, Telegr. No. 5, March 31, 1933. 68 Nicosia (1980) 353. 69 ibid.. 70 ibid. 356.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 146 about his time in Berlin under the title Hund Berlin. Hayyi 1- 'arab (Here is Berlin. Greetings to the Arabs) which was the customary start of the broadcasts. Approximately at the same time Radio Berlin edited an Arab bulletin Barid al-Sharq (Orient-Post), which regularly carried extracts from Hitler's speeches and political commentaries. There were the activities of the German embassies and legations, one of the most active diplomats being certainly the German envoy in Iraq, Fritz Grobba. These diplomats worked closely together with the local groups (Ortsgruppen) of the NSDAP, as far as they existed. There were a variety of contacts between the diplomatic missions and writers, politicians, journalists of different persuasions in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. There were the Arab Clubs in Germany which were under the close supervision of the Gestapo. And there were free-lance journalists and politicians, Arabs who resided in neutral countries, who were influenced and sometimes paid by German money but were not under complete controle, like the Druze-Lebanese Emir Shakib Arslan (1869- 1946), an Arab intellectual who resided in Switzerland, where he published his political journal La Natiorz Arabe. For the outlook of many Arab students in Germany, Muhammad al-Bahi (1905-1982) who took his doctorate in Hamburg in 1936 with a dissertation on Muham- mad 'Abduh seems characteristic. He wrote in his memoirs about the time he spent in Germany

The Jews see in Hitler a murderer. And politiciansafter the SecondWorld War consider him a tyrant and a calamity for mankind. But the main political lines which Hitler created and which I witnessed in Germany between January 1933 and August 1939 were in Germany's interest and in the interest of the German people. I shall not forget that this policy removedfrom its first day on communismand fought it a mercilessfight. It fought the widespreadanarchy of life which was on the one hand an anarchy of luxury and on the other hand a disintegration of human values. This policy stopped woman from enrolling in the faculties of the universities?xcept the facultiesof teaching, medicineand sick-nursing.It induced her to return to the house to take care of the family-if she had been working on the condition that she would receivethe wage she had earned for the rest of her life. It directed her to sports, to not showingher legs and to refraining from smoking in the street and in public places .71i ,

Muhammad al-Bahi became a well known integrist writer, influential in Azhar circles, and rose to the post of Minister of Auqdf and Azhar- affairs between 1962 and 1964. The anticommunist stand expressed in

70, Muhammad al-Bahay, Muhammad'Abduh. Eine Untersuchung.seiner Erziehungsme- thode zum Nationalbewusstseinund zur nationalenErhebung in 4gypten. Hamburg 1936. " Bahl (1983)44.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 147 the passage quoted was also a topic used by German propaganda. Muhammad Taqiyaldin al-Hilali, who later became one of the speakers in the Arab program of Radio Berlin sent from Germany an article against communism which was printed in the Cairo based Salafiyyah- oriented al-Fath (23.12.1937).72 Conversely in the Arab countries, the small communist parties were among the most vociferous opponents to Fascism and National Socialism. In Syria, the nucleus of a League to fight Fascism mukdfahat al-fdshistiyya) was formed in 1937. 73 In May 1939 the First Syro-Lebanese Conference of the Fight against Fascism was held in Beirut. The Communist parties in the area-small and vulnerable as they were-worked under difficult circumstances at this juncture. Their problems increased after the non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin in August 1939. The spreading of propaganda to the Arab Near East was from the German side badly co-ordinated. The Auswartiges Amt, the Ministry of National Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsministerium fur Volksaufklarung und Propaganda), the Auslandsorganisation of the NSDAP and ultimately the Fuhrer himself were directly and indirectly involved, more often than not outmanoeuvring each other. A good example of the inherent contradictions of German National Socialist propaganda in this period is the history of the attempts to publish Arabic translations of the book which was considered by most a corner stone of Nazi ideology: Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

II. ARABICTRANSLATIONS OF MEIN KAMPFBETWEEN 1934 AND 1939 1. Beirut At the beginning of March 1934, a Beirut based newspaper, al-lVidd' (The Call), began to translate Mein Kampf into Arabic. The German ' Consulate in Beirut reported:

Die seit fiinf Jahren in Beirut erscheinendeZeitung "An-Nidda" (sic!) veronentlichtseit einigenTagen die Ubersetzungdes Buchesdes Herrn Reichskanzlers"Mein Kampf '. Die fJbersetzung erfolgt aus der englischenAusgabe und erscheint auf Seite 2 des Blattes in laufenden taglichen Fortsetzungen. ?4

'z OM 18 (1938) 12. Hanna (1975) Couland (1970)209. AAPa Mein Kampf, P. 16, 73/3,vol. I, DK Beirut to AA, March 7, 1934.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 148

The newspaper was-as the report explained-a daily, numbering eight pages and was amongst the first Arabic papers of the French Mandate. Its readers were to be found in Lebanon, of course, but mainly in Damascus; is was also read in Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq. The newspaper belonged-the report goes on-to the rich muslim family al- Sulh ; the editor-in-chief was K5zim The paper was-as the report emphasizes-francophobe and had been suspended several times. It was in constant touch with the German Consulate and had in several instances published material transmitted by them. As far as the translation of Mein Kampf is concerned, the report denied that al-Nidj' had been in touch with the German Consulate on this matter:

Die Zeitung "An-Nidda" hat sich mit dem Konsulat nicht in Verbindung gesetzt, und mir ist nicht bekannt, ob sic irgendwelcheAbgaben bezahlt. Ich mochte dies jedochnicht annehmen. Immerhin habe ich davon abgesehen,gegen die Zeitung einzuschreiten,da im Interesseder deutschenPropaganda die Veroffentlichungzu begrul3enist, und praktischdie Zeitung kaum in der Lage sein durfte, Abgaben zu leisten. ?6

The report called the paper das Organ der syrischen Nationalisten im Libanon-which in this case cannot mean the Syrian Nationalist Party but a general movement striving for independence, probably the Natio- nal Block. Consul Walther suggested trying to bring about a possible publication in book form; this, however, never materialized. In 1935 there appeared in Beirut another partial translation of Mein Kampf, done by 'Umar Abu Nasr and apparently independent of the translation published in al-Nidd'. The book was characterized by Caspar in the following manner In 1935 the Beirut People's Library published Hitler's Struggle, 108 pages of selected passagesfrom the original text, translated by Omar Abu-Nassr, with referencesto Hitler's career drawn from British, American and French sources. The back cover advertised a book in Arabic, entitled Hitler the Terror: His political Police. I77

The translator seems to have been an allround historian and journalist, whose work made up in breadth what it lacked in profoundness. He had translated several books from the French and the English and had founded in May 1919 a newspaper al-Jdmi `a al-suriyya and in April

75 Daghir (1978)285, nr. 1775.Daghir mentions 1935as the date of its first appearance; this must be a mistake, since the German records mention 1934-issues.Daghir (1972) III 1196has as year of its foundation 1932which is probably correct. The paper stopped in May 1934.Coeditors were Taqiyaldin al-Sulh and 'lm5d al-Sulh. 76 See note 74. 77 Caspar (1958) 14f.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 149

78 1923 a magazine called al-Jdmi `a al-musawwara.' In 1936, a book on Arab nationalism which he had written together with Ibrahim Nadjm and Amin 'Aql, was confiscated by the French authorities in Beirut: Tdrakh al-qadiyya al- 'arabiyya, Beirut 1936. 79 The Arabic title of the book was Kifdh Hitler. The title of another projected book on Hitler was, according to Brockelmann, Hitler al- mur'ib au bulisat al-siyasi al-mukhif which has to be translated as Hitler, the Terrible or The Police of the Dreadful Politician 8°. As this title can hardly be said to signify the book's pro-German inclination, it seems likely also that the translation Hitler :s Struggle was critical in its approach. It was this translation which reached North-Africa and in spite of its probable critical tendency it acted as a German propaganda device. On Jan. 12, 1937 The Times reported from Tangier:

Unfortunately the Germans are carrying on another kind of activity fraught with untold dangers for the French in Marocco.They are trying by everymeans to representthemselves to the natives as their future protectors. There, the anti-Semitism of the Nazis acts powerfully on the minds of the Arabs, who hate the Jews and are easily persuaded, to regard Herr Hitler as their champion against them. An Arabic translation of Mein with a becoming portrait of the Fuhrer as a frontispiecehas been widely circulated and eagerly read. A badge resemblinga bar of medal ribbons and composed by the Italian and Spanish National colours and the Sherifian flag and the Swastika is presented to Arab militiamenand sympathizers.

The German Consulate in Tetuan confirmed the report:

Nach den bisher angestellten Ermittlungen sind bisher in Spanisch Marokko zwei Biicher,die sich mit dem Fuhrer und der nationalsozialistischenBewegung befassen, unter den Eingeborenenverbreitet worden. Es handelt sich um die in der Anlage beigeffgten arabischen Broschfren, die beide mit dem Bildedes Fuhrers versehensind, und von denen die eine den Titel "Der Kampf Hitlers" und die andere den Titel "Hitler" tragt. Ersteres Buch, das indes keine Ubersetzungdes Buches"Mein Kampf' ist, sondern eine geschichtli- che Betrachtung des Kampfes des Fuhrers zum Gegenstand hat, ist von Amar Abu En Nassar (!) verfasst und im Verlag der Volksbuchhandlungin Beirut erschienen,wahrend das andere von Ahmed Mahmud Es-Sadati verfassteBuch in Cairo gedruckt worden ist. 81

78 A selection of 'Umar Abu Nasr's historical and literary writings is listed in C. , Brockelmann,GAL S III 434f. To those books a study about Hadjdjadj Ibn Yusuf and other works on early Islamic history should be added as well as a study on Modern Iraq. Cf. Ende (1977) 225, 263; Haim (1976) 661 4, 68143and L. Cheikho in al-Mashriq 24 (1926) 698-704;cf. also Daghir (1978) nr. 424, 415. OM 16 (1936) 679: al-Bashir (Beirut) 10.11.1936. 8 GAL S III Wild 2071. 8' 434f. ; (1964) AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol. 1, BriefDK Tetuan to AA, April 8, 1937.The other book was: Muhammad Subaih 'Abdalqadir, Hitler (Kltdb al-Shahr). Cairo 1937,Ddr al- Thaqdfa al-'amma. Cf. also Bjorkman ( 1 938)174.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 150

These books were brought from Cairo to Tetuan by Muhammad Dawud, Inspector of Arabic, teaching in Tetuan and were spread, as another German report puts it "among the natives" ("unter den Einge- borenen"). From Tetuan these books also reached French Morocco. 82 Strangely enough, as far as I have been able to ascertain, there was never any official reaction from the German side to 'Umar Ab3 Nasr's partial translation. This would strengthen the argument that the Ger- mans considered it a hostile not a favorable selection.

2. Baghdad On October 21, 1933 the Baghdad news-paper al-',41am al-'arabi started publishing an Arabic translation of Mein Kampf in instalments: this continued well into the spring of 1934. The translator was Yunus al- Sab'awï (1910-1942) from Mossul. Yunus al-Sab'aWi '83 coming from a very poor family, had started out as a journalist for the Baghdad daily paper al-Biläd in 1930. He wrote for different papers on various political topics-the Indian question, the idea of a European union, Kemal Ataturk and modern Turkey; he translated the letters of Gertrude Bell and an official history of the Dardanelles-campaign. In the early thirties, he was especially interested in National Socialism and Fascism, critici- sing the latter's Abyssinian policy and praising the former. He also wrote about Nietzsche and his idea of the Superman; he wrote a very admiring review of E.M. Remarque's antiwar film Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) saying that the film gave an accurate description of modern warfare and its sufferings, adding that man had to sacrifice himself for a noble goal. He became more and more active in politics: .

...for his part in the 1930general strike in Baghdad, al-Sab'dwi was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. He joined the pan-Arab League of National Action, founded in 1933;and becamea member of a secret Arab Nationalist society,known as the Red Book Group, founded in 1935.As a confidant of the nationalist officersof the Iraqi army and their advisor, al-Sab'dwi played an extremely important part in the Iraqi politics of the latter half of the 1930s.11

az AAPa Pol. VII (36) Arabien, vol. 1, Brief DK Tetuan to AA, May 7, 1938. 83 The most detailed account of Yunus al-Sab'dwi'slife is Khairi a1-'Umarï, Yunusal- sirat siydsi (Y. al-S., Biography of a SelfmadePolitician), Baghdad 1978. Al-Husry ( 1 98 1is ) mainly based on this work. 84 Cf. al-Husry (1981)166.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 151

In 1941 he became a member of Rashid 'Ali al-Kail-ani-'s short-lived government as minister of Economics. His para-military groups were later accused of having taken part in the pogrom-like disturbances (farhucl)85 in Baghdad on June 1, 1941. After the British intervention and the collapse of the Rash-id-'Al-i-coup he was taken to Iran. In Teheran, he contacted the Soviet embassy to enable him to continue his fight in Iraq. But after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union these plans did not materialise. He was arrested on September I by the Iranian authorities, extradited to Iraq, convicted by the Iraqi Military court (al- majlis al- 'wfi al-'askari) on May 4, 1942 and hanged in Baghdad on May 5, 1942. To the first instalment of this Arabic translation of Mein Kampf, al- Sab'awï added a preface, which contained the following passage and which characterises his political oulook at the time:

Hitlerism(al-hitlariyya) is a movementwhich preoccupiesthe world nowadays. It origina- ted in Germany in response to poverty, through the efforts of German youth. It was a powerfulmovement which arose in conditions of great hardship, but which made its way and was able to take over the reins of power in Germany. It is important to rememberthat the world, and our country in particular, should be aware of the fundamental aims of this movement. We cannot find anyone better qualified to explain them than its founder and herald, Adolf Hitler, the present leader of Germany. We are translating for our readers the book which he wrote about his origins and his struggle. It is being translated from the officialEnglish translation of his original, shortly after its appearance. Thus Arab readers will be able to read Hitler's book at the same time as the English readers, and readers in most other European countries as well. This book tells the wonderfulstory of the life of a great adventurer, the great German leader who rose from being a simple soldier to the leadershipof a whole nation, one of the culturallyand scientificallymost developednations in the world. In this story many important points ('ibar) are made and it contains many practicallessons for those who deal with people (Ii-I-mushtaghilïnbi-shu 'ünal-nCis). We have endeavored to make this translation, which we now present to the reader, as close to the original as possible.We hope that it will find the reception it deserves.86

The Jewish community in Baghdad was alarmed. The Iraqi-Jewish writer and poet Anwar Sha'ul (1904-1984) describes in his autobiography his fellow law-student Yunus al-Sab'äwï as quiet and unobtrusive. The translation of Mein Kampf struck Sha'ul as a frightening event:

Kedourie (1974)283-314; Cohen (1966) 2-17. The report on the farhud by an Iraqi Commissionof Enquiry accusingal-Sab'dwi-s militias is publishedin 'Abdalrazzaq al-Ha- sant, Al-Asrdral-khafiyya f`i harakatal-.sana 1941 al-taharruriyya, 2?aida 1964, 246-256.For the impact of the farhüd-eventson the leftist parties see Batatu (1978)461 ;for the farhudin the memoirs of an Iraqi Jew: Naim Kattan, Adieu Babylone,Paris 1976, 17ff. 86 al-'UmaCi(1978) 41.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 152

In the middleof the Thirties Yunus al-Sab'dwicame out quite unexpectedlywith the first Arabic translation of Hitler's Mein Kampf, the charter of racial discrimination and of hatred of everythingSemitic. By spreading Nazi arrogance abroad and disseminatingthe poisonous Goebbels-propagandain Iraq the unknown student Yunus al-Sab'dwTdemon- strated a nazism which started out as pure professional interest, then changed into the arrogance of exploitingit and finallyinto participation in the Rashid'All al-Kaildniplot. 87

Anwar Sha'ul knew, of course, of Yunus al-Sab"awrs connection with Grobba-he calls him a willing tool in Grobba's hands (244). During the war, Anwar Sha'ul decided to counter the Axis propaganda which Yunus al-Bahri disseminated via Radio Berlin by composing a poem against Hitler for the Arabic section of the BBC. This poem was broadcast early in 1941 by the BBC, published by the BBC monthly al- Mustami' al-'arabi and later printed in Anwar Sh£°31's poetic collection Hamasdt al-Zaman (Baghdad 1 956). 88 .

On March 29, 1934 the German envoy in Baghdad, Fritz Grobba, reported to the Foreigh Office:

Der Herausgeber der hiesigenarabischen Tageszeitung "Al-AlamUI- 'Arabi",Selim Has- soon, )aRt gegenwartig das Buch des ReichskanzlersAdolf Hitler "Mein Kampf' ins Arabische übersetzen,und zwar nicht aus dem deutschen Text sondern aus der englischen Ausgabe. Er will die arabische Ubersetzung als Buch drucken lassen und im Irak verbreiten. Obwohl er seine Zeitung nur mit groBer Muhe durchhalten kann und andauernd mit finanziellenSchwierigkeiten zu kdmpfen hat, hat er doch die Mittel fur die Ubersetzungdes Buchesins Arabischebisher selbst aufgebracht.Seine finanziellen Schwie- rigkeitenrfhren zum erheblichenTeil von der prodeutschenund anti-jildischenEinstellung seiner Zeitung her, die aus diesemGrund von der BaghdaderJudenschaft boykottiert wird. Herr Selim Hassoon, der zu dieser Gesandtschaft in freundschaftlichenBeziehungen steht und schon haufig Artikel uber den Nationalsozialismusund das neue Deutschland abgedruckt hat, hat dieserGesandtschaft die Bitte vorgetragen,ihm dabei behilflichzu sein, fur die arabische Ausgabedes Buches Mein Kampf einigegeeignete Klischees zu erhalten. Ferner hat er bei Betonungseiner finanziellenSchwierigkeiten durchblicken lassen, daB ihm die baldige Herausbringungdes Buchesin arabischer Sprachewesentlich erleichtert wurde, wenn er eine finanzielleBeihilfe erhalten k6nnte. 8Q

Salim Hassun (1873-1947) was a journalist from Mossul,9° whose paper was described by Grobba in the following way:

87 Shd'al (1980) 138. 8BIt is reprinted in Sha'ul (1980)241-43. Sha'ul says it representsthe start of his "poetic fight against nazism". Presumably,the other poems against Nazism were also part of his Hamasdi al-zanidn. 1 have not been able to consult it-and the part of his Diwin which was published in Sha'ul's poetic collection Wa-hazaghfajrjadïd (Jerusalem 1983) 151-184 does not contain any of the anti-Nazi poems. 89 AAPa Mein Kampf P. 16, 73/3, vol. 1, DG Baghdad to AA, March 29, 1934. 90 'A wwâd(1969) II 54.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 153

Gut redigiertesOrgan der Jesuitenmissionim Orient, geht mit der jeweiligenRegierung, ist antijiidisch,hat eigene Korrespondenten in Beirut und Mossul. 91

Hassun's coeditor was a certain Yusuf Murad-both as Grobba remarks "catholics from Mossul". Whether or not a translation of Mein Kampf. into Arabic should be allowed was the responsibility of the German Foreign Office as well as the Reichsministerium fur Volksaufklarung und Propaganda. The answer depended ultimately on Hitler himself. The Ministry of Propa- ganda promised to consult the owner of the copy-right, Zentral-Verlag der NSDAP, Berlin, successor of the Franz-Eher-Verlag in Munich. One question, however, was immediately raised:

Inzwischen bitte ich aber um Bericht, welche propagandistischen Wirkungen diese Ver6ffentlichunggehabt hat. Von Seite der Gesandtschaft ware auf den libersetzer dahingehendeinzuwirken, daB er die Rassenfrageaus dem Buch "Mein Kampf' entspre- chend der Mentalitat und dem Feingeffhl der rassebewuBtenAraber ab5ndert, ohne aber den Urtext zu enstellen. Diese Fragen waren vor der Drucklegung des betreffenden Abschnitteseingehend zu priifen, bzw. zu klaren.92

On the same day, Grobba answered a letter of the German Foreign Office, dated 10. April 1934:

Die Ver6ffentlichungder arabischenUbersetzung der englischenAusgabe des Buchesdes Fuhrers "Mein Kampf ' sind wie alle Ver6ffentlichungennationalsozialistischer Art von der hiesigenarabischen Leserschaft mit allergr6BtemInteresse, zum Teil geradezumit Begeiste- rung gelesenworden. Sie haben das Ergebnisgehabt, daB auch der Herausgeberdes Organs der nationalen Opposition "Al-Ikha al-Watani" (Vaterlandische Bruderschaft), Ruffael Butti, das Bedürfnisffhlte, in seiner den gleichenNamen tragenden Zeitung eine langere Abhandlungnationalsozialistischen Inhalts zu veroffentlichen.Er druckt daher gegenwartig in mehreren Fortsetzungen die von dem Fiihrer am 30. Januar vor dem Reichstag gehaltene Rede "Ein Jahr Nationalsozialismusin Deutschland", die ich ihm zur Verffgung gestellt habe, ab. Ferner haben die Veroffentlichungenden schon seit einiger Zeit bei der Partei "al-Ikha al-Watani" vorhandenenBestrebungen, ihr Programm dem des Nationalso- zialismusanzundhern, neue Nahrung gegeben.93

Grobba'(!94t) 76. Grobba estimated the number of copies printed al- arabi at 3000,whereas OM 18 323 set it at 1220 to 1710 9Z (1938) only copies. AAPa Mein Kampf P. 16, 73/4,vol. 1, Prop. Min. to DG Baghdad, May 10, 1934. 93 About Rufa'i'l Butti (1901-1956)-like al-Sab'äwï, Salim Hassun, Yunus al-Bahri from Mossul-see 'Awwad (1969) OM 19 (1939) 100; 113. He was a lawyer,journalist, deputy in the Iraqi parliamentand minister.Amin al-Rihani called him the Ibn Khaldun of Iraq (OM 1 8/1938/323fn. 2). For his works see 'Awwad (479 f. ;Kahhala 4, 167 ;GAL S III 481, 493; Schaade in OLZ 29 (1926) 865-72. He was editor and founder of the newspapers (founded May 2, 1924)and al-Bildd(founded October 25, 1929)cf. Tarazi 82f. ;86f. I have not been able to find information about the periodical al- Watani (The National Brotherhood); it is mentioned neither by Grobba (1941) 76ff., nor by OM 18 (1938) 323.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 154

The most sensitive issue was the racial question. Grobba suggested the following: .

Die Frage der Abanderung der die Rassenfragebetrefi"enden Stellen des Buchs in einer der Mentalit5t und dem Feingefiihlder rassebewuBtenAraber entsprechendenWeise habe ich mit dem Herausgeberder Zeitschrift"Al-Alam Ul-Arabi", SelimHassoon, besprochen. Er ist bereit, in der arabischen Ubersetzung vor seiner Drucklegung alle von mir vorge- schlagenenAnderungen vorzunehmen. Ich mochte daher vorschlagen, an der englischen Ausgabe des Buchs folgende Stellen zu andern: statt "anti-semitic" auf Seite 31 und 58: "anti-Jewish", statt "anti-Semitism" auf Seite 59: "anti-Judaism" und statt "bastardised" auf Seite 254: "dark". 14

Grobba suggested furthermore the insertion, before the chapter "Nation and Race", of a passage from a speech made by the Interior Minister Frick, which starts with the sentence:

German racial legislationdoes not want to pass judgement on the quality and worth of othcr pcoples and other races.

Grobba finally proposed to delete the following sentence:

The hopes of a mythicrising in Egypt against British influencewere equally illfounded. °5

On July 17 Grobba sent I 1 7clippings from the paper al- 'Ãlam al- 'Arabï, purporting to be a complete translation of the English edition, and repeated his request for official German agreement to the book edition:

Herr Selim Hassoon hat die Gesandtschaft gebeten, das Einverstdndnisdes dortigen Verlags mit der Herausbringungder Buch-Ausgabeerreichen zu wollen. In Hinblick auf den von dem Fuhrer anerkannten Propagandawert der lbersetzung ware die Gesandt- schaft dem Eher-Verlagdankbar, wenn er die erbetene Genehmigungzur Herausbringung der Ubersetzung in Buchformerteilen wurde.96

Grobba also repeated his request that the book edition should be subsidized. Interestingly enough, it was more than two years later that a decision was taken. The Ministry of Propaganda informed the Foreign Office on November 12, 1936:

Der Fuhrer und Reichskanzlerhat sich mit der Drucklegungund Herausgabe unter der Bedingung grundsatzlich einverstanden erklart, daB von einer Ubersetzung derjenigen Stellenabzusehen sei, die in Anbetracht der heuti?en politischenLage und in Hinblick auf das Empfindender arabischen Volker fur eine Ubersetzung nicht geeignet erscheint und

94 AAPa Mcin Kampf P. 16, 73/4 vol. 2, DG Bagdad to Prop Min, May 17, 1934. 95 Cf. below 160. 96 AAPa Mein Kampf P. 16, 73/4 vol. 2, DG.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 155 ihm vor der Drucklegungnoch einmal Vortrag uber dieseAngelegenheit gehalten wird. Ich 6bersendeIhnen daher anbei die arabische Ubersetzungmit der Bitte,dieselbe, wie mit dem deutschen Gesandten in Bagdad, Herrn Dr. Grobba, vereinbart, durch Herrn Geheimrat Moritz in dem oben genannten Sinn 3berprffen lassen zu wollen. Einer baldgef. R3ckgabe und Aul3erungsehe ich entgegen,damit sodann die Ubersetzung nochmals dem Fuhrer und Reichskanzlervorgelegt werden kann.9' ...

It is remarkable that Hitler gave this permission to change the text of Mein Kampf. Hitler had for a long time refused to consider any changes in the text by stating that the only changes possible were to be done in the "Book of History". 98 The Fuhrer feared that his absolute authority and control would appear compromised, if he publicly allowed modifications to his text. So it was only after considerable hesitation that he consented to the modifications in the French "oflicial" version Ma doctrine (Paris 1938).99 The Arabist consulted, Bernhard Moritz (1859- 1939) 100 was employed in the section "Pol. VII" of the German Foreign Office under Otto Werner von Hentig (1886-1984).101 He was nearly eighty years old and was respected for his knowledge of Arabic. He was . against the project:

Die arabische Ubersetzungist nach der englischenLlbertragung gefertigt worden. Sie ist zunachst in sprachlicher Hinsicht gepruft und mit der ungekürzten 56. Auflage des deutschen Originals verglichenworden. Diese vorlaufigePrufung, die sich auf das ganze Kapitel I sowie auf Kapitel II, XI, und XIV erstreckte, hat ergeben, daB man es nicht mit einer fortlaufenden Obersetzungzu tun hat, sondern mit dem Versuch, einzelne aus dem Zusammenhanggerissene Satze arabisch wiederzugeben-vergl. die beigeffgte Zusammen- stellung.Dieser Versuch kann nicht als gelungenbezeichnet werden. Aus vielenStellen geht hervor, daB der Llbersetzerdie Vorlage nicht richtig verstanden hat, bzw. nicht imstande gewesen ist, sie arabisch korrekt wiederzugeben. Die ganze Übersetzungsarbeit stellt demnach nur eine Sammlungvon Fragmenten des Originalsdar, die, aus dem Zusammen- hang gerissen und unkorrekt wiedergegeben,haufig unverstandlichsind. 102

This was the end of the project. The book version of Yunus al-Sab'awi's s translation never appeared 103

AAPA Mein Kampf P. 16, 73/4vol. 2, Prop Min. to AA, november 12, 1936. 98 Maser (1981)65., 99 ibid. 43. 100 Hentig (1962) 318. Moritz had travelled in Arabia in 1906 and 1914 to collect Arabic inscriptions.His Arabic Palaeography(Cairo 1905)and his study Arabien.Studien zur phy.rikalischenund historischenGeographie des Landes,Hannover 1923are still considered valuable sources. , . his autobiography Hentig (1962) and (1971). 1°2 AAPa Mein Kampf P. 16, 73/4 vol. 2, Aufzeichnungsigned Moritz and Schlobies. Dr. Hans Schlobics(1904-1950) was a specialistin Arabic and Amharic, also working for von See (1962) 318 and ZDMG 101 15-17. '03Hentig. Hentig (1951) Maser ( 1 98 states1 ) (p. 42): "In Baghdad, the news-paperThe Arab World published in 1934extracts from Mein Kampf,which appeared in 1936in bookform"(my italics, S.W.).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 156

3. Cairo

After the debacle with several Arabic translations, the Ministry of Propaganda proceeded to take the matter into their own hands and ordered an Arabic translation to be made via the German Bookshop Overhamm in Cairo. When the manuscript of the translation of the first volume arrived in december 1937, it was as usual sent to Section Pol. VII of the Auswartiges Amt with the request that Dr. Moritz examine the translation.

Da nach Anweisungdes Fuhrers und Reichskanzlersvon einer Ubersetzungderjenigen Stelienabzusehen ist, die in Anbetracht der heutigen politischenLage und im Hinblickauf das Empfindender arabischenVolker fur eine Ubersetzungnicht geeigneterscheinen, bitte ich, das besondersanmerken zu lassen. Ich werde diese Vorschlagesodann dem Fuhrer und Reichskanzlerzur endgiiltigenEntscheidung nochmals vorlegen. (gez.) Hasenöhrll04.

Moritz' opinion was negative again:

Jedenfallszeigt die Llbersetzung,daB ihr Verfasserseiner Aufgabe nicht gewachsenwar und weder das Deutsche genugend beherrschte, noch auch eine gute Kenntnis der gebildeten arabischen Sprache besitzt. Wahrscheinlich ist es ein Kopte (einheimischer Christ).'I 05 5

As far as this last guess is concerned, Moritz was wrong. The translator was in reality a Muslim: Ahmad Mahmud al-Sadati, employee and librarian at the Ddr al-Kutub in Cairo. He had published in 1934:

AdolfHitler, -a'fm al-ishtirakiyaal-watanlya ma'al-bavan lil-mas'alaal-yahu?ya. (A.H., leader of National Socialism,together with an explanation of the Jewish question). 167p. Cairo, al-Malba'a al-rahmnniva1353/1934106 which must be one of the earliest Arabic books ever published on National Socialism. Al-Sadati had spoken to the Swedish Arabist Walter Bjorkman, when the latter was in Cairo in 1938. Bjorkman related to Hans Schlobies (1904-1950) in von Hentig's bureau:

I have not been able to find the source for Maser's statement. Caspar ( 1 958)14 mentions only the publicationin TheArab World,quoting an article in the Frankfurter Zeitung,Aug. 25, 1938which I have not seen. I doubt, however,that these extracts were published at the time in Baghdad as a book. It is mentioned nowhere else and, more important, 'Awwdd mentions in his bibliography, which also lists translations, only one book by Y3nus al- Sab'dwi: al-Qaumiyyaal-Wataniyya: haga'ig vi,a-T?j?atwa-manahidj li-l-mustaqbal, Mossul 1938CAwwäd 1969/ iii, 493) (Patriotic Nationalism: truths, explanationsand methods for the future). AAPa, Pol. VII (26) vol. 1, Arabien, Prop. Min to AA, December 10, 1937. 105 AAPa, Pol. VII (26) vol. 1, Arabien, note Moritz December 12, 1937. 1 6 The book is mentioned by W. Bjorkman ( 1 938)174.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 157

Sadati erzdhlte mir Anfang September (1938, S.W.), er habe eine Ubersetzung fertig gemacht, dann aber habe der Eher-VerlagSchwierigkeiten gemacht, weil er einigc Stellen, die er fur nicht so geeignethalte, gestrichenhaben wolle. Daher sei die Ubersetzungnoch nicht gedruckt worden. Als dann im Oktober ein kleiner, etwas dürftiger Auszug im Stra(3enhandelin Cairo auftauchte, sagte er mir, der sei ohne Genehmigung des Verlags (Eher, S.W.) erschienen,das sei nun die

The efforts of the Ministry of Propaganda to publish an officially approved translation into Arabic had been thwarted again. Again there was an Arabic translation printed which had not been approved of by any official German agancy. But this time, there were additional compli- cations. The complete title in Arabic was My Struggle on behalf of the Great Reich :

Kifahi fi sabil al-raikh al-kabir. Ta'lif al-Herr Adolf Hitler. Ta`rib al-ustadh 'Ali Muhammad Mahbub. Maktabat al-Bait al-Tarikhiyya. Cairo, n.d. (1938).Dar al-nashr wa-I-ta'lif al-tidjariyya,255

The book is in three parts. The first part covers under the subtitle Kifahi "My Struggle" the first volume of Hitler's Mein Kampf; the second part "On behalf of the Reich" ifi sabil al-raikh) chapters of the second volume. In the third and last part the book offers under the heading "Ideas about Hitler" (Khatara-t 'an Hitler) various passages from Hitler's speeches and opinions about Hitler. Hitler's speech in the Sportpalast of 26 September 1938 is quoted at some length. A further section consists of excerpts from a book by a certain Stephen Roberts on National Socialism which is fairly critical of Hitler's person and policy (-the chapter is under the heading "The Fuhrer Hitler is a danger for world peace"). There are further bits about Hitler and German women, Hitler as a world-leader of the celibates, the program of the NSDAP, Baldur von Schirach and the indoctrination of German youth. The last section deals with the september crisis in 1938-only weeks before the translation came out. The actual translation of Mein Kampf-less than 200 octavo pages-

101 AAPa, Pol. VII (26) vol. 1, Arabien, letter W. Bjorkman to Dr. Schlobies, AA, January 15, 1939. Bjorkman ( 1938)174. The name of the translator is misspelt by Bjorkman and elsewhere:MahdjQb; Lange (1968) 169and Caspar (1958) 15 have: Mahtoub. Even in the correspondence between the German Legation in Cairo and the German ministries the name is not alwayscorrect: "Aly MohammedMahmoud" letter DG Kairo to Prop. Min., AAPa P. 16, Mein Kampf, vol. 2, Oct. 31, 1938.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 158 covers only a fraction of the original; most of the political history of Germany which must have been incomprehensible to the translator is omitted. The translation bristles with misprints and glaring mistransla- tions : Hitler's statement "Ich wurde Nationalist" (I became a Nationa- list) is translated innani asbahtu ishtiräkiyyan, "F6deralismus" (federa- lism) is translated by nizum al-iqtd "Minenwerfer" (mine-throwers) by al-ahkim al- °urfiyj,a ( !). 'A1ï Muhammad Mahbub claims to have had the German original along with the French and the English version at his disposal (p. 196). But it is highly improbable that he actually used it. The way in which he transcribes "Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles" into Arabic (p. 20) makes it virtually impossible that he read and understood German. The book is interspersed with photographs showing Hitler in various poses, German military scenes as well as advertisements for German and English Teach- Yourself-Books, books on fortune telling and a forthcoming Arabic translation of Benito Mussolini's autobiography. In a statement (ba -van) at the beginning (p. 2), in a foreword (kalimat al-mu'arrib) and an afterword (khatimat al-mu'arrib, p. 194) the translator is at pains to assure the reader that the translation means neither support nor attack of anybody's polical view (p. 2); more than once the translator stresses his neutrality towards Hitler's principles "the mode- rate ones and the extreme ones". The translators then attributes to others what is most probably his own opinion:

In everycorner of the world, Hitler is considereda hero, although many political parties all over the globe will not recognizehis policy or his method of ruling and government. They see in Hitler the highest ideal in adherence to a principle and maintaining a conviction.They consider him a hero in this. And indeed, they are right. We have only to leaveaside the political aspects of this man to place him without doubt in the first rank on the list of national heroism and dedication to his nation. 109

As far as Hitler's antisemitism is concerned, the translator notes:

The most evident aspect of Hitler's book is his hatred of the Jews and his view of the Jews as the elementwhich destroys the German race (iinsiyya).Hitler exaggerateswhen he seesin the non-Aryan race a cancer which saps the body of the country it livesin and when he regards its extermination as his first duty. 11°

About the translator 'Ali Muhammad Mahbub next to nothing is known. The German legation in Cairo reported about him: 109 Hitler/Mahb5b (1938) 196. 1 . :.....1. . : ibid. .. :

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 159

Aly Mohamed Mahgoub (!), Aegypter, ist ein agyptischerSchriftsteller zweiten Ranges, der sich mit Buchubersetzungenund volkstumlichenRomanen befasst. 111

I have not been able to trace any of his popular novels or his translations. On October 21, 1938 the Zentralverlag der NSDAP in Berlin, successor of the Franz-Eher-Verlag in Munich and holder of the copyright wrote to thc Gcrman Forcign Office: ,

Von der Firma Overhamm & Co., Deutsche Buchhandlung Kairo, wcrden wir darauf aufmerksamgemacht, daB in Kairo eine arabische Ausgabe des Buches"Mein Kampf' in auBerstdarftiger und schlechterForm erschienensei. Der UbersetzerheiBt Ali Mohammad Mahgob. (!) i 1 Bei dem Verlaghandelt es sich um die Firma Dar al Mascher (!), Kairo, 14, Rue Ibrahim Pascha. Die Ausgabe stellt eine stark gekarzte Ubersetzung der englischen Fassung "Mein Kampf ' (My Struggle)dar. Dem Werk sind Artikel des Ubersetzersuber die Achse Berlin-Rom,die BeteiligungAmerikas am Weltkriegund ahnlicheDinge, die mit dem Buch nichts zu tun haben und auBerst irrefiihrend wirken, angeffgt. Wir wdren Ihnen dankbar, wenn Sie von dort aus geeigneteSchritte unternehmen wfrden und die Zuruckziehung des Werkes verlangen, bzw. die zustdndigen Kreise darauf aufmerksam machen, daB der Parteiverlag erwartet hdtte, daB fur die Herausgabe eines derartigen Buches, wie es allgemeinublich ist, seine Genehmigungeingeholt wird. "33

Before this letter was answered the German legation in Cairo had sent the following report :.

In der Anlage erhalten Sie eine hier fur 3 Piaster zum Verkauf kommendeBroschure, die auf der Umschlagseiteden Eindruck erwecken soll, als handle es sich um die arabische Ubersetzungvon "Mein Kampf'. Als Ubersetzerdieses bei einem Verlag 14, Rue Ibrahim Pascha (!) herausgekommenenBuches zeichnet Aly Mohamed Mahmoud (!). Das Buch enthalt Stellen aus "Mein Kampf ', erganzt durch Reden Hitlers und durch Kommentare. Von den Reden ist bereits die Rede des Fuhrers im Sportpalast ubcr die Tschechoslowakei(vor der sudetendeutschen Regelung) berucksichtigt. Das Parteipro- gramm wird unter Anfuhrung von Fur- und Wider-Grunden durchgenommen.An frem- dem Material ist Bezug genommen auf ein Buch von Stephan Roberts, Professor fur Geschichte an der Universitat Sidney, dessen Tendenz gegen Hitler gerichtet ist, der in jenem Buch als Gefahr fur den internationalen Frieden gekennzeichnetist. In der Offentlichkelthat das Werk wohl auch wegen seiner anrcil3erischenUmschlagzeich- nung und wegen des wenn auch schlecht wiedergegebenen,aber doch reichhaltigen Bildmaterials,eine gewisseVerbreitung gefunden. Dies auBert sich darin, daB in der Presse dazu Stellung genommen wurde. Der Verlag hatte in der arabischen Presse eine Anzeige des Buchs ver6ffentlicht. Die franzosisch-judischeTageszeitung "Journal d'Egypte" behauptet in einer kurzen Auslassung,es handele sich bei diesemBuch um eine von Hitler

1 1AAPa Pol. VII Arabien, vol. 1, DG Cairo to AA, 1939. "2 (26) February 20, 'Ayida Ibrahim Nusair, Al-kutub allatl nushirat.fi-I-jumhfiri_17ya 1- 'ara- 1-muttahitla 1926-1940,Cairo 1969, p. 150 Nr. 6/224 lists under 'Ali Muhammad Mahblib a Tärïkh al-tavaran, Cairo 1940,Mat5bl' D5r al-Nashr. This book is announced as forthcoming without its author's name under the title of?/-G/!M2? /!'i5lam al-tai,arcinon the last page of the Egyptian Mein Kampf=translation. AAPa P 16 (73/4) Mein Kampf, vol. 2, Zentralverlagder NSDAP to AA, October 21, 1938.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 160 lanciertearabische Ubersetzung von "Mein Kampf", bei der die fur Agyptenbeleidigenden Stellen des deutschen Textes ausgelassenseien. Die arabische Wochenschrift"Rose El Youssef ' beschaftigtsich ebenfalls mit dem Buch uber "Mein Kampf ' und hebt hervor, daB nach Hitlers Ansicht die Agypter ein dekadentes Volk von Kriippeln seien. Die Broschure, die fur 3 Piaster verkauft werde, koste in der Herstellungein Mehrfachesder Summe. Nur Gott wisse,welcher edelm6tige Spender den Verlust zu tragen, auf sich genommenhabe. Der arabische Cbersetzer habe die Stelledes Buches "Mein Kampf ', die sich auf Agypten und die Agypter beziehe, herausgelassen, denn diese Stelleallein schon wurde genugen,das Buch aus dem Verkehr zu bringen. Wenn der Llbersetzer,wie er behaupte, Agypter sei, hdtte er das Buch aus diesem Grunde schon bekdmpfen mussen und Erscheinen nicht Vorschub leisten durfen. "Rose El Youssef' bringt dann die Ubersetzungseinem der Stelleaus "Mein Kampf', deren Auslassungsie r]gt. Es handelt sich um die Wiedergabeder letzten Halfte der Seite 747 in der einbandigen Ausgabe von 1930. Die seinerzeitigeMitteilung, daB eine autorisierte Ubersetzungdes Buches"Mein Kampf ' in arabischer Sprache in Berlin angefertigt worden ist und deren Erscheinen bevorsteht, macht es mir zur Pflicht, darauf hinzuweisen,daf3 die erste Sorge der hiesigenLeser darin bestehen wird nachzusehen, ob die durch die Presse gezogenen beiden Stellen, die der Agypter als Kritik empfindet, darin stehen oder nicht. Das Weglassenin der amtlichen Llbersetzungwurde nachdrfcklich beanstandet werden. Vielleichtist es daher angebracht, die Stellen zu bringen, aber in einem Vorwort oder einer Einfuhrung eine fur hier zu empfehlendeErklarung bcizugcbcn.Sic konnte darin bestehen,daB man etwa sagt, daBdie Agypter als Volk unterschiedlichentwickelt sind, und daB die auf hoher Stufe stehenden Agypter wohl selbst nicht die Gleichstellung mit ihren zahlreichen zurfckgebliebenen beffrworten wollen. Sollten die beiden Stellen in der arabischen Volksgenossen Ausgabe4 weggelassenwerden, so mul3teauch dies in einem Vorwort ausdrfcklich erklart werden. 114

The report that the Egyptian translator had suppressed passages in his translation which implied Arab racial inferiority reached other areas of the Arab world and was an obstacle to German propaganda. The damaging passage in Mein Kampf ran:

Genau so kiimmerlichsind die Hoffnungenauf den sagenhaften Aufstand in Agypten. Der "I felligeKrieg" kann unseren deutschen Schafkopfspielerndas angenehme Gruseln beibringen,daB jetzt andere fur uns zu verbluten bereit sind-denn diese feige Spekulation ist, ehrlich gesagt,schon immer der stille Vater solcher Hoffnungen gewesen-, in der Wirklichkeitwurde er unter dem Strichfeuerenglischer Maschinengewehrkompanien und dem Hagel von Brisanzbombenein h6llischesEnde nehmen. Es ist eben eine Unm6glichkeit,einen machtvollen Staat, der entschlossenist, fur seine Existenz, wenn notig, den letzten Blutstropfen einzusetzen, durch eine Koalition von Kriippeln zu berennen. Als volkischer Mann, der den Wert des Menschentums nach rassischen Grundlagen abschatzt, darf ich schon aus der Erkenntnis der rassischen dieser "unterdrückten Nationen" nicht das Schicksaldes Minderwertigkeit sogenannten 5 eigenen Volkes mit dem ihren verketten.1's .

On the 3rd of November 1938 the German legation in Cairo sent the following judgement on the Cairene translation, which was wriiten by the "Oriental Secretary" of the Embassy, Dessouki:

AAPa P 16 (73/4) Mein Kampf, vol. 2, DG Cairo to Prop.Min., October 31, 1938. Mein Kampf (1941)747.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 161

Der agyptischeVerlag "Dar elNashr wil Talif-elTugariya" 14, sh. Ibrahim Pascha, Tel. 40 344, hat kiirzlich ein Biichlein herausgegeben,das die Obersetzung des Buches des Fuhrers "Mein Kampf" sein soll. Der Ubersetzer des Buches Aly Mohamed M a h g Q u b, (!) der fur seine Obersetzungein paar Pfund erhalten haben muB, ist den hiesigenliterarischen Kreisen v6llig unbekannt. Seine sogenannte lbersetzung des Buches "Mein Kampf ' stellt nur einen kleinen Auzug aus dem Original dar und soll aus der englischenUbersetzung ubertragen worden sein. Dieser Auzug ist schlecht ubersetzt und entstellt sicher den Sinn des Originals. Der Stil ist miserabel, doch wird er unter den HalbgebildetenVerstandnis finden. Der Ubersetzer hat einen Kommentar angehangt, der hochst unerfreulich ist, u.a. ein Auszug aus dem feindlichenBuch des amerikanischenProfessors Stephan Roberts mit der Überschrift "Der Fuhrer Hitler ist eine Gefahr fur den Weltfrieden". Andere Betrachtungen des Ubersetzers, die ein Gemisch von Sympathien und Unsinn bilden, versuchen deutsche Verpfhchtungserklarungenals unhaltbar darzustellen, oder vielmehrdie These zu vertreten, daB Deutschland sein Wort nie halte. Das Buch ist einesder Beispiele,wie sie haufig den Markt uberschwemmen.Die Herausge- ber suchen dabei nur den Verdienst.Hinzu kommt die Gesetzwidrigkeitihres Handelns. I II

The German envoy in Cairo von Ow-Wachendorf proposed to consult a German judge at the Mixed Court in Cairo, to find out whether legal steps could be taken against the publishing house, l 17 On the other hand, W. Bjorkman, at the time editor of the Mitteilungen der Auslands- Hochschule an der Universität Berlin, and professor at the same institu- tion, reported to the Kulturabteilung des Auswartigen Amtes on his stay in Egypt and mentioned this translation. His opinion was not quite as negative as the view of the German Legation. In a review on the Egyptian translation he wrote:

Ein Vergleichder Ubersetzungin Stichprobenzeigt, daf3sie oft frei, unnotig frei ist, daB sie mit den vielen Auslassungen kaum ein richtiges Bild gibt, und daB der besondere pers6nliche Stil des Fuhrers gar nicht wiedergegebenist. Man mag dem Ubersetzer zugeben, daB er die beste Absicht hatte und seine Auswahl nicht ungeschicktgetroffen 8

Bjorkman mentions the numerous misprints and doubts the wisdom of this kind of popularisation, but seems to have ignored the mild criticism of Hitler which the report of the German Legation in Cairo mentions. In any case, the German Legation consulted their lawyer, the German judge at the Mixed Court, Dr. Uppenkamp, to find out what steps might be taken against the translator and publishing house. At the same time (4.11.1938) the German Legation protested in a formal note to the

"6 AAPa P 16 (73/4) Mein Kampf, vol. 2, Aufzeichnung,signed Dessouki, annexed to letter DG Cairo to Prop Min., October 31, 1938. AAPa P 16 (73/4) Mein Kampf, vol. 2, DG Cairo to AA, November 3, 1938. 118 Bj6rkman (1938)174.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 162

Egyptian Foreign Ministry and asked that the translator withdraw all copies from the Egyptian market:

faute de quoi cette Legation demanderait de bien vouloir faire le necessaireen vue de la confiscationdu dit ouvrage avcc toutcs lcs suites que comporterait I'applicationde l'article 349 du Code Penal. "99

Dr. Uppenkamp in a confidential letter forecast a complicated proce- dure : .

Dann wird weiter zu prufen sein, wem die zivilrecht1ichenSchritte-vtl. auch die constitution als partie civile in einem evtl. Strafverfahren-als Anwalt anvertraut werden konnen. Da Herr R.A. Dr. Theiss noch nicht selbstandigals Anwalt vor den Gemischten Gerichten auftreten kann, eine derartige Sache-die auf derGegenseite vielleicht oder sogar sicher kampflustigejfdischc Anwalte in Erscheinung treten lassen wird (nach meinen Erfahrungen kann man damit rechnen, daB sie sich ohne Honorar aufdrangen werden bei den Prozessgegnern)-aber schwerlichvon einer Dame, Frl. Dr. Bitter (die freilichbei den CiemischtcnGerichten vollberechtigteAnwaltin ist) vertreten werden kann, so halte ich es aus taktischen Gr3nden fur richtig, die gerichtlichenSchritte einem besondersangesehenen agyptischenAnwalt anzuvertrauen,dem freilichals Mitarbeiter einer der beiden genannten deutschen Anwalte beizugebenware. Ich bringe bei dieser Gelegentheitin Erinnerung,daB der Deutsche Verein Cairo im "JudenprozeB" von dem agyptischen Anwalt Kamel Bey Sedky vertreten war (Pr5s]dent der Gesetzgebungskommission,ehedem Vorsteher der agyptischenAnwaltschaft und fruher Vizeprdsidentder Anwaltskammer).'2°

In other words, Dr. Uppenkamp warned of the possibility that Jewish Egyptian "aggressive" lawyers would represent the Publishing House and defend its right to sell Muhammad 'All Mahbub's translation of Mein Kampf. A further complication was the question of whether, according to Egyptian legislation, a second Arabic translation of Mein Kampf would be legally possible as long as the first one was on the market. Confronted with all this, the Zentral-Verlag der NSDAP decided to do nothing (letter to the Auswartiges Amt 31.1.1939).121 The legal case, alluded to in the terminology of the Ministry of Propaganda as "Kairoer Judenprozess", had the following background: A member of the Cairo based local group of the NSDAP had in June 1933 printed an anti-Semitic pamphlet "Zur Judenfrage in Deutschland", first in German, later also in French. The author had been taken to court by an Italian Jewish businessman, Umberto Jabes. Two Egyptian courts had

119 AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol. 1, note DG Cairo to Minist?re Royal des Affaires Etrangeres, Le Caire, November I l, 1938. AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, Dr. Uppenkamp to von Ow, DG Cairo, November4, 1938,p. 280f. AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, Zentralverlagder NSDAP to AA, January 31, 1939.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 163 rejected the charge and the Völkische Beobachter had reported the case in detail. 122 For the Egyptian Jews the appearance of Mein Kampf in Arabic wass at any rate a cause for alarm. It seems that during the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo in October 1938, this translation of Mein Kampf was distributed together with other anti-Semitic material 123 like The Protocols of' the Elders of Zion.' In any case, anti-Jewish propaganda, waged by the local group of the NSDAP in Cairo and the German Club had by 1933 already been vociferous enough to provoke a reaction by the Jewish community in Egypt. Maurice Fargeon, an Egyptian Jewish journalist, wrote an attack on Hitler's antisemitism under the title Le tyran moderne. Hitler ou la verité sur la vie du Fuehrer. Alexandria n.d. (1934). Fargeon's book was seized by the Egyptian police, he was later convicted by an Egyptian court for diffamation of Hitler, but was released on bail. 124

4. Berlin

After the different attempts in Beirut, Baghdad and Cairo had failed to produce an Arabic translation of Mein Kampf which satisfied the standards of the German authorities, the Foreign Office intervened, demanded that it be consulted, and put up its own proposal for a translation. This translation was to be an official one, produced by the Foreign Ofhce, and the project was much more sophisticated than anything before. When von Hentig had rejected the Arabic translation in manuscript- form, drafted by Ahmad Mahmud al-Sadati, he wrote an accompanying letter to the Ministry of Propaganda and added the following letter which deserves to be quoted in full:

Wenn die arabische Llbersetzungdes Buches den Zweck erfiillen soll, den gebildeten Kreisen der arabisch sprechenden V61ker eine anregende und belehrende Lekture zu gewahren, so mul3te sie kompetenten Bearbeitern übergeben werden. Es muf3tendazu berufen werden: ein Deutscher, der nicht nur die klassische arabische Sprache kennt, sondern auch mit der modernen Literatursprache besonders der der politischen Presse, vertraut ist, so daf3er imstande ist, fur die politischeTerminologie des Verfassers,fiir die die arabischen Wörterbücher haufig keine Hilfe gewahren, neue arabische Ausdrucke zu

For details see Kramer 265ff. 3 Kramer 295. I owe this information to Dr. G. Kramer.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 164 schaflen,die den Sinn der Vorlagegenau wiedergeben,so daB sie gebildetenLescrn leicht verstandlichsind. Zu diesem Zweck gebraucht er die Mitwirkungeines gelehrtenArabers, der des Deutschen genugendmachtig sein, dann aber auch seine eigeneSprache grfndlich studicrt haben muB.Ihm wiirdedie weitereAufgabe zufallen, die lbcrsetzung stilistischin eine Form zu bringen, die den gebildetenarabischen Lesern eine angenehmeund fesseinde Lekture des Buchserm6glicht. Ob ein Mann von solcher Bildungsich gegenwartigin Berlin befindet,ist hier nicht bekannt, ein Kaufmann, Student oder einfacherJournalist ware dazu nicht geeignet. Die Anfertigung einer solchen Ubersetzung w6rde mehrere Monate in Anspruch nehmen. Da die vorliegendeUbersetzung den Anspruchen.die an sie berechtig- terweise zu stellen sind, nicht geniigt, durfte es zweckmaBigsein, die Buchhandlung Overhamm m6glichst beschleunigt von dem negativen Ergebnis der Uberprufung zu verstandigen,damit unnotige Arbeit und Kosten vermiedenwerden. Im Hinblick auf den groBenpropagandistischen Wert, den eine wirklichgute arabische Ubersetzung des Werkes des Fuhrers haben wurde, darf gebeten werden, vor einer nochmaligen Vergebung des Übersetzungsauftragesdas Auswdrtige Amt zu beteiligen, Nach meiner Ansicht kann ein solchesWerk, das in der ganzen arabisch sprechendenWelt von Marokko bis Indien weitgehendcn Anteil finden wurde, politisch und sprachlich nicht griindlich genug vorbereitet werden. Es ware dies nur durch die Zusammenarbeitdes politischenSprachendienstes mit einem hochgebildeten, gutschreibenden Araber m6glich, der in der Lage sein muBte, die im Arabischen noch fehlenden Ausdrucke und Begriffeschopferisch selbst zu formen. Die Aufgeschlossenheitdes arabischen Raumes fur politische Gedanken legt den Vorschlag nahe, die Arbeit unverzuglichanzugreifen. Das Manuskript der Ubersetzungist in der Anlage wieder beigeffgt. i.A. (gez.) von Hentig 1215

In March 1938 an important modification occurred to von Hentig. He wrote: l

Je langer ich mir die Angelegenheitiiberlegt habe, desto mehr bin ich zu der Auffassung gelangt,daB sie von einer einzigenPerson und sei sie politisch und sprachlichauch noch so begabt, nicht erledigt werden kann. Es ist kaum moglich,einen Menchenzu finden,der die deutsche Sprache und die arabische gleich gut beherrscht, der in der Lage ist, einen ganz neuen politischenWortschatz zu bilden, im Stil lebendigund anregendzu bleibenund doch im Werke ctwas vom Tone des Buches zu geben, was jeder Mohammed versteht: des Koran. Wurde das gelingen,so ware fur die arabische LJbersetzungdes Buchesdes Fuhrers Boden und Widerhall von Marokko bis Indien zu finden.... Ich habe mir gedacht, daB folgenderma!3envorgegangen wird: Zunachst wird von dem Ehmir (!) Shekib Arslan, der vor cinigen Tage zur Mitarbeit aufgefordert worden ist, der Text unter Mitwirkungeines deutschen Gelehrten ins Arabische ubersetzt. Shekib Arslan hatte vor allem fur eine moderne, flussigeund lebendigeSprache zu sorgen und--wozu er nach seinerVergangenheit und Begabungdurchaus in der Lage ist-die Pragung des neuen politischenWortschatzes vorzunehmen. Nach dieser Arbeit muBteunmittelbar in kleineren Abschnitten,auBerstenfalls in Kapiteln, das Buch von einem Koran-Gelehrten,den wir fur diese Zwecke in Aussicht haben, nochmals leicht uberfeilt und ihm der weihevolleTon gegebenwerden, der, wie ich schon oben bemerkte,in der ganzen islamischenWelt, die den Koran liest, verstanden und gewurdigt wird. Von diesem so gewonnenenarabischen Text mochte ich vorschlagen,sofort eine w6rtliche Ubersetzung anzufertigen. Es ist dies eine Nebenarbeit, die sich ohne gr6BereSchwierigkeit machen lä!3t,fur die deutschen, mit der AngelegenheitbefaBten Stellen aber immerhinvon erheblichemWert sein kann. Irgendwel- che politischen oder weltanschaulichenFragen, die sich aus dem nunmehr endgultig vorzulegendenarabischen Text ergeben sollten, mul3tendann noch allw6chentlichoder 1 2AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol I, AA to Prop.Min. December29, 1937.This letter was based on a note by Moritz' hand, dated December 23, 1937.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 165 spatestens alle 10 Tage von einem ganz kleinen AusschuB,dem, abgesehen von Ihrem Ministerium,ein Herr des AuBenpolitischenAmts angeh6ren konnte, und wobei wir uns auch der Mitwirkungdes Geheimrats Moritz bedienensollten, uberpruft und entschieden werden. Wird die Arbeit jetzt gleich in Angriff genommen, so konnte sie, vor allem, wenn die fertiggestelltenKapitel sofort in den Druck gegeben werden, Anfang Januar nachsten Jahres beendet sein und die ersten vollstdndigenDrucke bereits bis zur nachtstjahrigen Pilgerfahrt erscheinen. Es ist dies deswegen von groBer Wichtigkeit, weil man durch geeignete Leute besonders gut ausgeffhrte Exemplare den in Mekka zur Pilgerfahrt versammeltenFührern der einzelnenmohammedanischen Volksgruppen verehren konnte. Ich ware Ihnen, lieber Herr Knothe, sehr dankbar, wenn ich die bisherigenUbersetzun- gen von "Mein Kampf ' bis auf die englische, die ich pers6nlich besitze, ubersandt bekommen konnte. Von der franzosischenw5ren mir 2 Exemplareerw6nscht, weil Ehmir (!) Shekib Arsan (!) vorziiglich Franzosisch spricht, und sich bei seiner Arbeit voraus- sichtlichin erster Linieauf den franzosischenText stftzen wird. Ich ware Ihnen gleichzeitig dankbar uber die Bekanntgabe der Richtlinien, die an die fruheren Ubersetzer ergangen sind. Ich wurde es fur falsch halten, irgendwelcheAuslassungen vorzunehmen, dagegen fur zulassigund politischgeboten, mit ausdr3cklicherGenehmigung des Fuhrers die LJbertra- gung so zu halten, was auch im Orient durchaus verstanden wird, daB sie Auslegungenund Glosscn erhalt, die durch eine besondere Genehmigung fur authentisch erklart werden mul3ten. Ich ware Ihnen dankbar, wenn Sie zum Zweck der weiterenBehandlung der Angelegen- heit mich in allernachster Zeit freundlichstnoch einmal aufsuchen wollten. Heil Hitler! (gez.) von Hen tig 126

The Ministry of Propaganda agreed (January 14, 1938). The Arabist of the department, B. Moritz proposed the following to von Hentig:

Am meistengeeignet durfte der syrischePolitiker SchekibArslan sein, ein alter Deutsch- landfreund und Vertrauensmannvon Rom, als scin Mitarbeiter Dr. Caskel in Greifswalde (!), der mit Schekibseit langem bekannt ist. Sollten Bedenkengegen diese beiden erhoben werden, gegen Schekibwegen seinesAlters--ca. 75 Jahre-und gegen Caskel wegenseiner Herkunft, so nenne ich wieder die Professoren Schacht in Konigsberg und Schade (!) in Hamburg, die beide viele Jahre in Agypten zu gelehrten Zwecken tatig waren und in der Lage sind, geeignete Mitarbeiter unter arabischen Gelehrten namhaft zu machen. Dr. Schacht soll Jesuit (gewesen?)

Moritz seems to have been out of touch with his orientalist colleagues. Josef (later: Joseph) Schacht (1902-1969) would have been the last person to have accepted such a task. He was in 1938 in Cairo most of the time where he had been teaching Semitic Languages since 1934. Schacht belonged to the courageous minority of German orientalists in opposition to National Socialism, who left Germany in the Thirties 128 without having to fear racial persecution for their own person.

AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, AA to Prop.Min. (draft) March 28, 1938. AAPa Pol. VII Arabien, vol 1, to AA, 1938. 'z8 (26) Prop.Min. January 14, See the obituaries in Studia Islamica 31 (1970) v-ix (Robert Brunschvig)and in BSOAS33 ( 1970)378-381 (Bernard Lewis).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 166

Moritz estimated the time necessary for the translation to be seven to eight months and volunteered to do the necessary counterchecking. Von Hentig conveyed the proposal that Shakib Arslan and one of the members of the "Sprachendienst" (Language Section of the Foreign Office) should do the translation for the Ministry of Propaganda. As fee von Hentig proposed RM 7.000,--129

The man who was most probably selected to introduce the "koranic ring" into the Arabic translation was Alimcan Idris (1887-196?). He was from 1933 to 1942 scientific assistant ("wissenschaftlicher Hilfsarbeiter") in von Hentig's section Pol. VII of the Auswartiges Amt and formed together with B. Moritz and H. Schlobies the team of Oriental experts. He was proposed as translator for a Persian version of Mein Kampf, a project which as it seems was later abandoned. In retrospect, von Hentig gave Idris a very prominent position even beyond the question of Oriental translations of Mein Kampf:

In der Tat ist die Kontrolle aber die Ubersetzungvon "Mein Kampf' durch mein Buro gelaufen. In ersten Linie war dabei Professor Idris beteiligt. Er hat mit meiner Genehmi- gung das Urteil uber die Stellung der Partei zur arabischen Welt in eine der Politik des Auswartigen Amts Pol. VII gemasse Form gebracht. Sie stimmte sp5ter auch mit der Auffassungdes Fuhrers uberein, wie er sie pers6nlich bei einem Besuch des Saudischen Gesandten Halid al-Hud auf dem Obersalzbergzum Ausdruck gebracht hatte. 132

Von Hentig's proposal to give the translation a koranic ring and thereby guarantee a favorable acceptance in the Arabic speaking and Islamic world was bold indeed. It was probably this plan which by unknown channels was communicated to the Allies and the Arab world and which caused the Beirut based news-paper L'Orient to report:

German orientalists prepare a falsificationof the Koran with political intentions. They prcscnt in the form of Koranic verses a selection of passages from Mein Kampf so that

AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, AA to Prop.Min. (draft) January 17, 1938. 130AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, 161. Alimcan Idris was born on May 5, 1887in Kizilyar (Siberia). He was from 1916to 1921 in the Prussian Ministry of War responsible for the Muslim prisoners of war in Germany. From 1939onwards, he also worked with the German BroadcastingService in the Foreign Languages Section. He was a Tatar Muslim who knew beside his mother tongue also Turkish, Kirgisian, Uzbek, Russian, German, Persian and Arabic. After 1945 he founded an Islamic Council for Germany in Munich. Cf. von zur Muhlen 39 (and Index); M.S. Abdullah, Geschichtedes Islams in Deutschland,Graz 1981,38; von Hentig (1962) 318 (Index wrongly: 118!),422. Von Hentig in a letter to the author, dated March 27, 1984.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 167

Muslims will believe that Hitler is a messenger of God and his book of divine inspira- tion. 133

After the outbreak of the war, a very similar project was suggested, again in connection with an "Islam-Programm" which was to be carried out in co-operation with the Grand Mufti. The German envoy in Cairo, . von Stohrer, proposed:

Durch den Gross-Mufti wurde es moglich sein, eine weitschauendePropaganda in der islamischenWelt zu entfalten. Zum Beispielenthalte der Koran eine Reihe von Spruchen (Suren), die von jedem Islamkennermit Leichtigkeitals prophetische Worte, die auf das Erscheinendes Fuhrers hinweisen,ausgedeutet werden könnten. 134

The second German Arabist consulted, Werner Caskel (1896-1970), at the time in Greifswald, disagreed with von Hentig's proposal. In a letter to the Foreign Ministry he wrote:

Ihrer freundlichenWeisung folgend habe ich mir die Angelegenheitder Ubersetzungvon M.K. (= Mein Kampf, S.W.)noch einmal durch den Kopfgehen lasscn.Die Schwierigkeit der Ubersetzungliegt m.E. nicht so sehr in der richtigenWiedergabe einzelner Wendungen als darin, den Ton des Ganzen zu treffen. Dazu geh6rt Schwung und Begeisterungsfa- higkeit, und ich furchte, daB die beiden Herrcn, an die bisher gedacht wordcn ist, der E.S.A. (= Emir Schakib Arslan, S.W.) und Prof. M. (= Moritz, S.W.)diese Eigenschaften nicht in dem wunschenswertenMaB besitzen. Ich wurde denken, daB am ersten jemand in Betracht kame, der einer "autoritar" gerichteten Partei, z.B. der Syrischen(scil. Libanesi- schen)Volkspartei, nahe steht. PolitischeBedenken in dieser Hinsicht-denn der Name des Ubersetzers wird schwerlich verborgen bleiben, selbst wenn die Obertragung anonym erscheinen sollte-konnten dadurch beseitigt werden, daB man dem Buch das Vorwort cines politisch nicht abgestempeltenSchriftstellers vorausschickt. Bemerkenm6chte ich noch, daB das Werk eine Kenntnis von den deutschenZustanden der letzten dreiBigJahre voraussetzt, die ein dortiger Leser kaum mitbringen wird; da wird wohl hier und da durch FuBnoten nachgeholfenwerden mussen. Über etwa notwendige Streichungenund Anderungenkann ich naturlich nicht urteilen, auch nicht, ob die Stellen iiber den Orient unter diese Kategorie fallen.

After a paragraph about the success of the German Arab language broadcasting program, Caskel's letter continues:

Sie wurden mich verbinden, wenn Sie Herrn Geheimrat Moritz von diesen Zeilen keine Kenntnis geben wiirden; er k6nnte sich ubergangen fuhlen, da ich mich direkt an Sie wende, und ich mochte es vermeiden,meinen vaterlichenFreund und Lehrer zu kranken. Mit ergebenstemGruB Heil Hitler! (gez.) Dr. Werner Caskel' 35

133 L'Orient (Beirut) december 9, 1939 quoted in Rossi (1940) 171. Cf. Wild (1964) 208' . Rossi dismissedthe report as a piece of vicious anti-German propaganda. 134Aufzeichnung von Stohrer, November 18, 1941quoted in Schroder (1975)283. AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, letter Dr. Werner Caskel to AA, May 8, 1938.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 168

It is remarkable that Caskel wrote this letter three months after the German authorities had divested him of all his functions as an academic teacher and of his livelihood (February 21, 1938) because his father was Jewish. Thus Caskel's sincere advice about the best qualified translator for Mein Kanipf has a tragic quality. Caskel later narrowly escaped deportation to a "punition-camp" (Straflager).136 Meanwhile, Shakib Arslan's translation made good progress. In November 1938 the Reichsdruckerei in Berlin was asked to calculate the cost of printing the Arabic version of Mein Kampf and four Arabic pages were set as first proofs. The calculated number of Arabic pages was around 960 pages, the title and back of the flexible cloth binding was to be lettered in gold. The minimum number of copies printed was to be 10 000, the maximum envisaged was 40 000 copies. The Reichs- druckerei estimated the cost of the first 10 000 copies at 48.000 Reichs- mark.' The first galley proofs were set, and the Archives of the Auswartiges Amt preserve two sets of four printed Arabic pages cove- ring the beginning of chapter 3: al-thalith. Na?arat siyisiyya `dmma min ayyäm iqamat? bi-Fiyanna "Algemeine politische Betrachtun- gen aus meiner Wiener Zeit"-General political reflections from my 138 days in Vienna). One set of the proofs shows some corrections in pencil-probably from Moritz' hand. The quality of the spelling was bad, because the Reichsdruckerei operated with German setters, whose knowledge of Arabic was more or less nil. But the costs were too high for the Ministry of Propaganda. On the front page of the estimate Knothe noted with pencil

Unter Bezugn. auf eine gef. Unterredung mit dem Bemerken zur6ck, daB bei diesen phantastischen Druckpreiseneine Herausgabe bei der Reichsdruckereigar nicht in Frage kommen kann. Wir mussendaher s.Zt. im Overhamm-Verlagin Cairo bezfgl. einer ordentl. Herausgabe zuruckkommen,die derselbe auf eigene Rechnung vornehmen will.-(Sic !) Wir werden von diesemdann erst die Korrekturbogen noch durchsehen lassen mussenu. ihm dann die Art der Herausgabe vorschreiben.

This note, dated December 21, 1938, was the end of the project. There is

"6 Cf. Egbert Meycr, WernerCaske! 1896-1970,ZDMG 122 (1972) 1-5. AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, Direktor der Reichsdruckereito AA, November 28, 1938. AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, 268-272 see note 137.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 169 no indication in the Archives of the AA, whether the idea of having the official translation printed in Cairo was pursued any further. At the time the checking of Shakib Arsldn's translation was still in progress, it was realized that there was no adequate Arabic-German or German-Arabic dictionary which might have facilitated the translator's work. Von Hentig informed the Library of the German Foreign Office

Bei dcr von mciner Abtcilung Pol. VII augenblicklichbearbeiteten und vom Fuhrer angeordneten Ubersetzung von "Mein Kampf' ins Arabische hat es sich herausgestellt, dass das sprachlicheHandwerkszeug fur derartige LJbersetzungen

Section Pol. VII ordered among other books the French-Arabic dictionary of Belot, G. P. Badger's English-Arabic Lexicon and the Arabic- Arabic dictionary Muhit al-Muhit by Butrus al-Bustdni, all woefully inadequate for this task. In this connection von Hentig heard about Hans Wehr's plans to collect material for an Arabic-German Dictionary of modern Arabic ("Neu-arabisches Worterbuch"). The Foreign Office suggested that the Ministry of Education subsidize Wehr's work, 1 4 Even after the war had started, the Foreign Office supported the dictionary project indirectly and via the publisher Otto Harrassowitz in Leipzig,142 In a rather twisted way, therefore, the problems arising from the attempted translation of Mein Kampf into Arabic gave an additional impetus to what became long after the war the most widely used Arabic dictionary ever: Hans Wehr's Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. The question of how far the translations which were available in Arab countries were actually read is very difficult to answer. The same question could be asked for the European translations of Mein Kampf; and even for the German original it seems clear that the contents of the "unread bestseller" were largely unfamiliar even to ardent adherents of the NSDAP. 143 Probably, the importance of the Arabic translations was for the greater part symbolical. Hitler as a German zatm, fighting the English, the French and the Jews was a program in himself-for a time he was even known by the honorific agnomen Abu Ahmad in the Arab Near

'4o AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, Aufzeichnungvon Hentig, Berlin,November 18, 1938. '4' AAPa Pol. VII (26) Arabien, vol 1, Vermerk, signed Schlobies,December 8, 1938. letter AA to H. Wehr, November 25, 1941(signed: Roth) Kult W 13664. 143 Maser (1981)and Lange (1968)passim.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access 170

East.144 The notion of successful fight, which the title of his book implied was in all likelihood more attractive for a potential buyer of the book than the actual ideas propagated. A case in point may be the history of 'Umar Abu Nasr's translation and selection, which was at least partially critical, but in which the frontispiece (a portrait of Hitler) sufficed to make it dangerous for the cause of the Allies.

III. CONCLUSIONS

There were two main reasons for the popularity of some National- Socialist ideas and concepts in the Arab world: 1. National Socialism in Germany appealed to authoritarian and nationalist emotions alike. It seemed to many a model for the swift development of a society towards an economically developed, politically united and militarily strong state under a charismatic leader. Towards the end of the inter-war period Germany was perceived as a country which thanks to National Socialism had triumphed over the effects of economic depression and wide-spread unemployment. National Socialism had been strong enough to rise against the powerful colonial powers England and France. It seemed in its struggle against the "infamy of Versailles" a natural ally of the Arab countries which were trying to liberate themselves from colonial structures imposed on them by England and France. 2. The anti-Jewish ideology and policy of the NSDAP seemed ideologi- cally close to Arab resistance against Zionism and the growing Jewish colonization of Palestine. For ideological and political reasons, however, there was never a National-Socialist movement of any significance in the Arab world. Before and during World War II Arab nationalism and National-Socia- list Germany were an example of "ideological and strategic incompatibi- lity", 1 45

144 Hanna (1975) 11. 14 Nicosia (1980)passim.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:16:15PM via free access