Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (42 page)

President Roosevelt expressed his view of the situation in a striking letter to Senator Wagner on December 3. He wrote that "perhaps another million" Jews wanted to join the half a million Jews already in Palestine. Yet there were "ap proximately seventy million Mohammadans who want to cut their throats the day they land. The one thing I want to avoid is a massacre or a situation which cannot be resolved by talking things over. Anything said or done over here just now would add fuel to the flames and I hope that at this juncture no branch of government will act." 104 Of course, a massacre of Jews many times over was taking place in Europe. All the high-ranking officials in the State and War departments, as well as the president himself, were under no illusions about the hostility of the Arab and Muslim countries to the possibility of a Jewish state in Palestine. They also thought that the declining influence of Nazi propaganda was due above all to Allied and, in particular, American military success. Perhaps they understood that nothing they did one way or the other about Jews and Zionism would affect Nazi propaganda. But Marshall, McCloy, Stettinius, Murray, and other State Department officials believed that the support or benign neutrality of the majority of Arabs and Muslims could be endangered if the United States took a clear position in favor of Zionism during the war. They successfully argued that nothing should be done that might undermine the Allied military effort, which they believed was the decisive factor in reducing enthusiasm for Nazi Germany among Arabs and Muslims. Not offending "seventy million Mohammadans" took priority over supporting the aspirations of the persecuted, desperate, and "perhaps a million" of Europe's still surviving Jews.

Perhaps if Rommel had won the battle of El Alamein, seized Cairo, and conquered Palestine and if the Allies had to figure out how to fight their way back into the Middle East as they had to do in Europe, British and American intelligence agencies would have devoted more resources to the question of the reception of fascism and Nazism in the Arab and Muslim world. As it was, in Egypt they kept a watchful eye on the Muslim Brotherhood, some faculty and students at Al Azhar University, King Farouk and his circle, Ahmed Hussein and the Young Egypt Party, and militant Egyptian nationalist military officers such as the young Anwar Sadat. Yet by 1944, the Allied fear of Axis success in North Africa and the Middle East was a thing of the past. After the battle of Tunisia in May 1943, the military situation in the Middle East became a quiet sideshow to the vast military confrontations taking place on the European continent. Allied intelligence agents and diplomats concluded that Axis propaganda had struck a chord with an activist minority of secular nationalists and fundamentalist Muslims. Under these circumstances, devoting more resources to examining the residues left by Axis propaganda in the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims was an unnecessary luxury. The priorities of decision makers allocating scarce resources in wartime were quite different from those of the historian seeking to understand the short- and long-term impact of Axis propaganda. The Americans and the British had gathered enough information to know that a vicious brew of imported and indigenous Jew-hatred was embedded in at least parts of Arab and Muslim politics.

As the apocalypse of total defeat descended on the Germans-45o,000 soldiers died in battle in Europe in January 1945 alone-Nazism's Arabic radio offered its listeners the now-familiar diet of rage and hatred and irrationality. It had nothing of value to say about the actual course of events. On January 13, Berlin in Arab stated that the Arab countries had suffered from "human insects;" which were "no less harmful than the locust." Therefore it would "call these human insects `political' locusts." These unnamed persons lived in "luxurious palaces;" enjoyed an easy life, wore the best clothes, held tea and dancing parties but were also the "eyes of the imperialists which spy on the Arabs and tell the imperialists of their weak points," making it possible for them to dominate the entire Arab world.105 On January 24, VFA indulged in Hitler's fantasies about the tide-turning impact of revenge weapons, the V-1 and V-2 rockets. It informed its remaining audience that the Germans were establishing new bases on top of the Alps from which these rockets could be directed "at New York." It was "unbelievable how much damage these bombs could cause to American cities." Their "immediate effect" would be a demand by American public opinion to "force Roosevelt to retire from his present policy" and leave office. In addition the Germans would be able to shell Rhodes, Malta, British military bases in Haifa and Alexandria, smash the oil fields of Mosul, and bring traffic in the Suez Canal to a standstill. 106

In these months, the "Jewish danger" loomed ever larger. On January 29, the "Station of Free Arabs" (probably another name for the Voice of Free Arabism) warned Arabs that "the Jews are trying to carry out a massacre."107 On the thirty-first, Berlin in Arabic asserted that it was "useless for Arabs to await the realization of their aims peacefully." "Child actions" like peaceful political demonstrations "cannot frighten anyone." The announcer asked if the Arabs had "become so stupid as to believe that their cause could be solved by logical arguments or that the Palestine question could be settled by speeches, statements and communiques." The clear implication was that the only way to "stop imperialist democracies from interfering in their internal affairs" was with force.10' On February i, VFA reported that "the Jewish menace is more and more overshadowing the Arab world, and will not only threaten Palestine, but it will extend all over the Arab countries." It could be overcome only by the use of "fierce weapons."109 The last report on Axis broadcasts monitored by the American Embassy in Cairo was sent to Washington on February 12, 1945. It covered the period from February 2 to 8. One broadcast warned that "Bolshevism is starting to filter through to cultured Arab persons."110 Neither the German nor American archives indicate the exact date when Nazi Arabic shortwave broadcasts ended, but it was most likely in February or March 1945. It was fully in character with its record of mendacity and paranoia that in the same months during which the Allied armies were arriving at the Nazi extermination and concentration camps and thus revealing the full extent of the destruction of European Jewry, Nazi Arabic radio warned Arab listeners of the growing danger and power of the Jews.

CHAPTER 8

Postwar Aftereffects

n May 7, 1945, Haj Amin el-Husseini fled Germany and arrived in Bern, Switzerland. Swiss officials handed him over to the French, who housed him in a villa near Paris. The Mufti's pro-Axis broadcasts in Arabic from Rome and Berlin were a matter of public record and, as we have seen, had been carefully monitored by American and British officials. Nevertheless the British government did not seek to extradite him or to place him on trial for war crimes. The British concluded that placing him and other pro-Nazi Arab exiles on trial would undermine efforts to gain support in the Arab and Muslim world after the war. The government of Yugoslavia was interested in bringing Husseini and his associates to trial for their involvement with the Bosnian SS Division. Under pressure from the Arab League, it decided not to do so.' In both cases, placating Arab and Muslim sensibilities in the Middle East took priority over efforts to bring Husseini to justice for actions equally and at times more inflammatory than those by German officials, such as Otto Dietrich, who were brought to trial in Nuremberg.2

In Washington, preparations for the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg included the possibility of indicting the pro-Axis Arab exiles for participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. William Donovan, the director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), wanted to use the organization's resources to support the effort.' On June 23, 1945, as part of this effort, the OSS Research and Analysis Branch prepared a report titled, "The Near East and the War Crimes Problem."4 Its twenty-eight pages contained a comprehen sive summary of what the OSS had learned during the war about pro-Axis activities and personalities in Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Iran, and Afghanistan, as well as the attitude in these countries toward the prospect of putting these persons on trial as war criminals. It concluded: "In the Near East the popular attitude toward the trial of war criminals is one of apathy. As a result of the general Near Eastern feeling of hostility to the imperialism of certain of the Allied powers, there is a tendency to sympathize with rather than condemn those who have aided the Axis." The Allies were loathe to make martyrs. In view of postwar "inter-Allied rivalry in the area, the past and potential political usefulness of most, if not all, of the Near Eastern supporters of the Axis will preclude their trial as war criminals."5 It added that it was "unlikely that any strong action will now be taken anywhere in the Near East against former Axis collaborators or sympathizers. Popular feeling against these persons has never been strong, since they have generally been regarded as working for the freeing of their respective countries from British or French overlordship and the local population has had no direct experience with German occupation methods. 116 The Near East constituted "a prime example of an area where popular pressure for the trial of local war criminals is absent" due to "political considerations" of both "the local governments and the great powers. Under these circumstances it may be expected that the Near Eastern Axis collaborators will for the most part go unpunished and in so far as they have not already done so, will eventually return to the political life of their respective countries."7 In short, the OSS concluded that bringing Husseini, Kilani, or such prominent announcers as Younus Bahri to trial would intensify antagonism to the Allies. What was true in summer 1945 would become even more the case as wartime cooperation between the West and the Soviet Union turned to cold war competition. The effort to gain Arab, Persian, and Muslim support in the cold war further diminished the prospects that Husseini and others would face charges for war crimes.

The OSS analysts concluded that "among the numerous Arabs who are known to have been active in behalf of the Axis during the European war there are hardly any who are Egyptians by birth or nationality." They did find credible evidence that the Egyptian politician Ali Maher Pasha, as well as Muhammad Salih Harb Pasha and the former chief of staff of the Egyptian army, Aziz Ali al-Masri Pasha, had given British military plans to the Italians in 1940. In spring 1942, Maher and Salih Harb, "together with a number of other prominent Egyptian Axis sympathizers, were subjected to nothing more severe than house arrest." In light of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, as a result of which Egypt became a nonbelligerent ally of Britain, the actions of Ali Maher and his colleagues "would appear to fall under the heading of crimes against the external security of the state" under Egyptian law.8

The author(s) of "The Near East and the War Crimes Problem" bluntly concluded that Egyptian popular opinion had

always been in favor of All Mahir Pasha and his policies. Among Egyptian political leaders pro-Allied sentiments prevailed among those who had most to lose in the event of a British defeat; others were outspoken in their condemnation of Britain and in 1942 were prepared to welcome a German entry into Egypt. The politically unaware masses were either apathetic or opposed to the Allies, especially the British, who for years had been depicted to them as the oppressors of their country. To many Egyptians, All Mahir's [Maher] attitude represented the correct solution to the problem foremost in their minds, namely how to eliminate British influence in Egypt. Moreover, he could rightly claim to have been the staunchest advocate of Egypt's non-participation in the war.

Under these circumstances, it is extremely unlikely that any Egyptian government would on its own initiative ever attempt to bring to trial prominent personalities who at one time actively supported the Axis. Nor would the British be inclined to urge the prosecution of any of these men; they in all probability suspect that the only possible result would be a considerable stiffening of the antiBritish attitude of the population and perhaps even a violent outbreak of nationalist feeling in the country.9

Furthermore, as the war receded from Egypt in 1944, "all pro-Axis political figures began to modify their attitudes in the realization that the Allies were winning the war." As they were no longer considered dangerous, most whom the British had interned during the war were gradually freed. Upon release some who had been close to King Farouk, as well as Ahmad Husayn, the leader of the pro-fascist Young Egypt Party, "returned to political activities immediately after their release." Muhammad Salih Harb was active in the "nationalist and pro-Islamic Young Men's Moslem Association." Ali Maher was "very busy repairing his political fences." His supporters, including the king, were "many and very influential." In fact, "the only obstacle" that might prevent his return to being Egypt's prime minister appeared to be "British reluctance to forget his treasonable actions during the dark days of the war."Yet "considerations of political expedience" might lead the British "not only to accept Ali Mahir but to attach more weight to the present and potential future attitude of former Axis sympathizers than to their past affiliations."' 0 Rapid changes of political colors to suit the prevailing atmosphere was a common theme of the history of Germany and Europe after the war. Yet, in part for the reasons presented in this OSS report, the revulsion for fascism and Nazism that influenced much of postwar European politics was not nearly as widespread in Egypt and the Middle East. Just as the British opposed Jewish immigration to Palestine during the war, so after the war, the same desire not to offend Arabs and Muslims militated against a judicial reckoning with the fascist and Nazi collaborators.