Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (50 page)

16. Tuvia Friling, Arrows in the Dark: David Ben-Gurion, the Yishuv Leadership and Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust, trans. Ora Cummings (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 64-65. In a speech in Palestine in 1942, Ben Gurion said: "The Nazis are not far away, but we are being threatened not only by Rommel in North Africa. We are also in danger of invasion from Syria and even Iraq and Turkey' (64). On anti-Semitic persecution as a result of the policies of Vichy France in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia as well as due to the German occupation policies in Tunisia in 1942-43, see Haim Saadoun, "North Africa," in Walter Laqueur, ed., Judith Tydor Baumel, assoc. ed., The Holocaust Encyclopedia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 444-46; and Robert Sat- loff, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Long Reach of the Holocaust into Arab Lands (New York: Public Affairs, 2006).

17. On Haj Amin el-Husseini and Nazi Germany, see Klaus Gensicke, Der Mufti von Jerusalem and die Nationalsozialisten: Line politische Biographic Amin el-Husseinis (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007); Zvi Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti: Haj Amin al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement, trans. David Harvey, ed. Shmuel Himelstein (London: Frank Cass, 1993); and Joseph B. Schechtman, The Mufti and the Fuhrer: The Rise and Fall of Haj Amin elHusseini (NewYork: Thomas Yoseloff,1965); and Anthony DeLuca, "`Der Grossmufti' in Berlin: The Politics of Collaboration," International Journal of Middle East Studies to, no.1(February 1979):125- A Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayani and the Palestinian National Movement, rev. ed. (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1988), focuses on the periods before and after his years in Berlin. Husseini's major speeches in wartime Berlin have been published in German in Gerhard Hopp, ed., Mufti-Papiere: Briefe, Memoranden, Reden and Aufrufe Amin al-Husainis aus dem Exil, 1940-1945 (Berlin: Schwarz, 2001). See my examination of some of his texts in Herf, Jewish Enemy,172-74,179-80, and 243-44.

18. On the central role of the German Foreign Ministry in producing foreign-language propaganda, see Peter Longerich, Propagandisten im Krieg: Die Presseabteilung des Auswartigen Amtes unter Ribbentrop (Munich: R. Oldenbourg,1987).

19. Anne H. Fuller, "Memorandum on Radio Reception in the Near East and India" (August 18, 1941), U.S. National Archives, College Park, Md. (NACP), RG 208, Records of the Office of War Information, Informational Files on the Near East, 1941-46, entry 373, box 417.

20. Anne. H. Fuller, "Radio Reception in the Near East" (January 29,1942), NACP RG 208, Records of the Office of War Information, Informational Files on the Near East, 1941-46, entry 373, box 417.

21. See "Egypt" and "Libya," in World Survey of Education, vol. 1(Paris: UNESCO, 1955), 216 and 424. On literacy in Palestine, see Ami Ayalon, Reading Palestine: Printing and Literacy, 1900-1948 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), 16-17. By contrast, the literacy rates for Christians in Palestine in 1947 were 85 percent for men and 65 percent for women.

22. Alexander Kirk, Department of State (September 13,1941), "NO. 1361," 1-3, NACP RG 84, Cairo Legation and Embassy, Secret and Confidential General Records, 1939,1941-47, 1941, 820.02- 830, entry 2412, box 4.

23. The State Department files do not disclose how the Americans in Cairo created the English-language transcripts. The embassy team of native Arabic speakers, Americans who knew Arabic, and stenographers skilled in shorthand dictation could have transcribed and translated the approximate hour or two a day of broadcasts. The files do not indicate if electronic recording technology used elsewhere in the American military in World War II was employed in this effort. On the communications operations of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, see Joesph E. Jacobs, "Report on Office Organization and Administration at the Combined Office, Cairo, Egypt as of November 1, 1943," Cairo (September 27,1943), RG84 Cairo Embassy General Records 1943: 121-124.6, entry 2410, box 85. The United States Navy was using steel wire recorders, the precursor to the tape recorder. On recording technology of the time, also see Martin Camras, Magnetic Recording Handbook (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988), 8-1o and 658-70; and Robert Angus, "History of Magnetic Recording: Part I;" Audio 68 (August 1984): 27-34. My thanks to Dr. Felix Roemer of the University of Mainz for sharing his research findings on the use of tape recording devices in American military interrogations of German prisoners of war beginning in 1942. On this, see the discussion of the "Memovax Recording Device" in NACP RG 389 (Records of the Provost Major General), entry 452, box 1395.

24. The most prominent announcer was Yunus Bari. For his memoir of the Berlin years, see Yunus al-Bari, HunaBirlin, hayy al-Arab (Beirut: Dar al-Nashr lil-Jami'iyin,1955)•

25. Richard Breitman, Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British andAmericans Knew (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998); and Shlomo Aronson, Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Joseph Bendersky's work on anti-Semitism in the American military also makes excellent use of the relevant U.S. Army military intelligence division files. See Joseph Bendersky, The Jewish Threat: Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army (New York: Basic Books, 2000). Also see Richard Breitman et al., U. S. Intelligence and the Nazis (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2005). This work is a product of the extensive declassification of the files of the United States government intelligence agencies performed by the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group.

26. For current examinations of the response, see Edmund Cao-Van-Hoa, "`Der Feind meines Feindes...' Darstellungen des nationalsozialistischen Deutschland in agyptischen Schriften" (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1990); Israel Gershoni, "Egyptian Liberalism in an Age of `Crisis of Orientation': Al-Risala's Reaction to Fascism and Nazism, 1933-1939," International Journal of Middle East Studies 31(1999): 551-76; and BeyondAnti-Semitism: Egyptian Responses to German Nazism and Fascism in the 193os (Florence, Italy: European University Institute, 2001). Also see Rene Wildangel, Zwischen Achse and Mandatsmacht.. Palastina and der Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2007).

27. Tillmann went so far as to state that the question of whether the majority of Arabs supported the Axis orAllied powers was "completely irrelevant" because "without an enduring demonstration of German military power in the Near East" the Third Reich had "no serious prospects of reaching a breakthrough into this important English-French sphere of influence" (Deutschlands Araberpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg,116-17).

28. These have been translated into English for me by Andrew Maslo ski.

29. On the relation between the Nazi regime, Zionist organizations, and Jewish immigration to Palestine in the years preceding the war, see Francis Nicosia, Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and The Third Reich and the Palestine Question (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985). On the Nazi regime's hostility to Zionist goals, see Herf, Jewish Enemy, and "Convergence, the Classic Case: Nazi Germany, Anti-Semitism and AntiZionism during World War II," in JeffreyHerf, ed. Anti-Semitism andAnti-Zionism in Historical Perspective (NewYork: Routledge, 2007), 50-70.

30. On this, see Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003); and Matthias Kuntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of9/11, trans. Colin Meade (NewYork: Telos Press, 2007).

31. Jeffrey Herf, "What Is Old and What Is New about the Terrorism of Islamic Fundamentalism," Partisan Review 61, no. i (Winter 2002): 25-32; "Revolte gegen die Moderne," Internationale Politik 60, no. it (November 2005): 6-13; and "Foreword" to Kuntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred, vii-xvii.

Chapter 2. Defining Anti-Semitism

i. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf trans. Ralph Mannheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943 and 1971), 658-59.

2. See Klaus Gensicke, Der Mufti von Jerusalem and die Nationalsozialisten: Line politische Biographie Amin el-Husseinis (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007), 29-30.

3. Wolff to Auswartiges Amt (AA), Jerusalem (March 31,1933), Politisches Archiv des Auswartiges Amt (PAAA) R78325 III,1920-33, Bd. 1, L318926.

4. Wolf to AA, "Arabische Einstellung zur Lage der Juden in Deutschland," Jerusalem, April 20,1933. PAAA R78325, Agypten, Politische Beziehung zu Deutschland, 1920-33, Bd. i.

5. See Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol.1, The Years of Persecution,1933-1939 (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 27. For the full texts of the laws also see Lucy Dawidowicz, A Holocaust Reader (New York: Behrman House, 1976), 40-42; and Joseph Walk, ed., Das Sonderrecht fiir die Juden im NS-Staat (Heidelberg: Muller Juristischer Verlag,1981),12-13.

6. "Article 2, The Reich Citizenship Law of 15 Sept. 1935," in Benjamin Sax and Dieter Kuntz, eds. Inside Hitler's Germany: A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1992),404.

7. Vuckhoff to L. R. Pilger (December 20,1935), PAAA R99173, Inland Partei, Zugehorigkeit der Agypter, Iraker, Iraner, Perser and Turken zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. I. A. Richards, "Berlin, zu. 82-35 B 20/12.35" (January 19, 1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1, 1935-36. The propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, also supported the initiative. See "Der Reichsminister fur Volksaufklarung and Propaganda an das Auswartige Amt" (February 1, 1936); and I. A. Richards, "Berlin" (February 8, 1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd.1,1935-36.

it. Walter Gross to AA (February4,1936), "Berlin 82-35B 4/2,"PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1, 1935 -36. On Globke, see Daniel Rogers, "Restoring a German Career, 1945195o: The Ambiguity of Being Hans Globke;" German Studies Review 31, no. 2 (May 2008): 303-24.

12. Walter Gross to AA (February 4,1936), "Berlin 82-35B 4/2;" PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

13. Walter Gross to AA (April 4,1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit der Agypter, Iraker, Iraner, Perser and Turken zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1, 1935-36. Approval also came from the Propaganda Ministry: "Der Reichsminister fur Volksautklarung and Propaganda an das Auswartige Amt, VII 70831171.36 (April 8, 1936)," PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

14. "Auswartiges Amt, Nr. 82-35, B 8/4, Berlin an samtliche Reichsministerien einschlieglich Reichskanzlei and Prasidialkanzlei" (April 30,1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

15. Eberhard von Stohrer to AA (June 15,1936), and Eberhard von Stohrer, Kairo, 20 Juni 1936, 21 Juni 1936, 22 Juni 1936, PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

16. Vicco von Bulow-Schwante, "An die Deutsche Gesandschaft in Kairo" (June 18,1936). On the same day, Bulow-Schwante sent a similar, shorter telegram to the German Embassy in Tehran, PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1, 1935-36.

17. Ibid. Also "Abschrift zu 82-35, 26/6, Berlin, 16.6.1936"; and Bulow-Schwante to Agyptische Gesandschaft, June 13,1936, PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

18. Vicco von Bulow-Schwante, "Telegram Teheran, zu. 82.35. 15/6," Berlin (June 18, 1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

19. Stohrer, "Betr. Judische Hetz gegen die Olympischen Spiele" (June 17,1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

20. Stohrer,"Telegram"(June 17,1936);"President...Organisations-Komitee...XI.Olympiade Berlin 1936 to Legationsrat Hinrichs" (June 23,1936); and "Anlage zum Brief an Herrn Legationsrat Hinrichs, Aus. Amt am 23. Juni 1936," PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1, 1935-36.

21. "Dewald to Auswartiges Amt;" and "Anlage zum Brief an Herrn Legationsrat Hinrichs, Ausw-Amt an 23 Junie 1936" (June 23,1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

22. Stohrer, Kairo, "Angebliche Anwendung Nurnberger Gesetze auf Agypter usw," and "Of- fizielles Communique des Agytpisches Aussenministerium von 21 Juni 1936" (June 22,1936); and Von Bulow-Schwante, "An die Koniglich Agyptische Gesandschaft," Berlin (June 23,1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd.1,1935-36•

23. Stohrer, "Angebliche Anwendung der Nurnberger Gesetze auf agyptische Staatsange- horige" (June 24,1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

24. Abschrift, AA, 82-35, 22/6, Verbalnote an die Koniglich Agyptische Gesandschaft" (July4, 1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

25. "Mit anliegender Aufzeichnung Buro Reichsminister vorgelegt" (June 18, 1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

26. "Nr. 82-35, 20/5. Ang. II, Schnellbrief 22 Juni 1936;" PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

27. "AA, Schnellbrief, Kanzleinotiz" (June 22, 1936), PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

28. "Sitzung vom 1 Juli 1936 im Auswertigen Amt zwecks Beantwortung der egyptischen and iranischen Anfragen and Klerung des Begriffs `artverwandt,"' PAAA R99174, Zugehorigkeit der Agypter, Iraker, Iraner, Perser and Turken zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 2,1936-40.

29. Bulow-Schwante, "Schnellbrief, 28 Juni 1936," PAAA R99173, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 1,1935-36.

30. "Sitzung vom 1 Juli 1936 im Auswertigen Amt ...... PAAA R99174, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 2,1936-40,1-2.

31. "Wilhelm Stuckart," in Ernst Klee, Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor and nach 1945 (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Verlag, 2003), 611-12.

32. "Sitzung vom 1 Juli 1936 im Auswertigen Amt. . . ," 2-3, PAAA R99174, Zugehorigkeit der Agypter, Iraker, Iraner, Perser and Turken zur arischen Rasse , Bd. 2,1936-40.

33. Wilhelm Stuckart, "Entwurf I, Sitzung vom 1 Juli 1936 im Auswartigen Amt zwecks Beantwortung der agyptischen and iranischen Anfragen and Klarung des Begriffs `artverwandt,"' 1-2, PAAA R99174, Zugehorigkeit ... zur arischen Rasse, Bd. 2,1936-40.