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Qk.NaziPalestineSC.fnl:Layout 1 5/4/10 10:20 AM Page 1 K KLAUS-MICHAEL MALLMANN AND MARTIN CÜPPERS L A NAZI PALESTI NE A U Translatedby KRISTA SMITH N S D - MM AIC RH THEPLANNEDEXTERMINATIONOFTHEJEWSLIVINGIN TINAE PALESTINEWASONLYWEEKSAWAY…. L CM Ü PA In1941-42NaziGermanyappearedtobeinvincibleinNorthAfrica PL ELM againsttheBritishandinEasternEuropeagainsttheSovietUnion.Somevery R SA specific plans were being drawn in Berlin to ensure the genocide of the N N JewsinPalestine.Withtheinvasionof Egyptathand,manyArabnationalists seekingtoeliminateBritishandFrench presence in North Africa and the Near East looked to a leader, the N The Plans for the Extermination Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin of the Jews in Palestine el-Husseini,forguidance. A The Mufti visited Axis capitals and had several meetings with Adolf Z Hitler. Not only did Nazi Germany I promise to end the European “colonial presence” that had replaced the Ottoman Empire after 1918, it also pledged to wipe out the Jews who had P beenlivinginPalestinesincetimeimmemorialaswellasthenewarrivalsfrom “Itistothecreditoftheauthors the beginning of the modern Zionist movement in the nineteenth century A thattheyhavebeenassiduousin andfollowingtheBalfourDeclarationin1917. locatinginformationeitherinaccessible TheprocessofexterminationwasabouttobeactivatedandtheSSand L oroverlookedearlier.” SDofficershadbeenselectedandassignedtothetask.Theyweretooperate GERHARD L.WEINBERG E behindthelineswiththehelpofthoseintheregionwhowereeagertojoin CentralEuropeanStudies the task force. When the Afrika Korps was defeated at El Alamein, the S EinsatzkommandoshifteditsoperationstoTunisia,whereitimplementedcruel T anti-Jewishpoliciesformanymonths.Theauthorshaveidentifiedtherelevant documents and analyzed the racist, ideological, political and religious I implications of the planning of a specific regional extermination program N withinthecontextoftheHolocaust. E EnigmaBooks PublishedinAssociation History/WorldWarII/Holocaust P withthe $22.00 rin te www.enigmabooks.com din Coverdesign:BrainchildStudios/NYC US A Enigma Books Also published by Enigma Books Hitler’s Table Talk: 1941–1944 In Stalin’s Secret Service Hitler and Mussolini: The Secret Meetings The Jews in Fascist Italy: A History The Man Behind the Rosenbergs Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History Diary 1937–1943 (Galeazzo Ciano) Secret Affairs: FDR, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences 1942–1945 Stalin and the Jews: The Red Book The Secret Front: Nazi Political Espionage Fighting the Nazis: French Intelligence and Counterintelligence A Death in Washington: Walter G. 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A Complete History Closing the Books: Jewish Insurance Claims from the Holocaust Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations The Cicero Spy Affair The Orlov KGB File The First Iraq War, 1914–1918: Britain’s Mesopotamian Campaign Becoming Winston Churchill Salazar: A Political Biography Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers Nazi Palestine The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews in Palestine Published in Association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Enigma Books All rights reserved under The International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Enigma Books New York www.enigmabooks.com Published in Association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written permission of Enigma Books. The assertions, arguments, and conclusions contained herein are those of the author or other contributors. The do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Publications of the Ludwigsburg Research Unit Stuttgart University, Vol. 8 Edited by Klaus-Michael Mallmann Copyright © 2005 by WBG (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), Darmstadt Copyright © 2010 by Enigma Books for the English Translation Translated from the German by Krista Smith Original German title: Halbmond und Hakenkreuz: das Dritte Reich, die Araber und Palästina First English Edition ISBN: 978-1-929631-93-3 eISBN: 978-1-936274-18-5 Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Mallmann, Klaus-Michael [Halbmond und Hakenkreuz. English] Nazi Palestine : the plans to exterminate the Jews in Palestine / Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers ; [translated from the German by Krista Smith]. -- 1st English ed. p. ; cm. Original German title: Halbmond und Hakenkreuz: das Dritte Reich, die Araber und Palästina. “Publications of the Ludwigsburg Research Unit, Stuttgart University, Vol. 8”--T.p. verso Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-1-929631-93-3 1. Jewish-Arab relations--History--1917-1948. 2. Palestine--History--1917-1948. 3. Jews—Palestine-- History. I. Cüppers, Martin, 1966- II. Smith, Krista. III. Title. IV. Title: Halbmond und Hakenkreuz. English DS119.7 .M3513 2010 956.9404 Contents Introduction vii I. Jihad in Palestine: The Arab Rejection of the Jews 3 II. Nazi Sympathies: Middle East Supporters of the Third Reich 29 III. Shifting Priorities: Jewish Emigration and Germany’s Arab Policy 44 IV. War in North Africa and Mesopotamia: Cyrenaica and Iraq 56 V. After Barbarossa: Germany’s Mediterranean Strategy in 1941–1942 73 VI. The Grand Mufti: Axis Ally 88 VII. Rommel and the Road to Cairo 102 VIII. The Einsatzkommando and the Afrika Korps 116 IX. Arab Opinion 126 X. The Jews of Palestine React 140 XI. The Turning Point: El Alamein and the End of the Caucasus Option 154 XII. Einsatzkommando Tunis: The Second Front 167 XIII. Muslim Units in the Wehrmacht, SD, and Waffen SS 185 XIV. Endgame: Agents and Infiltrators 198 Epilogue 204 Abbreviations 219 Archival Sources 223 Bibliography 226 Index 243 Introduction T he economic and financial restructuring known as “globalization” has radically transformed societies and national economies that for better or worse have become increasingly interconnected. But the lowering of barriers and greater interaction has created a clash of cultures and even violent resis- tance to the cultural, economic, and financial standardization that the West has imposed on the world through a form of non-violent coercion. An increasingly militant encounter between Western values and the most radicalized, funda- mentalist elements of Islam turned violent since the 2001 attacks on New York, taken as the symbol of Western domination and oppression. The struggle between the West and Islamic radicalism has not stopped over the course of the intervening years, from Afghanistan to Chechnya to Iraq, and present among these new conflicts the 60-year Israeli-Arab and Palestinian antagonism that appears destined to remain without a tangible solution.1 This book offers no prognostications regarding the conflict; rather, by examining the past structure of the clash in Palestine, the authors seek to trace and analyze the historical dimensions of the origins of the broader conflict in one of its most important arenas. This volume returns to a very specific period in German history and examines the relations of the Third Reich with the Arab Islamic world. The shared hatred of the Yishuv (Hebrew for “settlement”), and of the Jewish minority in the British Mandate of Palestine, created an in- creasing convergence leading to a momentous shift in German foreign policy, which in the late 1930s switched its focus from seeking the acceleration of Jewish emigration to providing direct support for Arab nationalists. The ideo- 1. Primarily Lewis, Wut; on Iran: Küntzel, Spaltung. viii Nazi Palestine logical consensus, the shared perception of common threats, the protection of one’s specific cultural identity, and notions of achievement, was quickly followed even before the outbreak of World War II by shipments of weapons and financial support given to the Islamic nationalists. Direct German inter- vention in the Arab world began with the arrival of the Afrika Korps in Libya in February 1941. For the National Socialists, this event was directly related to far-reaching strategic plans for the conquest of the entire Middle East. Numerous joint German-Arab plots intending to expel the British from their land route to India were also to eliminate the Jewish national homeland promised by the Balfour Declaration. The culmination of these plans came in the summer of 1942, when the extermination of the Jews that had begun in Europe was to be expanded to the Yishuv as well, with the active assistance of local Arab collaborators. Although the German units required for this under- taking were ready and waiting for their marching orders, Rommel’s defeat at El Alamein prevented the implementation of these plans. Collaboration with the Arabs did not end, however, with the military defeat in Egypt. The Axis forces landing in Tunisia in the fall of 1942 was followed by plans to foment revolu- tion in the states of the Maghreb using Arab agents and to launch infiltration attempts in the Middle East. This came at the same time as the broad effort at recruitment of Muslims into the Wehrmacht and SS (Schutzstaffel). Certain Arab expatriates knew about the killing of the European Jews and, in view of the looming defeat, personally advocated a partial expansion of the extermina- tion efforts. Until now there has been no comprehensive and scientific study of the period between 1933 and 1945 tracing the development of German-Arab re- lations, with an analysis of their philosophical affinities, and a discussion of the joint schemes shared by the Germans and the Arabs. In general, existing studies end with the outbreak of the war in 1939 or, at times, with the pro-Axis coup in Iraq in March-April 1941, thus omitting the decisive phase of 1941– 1942—the period of the impending occupation of the Middle East. In addi- tion, many authors tend to be largely uncritical, by playing down the relation- ship between Arab nationalists and National Socialists, and dismissing anti- Semitic propaganda and action in the Islamic world as an expression of cultural differences, and, warning in this regard, against a “Eurocentric” view. One sig- nificant exception is Matthias Küntzel’s study Djihad und Judenhaß (Jihad and Anti-Semitism). Though Küntzel writes without examining archival sources, he convincingly conveys the ideological affinities that existed between National Socialism and political Islam.2 Reference should also be made to Klaus 2. Küntzel, Djihad. Introduction ix Gensicke’s impressive biography of Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and a loyal supporter of Hitler.3 The fact that the Palestinian Jews’ very existence was under direct threat because of the presence of the Einsatz- kommando of the security police and the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) assigned to the Afrika Korps has been until recently completely overlooked by academic researchers.4 Helmut Krausnick, who is still considered the leading expert on the Einsatzgruppen,5 had joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in January 1932 while he was still a student.6 In 1942, despite severe war shortages, he was rewarded with a second printing of his dissertation.7 He understandably failed to undertake that research. **** We must thank the many people whose assistance made this book pos- sible: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft in Darmstadt immediately declared itself ready to accept the volume into its program, and its editor, Daniel Zimmermann, attended to the book’s development in exemplary fashion. At the archives we visited, we found many professionals who were ready to listen and eager to help. We would also like to thank several colleagues who offered advice, criticism, and help: Dr. Andrej Angrick (Berlin), Dr. Jochen Böhler (Warsaw), Dr. Jürgen Matthäus (Washington, D.C.), Dr. Dan Michman (Ramat-Gan/Jerusalem), Dr. Jacek Młynarczyk (Warsaw), Dr. Wolfram Pyta (Stuttgart), and Stephen Tyas (St. Albans). Dr. Manfred Rommel (Stuttgart) willingly provided us with information about his father, the former commander of Afrika Korps. Special thanks go to Heidrun Baur (Ludwigsburg). For months she obtained mountains of literature, collected texts, proofread, com- piled back matter, and generally did much more than should be expected of a secretary at our research center. We would like to dedicate this book to two great Jewish historians, whose lives were closely connected to the events that we describe and analyze here: Dr. Arnold Paucker, director of the Leo Baeck Institute in London from 1959 to 2001, and Dr. Yehuda Bauer, professor emeritus for Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at the Yad Vashem memorial from 1996 to 2000. Both kindly shared their personal recollections and impressions of Palestine in 1941– 3. Gensicke. 4. Addressed for the first time by Mallmann/Cüppers. 5. Krausnick, Hitlers. 6. BAB, NSDAP-Zentralkartei 3200/L 0083, Helmut Krausnick membership card; cf. Berg, p. 405. 7. Krausnick, Holsteins.

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It is to the credit of the two authors of this book . . . that they have been assiduous in locating information either inaccessible or overlooked earlier.—Gerhard L. WeinbergThe planned extermination of the Jews living in Palestine was only weeks away . . .In 1941-42 Nazi Germany appeared to be in
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