Pre-1945 German/Islam Relations w/ Thomas777 - Complete

was and remains very respected among Palestinians across the sectarian divide, Christian and Mauslim. In order to understand that relationship, though, it's important to deal with the relations between the German Reich in the Islamic World generally, and early on, the Third Reich viewed the Islamic World not in reductionist terms, but as very much a political force that had momentum

in the historical process. But that also was an important ally to the cultivated in the war against Bullshevism and Jewry as they viewed it. And this wasn't just pragmatic. There was a basic affinity there with some qualifications, and this is important. And it's impossible to talk about this with people in interrational manner because they just go berserk

if you mentioned Islam. They've been that brainwashed. Some of these people are just incredibly stupid, but you know, the majority continues to take their cues from legacy media and from regime ideologies. The only thing comparable to it is people go utterly berserk if I attack the president. I don't know what they think the president is doing for them lately, or why they think he's in some incredible personage.

But you know, I'm not here to make friends or to try and convert stupid people to make them intelligent or reasonable. It's just you know, one of the reasons I disdained social media is because it's impossible they have serious conversations there because aside from the paid agitators and disruptors,

there's just this whole peanut gallery of idiots. You think it's like a video game or something, and they've decided, they've convinced themselves they have some take on everything, and even though they spend their days like exclusively in their own house or Walmart, they decided they have some take on Islam where they have no understanding of it whatsoever.

So not just I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm very blessed there's anybody who spends time with capital t traditionalists authors, you know Mercia Eliotti renegan on particularly because I mean, obviously he was a Sufi Maslim, Julius evil. They all rode extensive way on a dar al Islam and Muhammad and his role in the historical process and things like that, and obviously I've got a fair amount of Mauslim comrades on the ground. Well, she and Sunny,

you know, we're both good friends and reliable partisans. But who I can seek out to discuss compared to theology within things. So I'm not suggesting I'm isolating in that regard. It just it reaffirms why I am a vanguardist, because most people aren't built for this in all kinds of ways,

and they don't even have their own prejudices. Their prejudices are Jewish prejudices, or they're ones that you know they gleaned from from legacy media apparatus, or or a fucking around on the internet with the people who are probably paid agitators, or like random guys in India or something just saying things. It's it's like it's staggering to re of ignorance. But anyway, I'll stop ranting at the subs.

The general disposition of the Reich towards Islam, the Islamic world, Like I said, they viewed it as a global force that was playing an essential role in the unfolding historical process. They also predicted that although there wouldn't there wasn't going to be the imminent orders of a new caliphate to replace the Sea of Daryl Islam that obviously was vacated by the collapse of the Ottomans. And to be clear that the Kaiser Reich and the Ottoman Empire were very

close allies. So the Germans had a particularly the German academ which had a very strong Orientalist bent, and the Foreign service, many of whom remained into the Third Reich. They had a fairly highly developed understanding of Islam and of the several cultures that constituted. And obviously, as the war went on, the non European territories that were directly occupied by Wehrmacht were largely Islamic countries, and Sarajevo, which is the seed of European Islam, was occupied by by

the Reich. So that's that's important. All these all these variables were intertwined. And as I've written about in my manuscript, and I believe I've discussed here with Pete previously, the massacres. They it's the annihilation therapy that was perpetuated against minority

elements in the nascent Turkish state. The world came to know about that owing to a maximum shooting a Richter who was deployed there, and he alerted both the Red Cross and the and and you know, the Berlin Foreign Office, and he was told and on certain terms, to stop agitating for some sort of localized intervention or relief for these people, because relations with Ankara are very important, especially

in these times of uncertainty. And I make the point that well, you know, and on shooting the rictor he fell at the at the Munich pouch in November nineteen twenty three, and Hitler what on record is saying that he was the one. He said the party never recovered from the death of shooting a rictor. He was an essential personage to the National Socialist Party and the revolution.

And so I make the point in a manuscript. So if if from inception the NSDAP was this hyper racialized, you know, murderous conspiratorial cadre that simply hated all non Rian races, why was Richter the only man who was raising alarm about what was happening in an Asia minor? Nobody seems to be able to answer that question for me. They simply ignore it, or sam lying, or move on

without addressing it. But be as it may. The Third Reich, although arguably there's the deepest sort of diplomatic rapport and cultural rapport enjoyed with Daryl Islam, the other major Access nations made similar efforts to curate and mobilize Islamic support. Mussolini he famously, I mean, this was very performative and

very stage managed. But in nineteen thirty seven he arranged for this ceremony where he was presented with a quote sort of Islam at a public ceremony in Tripoli, symbolically holding himself and the Kingdom of Italy out as a as a as a protector of the Maslim world against against communism, and he went on to declare that the quote laws of the prophet would would be honored. Gebels actually made a note of this, and his diaries prolific as he was as a diary, it was one of

the reasons there's such a valuable artifact. He had kind of a cynical take on this. He said, you know, the duche never never passes up an opportunity to glorify himself as the protector of other people's you know, which was which was true? And I don't I don't think Duce had some deep affinity for his lom or spent

much time learning about its theological precepts. But it was imperative, particularly considering the primary battle space that Italy was committed to with that juncture, to try and curate the support these people, or at least mitigate any hostility that might

be emergent otherwise. Similarly, the the Shintoist Japan, they established the Greater Japan Islamic League and simultaneously the Tokyo Mosque was established at nineteen thirty eight, and they very much dedicated a lot of effort and resources, both military and capital to encouraging in Islamic uprising against the Dutch, you know, and radicalizing people in the in the Dutch Indies against them, both the British and and the Midlanders. And like I said this in the case of the right, this long

predated the national socialist revolution. The central powers, you know, particularly the Kaiser right. The Ottoman Empire was an essential ally theirs, and until they got knocked out of the war, they played an essential role in allowing Germany to sustain a two front conflict. There's so much emphasis on the Western Front and the Maelstrom and slaughter that that represented.

There's not enough inc dedicated to the US Front of World War One, where it wasn't the stalemate that it came to pass in the West because the open step precluded it and facilitated maneuver. Poison gas was used a greater effect in in the East as well. And obviously you know until the when when when the after the

Rustian Revolution, the the Reichs fail was victorious. I mean, that was one of the big soar points of the of the military in the wake of Versailles is they were forced to give up these territories that they won on the battlefield. But you know, before an entire army deployed to the east was freed up, you know, by the Red Revolution and the Treaty of Breast the Tusk. The Ottomans were playing an essential role in the Kaiser

rach Jews strategic flank. And Wilhelm, who was not any kind of great diplomat or strategic thinker, he went out of his way to sustain good offices with the Ottomans. You know, whole Vegg was very much the political mind behind the kaiser Reich. But the Kaiser himself, particularly in dealing with you know, fellow monarchs, and uh make the mistake, you know, the even in its waiting days, an Ottoman sultan,

that great authority, it was essential for it. Dictates and declarations and as well as insinuations both subtle and flagrant, come from the Kaiser himself. But you know, so Germanotoman authorities, they collaborated and trying to cultivate Pan Islamic consciousness in North Africa and the Near East and Russia and India. I mean, this was this was a long standing effort. It's not just a question that emerged in nineteen thirty nine and in in World War Two as the himnachs SS.

Even early on, as they found themselves deployed to Islamic lands, German authorities were explicit that Islam was of political importance and sold out and were instructed to respect religious customs and show respect for Islam when dealing with Moslems, and and to treat them as friendlies unless they you know, he exhibited disrespect for the Reich. It's it's heraldry or or for you know, the the personal honor a soldiers

and officers on the USC front. The uh, the Reich one as far as they were, the re establishment of mosques and madrasses, and they set aside pious endowments for the re establishment of Islamic religious life. I mean they did.

They did the same thing with with Orthodox churches. But I mean that goes up saying if you know the history of the conflict and the political side of things, but uh, you know, they this went a long way to undermining the Soviet rule because Moslims were targeted with as much hostility as as the Orthodox were, you know, and Gurbles themselves made the point that the early Soviet cadres in KVD and the Czech They they hated the Moslems rethno sectarian reasons as much as they did the Christians,

and viewed them as their repressors and did incredibly brutal things and tried to tried it, tried to extricate relateous sensibility from Islamic communities. Vermunt authorities. Also, they're very much cultivated, you know, the Ulama in Eastern territories and the Balkans especially, That's how headway was made. And as Uh the Balkan

theater became this counterinsurgency quagmire that became very important. And Ante Pavolch Poglovnik of the Independent State of Croatia, he was raised in a town early in his life that had a very large Maslim population. And Uh Pavolos himself, he knew a lot about Islam and their rituals. There's a photographs of him wearing a fez when he's meeting with Bosniaks. It's very interesting and he he famously he

viewed Bosniaks as quote racial Croatians and Sunni Islam. Uh was viewed as a state relied religion alongside Roman Catholicism, albeit secondary secondarily to it. But that that that that that sort of expedited this these efforts in the Balden Theater, which would have been a lot more difficult if the used to show was openly hostile to UH Bosnia populations and UH the UH the vermackd and UH the buff and SS they they granted a lot of religious freedom

to Moslim recruits and UH Moslim formations. The religious calendar was taken into uh account dietary laws with respect to you know, the mess hall and things. Both of Vermacht and of off On SSS had emms service chaplains, and they launched h ideological education programs to explicate how you know, a Moslim should live as a national socialist, you know, and what the meaning was of national socialism to non

Germanic yet Allied races. This was very, very detailed, whatever if any whether anybody agrees with this or not, you know. And these education programs were almost unfailingly delivered by by military emams. The only times they weren't is when an imam wasn't available, and Bosniak imams in particular played an outsized role. Again, Sarah Jevo only about two million Moslims lived in Sarajevo, but that's the European seed of Islam,

and UH. The way Moslims viewed it throughout the Moslim diaspora was, you know, being being sort of the seed of Islamic culture in Europe and also being very directly threatened by by Communism. There was a peculiar interest in the fortunes of the Bosniaks of Sarajevo and reciprocally pious Sunnis,

you know, pious UH, the Bosniak Sunnis. They they had a strong interest in the fortunes of their coreligion is you know, behind the they were still behind the verbial wire in the Soviet Union and in UH in Palestine. You know, the UH military formal military policy towards Islamic peoples,

and UH brought strategic terms. Really that policy paradigm first originated on July twenty fifth, nineteen forty, just after the fall of France, you know, and as the Battle of Britain was getting underway, a man named Max van Oppenheim.

He was a retired diplomat and an Orientalist scholar. He spontaneously sent a memorandum, a seven page memorandum to the Foreign Office suggesting that it was both imperative to cultivate the populations and the enemies Islamic territories and do everything possible to incite a rebellion against the British authorities there, and moving forward to give whatever military material, aid and diplomatic encouragement as was reasonable and feasible, you know, And

he said if he said, the time is nigh for a comprehensive strategy to mobilize the Islamic world against the British Empire. But he said, also if the British have time to consolidate forces and suppress a nascent rebellion, and well meanwhile holding you know, German forces at bay in theater, the opportunity will not repeat. He's also Oppenheim who'd spent most of his adult life traveling, and he is traveling and living in the Islamic world. He'd reached out directly

as a private person since his retirement. He was in his early eighties. I believe to pan Islamic religious figures like Shakib Arslan and more most significantly to the Grand Mufti aminel Hussini, and they became very close and largely at Oppenneim's be hast. Hitler, who had a somewhat tempestuous relationship with the Foreign Office, he took this seriously and German officers were deployed to the entire Moslim corridor where there was a British imperial presence from Egypt to India.

And of course subsequently the Grand moved Yea Lucenia was able to gain a personal audience of the Hitler, and we'll get to that, but this was the this was the origin of what became a a strategic imperative in political and military terms. I mean, that's important for its own sake, but also the Ribbontrop's other cast is some sort of fool or an incompetant, or the foreign officers cast is in the same sort of terms as the app there as this sort of a positive a fifth columnists.

And Hitler's cast is this provincial nationalist who didn't understand the felt politique. I mean, all that is ridiculous. And this the relationship of the Reich to the Islamic world in particulars stands in a rebuttal to that inference. And so this is an important subject matter for that reason.

And Oppenheim he he'd served in the kaiser Reich for decades and there's few people then living who knew as much about Islam and Islamic societies as he did, and more than any one man, he was responsible for shaping the Kaiser's disposition towards Islam generally. He was trained as a lawyer. By education, he'd become fluent in several Middle Eastern languages, including you know, various Arab dialects, as well

as Turkish. He traveled for years through Africa and the Middle East, and in eighteen ninety six when he was officially recruited by the Foreign Office, he subsequently posted for twelve years in Cairo, where he directly monitored political developments and cultivated and enduring relationships with Arab in Islamic leadership. In Sudan during the Mahdi rebellion, he'd been on the ground there and what he attested to in subsequent years was that's when he first encountered is Lam as a

political force. He always understood the deeply integral structure of Islam and conceptual terms, but this had all been at

stress act or academic until this point. In Sudan, he came to realize that Islam had a strong role to play in the Burgening political process, that it had an ability to animate pious elements towards direct military action, and therein it was a force multiplier, And that there is a peculiar interplay of deep theology and political and military imperatives in the Islamic world, and the Western power that could integrate that into its own political soldiery would carry

the day in theater, and he he'd been able to gain Oppenheim, had he'd been able to gain audiences with the Ottoman Sultan, with a number of other luminaries, both reactionaries and reformers. What they were hold in common was a belief and advocacy of the pan Islamic cause in lieu of this sort of narrow ethno nationalism that was

still characteristic in the colonized world in substantial measure. And Oppenheim's dispatches were delivered personally to the Kaiser, who basically viewed them as gospel in terms of how to proceed in the Near East and North Africa. And the Kaiser Wilhelm, for all of his shortcomings, was for myriad and he was in many respects. The Reich was unfortunately saddled with him,

he did delegate to experts. The other reason Halvegg subsequently had the sort of power he did, and on matters relating to h Veldt politique, the Kaiser tended to defer to people he viewed as the experts. And that's very Prussian. And that's why, despite Germany not having a global profile in terms of directly colonies in the way that the United Kingdom or France, or the Spanish or the Portuguese did, they tend to do do very well at at cultivating

allies in the developing world. And this went some of this was and we'll get into this in our Thirty Years War series. Isn't a side I want to cover this one I'm about to discuss as well as the sort of proxy war that was going on in Japan during the Thirty Years War between the Catholics and specifically

Dutch Reformed elements. But the the Ottomans had granted asylum to Protestants, both Lutheran and Reformed, who were either refugees of hostilities in the thirties War or were wanted by the Inquisition, and a sort of cultural rapport developed between Protestant Germany and Sunni Islam, and I think that that's something that's understated and a lot of these otherwise very complete accounts of the subject matter, but even limited as the Kaiser rex colonial profile was, the Kaiser right did

in the colonies that did have rule over did rule over Islamic populations in Togo and Cameroon, in Germany east to Africa now and maybe a you know, and obviously it was far easier. I mean, I mean, Africans are subterre and Africans are are just challenges to managing those

populations just because of profound alienage. It's it's obviously, but the colonial authorities obviously found it easier to deal with Islamic elements than pagan ones who ascribed to some sort of folk animism or something, and from the outset curated good offices with Islamic elements in these territories, and local Islamic structures weren't disturbed so long as Muslim leaders accepted

the colonial presence. In German Africa, sharia kor it's recognized Islamic endowments were we weren't touched or text madrasas were left open, religious holidays were acknowledged, and the Germans. Uh. Wisely,

they ruled through Maslim intermediaries and Islamic dignitaries. You weren't generally going to be visited in your township by some by by by a white man or a German colonial administrator, and it'd be an African Maslim intermediary or a respected man in in in the local mosque who you deal with, and he in turn to deal with the Germans. And on the one hand this left colonial governor somewhat isolated.

But on the other hand, it also meant that these intermediaries they had the might of you know, the Kaiser right behind them an event of an uprising, So indirect rule was highly effective. And that it's not discussed enough that again, in comparative terms, limited as the German colonial profile and experience was, it very much was a school of a political rule, you know, and a high political intrigue, and they were very good at it. And I think

that's uh. I think I think that's not often enough acknowledged, other than in very perfunctory terms. And this also led to as these kinds of colonial as more and more business was done in the colonies and as a geostrategic imperative developed around the German presence therapy. There was more and more of these sort of colonial congresses formal and informal between military and political and business authorities within the

Kaiser Reich. This led to the development of a a cadre of experts in Islamic studies in German academ and there was always a streak of Orientalism in modern German academ anyway, but these guys who previously really only were focused on classical Islam and you know, the their relations with the Greeks and things, they shifted their conceptual focus very much, I think the contemporary Moslim world and what a proper imperial policy should be towards Islam qua Islam,

and there really wasn't something comparable in the UK or France. There was philology type stuff, and you know, obviously a very advanced cultural anthropology, but a kind of political science of how European Christiandom should index with Islam and power political capacities that was pretty much exclusive to the Reich.

There was a German Colonial Institute formally established. One of their big luminaries was a guy named Karl Heinrich Becker, and a couple of his colleagues Martin Hartman and D. D. Vestermann. Becker was was centered in Hamburg, Hartman and Vestman in Berlin.

They placed themselves in their faculty at the full disposal of the German Empire, and the entirety of their labors and their endowment was put in the service of investigating and studying Islam, and the colony is accumulating knowledge on its spread, historical, contemporary, its impact on power political affairs.

There was these massive surveys undertaken by Becker, Hartman Investorman in ninety six, ninety eleven, in ninety thirteen respectively, which were then submitted to the Kaiser, through the Colonial Institute, to the Foreign Office onward to the Kaiser, and this became a you know, viewed as power political dogma in terms of how to proceed in in policy terms, both formally and you know, the Low Board, the German Society for the Study of Islam, it published a periodical Defelt

the Islams the World of Islam, and that became regarded as the seminal European academic journal on on contemporary Islamic faith and practice and politics. And you know, most people too, even in the UK, which opposedly is full of these you know, progressives and people who have a saying progressives

and know what they're talking aboutbviously don't. But it'saracter i supposedly by this this sort of progressive sensibility an academ and then on the other hand, these sort of Machiavelian types of a deep understanding of alien cultures and how

to establish and maintain power. They're in most of the most of these German experts, their counterparts, they they just looked at, uh, you know, indigenous religions, whether they actually were savage, you know, forms of animism or paganism, and is Lam is just so much you know, so much nonsense or something you know, primitive. It was, Uh, it was these German philologists and cultural studies types and orientalists who you know, emphasize with the Kaiser and demonstrated within

and without of their own cuts or to academ you know. Look, this is Islam is a a formative civilizing element. The uh higher races within Daryl Islam, if you'll allow the descriptor produce extraordinarily high culture. And Islam is brought millions by millions of people out of ignorance and savagery and even if one doesn't accept that it's a singular power, political force that is playing an essential role in the political process underway in the then nast in twentieth century.

And to be clear, you know, this is when Christianity was under full assault by the Communists, and it was uh when this, however, can try to me have been this enforced secularism reigned throughout the Western world. That's one of the things that set the stage for the Bolshevik Revolution. You know. So Islam is this catalyzing element really stood alone among world religions. I mean, don't get me wrong, I there was, there was pious Christians who are quite

literally waging a holy war against the Communists. And I yes, I believe in in symbolic psychological terms and anthropological terms that all politics is essentially theological. But I'm talking in terms of conscious religious practice and the ability of religious imperatives to anime political affairs. In the early twentieth century, Islam really stood alone in that capacity at global scale.

That's what I'm talking about. For clarity, and that this was not lost obviously on these these people that were talking about probably the best known political theorists who devised a practice of imperial rules of the Islam was Karl Heinrich Becker. He emphasized again and again he said Islam wasn't, as the British claim, a threat to colonial government. He said, not only is it not a threat, but that it should and can be used to bolster imperial rule and

to guarantee peace stability in public order. He said that the main reason why the white Western powers were coming into hostile contact with Islamic cultures was because they were either treating Moslim populations like they were animatester pagan savages, or they were viewing observance of Islamic practice as somehow inherently subversive, you know, And that integral aspect of Islam not only did it render it an essential, essentially political confession in a way that other face or not, but

it also meant that to attack any aspect of its observance was to attack every aspect of the reigning way of life in theater. And this wasn't a minority opinion among the German colonial authorities, both political, diplomatic and military. German colonial officers didn't have a hostile disposition towards Islam, and they correctly viewed the anti imperialist elements and the pro communist elements in theater that claimed to be Pan Islamic.

They weren't really because the two. It was an irreconcilable Veltisham. There was superficially Islamist language in Moscow's propaganda as well as within some of these anti colonial ideological subcultures, but there was no depth to it. Johann von Leers, and we'll get into him next episode. He's a lesser known personage within the Third Reich, and it was an essential personator to the to the to the national Insulti's resistance of the dead defeat. I hold him in great esteem.

But he correctly recognized Islam's not reactionary. In fact, it tends towards a revolutionary paradigm, but it is socially conservative in in terms of its view of authority. And a assaultant or a king, or a colonial governor or a procurator or or an occupying in general, even if he himself is not of the faith and not of your people, if he protects Islam from its enemies and allows the free observance of Islam, you were obligated as a good

Moslem to not revolt against him. For example, Wilhelm went as far as he in the autumn eighteen ninety eight, he the Kaiser went on a tour of the German colonies and of the Holy Land and the Middle East generally, and he visited Damascus specifically to visit the tomb of Salhadeen, and he gave a speech to all these you know, assembled masses of people where he declared himself to be a friend of his lab and the German Empire, to be a friend of Islam and of quote the world's

three hundred million Mohammedians, you know, to give you an idea of the priority that Berlin put on the cultivation of this relationship. It wasn't just a minor consideration emergent in the Foreign Office or or something that Colonial Office officers posted in theater. You know, we're we're we're trying to force the Kaiser and the government to take notice of you know, and uh, this paid uh, this, this,

this paid dividends. I mean not you know again, not only uh did it maintain good offices with the Ottomans, who were in real trouble then, but who were an essentral ally you know, within the boundar rationality of the power political paradigm that you know, reached critical Zenas in ninety fourteen. But there there was an enduring affinity between the Reich, the German people, and Dar Al Islam that

endured through the Cold War. In my opinion, you know, it was uh, this is a bit of a tangent, but you know, the only the only Marxist Leninist Arab state was South Yemen, and it was a cadre of East Germans who really were the intermediary between the Warsaw Pact, the East Bloc and and and the uh, the indigenous Arabs there that uh the book uh John Kuhler is this uh cold war State department guy. He wrote a

really interesting book on the Stazi. I mean, he's very much a a pro regime kind of guy, cold warrior type. But he and I believe he was probably like a lot of State Department people. I think he was probably an intelligence guy under diplomatic cover. But he, uh, he wrote about the the Stazi, the National Folks Armies presence in Yemen. You know, he tried to cast as Pejoritaly as possible, you know, suggesting that you know, all these

these these Germans swearing around like colonial overlords. It's like, well, any they're doing something right that the yemen the Yemenis didn't didn't open fire on him instead of packing. I mean, I and the Yemen's aren't exactly the people who who take a knee for others, just because you know, if anything, there as uh impossible to govern as the past tunes and they it was it was the DDR that really sold him on the idea of a Stalinism. I mean,

there's South South Yemen. There there's a confusing pastiche of of of of political intrigues in Yemen. But I mean, obviously, and I'm not suggesting that the soul or even the primary approximate cause of them aligned with the East Block was East German persuasiveness or intrigues. But interestingly they're one of the one of the Yemeny militias today in the south of the country. They ride under the flag of South Yemen, you know, uh and they claim uh at

Drake lineage to that polity, you know. So it's that there's something there, but yeah, that I think that should be adequate foundation. Man, there's still there's a couple other authors I want to get into relating to the Orientalists academic culture and in the Kaiser reag and then later the Third Reich and the impact that had on conceptual matters.

But I want to get into the Grand Moftiel Hussini and Palestine and it's status as an access element and things, and then I promise after that we'll get back to the Thirty Years War. But this is important then, it's it's particularly timely in my opinion.

into some of that. When we were talking about the post war diaster of National Socialists in exile, we were talking about how der Veg with Johann von Weir's as well as Otto Rimer and Hans Rudel, was a major contributor to both in terms of his work product and

capital investment. And when Argentina was no longer a friendly environment for that sort of partisan activity owing to Perone being forced out of office, Von Leers made his way to the Court of Nasser, and Egypt and Syria in particular were very much the loci of that kind of partisan activity, and that's significant because that plays into the not just the military culture of the region on the Arab side, many of whom were trained by for or

National Socialists and Behrmax veterans, but also it impacted the culture of resistance in profound ways, and that's something that's overlooked. And we talked a bit about the odd dialectics of

the DDR and the Rote Army fraction and Horse de Mahler. Obviously, the element he was representing when he was on the ground in the levant was there of the DDR and the Rote Army fraction, but he did a lot to facilitate deep contact and operational interdependence with the Popular Front for the Liberation at Palestine and the PLO and things, and this all ties together, not just conceptually, but in terms of a common nucleus of operative fact. If that

makes sense. I let me see. I try. I always try to indicate in my outlines where I leave off. So if I'm repeating myself, please let me know. I think speaking of I raised mind lyrics. If memory serves, we left off talking about vvon Lears and some of his work early on and after the National Socialist Revolution.

As early as ninety thirty four to thirty five, he was attempting to create good offices with you know, European Moslims in the Balkans as well as with the elements in Palestine and behind the the verbial wire in the Soviet Union, and von Lears very much had the ear of the Gebels as time went on. Gebels actually, through the Propaganda Ministry, he instructed the press to paint a positive image of Islam, or at least not a negative one.

This long preceded the war, and he urged journalists under the number of the Propaganda Ministry to give credit to the Islamic world as a cultural factor that plays a historically significant role in the historical process, and that alliance between the national socialist cause and Pan Islamism and the liberation of the Holy Land is you know, completely commensurate with and a component of a national socialist of health polity, you know. And this is important for a few reasons.

It says light not just on the deep ideological culture and philosophical disposition of national socialism its standard bears, but also it's yet another rebuttal of the claim that the Third Reich was this provincial state that didn't understand the cultural and strategic situation outside of immediate battle theaters. And that's preposterous for a lot of reasons, many of which are obvious. Germany was a very cosmopolitan country, not in the modern pejorative sense, I mean in the the nineteenth

and early twentieth century European sense. Van Leers, of course, to he was a linguist. He was fluent in something like thirteen different dialects. He was a cultural anthropologist, I mean what we consider a cultural anthropologist. He was a philologist. He was an expert on Islam and Oriental societies, and he was very much a right Hegelian and he wrote an essay, probably his most famous essay, and it's fairly

accessible online. I don't know if you can find a translation that's not corrupted by Ai slap, but it was titled Judaism and Islam Is Opposites, and in Hegelian terms, Von Leers viewed Islam as the dialectical antithesis and Judaism

and a splendid repudiation of it. And he said that that's one of the reasons why the Caliphate wasn't subverted by a hostile Jewish element within, because these were calcit truant people were locked behind ghetto walls, and every aspect of the Islamic cultural, social and legal code precluded them mobilizing in a possi opacity to wage war from within

by subject huge or any other way. And whether anybody accepts that perspective or not, or think that it is merit within the Hegelian paradigm or without, it's a fascinating theory. And I highly recommend any of von Lear's essays that you can run down. I mean, admittedly have got a discrete interest in the subject matter and it's relevant to my own research, But I aside from that, I believe it's essentially having a complete understanding and conceptual terms of

the Third Reich and the national socialist ideological culture. And von Leers wasn't alone in his overall perspectives. Ferdinand Klaus he was a well regarded racial theorist, and he was an associate of Hans Gunther Hans of Kate Gunther, who was another well known racialist. Both these guys in a

profile comparable to Houston, Stewart Chamberlain or Authrop Startard. For comparison, Klaus's book Ross until Ross und Seal, Race and Soul was for all practical purpose is a best seller if memory serves, and for different reasons the Dad that he cited, because again he Klaus and going through both had very

much of a materialist view of race. But they were in substantial agreement with Julius Evil and Renee gain On and suggesting a basic effec the between the master cast stratum of the Nordic race and that of you know, the Caliphate. In other words, Islam was emergent and curated

by the natural racial overcast within Daryl Islam. And that's one of the reasons it's so splendidly tailored to this integral concept of sovereignty where every man is in his place and the cast system remains undisturbed because it it emerges from the natural hierarchy within, you know, the oriental

paradigm from where it was emergent. Klaus wrote reports for the SS Head Office on political affairs and strategic matters relating the anthropological considerations, and he wrote, he wrote a paper that was submitted titled Preparation of an Operation for winning over the Islamic Peoples, you know, and within it he reflected on and the good offices between the kaiser

Reich and the Ottoman Empire. He talked about the warrior heritage of many of the STEP people who were you know, very very much culturally Muslim, and he said it's important to emphasize similarities and feltenscham between national socialists doctor and ethics and the Quran, you know, and that's very interesting. And to be clear, Klaus wasn't suggesting that national socialism

was intended as some sort of aristots religion. I know that that's something a lot of anti fascists like to claim, and Bandy, he was acknowledging that the Islamic faith structure is very, very different than religion in the occident. It's the integral aspects of it that are significance, because Islam is a political doctrine and an ethical disposition as well

as the theological system, and that's what's key. And if you're a Hegelian, which essentially every everybody associated with the Third Reich was to some degree or another, you view the development of religiosity as being very much bound up with the dialectical process within the relevant culture and the variables that the historical variables that created Islam were very congress with those that gave rise to national socialism, particularly

the perennial existential ross and Kreeg against the Jew. So it's not really a stretch, you know. And again you've you've got to understand the conceptual parameters of the time and place that these ideas are being postulated. There was a unique receptivity actual potential, you know, and a lot of people who otherwise know the subject matter are overly dismissive of of that. Interestingly, Klaus after the war he abandoned biological racialism. He remained an orientalist academic, and he

ultimately converted to his lamb. That was the case with Carl Wolff, the SS adjutants to the permanent SS adjutant to the Fear. Later he he commanded troops the field and he was highly decorated. He wasn't just a parade ground soldier. But he's a fascinating guy. In David Irving's True Himmler, which is a great book, I understand some people's lament that you can tell that it was intended to be two volumes, and Irv you know the infirmity of old age that strikes us all down, struck Irving

before you complete it. But what there is of it is just fantastic. But anyway, Carl Wolf's testimony is cited extensively. Anyway, Carlo Wolf's daughter, Fatima Grimm, she married that check Bosniak Moslem guy, and she converted to Islam, and she became an islam at the Theologian, and then she wrote extensively on jihad is a concept. And I realized Klaus and Fatima Griham and people like I'm at Hubert, who's it

was a fascinating personage. I believe Hubert would have been indicted after nine to eleven had he not died, but that's a subject or a discussion for another day. I realized these people are outliers. I'm not suggesting that it's normative or some sort of natural progression within German cultural dialectics to convert to Islam. I've got too much respect for Islam, but I could never imagine converting to Islam.

But the exception of somebody like Renet Denon who truly went native, I mean that, you know, living among Moslims and living in the Orient for essentially his whole life, that's a different phenomenon. However, with those qualifiers, I there is some sort of internal logic, especially considered the catastrophe of the day of Defeat and the subsequent occupation. There is some sort of internal logic to the peculiar spiritual

journey of von Leers, of Fatima, Graham of Klaus. I believe, but I'm sure the buddle of that is that that's speculation the U and there was others too. There was other academic writers Schmidtz, Lindemann, Reichhardt who posited not just an alliance at geo strategic convenience, but an ideological affinity for between Islam and the national social state on Hegelian grounds. Linderman went as far as to say that and some of the propaganda that he drafted intended for Islamic societies.

He said, the fuer prinsip is the occidental variant of, you know, the same the principle that animates the caliphate, you know. And Raichar knew the Quran very well, so he was able to cite passages that conveyed the notion that Muhammad was the fear of the believers and subsequently the caliph represented that role, you know. And but he made it clear that the fear is comparable to the Mahdi. You know. He's not suggesting the fear as a prophet.

You know. It was very intelligently tailored before its purpose, you know. And of course Moslims were under tremendous pressure by the by the communists, you know, they were they were targeted as some early as as Orthodox Christians were, you know, in that also provided in avenue of ingress for this kind of discoursive affinity. And after as early as nineteen thirty six, the major transmitter of German propaganda to the Mediterranean and North Africa and the Middle East

was in Zessen. Go to the small town south of Berlin, and it housed at the time one of the most powerful shortwave transmitters in the world. It had been built for the transmit for the ninety thirty six Olympics and after nineteenth. As of nineteen thirty nine the broadcast station ISS Zessen it brought it had an Arabic broadcast every day, you know, intended for Turk's, Iranians Maslims who were then

within uh the British Raj. There was a journalist, Gustav Buffinger, who headed up what was called the orient office of the radio station. They had They had seventy or eighty permanent staff members a type as translators, announcers, and as the war went on, it broadcasts in standard Arabic, but in berber and in some of these could Cassius languages too. There was an Egyptian Emigray named a Eunice Bari who was a big national socialist and he was a permanent

fixture at the Zessen radio station. He's he's a shadowy guy. He disappeared at some point and it's pretty it's pretty clear if he wasn't murdered. He disappeared into the into the Middle East, and and and probably took it a new identity and ended up similarly in the court of Nasser or or in Syria. But you know this in the Zessen uh the Oriental broadcast from Zessen they continued until just a month before the day of defeat, you know, in April ninety forty five. So it was it was

a major thing. We've got to get into the life and times in Muhammad Amino Husseini for this to be anything approaching complete discussions. So forgive me for changing gears to you know, like a biographical discussion. You know, of course Hussein he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and he's a man who's very much light about and which comes with no surprise. Not only was he a Palestinian and a significant man in Sunni Islam, but you know,

he also was allied to the Axis cause. So that's sort of a sort of a perfect storm carearacteristics that you know, make on a target for slanders of the

most hostile sort. He was pretty pretty much indisputably the most powerful leader of the Palestinian national movement during British rule over you know what, before it had been an Ottoman fief them for those that don't know it, from night approximately nineteen seventeen until ninety forty eight, that was the period of British rule over Palestine, and the mouftie was he reminds me very much a Sayid Kuta in

his disposition. You know, people suggest he talked about both sides of his mouth and the issue of violent partisan activity. You've got to understand the role of the mufti, like a mofie is a learned man in Islamic jurisprudence, and soon he's put a premium on interpretation and application of the law. So a moftie he's not a governor as we think of it, and he's not a priest either. He's he's one part sort of a learned wise man within the tribe and one part intermediary between the congregation

of the faithful and the outsider or secular authority. You know, and a lot of both Zionists and a lot of court historians, either out of ignorance or because they're how telling the the presudice of the former, they claim, Oh, the the British invented the office of the Grand Mufti to have some sort of figurehead on the ground, you know, to to mitigate the difficulties of directly ruling over a

Maslim population. That's not true, that's ridiculous. They British recognized him as the Grand Moutie of Jerusalem and seeded authority over Islamic holy sites to him. But you're you're talking about a role and a title and a function of mufti that that spans a thousand years, okay. But to bring it back to some of the similarities in him

and Kutev and another Islamic juris types. You know, it's there's a complex interplay between how a good Moslem relates to secular authority and how he manages a situation and is such as that that you know, the Palestinians were in vis a vis the occupation. They knew that some sort of race war was coming and that the Desionists

wanted to ethnically cleanse them. They knew that British would be leaving at some point, and they knew that if a national state was going to be realized, they would have to make that divorce from British rule amicable, you know. And finally, a moved he's not a general and he's not a guerrilla fighter or a soldier. I mean his if he if he's called it, laid on his life for Jahad. That's what he must do, and he will

do if he's worthy of the of the title. But you know, he's it's not his role to devise military solutions under conditions of occupation or it's his job to keep the people safe, you know, and to interpret the law is laid down by the governing structure in a way that allows from Islamic life to be realized, you know. And beyond that too that I'm not a Quran scholar, but so you know, I just want to get that

out there. But when our revolt is permissible under the Quran, there's very discreete conditions for that, you know, even in apostate occupier or or Kelly. If he protects Islam and allows Moslims to freely worship, it's not it's it's not just or righteous to overthrow him or to disobey him, you know. And so there's that obviously, you know, he's a he's a hate target of mainstream historians in the

Anglo sphere, but even a lot of Maslims. Some people try and paint him as some sort of extremist quasi national socialist. On the other hand, you you know, you a lot of passionate people behind the Palestinian cause. You know, they view him as some as some sort of machiavellian intriguer, you know, who didn't do enough to to protect Palestine. That's misguided in my opinion. You know, he was as part as in as he as was appropriate to the circumstances.

And the fact that he the fact that he got a personal audience that off Hitler is pretty remarkable and the way that came about is fascinating too, And I'll get into that. But you know, the on the one hand, uh, Hitler was cunning in who he would curate good offices with. But it's it wasn't some foregone conclusion Hitler would meet

whoever the Grand Moftia Palestine was. Why would he? I mean, basically the force of personality and the post persuasiveness of his polemic and his own sort of cunning and intriguing because he was something of an intriguer that's not a slander, is what brought him into a face to face meeting with the fear. And that's pretty extraordinary, you know, whatever's flaws that have to be acknowledged, you know, and it's

also to the circumstances on the ground in Palestine. I mean to say nothing in the warriors, but from the conclusion, from the fall of the Ottoman Empire until you know, the the declaration of design is state and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, there's an incredibly unstable and not just fluid but atinkly chaotic situation on the ground and the levant you know, the the move. These views changed in

accordance with the security situation and the historical situation. You know, there was basically at least two distinct phases, you know, from nineteen seventeen when the British arrived, until about nineteen thirty six, where he was, like say Kute, a kind of cautious, pragmatic traditional leader in the mofty role, you know, cooperating with British officials will uncompromisingly opposing Zionism. And then

there was the exile phase. The moved. He was exiled after the Arab revolt, which was catastrophic, not his exile, I mean the outcome of the Arab revolt, but rightly or wrongly, he was swept up in the reaction of the crown to the revolutionary situation on the ground, and you know, he was identified as a partisan actor, if not an architect of the rebellion. But after he was

understandably bitter being exiled from his home, you know. And again the Hussini family has a powerful and distinct heritage to this day. They remained important people in theater. But he became he became increasingly radical, and he gravitated ultimately to the axis, and he did become a partisan. You know, he ultimately he became essentially got loab Burger's right hand man and recruiting and mobilizing Masm populations to the vafinesss now again too, you know, Husseining he had been he'd

come up through the Ottoman system. You know, those Sainy family, They were the most prominent political Palestinian family who were the direct intermediary for generations between the Palestinians and the Ottoman overlords. You know. So I mean exiling him was it was no small thing. And he wasn't He wasn't some upstart careerist or some random emam you know, who insinuated himself into a clerical and partisan role, going to a nascent and then fully realized crisis situation. You know.

So that's all these things are, all these things are important to consider. What uh oh, I want to give me one second just to find my citation here. I'm sorry, I wanted to I wanted to get into how how

the Grand moved. He got an audience with Hitler. Another personage who was essential to the development of the Third Reich's relationship with the Grand Muftie but Islamic populations generally, was a German officer named Veilhelm Hintersatz, also known as Harun al Rashid bay He was an SS standard and feure.

He was born in Brandenburg and during World War Two he commanded the Eastern Moslem Division OS turkisher Waffenveband Division, which was this sort of cosmopolitan pastiche of Kazakhs, Turkmen as aeris you name it, but el Rashid. During the First World War he served on the General staff of the Ottoman Empire with Enver Pasha, who was one of the young Turks. For those in know the history, and

during his time there, two things happened. He developed a strong admiration for Otto Lehman von Sanders who he met. Sanders was this Prussian aristocrat who was a non observant Jew who became this hero of the Ottoman Empire after spending his life there and and and and training their people and waging war when the Ottoman Empire went to war in command the Turkish troops. L Rashid wrote a biography of Sanders later that got published in Berlin in

the thirties that got a lot of fan fear. Anyway, during the war, during the Great War, he converted to his lamb and then he as when he became Haruin

o rashid Bait. After his conversion, he Uh he met up with As the Great War was ending, there was a whole glut of POW's from the Russian Empire at Wunsdorff camp and he met he met a bunch of Maslim POWs who had been drafted into the Tsarist army, and they further schooled him in Islam, and he developed an interest also in the Russian way of war because looking forward it was clear that you know, the Soviet Union was going to be the the prime geostrategic actor,

not just in Europe and not just contra Germany, but you know, across his entire planet, because he was a an Aryan Maslim and an experienced combat officer, and he was multi lingual, and he had the implicit trust of

other Moslems. He was recruited by Italian intelligence when they went to war in Ethiopia, you know, so he served il Duce and further augmented his credentials and guys who served under him, like Italians and Germans, you know, who said it was uncanny that they said he quote prayed without timidity in a mosque and quote he had the implicit trust of the native Mohammedians who saw him as a fellow believer. He also viewed the United Kingdom as

potentially Germany's Achilles. Heel and he said, and this was even long before the ascendency of the War Party, but he said that the British Empire is gonna have to be neutralized because they're going to make war on the Reich. And he said the key instrumentality of the Reich prevailing in that conflict is an alliance with with with with Moslims on you know, currently under hostile occupation by by

the United Kingdom. He uh, during opera when our when operations Barbara Rosa kicked off or she he was a liaison officer with the Reich Main Security Office and the UH Eastern populations, you know, the UH, the Moslim nations within Maslim nationalities within the Soviet Union, and in that role with the Right Security Main Office of the s S, he made contact with the Grand Moufty hodj I mean hodj I mean al Hussini and this became a a close friendship between the two men, and it developed into

a deep alliance. And El Rashid and the Grand Mufti they began drawing up a plan. They believed that there there was two things happening here. This is one of the Quagmire and the Balkans was emerging in earnest you know, which which was remained UH unmanageable for a substantial portion of the war. So she and the Grand Mufti they believe that the ideal place to deploy a Moslim division would be in the Balkans, you know. And thus hand Jar came about thirteenth SS. But additionally, Bosnia was the

Moslem heartland within Europe. And again, like we talked about in the first episode, there's a prestige that attended that, and plus the ecumenical clout of the Grand Mofie of Jerusalem, who's a very respected man, going to Sarajevo and addressed not just Bosniaks but all Moslims and particularly those behind

the wire fighting communism. This uh, this, this, this was very politically savy a relative of the King of Egypt, King Farouk, a Prince Mansour dow El Rashid met him through the Mufti, and Mansour then began aiding in these recruitment efforts and that that bolstered these propaganda efforts, and uh the resulting formation. Ultimately Hanjar was the first, and it was also Skanderberg, which was Albanian, Moslem and Kamma.

But the true Pan Islamic division sized element was uh the Aus Turk Waffens Turkish Vafen SS Eastern Turkic SS cores. And again it was a it was turk Man, it was Kazakhs, it was a series. It was you know, all the nationalities of the Soviet Union who were of the Mauslim faith were represented. I'm gonna till we got okay it. Uh. Now, what's really interesting here is that, Yeah, the other side, Ty personage ins with got Lot Burger.

He was a SS general as UH well as a higher SS and police leader, and he was responsible for the recruitment of non German nationalities into the and he was impressed with what he saw from l. Rashid in the Mufti and berger Uh decided that there had to be an effort to insinuate chaplains with a an national socialist ideological education into Islamic formations. So the position of military imam was first introduced in ninety forty two. And this again is that that Behastont got Lobed Burger the

command headquarters of the SS Eastern Turkish Division. They set up what amount to do an imam training school and it oversaw religious practices and the four Mauslim legions as they were designated find uh a mola at division level and emms and clerics down to platoon level. The overall UH legion mola was a for the Isazabaijani legion. For example, it was Iman Pasha IV, the Turkestan legion. It was a molla you know you to have and so on

down the line and legion and division molas. They were the equivalent of company commander, and these were fighting men. One of the most famous of the imams, he was a bosmik named Haleem Malich. He held the Iron Cross and slew of other awards. You know, So these these guys weren't just actors or stand in propaganda elements. And it also this was a level of religious formalized religious hierarchy and institutionalization, which basically it was there's there's just

there's something brilliant about it. That's not how Maslim armies were organized. It was really assimilating Islamic cultural coding into a Wehrmacht model, and a lot of the recruits really

took to that. There were some malim legions that were terrible, and there were some that were absolutely savage, but this almost ecclesiastical structure that one would have found in the company in the Thirty Years War, for example, you know, transposed to an Islamic cultural paradigm, like when it worked when the mentioned material constituting the company, platoon or division in question, when it was game fighters, and when it was mentioned material suitable for soldiery, it was a it

was it was a fantastic formula. And it also it that's did wonders for discipline and morale. It was just a question of spiritual council. There was a way of conveying to these recruits that you know, this is a this is a jihad against Bolshevism and Jewry and being a good national socialist and being a good Maslam or synonymous.

And where those tendencies converge, it's in the person of the Islamic national socialist political soldier, exemplified by the Imam you know, who was both a cleric and a warrior, you know, and who you know and and in and not just a commander in in the path of Jahad that we are on, but you know, also a spiritual guide. The uh Ralph von Hagendorff, who was a career uh

vermacht Off and an expert in military jurisprudence. In May nineteen forty three he issued a formal recommendation that in Moslem formations, before of course martial as sigence punishment to a defendant, there's to be a consultation with the divisional Mulla on the scope and severity of punishment to legitimize the military justice system. And this was huge too. Hagendorff

recalled also that he said often these emams. What they'd recommend was usually substantially more severe than what the secular go to German military justice and the vermach and Sys otherwise demanded. You know, so in practice, these emails acted as intermediaries with a European and Christian military justice system that nevertheless, you know, abided Islamic principles and its punitive aspect. And this this insinuated legitimacy into it that otherwise would

be lacking. Around the same time May ninety forty three, gottlab Burger he issued a formal decree from the main Office. It was on the quote ideological spiritual education of them of the Maslim ss divisions, and it formally identified emovs as the most important transmitters of political and religious education

within Moslim formations. It made clear that the emphasis was to be on the common enemies of Germans and Moslims, you know, Judaism, quote Anglo Americanism, communism, freemasonry, secularism, you know, and that these shared ideals, including militancy and the marshal ethos, the role of morality, of tradition, of upright manliness, and you know, like all this is what brought together National Socialists of of of different faiths, you know, whether they

be the Protestant, Catholic or Moslem. And you know, again Burger, the more I dive into I was I was researching his battle record and his career in the ss ohing to like a different, a related but distinguishable subject matter, and I he he was just an amazing guy. You really only find footnotes about him as oh he was this big war criminal in this brute or he's described, you know, kind of similar terms to Martin Borman. It's just, oh, he was just a sort of creet and this function here,

not not at all. And for a military man he he had, he had a lot of deep esoteric interests. And I I think that Boa has attracted those types frankly, you know, not not just romantics and dreamers, but there was Orientalism was literally coded into it, you know. I mean, that's why the Proud and Book on Genghis Khan was required reading at SSH Younger school, and of course Yaka and Piper wrote his senior thesis on the Proud and

Book and Genghis Khan. But I mean, I think it's I Schopenhower was an Orientalist and I you know, Chopenhower more than Nietzsche, was the patron philosopher of the of the German, right I think. But yeah, we're coming up on the hour, man. I I uh, I hope he are finding this educational and interesting and we'll we'll wrap it up the next episode, I promise. Awesome.

it for formal editing to a publisher. Yet. There's this myth, some of which derives from the testimony of Albert Spear, which I consider it to be not remotely credible. Obviously, he described the final months of the German Reich as Hitler developing this sort of nihilistic apathy punctuated by fits of rage and an impulse to sort of burn everything down. Hitler's actions don't indicate that. And I've emphasized I'm bringing this back to the subject matter. I'm not on a

CENL tangent. I promise I emphasize the fact of don and it's being designated as successor not just because Hitler thought that he was a man the Allies would find acceptable and they did. Other than the Yodel, he was really the only number of defendant that people in the United Kingdom, not just the Admiralty, but a lot of the aristocracy and even people in the war cabinet came

to the defense of. But also there was an understanding that the post war world would need some sort of resistance legacy if Europe was going to survive, and if the national socialist cause was going to survive, albeit in a historically contingent configure. A And that's a subject for a whole wet a whole series on that, And like I said, I'm dedicating the final third approximately of my

manuscript to the subject matter. One of the only authors who I think truly understands that and who really understands that there was a fascist international of a sort during the Cold War, and beyond is Kevin Coogan. He was an unusual guy. He wrote a biography of Francis Yaki he called Dreamer of the Day Francis perkerct Yaki in the Post were Fascist International. This was released in nineteen

ninety nine. It's actually a fantastic book. H Ke Thompson contributed to it and allowed his testimony to be included. Elsa Davitt, who was a longtime mistress of Francis Yaki. She participated in and proffered a lot of her testimony, as well as personal effects and papers that belonged to Yachi into things. You know, Coogan's definitely a left winger, but of a more serious type. And I mean the fact that some of these personages we're willing to participate

in the book project speaks for itself. It's not a purely punitive treatment, but the real value of it, especially

if you're reading it as a researcher. There's a couple of hundred pages of footnotes and endnotes that are really incredible, including a substantial amount of material about Johann van Leer's about They're vague and the National Socialists distance in Argentina and then in the Near East, and I highly recommend that book to students of the subject matter as well as people who are just curious students of history want

to get a better understanding of the subject matter. But I raised Coogan not just because I like that book, but you know, again, he's one of the only authors I know of who has a deep understanding of this phenomenon and the efforts, particularly of the SS and the SD to curate a national socialist sensibility among Maslim populations. This ramped up in earnest in the final year and a half of the war, when it became clear that en zeg was no longer possible. And it's not because

everybody was delusional. It's not owing to some desperation born of manpower shortages or any of those confabulations. It was because at base and particularly in the s S, the truly diehard National socialists who were ideologically committed. They had a profoundly Hegelian view of the war and of the historical process generally. And of course Germany was not a stranger to these sorts of apocalyptic conditions. We're talking about

our thirty years War series. I think in the first episode we were talking about a Hitler himself and Spear, speaking of Spear as well as many personages within the traditional military establishment as well as the National Socialist cadre that took over the government. The historical polestar of these people was the Thirty Years War and the destruction of Germany, the destruction of the First Reich and the scattering of

the German racial organism to the proverbial four wins. And in their mind, it had taken centuries to reconstitute the German nation and to bring years into a organizational modality whereby it could fulfill its historical mission, and in their estimation, this had taken close to three centuries. So there was an understanding that a similar process was emergent in nineteen forty four forty five, and there was the added challenge of a world dominated by the Communists and by the

American Zionist occupation that was looming. Both of these challenges were related. That's why these ideological schema were quite literally allied, but they were also very distinguishable in terms of what they represented and what they were trying to accomplish, and in terms of creating a global political regime and the tactics required to counteract those efforts to break people up.

Their identitarian characteristics and historical memory were somewhat different depending on whether the populations in question were those situated in the East or in the West, and Maslim populations were under unique pressure from the communists, and that this endured throughout the existence of the Soviet Union. The Islamic revolt was one of many proximate causes that ultimately brought brought

the Soviet Union down. I think that's irrebutable. So that's something that is important to understand here, and that's one of the reasons why this remains a relevant, irrelevant subject matter. It's not just some sort of trivial curiosity related to aspects of the war that are sort of not commonly emphasized, but the role of the grand movety to to change focused just a little bit. The way that he's cast

in the historical record is somewhat incorrect. There's people with a superficial understanding of national socialism, and there's some Palestinian liberation is to mean well, but they they're somewhat conceptually impoverished in their understanding of the historical record. They cast the moved he as almost like a Palestinian Naser. That's not really accurate. I mean the point that I believe if he can be analogized to any contemporary it'd be

said Kutu. And if you know anything about Islam, and particularly highest Sunni Islam, the role of a mofti is not that of a political soldier. It's different. There's definitely a partisan aspect that goes up saying but the move He also he didn't have a sense of pan Arabism. What became sort of the rallying cry of the of the resistance in the Near East, which was a combination of pan Arabism and a an East block aligned but this but discernibly non communist uh sort of militant socialism.

That was not what he viewed as the way forward for Palestinians. And he was absolutely a pan Islamist, but he didn't he didn't view pan Arabisms as a meaningful concept. Then, frankly,

it's not. On the other side, Zionists then and now have tried cast the move he as sort of a Palestinian Kodriano or some sort of or some sort of ethnosectarian national wist who's a mirror of themselves, of themselves who wanted to annihilate Jewelry owing to some sort of highly binary, zero sum concept of racial and sectarian struggle

in the region. That's naked propaganda. And interestingly, when people in the Churchill government, who are particularly sympathetic to designs perspective, tried to convince the Home Office of these things and as far as trying to push the British authorities is trying to capture the Al Husseini. This was quickly quashed

and British intelligence simply refused to pursue it. And there was an internal memo that indicated that this was a propaganda effort devised by Zionus on the ground, who were concerned about a leadership cadre reconstituting among their enemies, which they pretty successfully decapitated by this juncture. And to be clear that mof he was in exile from nineteen thirty six one. Going to the Arab revolt, the Arab revolt is complicated. I don't want to deep dive into that

right now. Briefly, it was a general strike. It was it uprising as more and more European Jews streamed into Palestine. It became clear that the Palestinians were going to be ethnically cleansed, okay, And we talked about how the the British were inconsistent and how they responded to ethnosectarian violence and you know, categorical attacks upon Palestinians to realize annihilation oriented goals by the Desions. So this represented an existential fear.

It wasn't just a question of resistance to Palestine being dominated by a hostile Jewish majority. On the ground, there was an element among the Palestinians under Arms two that had always favored an armed struggle, and their reasoning was, we've got to pull the trigger now before the situation deteriorate the point that it's no longer possible. There was a a pious Islamist organization that was also highly militant,

led by eas Alden al Cassam. He was a shakh and something of a lesser aristocrat, but it was also a dedicated revolutionary and as early as the mid nineties twenties he was demanding that money that was coming into mosques the equivalent of alms, be spent on arms and military needs rather than on you know, proselytizing and and traditional ecclesiastical to activities and things of that nature, you know, the equivalent they're in. This caused tension between him and

al Husseini. He'd approached al Husseini and and tried to cultivate his friendship and asked to be brought on to the Supreme Moslem Council as an itinerant preacher of sorts, and Husseini turned him away, but did help him find a permanent place and a mosque that would be more receptive to his revolutionary concepts. This is due to some people too, including again some Palestinian liberationists who mean well today as being perfidest and Alossini being political. I don't

think that's fair. And Alssini also knew that his people weren't in a position to win at that moment. He was continuing to try and curate a relationship with the British too, out of necessity, owing to again the hopelessness of the military situation at that juncture. But as it happened in nineteen thirty six, a general strike did kick off, and once the uprising began, the move he stowed with Palestine. He was very much accused though, of fermenting this and

being a leader of it. The British commanders on the ground, who he curated a relationship with, I believe they talked to the Foreign Office and British intelligence and that's why the move he wasn't harmed. He was allowed to live in exile relatively undisturbed at that juncture, because you know, it was it was clear that he wasn't devising a revolutionary resistance movement, He wasn't trying to force a kinetic

outcome to then extend conditions. But this was when al was saying he began approaching representatives of the Third Reich, and they began approaching him, and we talked about gottlab Burger and elements within the both the algass and in various party offices who viewed this as imperative, and Aloix saying he only met with Hitler face to face once in November nineteen forty one. But the fact that he met him at all is remarkable because it was not

easy to get access to Hitler. What he was able to procure Hitler guaranteed and he convinced al Duce to co sign this guarantee that after the defeat of the British Empire, Palestine would become an Arab state and it would be ethnically cleansed of Jews. Whether the Mufti would become the ruler of that state, I find that unlikely. Again, there's it's complicated how traditional Islamic authority is organized. You

need to be clear. People get the people have this misconception because first of all, the look at the place like Iran, and of course there's a there's a sectarian divide there because She and Sunni are very different, and even within those broad sects, there's there's there's there's differences within Sunni Islam and She Islam that are profound. The Iranian government and called itself the revolutionary government because it's

not this reactionary regime. The FUCO one of the few essays he wrote that oriented towards ideological practice, that that's a in a you know, direct capacity. He went to Tehran as the revolution was underway, and he made the point that this was something people hadn't seen before. It wasn't some reactionary regime of clerics. It was very much an Islamic movement, but it was a hybrid ideology that was a truly third position as tendency in the true sense.

Okay Al Hussini didn't represent some Sunni of that. And also once what became the Palestinian Liberation movement, it's proverbial dna is in the Arab revolt and in the men who they took inspiration from and the move He wasn't really part of that. You know, he definitely was a partisan, and he took on the function of a political soldier as he became insinuated into the SS organization. But military command and political credibility became inextricably bound up in theater,

and that some of that duras to this day. But you know, it's not this idea that the move He simply approached Hitler because he had ambitions to become Emperor of Palestine or the the boss of the Arab Committee or something, and wanted to parlay that into authority over a Palestinian ethno state that was going to emerge at NC guy that I don't think that's credible. What was

important was that he got a guarantee from Hitler. He had the patronage of the Axis, and it guaranteed that forces would be brought to bear and Hitler made clear to him. Hitler said he believed in the Arab people, and he believed in the in the Santy's cause, which I think was true. But he also said that the German Reich had essential interests in the region and they expected the Palestinians to help those things be realized. So obviously it was a real politic aspect of this too.

But both men came to realize also that this had become a planetary struggle, you know, And by November nineteen forty one, America wasn't as a I mean America the fact it was at war with Germany from September ninety forty one onwards, the Reich was the Wehrmacht was closing in on Moscow, and it became clear that the struggle was global in character, and even after final victory was realized, which appeared to be eminent as a November nineteen forty one,

no Germany needed allies in newly liberated, formally colonial spaces. But there was also a basic affinity and that's coded into national socialism through influences like Schopenhauer and things, and the German character generally. Hitler wasn't some orientalists like von Weiers, but I think it's clear to all but the most

literal and binary minds when I'm getting it. And towards that I mentioned before about Oprah group and Feler and Genaha devafansis got lab Burger, who I think was a fascinating individual, and he was a key personage in forcing the through policies within the SS relating to the alliance with not just the Palestinians and al Hussini, but with the Islamic nationalities in the East. He clarified. Berger said, and I'm paraphrasing the relationship between Islam and national socialism.

There's a vocush imperative, but what is not intended is a synthesis. He said. Quote it is not intended to find a synthesis of Islam and national socialism or to impose national socialism in the Maslims. Rather, national socialism is to be seen as the genuine, focused German worldview, while Islam is to be seen as the genuine, focused Arabic worldview.

He was using Arabic as a stand in for I mean, obviously the land of the prophet and the Arabic language and Muhammad himself means that Arab cultural forms have an outsized significance in Islam. He was using Arabic in the Arabic world view in a Shpangalarrian sense to include, you know, in most of the Islamic element under the Reich authority,

where we're not Arab. And again there was this emphasis on Sarajevo in specifically in Bosnia as the as the heartland of European Islam, and thus they were to be given priority. And Berger emphasized that. And mind you, Berger was h he was second only to the Reich's fear ss Himmler in his rank. He had a rank equivalent to Paul Hauser and scept Dietrich, so he his word

was a law within the organization. Then he clarified that the Moslems, the Balkans were racially part of the Germanic world well ideologically and spiritually part of the Arab world. So he said, among other things, these Balkan Moslem peoples, they represent, you know what the complimentary aspects are of this alliance and this unity of veldenstrong against communism and jewelry.

And he continued by saying, through the deployment of a Maslim SS division speaking of the Bosniacs here they're made hereby for the first time the established a connection between Islam and national socialism, or rather between the Arab and the Germanic world, and an open, honest basis as this division in terms of blood and race is influenced by the North in terms of ideology and contrast by the orient I think I got into in the last episode. I tried to clarify by reference to my outlines what

I covered, So stop me if I'm being redundant. But in nineteen forty four the SS head office at behest the Burger, they established two Islamic centers for religious education. The first one, which I think I got into a bit, was open in April nineteen forty four. It was in a small town called Kuben in Brandenburg. This was this was the e Mom Institute, and we talked about emoms in NAVAF and SS and the important role they played at not just division level of a company and even

platoon level. And this El Hussini himself attended a ceremony with the gott Love Burger and an email nam Hussein Disozo, who was a Bosniac. More significant, particularly to the subject matter that I started this discussion with with what was colloquially called the ss Mullus school. It was, it didn't formally it wasn't formally established until November forty four, and once again there was an inauguration ceremony tailored to celebrate

enough to size a Germanic Masliam alliance. The opening speech was proffered by Walter Schellenberg, and the end of the Soviet was interesting because again it it seemed very much codd Swards of post war world and proceeding under hostile occupation without without resulting the language that suggested what in the national social ideological culture would be looked upon pejoratively

as defeatism. But the crux of Schellensberg's speech was the historical associations, the traditional bonds between the kaiser Reich and Daryl Islam, the longstanding support for Moslim peoples who were

besieged by Jewish tyranny. And it emphasized too that the Soviet Union, by its very existence it represented a slow not just on focused ways of life, but on all confessional practices and cultural spread Usians first among them Islam, and Schellenberg specifically said that the focused core of Russia had been destroyed for all practical purposes and totally deracinated, and that the non Russian people under occupation and on the periphery of the Soviet Empire were similarly being targeted

for destruction and their fate would be the same as that of the Russians if an effective resistance wasn't cultivated and the only way that that could be realized is by the dual commits meant of to racial hygiene and

confessional piousness. And in this respect, Schellenberg said Islam was the quote custodian of the Eastern people and their biological substance as well as their confessional heritage in linear terms back to the time of the Prophet, and he concluded by saying that because the Bolsheviks lack traditions in the past, they're not long for this earth, but that Moslims are able to cope with the future no matter what hardships emerge, because not just to the racial purity of the several

populations who are very tribally randed who constituted the Eastern Mauslims, but that basically their faith would carry them through the historical destruction of Bolshevism and the and the racially impure, uh interventioned, who are the standard bearers of the Bolshevik ideology, who are really just the vestigial remnants of the Russian racial corps that died in the Soviet death camps. Very very heady stuff, not not not typical, just sort of

grab bag propaganda, you know, And this is important. And the Moullas School it was, it was far larger than the Email School. It was based at this villa in UH, this affluent neighborhood outside of Dresden. There was this Victor Klemper. He was this Jewish writer who curiously, you know, didn't get like shot shot into space or something by the

Nazi Holocaust. But he was a lot of people, I think, including Shier, William Shier, who wrote a very silly book that a lot of quote historians hold out as some great treatment of the Third Reich. Of course Shira pulled it. There was a rise and fall of the Third Roag and then there was the Nightmare Years. That's a that's an objective and not at all a sterical title for a history book. But Victor Klemfery he kept diaries and he documented his observations on various things.

your point. But Klemper's diary I believe was real. And he noted he was observing obviously from without the you know, what was going on in this old but rather stately property, which I believe is a repurpose to hotel in blasphets this this neighborhood of Dresden, and he said there was a quote mysterious Moslem study group there this if you

want to relate. But I uh, when I read that, I just I had this funny image of this like little neverish dude like kicking out at uh at things like ss going out of this coughing building and say, what's what does going on? I don't know, Maybe I am from the silly, silly kind of ship like that. But uh moving on it. Uh, it can't uh something

that something you can't you can't. You can't chug this up to some sort of you know, effort to corral halfless pow using the frontline service or something the flesh out the ranks of of devastated divisions and battalions. You know. The people suggest that sort of thing, don't know the the subject matter. And there was a a a guy named Rayner Shakcha Olshacha. He was assigned to set things up in the Moulla school and uh make it culturally compliant with the students who'd be attending it. So old

Shaka ol Shatcha. He decked out the interior building in ways that reflect did Islamic architectural styles. The main entrance hall was decorated with a mosaic patterns specifically after mosques in Central Asia. There was a lot of you know, Islamic artifacts on loan from museums in the Greater German Reich. There was Kuranic verses and calligraphy painted into the walls. There was a prayer niche in one of the main

assembly areas. There was an ornate prayer Hall, which was sort of the center of activity on the ground floor, you know, And so I mean the assessment out of their way to create an authentically Islamic environment, and they went as far as to hire Kurt Erdman. He was the foremost expert on Islamic culture and art history in the Oriental department of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. And he consulted with architects from Berlin and Dresden to mock this up, and it took half a year. You know.

There was a great library. It had Islamic, authentic Islamic texts from France, from Bosnia, from the Netherlands, including rare, ancient and texts that have been purchased. In Sarajevo. Around this time, anybody, no matter there, any uh, any folks, Deutsche or any any any non Jewish Auslander could obtain a free Koran from the Propaganda ministry just by asking for one. There weren't a lot of Qurans that have been properly translated into German, so an effort was made

to remedy that by the Propaganda Ministry. And one of the reasons for these efforts was the s S wanted to attract top religious scholars and imams to teach at the school, but also to attend it for political education and military education within the SS model. And reading between the lines, you know, again this is the last year that wore under desperate conditions. They were looking to build cadres. They were looking to build dedicated national socialist cadres within

these populations for a post war world. You know. I that should be clear to anybody who understands what they're looking at. Metaphorically speaking, I think Alan John Idris or Idris, he was coveted as director of the Mullus School, but he was still in the service of the Propaganda Ministry as well as the Foreign Office, and he was the top man in charge of propaganda in the Islamic world, and neither the Foreign Office nor the nor Goebels would

let him go, you know. And again this they were emphasizing the propaganda aspect in the theater in Palestine as well as in among the nationalities and in the Soviet Union,

and uh of course in in Bosnia. But the Bosniacs again, they they they were they were racial Europeans and most of them we're multi lingualed just because O where they lived, you know, and they had a privileged position within within the the Reich, so it was it would have been a redundant to make them the focus group of these efforts, if you follow me. But nevertheless, ultimately the propaganda ministry they let Idriss preside over the Moullas school three days

a week. He was young, comparatively charismatic. He was very modern and had Western habits. He had a great admiration for the European culture, and he assimilated very well into Germany culturally. But he was also a very, very UH dedicated Moslim. He was kind of viewed as the model Maslim national socialist. He had a son who UH worked as an interpreter and then ultimately joined UH the Eastern Maslim SS Corps in the final year of the war.

And that obviously was I mean, I anybody who joined that late in the game knew there's a good chance they weren't coming home. I mean, he was a dedicated he was coming to the jihad. But he this also was something of a propagandic coup. You know, look, this wealthy Malas offering up his son to fight for the Reich.

It's no small thing. Obviously, you know, and the and the SS uh it says that I'm only employing Moslims as teachers in the mother school in contrast to the Wehrmacht and in contrast to other party institutions that dealt with the education and putical indoctrination of Moslim peoples. The ss took this very seriously, you know, and that that tracks with its overall orientation, you know, the it's a fascinating sort of aspect to the Reich's relationship to Romania.

You know, Hitler uh Antonescu and Hitler we are very close. And Antonescua was probably the fears best ally, and I mean Romania sacrificed tremendously for the Axis cause and also the fact that they when Stalin began World War two with his War of Conquest, obviously, Romania was very much in the crosshairs of of Moscow. So there was an existential imperative as to why they'd welcome the Vermacht deploying

its scale there. But also obviously Escu not only to commit close to a quarter million men the Barbarosa, but he availed Romania as a staging ground for a huge component of like forces and being in operational terms. But later, you know, anton Escu he presided over the brief national legionary state and then he banned the Iron Guard owing to what he viewed as their revolutionary subversion. This was in the aftermath of this is when Sema had succeeded Kodriano,

who'd been murdered. But the SS famously they backed the Iron Guard against Kodrianuh, who the fear of himself, you know, unconditionally back Kadriyanu. That there was an SS ideology into itself which was very pan European, very revolutionary, very very different, not just from the Wehrmachten, traditional German society and even traditional German military culture, but distinguishable from the mainstream of

the NSDAP as well. And I find it fascinating. But to bring it back to the subject at hand, one thing that the Mulla School emphasized, and this is another reason why they insisted on on Moslim teachers exclusively the theological program. It was very oriented towards overcoming sectarian hostilities, and in the SS tried to prioritize bridging the divide between scenes and sites. There's a constant emphasis against religious sectarianism.

Among Moslems, you know, and traditionally in in Wehrmacht units where traditionally she and sounes we were segregated, and the ss were not only refused to do that, but they

pursued an anti sectarian line. And the emphasis again was that this schism was contrived by men who coveted worldly power after the the center of the prophet of heaven, and that the current struggle where the the dual threat in existential terms to the Islamic faith and to the race of the nationalities and populations that constituted darl Islam. That calls for a healing of the schism, even were it not a contrivance promised on worldly and thus actually

vertically corrupt the ambitions, you know. And again the implication, in my opinion is obvious. It's, you know, we a political soldier looking ahead circa nineteen forty four forty five needs to adopted as primary concern the racial survival of his people and the continuity of his faith on this planet, you know, in the face of the dual assault of Zionism and communism, and will will stop. It's there. I hope this wasn't. I hope people got something out of this.

I mean, I I presume they did, because people have been very nice in their feedback.

an Islam expert. I mean, I that's why. That's the reason I emphasize these topics, because even in supposedly dissit encoded spaces, these people are conceptual a literates by and large, but you can't. The finly reason I'm trying to get more more guys who have a theological expertise or their background is you know, in in a Bible, Christianity or Catholicism or Orthodoxy or Islam. Because that's I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, I like what

we've talked about. It's I'm more a capital T radical traditionist than i am anything probably. I mean you're talking about like my political philosophy, you know, I mean, I identify as a yacky as national socialists. But what the uh it's reneeing on. It's Mercia Eliotti, Julius evil. That's a substantial part of my canon if you want all

it like that, okay. And there's this kind of dummy anti intellectualism that's just hostile to theology and religion, you know, I mean that that's common to any epoch really, you know, even people I've verad that point with some of our Orthodox friends and some of our Catholic friends who view the Medieval era as a period of high culture that's unduly maligned, which is absolutely true. Casting the Middle Ages is a sort of hellish time of cultural poverty. I mean,

that's ridiculous. I mean, I don't know how any I don't know how any Anglophone person can think that way anyway.

I mean arthury and lore and the Ulster cycle. If you're somebody like me, that's second only to the King James Bible, you know, you know, like I and that that that comes out of the horrifying medieval era, you know, But beyond that, I think some people they kind of view with the orals colored glasses, they this idea, Oh well, then there's this, there's this integrated concept you know that they mean in terms of trifunctional hypothesis, but they mean

that religious life informed everyday sensibilities. And that's somewhat true. But I think it was and I think most people and not about class. This this this doesn't know class in terms of where these sensibilities are concentrated. But I think most people even then it was a very kind of superficial thing. You know, people always gonna look at scance at you if you take religion seriously and you want to emphasize it as the subject matter that it is, is your sort of the topical focus.

and I think like little fucking kids. I mean, you know, of the people I want to interact with.