Episode 1320: Pre-1945 German/Islam Relations w/ Thomas777 - Pt. 2

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war diasked for of National Socialists in exile. We were talking about how der Veg, which Johann von Leers as well as Otto Riemer 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 former National Socialists and WEAHRBAX veterans, but also 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 that 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 tried. I always try to indicate in my outlines where I leave off, So if I'm repeating myself, please let me know I

speaking of I raised mind lerisay, if memory serves. We left off talking about von 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 proverbial wire in the Soviet Union, and von Lears very much had the ear of Gebels

as time went on. Goebels, 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 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 politique, 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. Von 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 the 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 possible capacity to wage war from within by subject huge or any other way. And whether anybody accepts that perspective or not, or think that its merit within the

Hegelian paradigm or without, it's a fascinating theory. And I highly recommend any of von Leer'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. 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 that are profile comparable to Houston, Stewart Chamberlain or Lowthrop Stoddard. For comparison, Klaus's book Ross un 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 affinity between the master cast stradom of the Nordic race and that of you know, the Caliphate. In other words, Islam was emergent and curated by the

racial overcast within Daryl Islam. And that's one of the reasons that'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 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 to 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 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 Felton Schaum 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 aristox 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 that. Interestingly, Klaus after the war he abandoned the 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 in the field and he was highly decorated. He wasn't just a parade ground soldier, but he 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 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, Carl Wolf's daughter, Fatima Grimm, she married that check Bosniac Moslem guy, and she converted to his lamb and she became an islam and theologian. And then she wrote sensibly on jihad is a concept. And I realized Klaus and Fatima grim and people like I'm at Hubert, 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 realize 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 Ginon, 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 rebuttal 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 gew strategic convenience, but an ideological affinity for between Islam and the national social state on Hegelian grounds. Lindenman went as far as to say that and some of the propaganda that he

drafted intended for Islamic societies. They said, the fear prinzip 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 Muslims were under tremendous pressure by the by the Communists, you know, they were, they were targeted as severely as as Orthodox Christians were, you know. In that also provided an 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 nineteen thirty six Olympics and after nineteenth as of nineteen thirty nine,

the broadcast as zest and it brought. It had an Arabic broadcast every day, you know, intended for Turks, 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 UH. They had seventy or eighty permanent staff members a type as translators, announcers, and as the war went on, it broadcasts not only in standard Arabic, but in Berber and

in some of these Caucasus languages too. There was an Egyptian emmigray 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 they continued until just a month before the day of defeat, you know, in April ninety forty five. It was it was a major thing. We've got to get into the life and times of Mohammad 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 characteristics 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 for those that don't know it, from night approximately nineteen seventeen until nineteen forty eight. That was the period of British rule over Palestine, and the Moutie was he reminds me very much a Sayid Kutev in his disposition. You know, people suggest he talked at both sides of his mouth.

And the issue of violent partisan activity, You've got to understand the role of the mufti, Like a mofdie 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 ah 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 bo Zionists and a lot of court historians, either out of ignorance or because they're cow telling the the prejudice 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 Mouftie 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 jihad. 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 laws laid down by the governing structure in a way that allows from Islamic life to be realized, you know, and beyond that too. And 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 discreet conditions for that, you know, even in Aposta, Occupier or Kellif 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 Maslums. 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 partisan as he as was appropriate to the circumstance answers.

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 Moftie of 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 his 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 of the warriors, but from the conclusion, from the fall of the Ottoman Empire until you know, the declaration of the design Is State and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, there was an incredibly unstable and not just fluid but actinically 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 while 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 suait from on the ground, and you know, he was identified as a partisan actor, if 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 lob Burger's right hand man and recruiting and mobilizing Masim populations to the vafiness. Now again too. You know Hussein he had been he'd come up through

the Ottoman system. You know, those Siny 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 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 other grand move he got an audience with Hitler. Another personage who was essential to the development of the Third Reich's relationship with the Grand Mufti but Islamic populations generally was a German officer named Wilhelm 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 Osh 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 racial Jew who became this hero of the Ottoman Empire after ending 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 they had 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

that's when he became Haruin o Rashid Bay. After his conversion, he h he met up with as the Great War was ending, there was a whole glut of POWs from the Russian Empire at Wunsdorff Camp and he met he met a bunch of Moslim POWs who had been drafted into the Tzarist 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 this entire planet. Because he was a an Aryan Mauslim and an experienced combat officer, and he was multi lingual, and he had the implicit trust

of other Mauslims. 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 going to 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 Barbarosa kicked off or she he was a liaison officer with the Reich Main Security Office and the UH Eastern populations, you know, the the Moslim nations within Moslim nationalities within the Soviet Union and in that role the right Security Main Office of the s S, he made contact with the Grand Moufty hodg I mean hodj I mean el Hussini and this became a a close friendship between the two men and it developed into

a deep alliance and l. Rashid and the Grand Moufti they began drawing up a plan. They believed there was 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 Rashid and the Grand Movedi 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 was 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 addressing not just Bosniacs but all Maslims 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 Faruk, a Prince Mansur 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 Moslims and Kama. But the true Pan Islamic divisions size element was uh, the OUs Turk Waffen s S, Turkish Vaffen s S Eastern Turkic SS core. And again it was a it was turk Man, it was Kazakhs, it was a series, it was you know all Uh, the nationalities of the Soviet Union who were of the Mauslim faith were represented. I'm gonna time we got okay it Uh. Now what's really interesting here is that the other said key personage in the vaf

SS with got Lot Burger. He was a waffen SS general as well as a higher SS and police leader, and he was responsible for the recruitment of non German nationalities into THESS. 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 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 behast have got lobed Burger the command headquarters of the SS Eastern Turkish Division. They set up what am I to do an Imam training school, and it oversaw our religious practices and the four Maslim legions as they were designated. They assigned a mola at division level and emms and clerics down to platoon level. The overall uh legion mola was a for the isaacbai Johanni 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 imm he was a Bosniak named Hallem 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 Maslim 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 against Bolshevism and Jewry and being a good national

socialist and being a good maslam or synonymous. And where those tendencies converge is 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 h ralphvan Hagendorf, who was a career UH Vermacht officer

and an expert in military jurisprudence. In May ninety three he issued a formal recommendation that in Moslem formations, before of course martial a science 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 coded German military justice and the Vermacht SS 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. Round 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 Mauslim 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 Marshall ethos, the role and morality of tradition, of upright manliness, and you know, like all this is what brought together national socialists 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 in his career in the ss ohing to like a different, a related but distinguishable subject matter, and I 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 creetiness function here, not

not at all. And for a military man he he had he had a lot of deep esoteric interests and I think that 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 SS 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 I hope people are finding this educational and interesting, and well we'll wrap it up the next episode, I promise. Awesome.