The Desert Rat

According to a German TV programme based on newly released foreign ministry material, Nazi plans for extending the Final Solution to Palestine, with the enthusiastic support of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, were further advanced than had hitherto been realised:

The gentleman-warrior image of Desert Fox general Erwin Rommel has been shattered in a new German documentary, which paints him as a lickspittle of Adolf Hitler whose victories were meant to pave the way for the export of the Holocaust to the Middle East.

The controversial two-part programme, aired this week, claims that if Rommel had succeeded in driving the Eighth Army, under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, out of North Africa, he would have led his troops into Palestine to begin the round-up, deportation and executions of Jews living there - many of them Germans who had managed to escape Nazism.

The programme - Rommel's War, Rommel's Treasure - claims the plans for the widening of the Holocaust out of Europe were far advanced.

Much of the material for the programme was based on what was found within the last three years in archives in the state of Baden-Württemberg, where Rommel lived. The makers also accessed hitherto sealed foreign ministry files in Berlin.

Jörg Müllner, a historian and co-producer of the programme, said: "The Allied defeat of Rommel at the end of 1942 had prevented the extension of the Holocaust to Palestine. If Rommel had beaten the Allies in the desert and invaded Egypt, a push into Palestine would have followed and the unit would have deployed there.

"The most important collaborator with the Nazis and an absolute Arab antisemite was Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem. He was a prime example of how Arabs and Nazis became friends out of a hatred of Jews."

Mr Müllner said it was a "lingering myth" that Rommel fought a clean war in the desert, adding: "He may not have been a racial fanatic himself, but with his victories, he was simply preparing the way for the Nazi extermination machine."

The programme chronicled how the Jews in Palestine "quaked in terror" at the blitzkrieg successes of Rommel's Afrika Korps.

Most sinisterly, the programme alleges that a secret department within the Afrika Korps - a "special command" - busied itself with the planning for the murder of Palestine's Jews if and when Rommel's forces succeeded in kicking the British out of North Africa.

The plans included sending mobile gas wagons to murder Jews. This SS unit was designed to function like the Einsatzgruppen, or "action squads", that followed the German army into Russia, shooting close to a million Jews and political enemies before the killing centres, such as Treblinka and Auschwitz, were established in Poland.

Husseini had met Adolf Eichmann, Hitler's chief architect of the Holocaust, several times to settle details of the slaughter.

Update: Amin al-Husseini also makes an appearance in this excellent article by Matthias Küntzel (via Will):

The majority of Arab Palestinians wanted to accept the United Nation’s two state solution in 1947. After all, at this time around 10, 000 Palestinians were working in predominantly Jewish-led industries such as citrus farming. But the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini, rejected the two state solution without consulting his fellow Palestinians and persuaded the leaders of the five neighboring Arab nations to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state by all means. The war of 1947-48, just as disastrous as it was avoidable...

Comments

[dearieme]

"the Jews in Palestine "quaked in terror" at the blitzkrieg successes of Rommel's Afrika Korps": but not to the extent that they all of them desisted from the terrorism that tied down British troops who could have been better used to fight Rommel.

"many of them Germans who had managed to escape Nazism": I wonder. I understood that German Jews had had a very understandable reluctance to go to Palestine: famously the immigration quota was nowhere near filled before the war.

Is there no-one left who can resist sexing up a perfectly good story with embellishments of doubtful accuracy?

[Noga]

dierieme says: "... not to the extent that they all of them desisted from the terrorism that tied down British troops who could have been better used to fight Rommel."

________________

"Ben Gurion, on the other hand, took a firm stand.

The publication in 1939 of the new White Paper, which increased immigration restrictions, led him to declare war on the British.

However, the world was simultaneously becoming aware of another conflict: the Second World War had broken out. Throughout the struggle against Nazism, the Zionist leaders did not hesitate to fight alongside Britain, although they never forgot their own private war against the Crown. Ben Gurion defined his political stance in one of his most famous pronouncements which became the motto of the Yishuv for many years:

"We will fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and we will fight the White Paper as if there were no war."

http://www.jewish-tours.com.ar/news/news0113

[dearieme]

The immigration restrictions had no effect on Jewish immigration since the quotas were anyway never filled. (I'd guess their purpose might have been to combat Arab disquiet, but I don't know much about that.) The rest of the piece you quote, Noga, looks like an attempt to muddy the waters. You're surely not claiming that there were no Jewish terrorists tying down British soldiers in Palestine during WWII, are you? If you're not claiming that, there's not much point claiming that there existed Jews in Palestine who weren't terrorists, since that's obvious. Ditto that there were Palestine Jews who enrolled to fight against the Germans. But there were Jews in Palestine who were "objectively" - as the Marxists used to say - pro-Nazi. You surely don't deny it, do you?

[Noga]

"But there were Jews in Palestine who were "objectively" - as the Marxists used to say - pro-Nazi. You surely don't deny it, do you?"

Pro-Nazi Jews? Can you link to sources?

[dearieme]

Pro-Nazi in the sense that Maxists used the word "objectively", Noga - don't be so faux-naive.

[Noga]

I'm no Marxist. Do explain. I'm all ears.

[dearieme]

The marxists would say that you were "objectively" pro-X if your actions helped X. My original point, however, was just that a rather interesting story about Rommel - he would have expected to obey orders had he won at El Alamein, with fatal results for the Jews in Palestine - had been sexed-up with stuff like '..the Jews in Palestine "quaked in terror" at the blitzkrieg successes of Rommel's Afrika Korps'. Presumably some didn't or they would have decided to join in fighting against the Nazis instead of against the Nazis' enemies. Just as it's a dangerous game to sentimentalise history, e.g. by viewing Rommel through rose-tinted glasses, so it's a dangerous game denying uncomfortable truths about WWII Palestine.

[Noga]

When you write that Jews in Palestine were pro-Hitler, in Marxist or any other way, the main gist is "pro-Hitler Jews". I've seen this claim made, with all seriousness and without any Marxist caveats by Hamas and other antisemites. You'll be surprised how many readers are not familar with Marxist jargon.

Didn't the Jews of Palestine volunteer to form the "Jewish Brigades" which then fought alongside British troops in Europe?

My mother grew up during British Mandate days in Palestine. I never heard from her any indication that the Yishuv "quaked in terror". It was probably a dark cloud on the horizon, but they had much more present and imminent dangers to contend with, such as Arab terrorism and the urgent need to establish a state for the Jews.

[dearieme]

It was not a "Marxist caveat", it was an explanantion of the way in which some Jews.... oh bugger it, have it your own way. Obviously I'm just a raving anti-semite who thinks you want to kill his babies and drink their blood, who believes every word of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and thinks that the whole world is run by a conspiracy of Jews, Opus Dei, Queen Elizabeth and Little Green Men. Spot on. You got me bang to rights. I'm a foam-flecked madman.

[Noga]

What a tantrum! I don't think you are any of those things. Where did I suggest YOU were a "foam-flecked madman" antisemite? I said "Hamas and other antisemites" which meant: Hamas and other antisemites like them (such as Hizzbulla, or a charming person called Israel Shamir and his buddies, and one or two British politicians).

Ah, well, have it your own way. I don't have your talent for lurid self-abuse, but clearly, I'm just another whining Jewess who thinks Israel can do no wrong and equates anti-Israel criticism with antisemitism, right?

[IanCroydon]

I doubt that the aim of German expansion to the Middle East was fueled by the "final solution", rather it was fueled by, er, fuel.

Contact with Arab religious leaders was more likely to be a link up with the old pro-German Ottoman Caliphate that existed in WW1 in order to secure oil supplies and keep the Nazi War Machine going, military force in North Africa coupled with unrest in British Palestine would be part of the same plan.

The entire North Africa campaign was effectively a "Plan B" as the Italians were routed early on, and assault on the Soviet Union failed to capture any oilfields. Whilst ideology might certainly have played a great part, it was not the driving force in this instance, more a way of attacking the British on two fronts and getting to the oil.