Germany's Policy towards the Middle East

At times of peace, Germany's Middle East policy has historically taken a secondary position--one subordinate to Germany's primary policy toward Europe and America. While of secondary importance, it was a tool that could be used to manipulate the Middle Eastern Question by playing off Western powers against each other. Berlin's goal was a peaceful penetration of the Ottoman Empire, and it had no colonial aspirations in the region.

During the world wars, however, Berlin elevated its Middle East policy to primary status by instigating jihad in the enemy's hinterland. Yet in recent years, Berlin has sought out policies on Middle East peace and Islam fitting the European framework.1

GERMAN MIDDLE EAST EARLY YEARS

When the German Reich was established in 1871, the neighboring countries of Great Britain, France, and Russia were already expanding their overseas colonies into empires. During the next four decades, while these empires continued to grow, Berlin was forced to develop a policy toward North Africa and West Asia that differed from those of the other European powers.2



By the time Germany was founded, there was nothing much left in the region to be claimed. The territories that became known as the Middle East had already been distributed among Germany's neighbors. Thus, maintaining the status quo in the region was most likely to have served Germany's national interests.3 Trade, commerce, and peaceful penetration--especially in open-door areas--were the cornerstones of Berlin's Middle East policy. This was also true during the Deutsche Orient-Grunderjahre, or the "German Orient founding years," beginning in 1884 and lasting three decades.4 During this period, Germany explored new regions in Africa and Asia. Berlin established colonies in West and East Africa, becoming a small colonial power.5 However, it was also an era during which the Germans intensified their economic, cultural, and military relations with the Middle East--whose vast lands
ranged from Turkey via Palestine and Mesopotamia to Egypt and Mauritania. The first striking feature of Berlin's peacetime Middle East policy thus appeared: respecting the status quo and refusing to create any colonies in the region.6


Furthermore, the Eastern Question--who would get which part of the declining Ottoman Empire--had caused many conflicts. It was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck--until 1890 the main foreign politician with a distaste for colonial acquisitions--who regarded the Eastern Question as a means for his policy toward Germany's neighbors in Europe. He opined that policy toward Europe and America came first, and policy toward the Middle East had to serve this primary policy. Thus, and this is the second feature, Berlin's Middle East policy was always subordinated to a primary policy toward Europe and America.7


Third, the Middle East was not promising enough to merit a grand design for German policy. As Otto von Bismarck said, "The Eastern Question is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian musketeer." For example, the German policy toward Egypt at the time was considered a question not between Berlin and Cairo, but between Berlin and London. In the chancellor's eyes there was not much to expect from direct relations with Egypt, but Egypt made an effective "stick"8 to be used against London to disturb some alliances between Germany's neighbors. He used this b_¢ton egyptien diplomatically. Since Berlin had no colonies in the region, it slipped into the role of a key mediator in European conflicts over the Orient. Thus, the third striking feature of Berlin's Middle East policy was a diplomacy of mediation, namely during a series of conferences on African frontiers and Asian topics beginning in the 1880s.9


The three features of Berlin's policy toward the Middle East in peacetime were: respecting the status quo and renouncing territorial claims in the region; the subordination of this secondary policy to the primary policy toward Europe and America; and the diplomacy of mediation in Oriental conflicts. Unlike the other great powers, Germany did not rule over any Muslims in the Middle East.10 Therefore, the Germans gained a critical perspective on their neighbors' Middle Eastern empires and all the troubles they had caused. It is no wonder that mainstream German politicians and academics had a sympathetic view of anti-imperial tendencies and their nationalistic or Islamic expressions.

JIHAD MADE IN GERMANY


Soon, the long-feared "Sarajevo effect" dragged Europe and the world into a war starting in the peripheral Balkans. The unique feature in Berlin's switch from a secondary peacetime Middle East policy to a primary wartime policy against Great Britain, France, and Russia (and the colonial Middle Eastern hinterland) was that the jihad was "made in Germany."11 This had already become an issue
during the first year of the war. A dispute between the two founding
fathers of the study of Islam in Europe erupted. Their discussion
indicated that the general attitude toward the war was at first
frenetically welcomed and expected to be very short.


Did the Germans push the Young Turks to proclaim jihad after entering World War I against the British, the Russians, and the French? Indeed they did, maintained the leading Dutch Arabist, C. Snouck Hurgronje, who blamed his German colleagues--among them Carl Heinrich Becker--for having supported this "jihad fever." The Dutchman insisted this jihad was an intellectual weapon that had been "made in Germany." Supposing this were true, replied the German scholar of Islam, had not Berlin and Istanbul every right to do so? Yet this, wrote Hurgronje, hurts humanism and religious peace. "There is no taboo for religion," Becker answered.12


Jihad developed as a concerted German-Ottoman campaign. It consisted of five stages: Max von Oppenheim's design to revolutionize the enemy's colonial hinterland; the instigation of jihad by the Berlin-based Oriental News Department; the Ottoman fatwa (religious edict); Shaykh Salih's
commentary on the fatwa; and the realization of jihad. Jihad was
used as a weapon to globalize the war. However, it was a slap in the
face to the Enlightenment. Although Hurgonje's criticism hit the
mark, Becker maintained a chauvinistic approach. To understand
Germany's Middle East policy, it is worthwhile to look into these
five elements of jihad according to the German design.



Max von Oppenheim had served as an archaeologist and diplomat in the Middle East for 20 years. Wilhelm II read Oppenheim's reports recommending jihad.13 After the war began, German General Chief of Staff Hellmuth von Moltke wanted Enver Pasha to proclaim jihad in order to weaken the enemies from within. The kaiser asked him to enter the war too: He wanted the sultan to call for jihad in Asia, India, Egypt, and Africa to enlist Muslims to fight for the Caliphate. Berlin and Istanbul cooperated closely in planning and realizing the jihad. There were even some academics in Berlin who expected to see "Islamic fanatics fighting for Germany."14


Invoking jihad was the idea of Max von Oppenheim, the German "Abu Jihad." In late October 1914, before the Ottomans had entered the war (siding with the Central Powers), he designed a master plan "fomenting rebellion in the Islamic territories of our enemies."15 The emperor confirmed Oppenheim's suggestion to incite Muslims--potentially those in British India, French North Africa, and Russian Asia--to jihad under the leadership of the Ottoman sultan-caliph. The call to fight would be announced in several languages. The sultan was to proclaim jihad against the British, French, and Russians, while Berlin would provide money, experts, and equipment. In addition, Berlin would establish an Oriental News Department in its Foreign Office. Muslim rebellion in India, however, was the key to victory. Expeditions were to be sent to Afghanistan to trigger an uprising there.16 The Germans would provide intelligence
to the Muslims, while the Turks would incite them to rise up against their foreign masters. Islam, concluded Max von Oppenheim, would be one of Germany's sharpest weapons against the British. He believed Germany should mount a joint effort to make it a deadly strike.17 Max von
Oppenheim (later succeeded by Karl E. Schabinger and Eugen Mittwoch)
was made head of the Oriental News Department.



Oppenheim employed a dozen academics and native Muslims. Some called his strategy of jihad a "war by revolution."18 Yet it was an asymmetrical war, waged by incitement to jihad and by anti-imperial uprisings. The aim was a double strategy using both the direct fighting on the front lines and an effort to raise revolts in the colonial hinterland to keep enemy troops busy putting them down. Of course, the strategy raised some questions. Did all Muslims accept the Ottoman sultan as caliph? Were Muslims permitted to fight with infidels against other infidels and "their" Muslims? As Max von Oppenheim had suggested, a fatwa provided the answer. The Shaykh of Islam_ declared five points on November 11, 1914.19


In
brief, after the enemy of Islam had attacked the Islamic world, His
Majesty the Padishah of Islam would order a jihad as a general
mobilization and as an individual duty for Muslims worldwide, in
accordance with the Koran. With Russia, England, and France hostile
to the Islamic Caliphate, it would also be incumbent upon all
Muslims ruled by these governments to proclaim jihad against them
and to actually attack them. The protection of the Ottoman Empire
would depend on Muslim participation in the jihad, and those
refraining from doing so would be committing a horrible sin and
would deserve divine wrath. It would be absolutely forbidden for
Muslims of the named enemy countries to fight against the troops of
Islamic lands and they would be deserving of hellfire for murder,
even if the enemies had forced them to do so. It was also declared a
great sin for Muslims under the rule of England, France, Russia,
Serbia, Montenegro, and their allies to fight against Germany and
Austria, the allies of the Supreme Islamic Government.




According to this fatwa, the sultan-caliph had sovereignty over all Muslims. They were permitted to fight with infidels against infidels and "their" Muslims. The latter not only had no right to fight back, but had to turn against their foreign overlords. Shaykh Salih al-Sharif al-Tunisi backed the Austro-German Central Powers' new doctrine of jihad. Enver Pasha had asked Shaykh Salih to travel to Berlin to promote the idea of jihad among the Germans. For this purpose, Shaykh Salih wrote a commentary entitled Haqiqat al-Jihad (The Truth of Jihad), which was published in early 1915 by the German Society for the Study of Islam. Martin Hartmann of the Seminary of Oriental Languages in Berlin wrote a friendly foreword and the dragoman Karl E. Schabinger added an afterword. Both recommended the text as a "development of jihad." This referred to possibility of a "partial jihad": the allied infidels against certain enemy infidels alone. This jihad was an
individual duty for all Muslims. A peace between the world of Islam and Europe would be possible if foreign occupation of Islamic lands were to come to an end.20


In the end, the execution of the jihad was disappointing for Max von Oppenheim and his Oriental News Department in the Foreign Office. The majority of Muslims seemed to ignore the call to jihad despite the vast sums of money the Germans had invested in expeditions (for example, the expedition to Kabul headed by Werner Otto von Hentig and Oskar von Niedermayer) and pan-Islamic propaganda printed in Berlin (such as the weekly al-Jihad). Nevertheless, Schabinger concluded that the seeds of an uprising had been planted. He posited that one day there would be an accumulation of colonial people ready to turn against their rulers.21 The German general staff drew a much less favorable conclusion; they believed that the notion that jihad would decide the war was an illusion.22




On the opposing side, as early as mid-1916, a French source concluded that the declarations of jihad had moved many people to act in the name of Islam: "They failed, indeed, but they caused no end of trouble to the Entente Powers."23 Indeed, this jihad was viewed as a
concerted German-Ottoman action. Planned as an export of an Islamic
uprising or revolution into the enemy's colonial hinterland, the
idea was truly made in Germany. It was rather unfortunate that
renowned German Oriental experts such as Carl Heinrich Becker,
Martin Hartmann, Ernst Jackh, and Max von Oppenheim unleashed the
old genie of pure religious hatred. Others, like C. Snouck
Hurgronje, remained steadfast against this use of jihad and defended
basic values of humanism and enlightenment.


The most distinctive features of Berlin's Middle East policy during World War I were not the 30,000 German troops fighting as part of the Ottoman army, the two attempts to capture the Suez Canal, or General Hans von Seeckt's role as the last Ottoman chief of staff. Of course, from a Middle Eastern viewpoint, the foremost element was that the Ottomans sided with the Germans.24 What was unique was that after the switch from a secondary policy of maintaining peace to a primary war policy, the jihad was "made in Germany." Thus, the German discipline of Islamic study lost its innocence not long after its birth.

THE REPUBLIC OF WEIMAR RETURNS TO A SECONDARY MIDDLE EAST POLICY

After the
Germans had lost the war and had overthrown their emperor and his
"world policy," the German Reich no longer remained a monarchy but
became the Republic of Weimar. As such, a Germany that had lost a
third of its size was bound to comply with the victors' demands.
Reconstruction and reform were the order of the day. Thus Berlin
returned to its secondary Middle Eastern peace policy.




In accordance with the Treaty of Versailles,
Germany lost its Central African colonies. The new republic was even
freer to concentrate on trade, commerce, and culture, reestablishing
two of the prewar pillars of the German policy toward the Middle
East. This included respecting the status quo and disclaiming any
territories. The third pillar, mediating in Oriental disputes, was
excluded since Germany was given no role in international relations
at all, a fact that promoted thoughts of vengeance in Berlin.



In the early 1920s, the Foreign Office made
reforms, thus breaking away from older traditions. Both the
classical diplomat of noble descent--trained in jurisprudence-- and
the dragoman--conversant in Oriental languages as well as in
judicial matters--were replaced by a wider range of experts from all
disciplines. Thus Berlin managed to regain most of its lost
positions, and once again became the third-ranking country in
foreign trade with the Middle East.



One question that was often discussed in Berlin was whether or not to support industrialization in the region. Ultimately, the argument that prevailed was that if Germany did not do so, competition would take over this business. The Germans were attractive partners, especially for Middle Eastern nationalists in newly emerging countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq who sought out alternative suppliers. Students from the Middle East who had studied in Germany since 1920 returned to their homelands and advanced there professionally. They favored Germany in a climate that had become hostile to the new British and French mandatory powers.25



The
Republic of Weimar applied a secondary Middle East peace policy,
cautiously avoiding trouble with London and Paris. Nevertheless, the
Germans remained very critical of the declining empires in the
region35 and supported Arab nationalists in their desire to rid
themselves of foreign masters.



In light of this, there was a natural basis for cooperation between the Germans on the one hand, and the Arabs, Turks, and Persians on the other. It was not difficult for the old diplomatic guard, among them Dr. Fritz Grobba,26 to exploit the
feelings created by having fought and lost on the same side in the
war. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, Berlin possessed no
navy or other military tools, and thus had a diminished interest in
the Middle East. Apart from economic and cultural relations, the
region lacked importance for Berlin and returned to playing a
marginal role.


London had decided to support a Jewish homeland in Palestine. As the waves of new Jewish immigrants, olim chadashim, arrived
there, Palestine became a focal point. Berlin tried not to get
involved in this project and kept its distance. Nevertheless,
anti-Semitism was on the rise in Germany and did influence the fate
of the region, though initially only indirectly. Moreover, some
politicians in Berlin saw the emigration of Jews to Palestine as the
solution to problems of Central Europe. However, the most dangerous
development was that advanced Jewish assimilation in Germany was in
jeopardy, and with it some of the most important results of the
European Enlightenment.



Throughout the 1920s, German racism rose to the surface. What occurred in the following decade was in no way a surprise. Even founding fathers of Islamic studies such as Carl Heinrich Becker had tended to divide humankind into "higher" and "lower" races.

NAZI GERMANY'S SECONDARY AND PRIMARY MIDDLE EASTEN POLICIES

From his election in 1933 until World War II, Adolf Hitler pursued a secondary Middle East peace policy. He was much more interested in a division of labor with London. He thus accepted the British Empire while believing that Eastern Europe should be a completely German domain for Lebensraum. He readily left political "responsibilities" for the Middle East to the Soviets, Great Britain, and Italy,27 maintaining the
tradition established by the first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck,
who had regarded colonial outposts in Africa and Asia as nothing but
trouble. Hitler's racial views, made public in 1920, must have
influenced his lack of interest in creating German colonies or
territories in the lands of "colored people."


An examination of German Middle East policy under Hitler confirms that the region was of no concern to him. He built a Berlin-Rome axis with clear functions for Italy in the Middle East and hoped for an understanding with London. Arab nationalists such as Grand Mufti Amin al-Husayni of Jerusalem were more interested in him than vice versa. An additional factor on the German side was the shortage of funds, as most of the money was being spent on rearmament. All this could be changed by three factors.


First, if a disagreement or war
were to arise with London, Paris, or Moscow, the Middle East could
become a major battleground. For this reason, German planners were
interested in the French and British-influenced territories as well
as Russia's immediate neighbors (such as Afghanistan and Turkey),
even in peacetime. Franz von Papen was soon made Hitler's ambassador
to Ankara, showing the importance Hitler accorded Turkey.



Second, the Middle East could become a primary
matter if the positions of Axis partners such as Italy and Japan
were in danger. Berlin could then be dragged into conflicts. A
common German policy was to avoid such risks in a region of
secondary importance. The Middle East was not even important to
Germany as a source of raw materials. Instead, Germans relied on
Europe for raw materials, including oil from the Balkans, tungsten
from Portugal, and chrome ore from Turkey. There was no need for
deliveries from the Middle East or for military bases there.



The third possibility for increasing Berlin's interest in the Middle East was in case the plan of Blitzkriege ("lightning wars") in Europe
failed. In that event, the region would become more important as a
battlefield tying down as many enemy troops as possible, as a source
of allies in the form of local revolts, and as a base
for attacking Russia or blocking British access to the Suez
Canal. Thus, the concept of a "jihad made in Germany" again became
important. Yet Hitler, of course, did not expect it to be needed.
The region was to be reserved primarily for the Italians. The
Germans and Japanese had only economic interests. Accordingly, the
Tripartite Treaty of Berlin codified the areas of influence a year
after World War II had begun.



After Germany started World War II in September 1939, all three of the above scenarios played out. Hitler did not achieve an agreement with London, and instead, a war against Great Britain commenced. Most British-influenced countries, such as Egypt, broke off their relations with Berlin at the beginning of World War II. Taking matters a step further, they declared war on Germany shortly before its end. Berlin then switched from a secondary policy of Middle East peace to a primary policy of Middle East war. Although this new policy was directed against London, Berlin played no major role in the Middle East, as it had to take the Italian policy in the region into account.



In mid-1940, after the fall of France, the Middle East became more accessible for the Germans. However, Hitler showed no interest in the French colonies.28 Again, he concentrated on continental Europe. In the most critical period of World War II, from June 1940 until November 1942 (see Map 1), Hitler regarded the Middle East as a potential battleground, but never as a field of a greater engagement--a position that only a victory against Russia could have changed. In preparation, his Order Number 32 called for Germany's plans in the Middle East to pave the way for subsequent battles against the British. There too he would inflict an "uncompromising war against the Jews." Furthermore, as he explained to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the end of November 1941, this relentless war would naturally include an active opposition to the Jewish national homeland in Palestine. Germany would be "willing to solve the Jewish problem step by
step and it would appeal at the proper time to non-European nations as well."29 The current battle against the "Judeo-Communist Empire in Europe" would decide the fate of the Arab world as well. He hoped that the coming year would make it possible for Germany to thrust open the Caucasian gate to the Middle East, but his Blitzkrieg failed at the Stalingrad front in November 1942.30 That same month, General Erwin Rommel lost the Battle of al-Alamayn, an attempt to reach the Suez Canal. The Allied forces landed in Morocco and Algeria, and Hitler's plan had failed.


Germany

Map 1. Mid-1940 and 1942, the most critical time for the Allied forces in the MiddleEast. (Source: New York Times, March 17, 1940. Copyright _© 1940 by the New York Times. Reprinted with permission.) Moreover, the Germans at first had had no foothold in the Middle Eastern door, except briefly after an anti-British development in Iraq (see Map 2). Rashid Ali al-Kailani launched a military coup in April 1941 in Baghdad, and the Germans intervened by air at the beginning of May. However, by late May, the British forces prevailed, forcing the Iraqi premier and his followers to flee--though Hitler had ordered limited support for them. Rashid Ali al-Kailani--like Grand Mufti Amin al-Husayni--ended up in exile in Berlin, and both spent the wartime there as guests of the German government. Both conspired from there against the Allies (see Document 1 for the American evaluation).



Through broadcasts to the Middle East, the Grand Mufti aided the Germans by declaring jihad against the Allies for which he found German supporters. After Paris' fall, Max von Oppenheim forwarded an adapted version of his old jihad plan. The time had come, he wrote, to oppose England in the Middle East. There entailed getting reliable news from the region and inciting rebellion in Syria and in its neighboring countries. The main objectives were to keep British troops there, to cut off the British navy's oil supply, and to block Suez Canal traffic. It was suggested that Dr. Grobba--in cooperation with influential natives such as Shakib Arslan of Greater Syria--was best suited to organize the uprisings intended to weaken British positions in Egypt and India. It was also proposed that a government under the leadership of Amin al-Husayni be established in Palestine, and only the Jews who had lived there before the First World War should be allowed to stay.31





Map 2. Iraq, for a brief period--May 1941--a German foothold in the Middle Eastern door. German planes, presumably flying from the Nazis' newly acquired island bases in the Aegean Sea (1), were said to be arriving in Syria for action in Iraq. Many of Syria's military airdromes, the main ones shown on the map by airplane devices, were reported to already be under German control and thus subject to British attack. Nazi planes were declared to have landed around Mosul (2), where there were extensive oil fields, and north of Baghdad (3), the Iraqi capital. British bombers raided the railway near Baghdad, a small arms factory at Musayib in the same area, and barracks at Amarah in the neighborhood of the port of Basra (4). (Source: New York Times, May 16, 1941. Copyright _© 1941 by the New York Times. Reprinted with permission.)

A more challenging and for the most part undesired development for Berlin in the Middle East began after the Italian dictator asked his German counterpart to support his troops against the British in Libya. Thirty days after Benito Mussolini's32
request for help, German troops landed in Libya. A month later,
General Rommel arrived, leading the newly founded German Africa
Corps into battles leading them close to Alexandria. Since the
Germans also occupied Crete, it appeared that the Middle East would
be the next major battleground. However, Hitler had already ordered
the attack against the USSR for late June 1941. Its outcome spared
the Jews in the Middle East from the Holocaust and the region from a
terrible experience.


Many Middle Easterners, like many Germans, did not recognize the nature of Nazi Germany. Yet some leading thinkers, among them the Egyptian poet Tawfiq al-Hakim, grasped it better. On the other hand, young Egyptian officers, among them Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, placed their hopes of ridding their country of the British on the Germans.33 It was not German racism or anti-Semitism that attracted them, but the thorough and fast modernization of Germany under the Nazi dictatorship. Arab nationalists originally admired the fascism of Mussolini, and consequently also of Hitler, as an alternative to Anglo-Saxon democracy and as a modernistic movement. Berlin used this tendency in a selfish and ultimately antihuman manner to create trouble for the Allied powers.


Thus, Germany's Middle East policy resonated from radical Arab nationalists as well.





Document 1. An American evaluation of the Axis propaganda in the Muslim world in 1941.

The Middle East again became simply a means for German "out-of-area" aimstoward Europe and America. As Middle Easterners became aware of this nationalistic approach, their disappointment accumulated, as did their potential for anti-Westernism.

BERLIN'S PATTERNS AND PROSPECTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST


Otto von Bismarck based
Berlin's secondary Middle East peace policy on three pillars:
respecting the status quo, renouncing territorial claims, and
mediating conflicts. The most striking paradigm was the
subordination of this policy to the always primary policy toward
Europe and America.



Although the German policy toward the Middle East was direct and active, especially in trade, commerce, and cultural exchange, it contained the same ranking of regional priorities as did the primary policy. First came the Turkish heartland; then the countries under British or French influence, most notably Greater Syria (bilad al-sham, including Palestine and
Lebanon); then the other French-influenced territories, especially
Algeria and Morocco; and finally the Russian Muslim lands in Central
Asia.


This order of priorities did not
change during either world war. What changed was Berlin's switch to
a primary Middle East war policy directed against Great Britain,
France, and Russia. Even then the warfare was asymmetrical,
weakening the enemies' colonial hinterlands from within by
incitement to jihad. During World War I, the Ottoman sultan-caliph,
the Shaykh of Islam, and a Tunisian mufti promoted the concept,
whereas during the World War II, it was the exiled Iraqi prime
minister and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who advanced this idea. In
both cases, the result was a new mixture of critical approaches to
Europe's Middle Eastern empires and of nationalistic aspirations in
the declining or former Ottoman Empire.



During neither war did Berlin have an explicit
design for the Middle East nor any direct goals other than two
unsuccessful attempts to conquer the Suez Canal--once with the
Ottomans from the East, the other time with the Italians from the
West. Yet this direct military involvement resulted from the goals
of its coalition partners.




Berlin's
original aim in World War I was to fight the European great powers
and to maintain the Ottoman Empire's status quo. Following its
collapse, Berlin was willing to respect the national independence of
former provinces of the empire. During World War II, Germans favored
the idea of a Greater Arabian Empire or a federation associated with
the free countries of the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Of
course they were to be allied with the Axis powers. Clearly, Berlin
would not follow Rome's lead for long. On the contrary, it would end
up dictating its junior partner's policy toward the Middle
East.



After World War II, some
politicians and academics claimed that Berlin had lost its greatest
chance for victory after the fall of Paris, and had Hitler chosen
the Middle East rather than Soviet Russia as the next big
battleground, he might well have succeeded in the fight against
London. Although Winston Churchill supported this speculation in his
memoirs, Hitler's nature and the racism that characterized the Nazi
system made such a choice unlikely. The dictator was completely
oriented toward Eastern Europe and had excluded the idea of German
expansion in the Middle East from the beginning.



On the other hand, some officers in the Foreign Office worked against Hitler. According to the foremost German envoy to Arab countries, Fritz Grobba, they prevented Hitler from discovering the "Middle Eastern opportunity"--if it at all existed--in the short period of the anti-British revolt in Iraq. It is no wonder that during his final days in his bunker, Hitler talked about the failed agreement with London. If the senseless war against the British could have been avoided even until early 1941, he said, America would not have entered the war. The "false great powers," France and Italy, he claimed, could have dropped their untimely "policy of greatness." That would have allowed the Germans a "bold policy of friendship with Islam." Thus, without the war against the British, Hitler reasoned further, London could have turned to the Empire, whereas Germany could have concentrated on its real mission--the eradication of Bolshevism.34


This
reasoning leads to another conclusion about Berlin's Middle East
policy. In wartime, it became as ideologically oriented as it had
been secondary and commercially oriented during peacetime. Its
central goal became supporting the war through the export of certain
ideologies. During World War I, this meant the export of an Islamic
revolution. Germans incited jihad in a subtler fashion during World
War II. The Nazis added the deadly racism leading to the Holocaust
in Europe and the instigation of anti-Jewish sentiments in the
Middle East. This aggravated the Arab-Jewish dispute over Palestine.
The project of Jewish assimilation failed in Europe because of the
mass extermination of Jews by Germans. Thus, the question of
Palestine took on different implications in the region.




The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Iraqi
premier sent their envoys to visit a concentration camp near Berlin,
as a recently discovered report by Dr. Fritz Grobba indicates. On
the other hand, there were also Arabs among the prisoners in the
Nazi concentration camps. Thus, both leaders and their entourages
knew of the existence of such camps and were able to anticipate
their use in the coming genocide.



After
World War II, Middle East policy was not a high priority for the
governments of the divided Germany. East Germany essentially went
along with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, while West Germany
followed the United States and NATO, subordinating German interests
to those of their allies. For example, when Bonn recognized the
State of Israel in the mid-1960s, ten Arab states severed diplomatic
ties with West Germany, and most of them recognized East Germany by
the end of that decade. Germany also had and continues to cope with
the burden of the Third Reich; its policies regarding Israel have
often been based on moral rather than political criteria.



In reunified Germany, the country finally has the opportunity to pursue a genuine primary Middle East peace policy of its own. The new hierarchy in Berlin's policymaking toward the Middle East seems first to be a focus on truly bilateral or multilateral questions that are framed regionally between Central Europe and the Middle East; second, the influence of bilateral or multilateral security matters on relations with the United States and other third parties; and third, the influence of this bilateral and regional policy toward growing problems of changing multiple identities in Europe and the Middle East.

Berlin's new primary Middle East policy
indicates a paradigmatic change from the traditional threefold
secondary style (respecting the status quo, renouncing territorial
claims, and mediating conflicts) to a primary position.




This is an opportunity that also implies risk. Regionally, Berlin's Middle East peace policy will come under the influence of the cultural patchwork that Europe is becoming. In the past, it was the East-West divide that determined Germany's alignment. Now, regional and even local factors related to North-South conflicts play a larger role. Moreover, Berlin has taken into account its growing minorities of Jews and Muslims in shaping its Middle East policy, leading to a delicate balance of foreign and domestic policy factors in this new period of globalization.35


Until recently, the trans-Atlantic relationship was a fundamental pillar of Berlin's foreign policy, yet it was dealt a blow during the Iraq crisis of 2003, when German politicians opposed the attack by a U.S. and British coalition. Whether Germany will follow NATO or the EU in the future and what role a common European defense and possible European military intervention force will play remain to be seen. Although Berlin seeks to reduce trans-Atlantic disturbances under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Middle East bears a great potential for conflicts among democracies. Beyond the United States and Europe, Islamists look for a policy of playing countries such as Japan, Afghanistan, and India against China, Iran, and Pakistan.



REFERENCES
1 Updated and adapted from the author's introduction in Wolfgang G. Schwanitz (ed.), Germany and the Middle East, 1871-1945 (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2004), p. 1-21.

2 Friedrich Scherer, Adler und Halbmond. Bismarck und der Orient 1878-1890 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 2001); Gregor Schollgen, Das Zeitalter des Imperialismus (Munich: R. Oldenbourg , 2002); Gregor Schollgen, Imperialismus und Gleichgewicht. Deutschland, England und die orientalische Frage (Munich: R. Oldenbourg , 2000).



3 On Prussians maintaining the status quo overseas, see Ulrich van der Heyden, Rote Adler an Afrikas Kuste, Die brandenburgisch-preu__ische Kolonie Grobfriedrichsburg in Westafrika (Berlin: Selignow, 2001), pp. 14-15.


4 See the author's overview of 1884-1914 in August Bebel, Die Muhammedanisch-Arabische Kulturperiode (Berlin: Edition Ost , 1999), pp. 173-83.

5 Horst Grunder, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 1995).


6 Axel Fichtner, Die volker- und staatsrechtliche Stellung der deutschen Kolonialgesellschaften des 19. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2002).

7 Diktat Bismarcks, Bad Kissingen, June 15, 1877, in Heinz Wolter, Otto von Bismarck, Dokumente seines Lebens (Leipzig: Reclam, 1986), pp. 320-21. See also Konrad Canis, Bismarcks Au__enpolitik (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 2004).

8 Martin Kroger, "Le b_¢ton egyptien"--Der agyptische Knuppel, Die Rolle der "agyptischen Frage" in der deutschen Au__enpolitik von 1875/76 bis zur "Entente Cordiale" (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1991).


9 Imre Josef Demhardt, Deutsche Kolonialgrenzen in Afrika (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1997).

10 Carl Heinrich Becker, "Ist der Islam eine Gefahr fur unsere Kolonien?" in Carl-Heinrich Becker, Islamstudien, Vom Werden und Wesen der islamischen Welt (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967), pp. 156-86.

11 Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, "Djihad 'Made in Germany': Der Streit um den Heiligen Krieg (1914-1915)," Sozial.Geschichte, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2003), pp. 7-34,  http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/Djihad%20Heiliger%20Krieg%201914%20WGS.pdf.


12 C. Snouck Hurgronje, "The Holy War: Made in Germany, 1915," in Verspreide Geschriften (Bonn, Leipzig: Schroeder, 1923), Vol. 3, pp. 257-58; Carl Heinrich Becker, "Die Kriegsdiskussion uber den Heiligen Krieg," in Islamstudien, pp. 281-304.


13 Martin Kroger, "Max von Oppenheim--mit Eifer ein Fremder im Auswartigen Dienst," in Gabriele Teichmann and Gisela Volger (eds.), Faszination Orient. Max von Oppenheim, Forscher, Sammler, Diplomat (Koln: Dumont, 2001), pp. 106-39.



14 Ernst Jackh, Der aufsteigende Halbmond (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1915); Ernst Wiesener, Adler, Doppelaar und Halbmond (Hamburg: Hansa-Verlag, 1917); and Wilhelm van Kampen, Studien zur deutschen Turkeipolitik in der Zeit Wilhelms II (Kiel, 1968),  http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/KaiserbeitragSchwanitzWord.pdf.

15 Archiv Sal. Oppenheim Jr. & Co., Oppenheim 25/10, Max Freiherr von Oppenheim, Denkschrift betreffend die Revolutionierung der islamischen Gebiete unserer Feinde (Berlin, 1914),  http://www.kas.de/db_files/dokumente/auslandsinformationen/7_dokument_dok_pdf_5678_1.pdf.


16 Thomas L. Hughes, "The German Mission to Afghanistan, 1915-16," in Schwanitz (ed.), Germany and the Middle East, pp. 25-63.

17 _ Archiv Sal. Oppenheim, ibid., p. 136. See also Gottfried Hagen, Die Turkei im Ersten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990); Tilman Ludke, Jihad made in Germany: Ottoman and German Propaganda and Intelligence Operations in the First World War, (Munster: Lit Verlag, 2001); Laurent Murawiec, Pandora's Boxes: The Mind of Jihad, Vol. II (Washington DC: Hudson Institute, 2007); Salvador Obernhaus, "Zum wilden Aufstande entflammen": Die deutsche agyptenpolitik 1914 bis 1918 (Dusseldorf: Dissertation, 2006, self published online).

18 Donald McKale, War by Revolution, Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in World War I (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1998).


19 "The Ottoman Jihad Fatwa of November 11th, 1914," in Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1996), pp. 55-57. See also the author's article on Herbert M. Gutmann and the fate of non-Muslims like Armenians: Wolfgang G. Schwanitz,  http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/Gutmann%20Armenier%20Deutsche%20%20Orientbank.pdf.

20 Shaykh Salih ash-Sharif al-Tunisi, Haqiqat al-Jihad, translated from Arabic by Karl E. Schabinger, foreword by Martin Hartmann (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1915). See also Hugo Grothe, Deutschland, die Turkei und der Islam (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1914).


21 Karl Emil Schabinger Freiherr von Schowingen, Weltgeschichtliche Mosaiksplitter, Erlebnisse und Erinnerungen eines kaiserlichen Dragomans (Baden-Baden, 1967).


22 Reichsarchiv (ed.), "Jildirim," Deutsche Streiter auf heiligem Boden (Berlin: Oldenburg I.O., 1925), p. 65.


23_ "Secret French Report, 01.06.1916," in Jacob M. Landau, The Politics of Pan-Islam. Ideology and Organization (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 102.



24 Efraim Karsh and Inari Karsh, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for the Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).


25 Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, "Deutsche in Kairo uber die agypter, Amerikaner, Briten, Franzosen, Russen, Japaner und Juden (1919-1939)," in Wolfgang G. Schwanitz (ed.), Araber, Juden, Deutsche (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1994), pp. 63-85,  http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/Deutsche%20in%20Kairo%20Alexandrien%201919%201939%20Berlin%201994%20WGS.pdf.


26_ Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, "'The Jinnee and the Magic Bottle': Fritz Grobba and the German Middle Eastern Policy 1900-1945," in Schwanitz (ed.), Araber, Juden, Deutsche see pp. 87-117, endnote 1,  http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/Fritz%20Grobba%20Germany%20Middle%20%20East.pdf.

27 _ Heinz Tillmann, Deutschlands Araberpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1965); and Lukasz Hirscowicz, The Third Reich and the Arab East (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966).


28 Chantal Metzger, L'Empire colonial fran_§ais dans la strategie du Trosi_¨me Reich (1936-1945) (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2002), Vols. 1, 2.


29 Political Archive of the Foreign Office, Film Role Nr. 61123, pp. 135-141, Empfang des Gro__mufti durch den Fuhrer (Record of the Conversation between the Fuhrer and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on November 28, 1941), Berlin 12/01/41, signed Grobba.


30 Ibid.



31 Political Archive of the Foreign Office, Nachlass Werner Otto von Hentig, Vol. 84, Memorandum Max von Oppenheims, July 25, 1940, p. 7,  http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/Oppenheims%20Jihad%20Dokumente%20WGS%20%20120207.pdf.


32 _ See also Manuela A. Williams, Mussolini's Propaganda Abroad: Subversion in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, 1935-1940 (London: Routledge 2006); Daniel Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler. The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunesia (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1994).


33 Anwar Sadat, "Rommel at El-Alamain: An Egyptian View (1942)," in Bernard Lewis, (ed.), A Middle East Mosaic (New York: Random House, 2000), pp. 314-16; see also for this period recently: Rene Wildangel, Zwischen Achse und Mandatsmacht: Palastina und der Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2007); Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Martin Cuppers, Halbmond und Hakenkreuz: Das Dritte Reich, die Araber und Palastina (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006); Peter Wien, Iraqi Arab Nationalism: Authoritarian, Totalitarian, and Pro-Fascist Inclinations, 1932-1941 (London: Routledge, 2006); Jirhard Hub, Al-Arab fi al-Muhraqa an-Naziyya - Dhahaya Mansiyun? [Gerhard Hopp, The Arabs in Nazi Holocaust - Forgotton Victims?)(Damascus: Qadmus, 2006); Najda Fathi Safwa, Al-Alam al-Arabi fi Watha'iq Sirriyya Almaniyya [The Arab World in Secret Documents] (London: Al-Warraq 2006); Gerhard Hopp, Peter
Wien, Rene Wildangel (eds.), Blind fur die Geschichte? Arabische Begegnungen mit dem Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2004).

34 Joachim C. Fest, Hitler, Eine Biographie (Berlin: Propylaen, 1997), p. 1011; see also Brigitte Hamann, Hitlers Wien (Munchen: Piper, 2004).


35 Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, "'Gharbi, Sharqi, Ittihadi': Zur Geschichte der deutsch-agyptischen Beziehungen 1945-1995," in Ghazi Shanneik and Konrad Schliephake (eds.), Die Beziehungen zwischen der BRD und der AR agypten (Wurzburg: Geographisches Institut , 2002), pp.43-54,  http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/Deutschland%20und%20Eagypten%20im%20Kalten%20Krieg.pdf; Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, Deutsche in Nahost 1945-1965 (Frankfurt: Hansel-Hohenhausen, 1998), Vols. 1, 2; Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, "Salami Tactics," in Orient, Vol. 40, No. 4 (1999), pp.597-630,  http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/Deutsche%20Nahost%20Gesandte%20und%20%20Quellenkritik%201999.pdf;
Wolfgang G. Schwanitz (ed.), Deutschland und der Mittlere Osten im Kalten Krieg (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitatsverlag, 2006),  http://www.uni-leipzig.de/comparativ/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=80&Itemid=29.