The Unholy Alliance: How Nazi Germany and Islamic Radicalism Forged a Shared Hatred of the Jews
The annals of history contain few chapters as dark and revealing as the alliance between Nazi Germany and certain factions of the Islamic world during the 1930s and 1940s. For those who understand the nature of evil, this coalition between National Socialism and radical Islam represents more than a wartime strategic arrangement it was a convergence of ideologies built upon a shared foundation of racial hatred, genocidal intent, and totalitarian ambition. This alliance did not perish with the fall of the Third Reich; rather, its intellectual and political legacy continues to poison the Middle East and threatens the West to this day.
The Meeting of Two Evils
The relationship between Nazi Germany and Arab Islamist leaders was personified by one man: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Appointed Mufti by the British Mandate authorities in 1921, al-Husseini was from the beginning a virulent anti-Semite who understood that his political ambitions and his hatred of Jews could find common cause with the rising Nazi power in Europe.
By 1937, al-Husseini had fled British-controlled Palestine and began seeking alliance with the Axis powers. His primary goals were straightforward: establishment of a pan-Arab state, opposition to Jewish immigration to Palestine, and the destruction of any Jewish national aspirations in the Holy Land. In exchange for German and Italian support, al-Husseini offered his services as a propagandist, recruiter, and spiritual leader who could mobilize Muslims across the Middle East and North Africa against the British and the Jews.
What makes this alliance particularly chilling is the evidence that al-Husseini was no mere opportunist using the Nazis for his own political ends. As scholars Barry Rubin and Wolfgang Schwanitz have documented in their book "Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East," al-Husseini "advocated genocide against the Jews as vehemently as did Hitler," and his "involvement in the Holocaust was quite extensive". This was not a marriage of convenience but a meeting of kindred spirits.
The Berlin Years: 1941-1945
Al-Husseini arrived in Berlin in November 1941, fleeing Iraq after a pro-Axis coup he supported had failed. The Nazis welcomed him with open arms. He was given the title "Das Arabische Buro Der Grossmufti" and provided a monthly allowance of tens of thousands of dollars, along with a staff paid directly by the Third Reich.
From Berlin, al-Husseini directed a massive propaganda campaign aimed at the Arab world. Radio broadcasts from Zeesen, south of Berlin, began beaming Arabic-language programming as early as April 1939 and continued until just days before Hitler's suicide in April 1945. These broadcasts wove together quotations from the Quran with Nazi racial ideology, creating a toxic synthesis that portrayed the Jews as eternal enemies of Islam and called for their destruction.
The Mufti's speeches from Berlin leave no doubt about his genocidal intentions. On November 2, 1943 the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration al-Husseini organized a protest in Berlin where he declared: "Kill the Jews wherever you find them this is God's will". He praised the Nazis for having found "the final solution to the Jewish problem" and urged Arabs to expel Jews from their countries, calling this "the ultimate solution" that had been demonstrated by the Prophet Muhammad 1,300 years earlier.
Beyond Propaganda: Plans for Extermination
Al-Husseini's collaboration with the Nazis went far beyond radio broadcasts. He was fully aware of the Final Solution and actively worked to extend it to the Middle East. Records show that he toured concentration camps with Heinrich Himmler. More disturbingly, evidence uncovered by researcher Haviv Kanaan revealed that al-Husseini had plans to build extermination camps for Jews in Palestine.
According to testimony from Faiz Bay Idrisi, a senior Arab officer in the Mandate Police, the Mufti's "grand plan was to build huge Auschwitz-like crematoria near Nablus, to which Jews from Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and North Africa would be sent and then be gassed, just like the Jews were by the SS in Europe". This plan was only thwarted by Rommel's defeat at El Alamein in 1942, which prevented Nazi forces from reaching Palestine and the Suez Canal.
The depth of Nazi sympathy in the Arab world during this period cannot be overstated. When Rommel's forces advanced toward Egypt, crowds demonstrated in Cairo with the slogan "forward, Rommel". King Farouk of Egypt, who had established indirect contact with Hitler, reportedly mourned the Führer's defeat and considered abdicating the throne because "the strong European opponent of occupying Britain had been silenced". Egyptian military officers like Anwar Sadat who would later become President of Egypt formed Nazi military cells and prepared to collaborate with Rommel's forces when they entered Cairo.
The Contradictions of Nazi Racial Ideology
One might ask: How could the Nazis, whose ideology proclaimed Aryan racial superiority, ally themselves with Arabs whom they considered racially inferior? The answer reveals the pragmatic nature of evil and, more importantly, the depth of their shared hatred for the Jews.
In private, Hitler and other Nazi leaders made contemptuous remarks about Arabs. In "Mein Kampf," Hitler dismissed Arabs as racially inferior and mocked the Muslim concept of "Holy War". German soldiers stationed in North Africa expressed their disdain for local populations, using terms like "colored," "black," and even comparing them to Jews.
Yet when it came to al-Husseini, the Nazis made an exception. After meeting the Mufti, Hitler remarked on his "blonde hair and blue eyes" and speculated that his ancestors "were more likely to have been Aryans". Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that al-Husseini had "completely Nordic appearance". The Mufti was granted "honorary Aryan" status a testament to how the Nazis valued ideological kinship over racial purity when it served their purposes.
This willingness to overlook racial hierarchy in favor of shared anti-Semitism demonstrates a crucial truth: for the Nazis, hatred of the Jews was not merely a component of their ideology but its animating force. They would make common cause with anyone, regardless of race, who shared their commitment to Jewish destruction.
The Legacy: From Nazism to Islamism
The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 did not end the alliance between Nazi ideology and radical Islam. Al-Husseini escaped to Egypt, where he continued to agitate against Jews and Zionists until his death in 1974. More importantly, the intellectual and organizational infrastructure he helped build survived and flourished.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Hasan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928, had been a willing partner in Nazi propaganda during the war. Members of the Brotherhood translated "Mein Kampf" into Arabic under the title "My Jihad" and distributed the anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" throughout the Middle East. During the war, the Brotherhood provided intelligence to the Nazis and spied on British troop movements in Egypt.
Al-Banna and his followers shared the Nazis' totalitarian vision. Just as the Nazis sought an expansionist empire with a Führer at its head, al-Banna sought a Caliphate with a religious leader at its head. The Nazi rise to power through democratic means served as an inspiration for the Brotherhood's own political strategy.
The Brotherhood's most influential ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, carried this anti-Semitic legacy into the post-war era. Qutb's writings, which remain central to Islamist ideology today, portray Jews as the root of all evil and call for perpetual struggle against them. His essay "Our Struggle Against the Jews" echoes the Nazi themes of Jewish conspiracy and corruption that were broadcast from Berlin during the war.
The Poison Spreads
The influence of this Nazi-Islamist alliance continues to shape Middle Eastern politics and global terrorism. The founding charter of Hamas, the Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, explicitly cites "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as authoritative and calls for the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, has named missiles after the Battle of Khaybar, where Muhammad defeated Jewish tribes in the 7th century.
Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, listened to Nazi radio broadcasts from Berlin during the war and incorporated anti-Semitic themes into his revolutionary ideology. The Islamic Republic he established has carried forward the Nazi-Islamist tradition of apocalyptic anti-Semitism, calling for Israel's destruction while pursuing nuclear weapons.
Even today, the legacy persists. In November 1945, just months after Germany's surrender, mobs in Egypt and Libya attacked Jewish communities, burning synagogues and killing dozens of Jews on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. These attacks were the direct result of years of Nazi-Islamist propaganda that had saturated the region.
A Warning for Our Time
The alliance between Nazism and radical Islam holds important lessons for conservatives and all who value Western civilization. First, it demonstrates that anti-Semitism transcends cultures and religions. The hatred that culminated in the Holocaust was not uniquely European but found willing adherents throughout the Muslim world who embraced it with enthusiasm.
Second, it shows that the totalitarian impulse the desire to establish absolute control over society through violence and propaganda appears in both secular and religious forms. The Nazis and the Islamists shared not only a hatred of Jews but a vision of society in which individual rights were subordinated to the will of the leader and the demands of ideology.
Third, the legacy of this alliance reminds us that ideas have consequences. The propaganda broadcast from Berlin in the 1940s did not disappear with the fall of the Reich. It was absorbed, preserved, and transmitted across generations, fueling anti-Semitic violence and terrorist movements that continue to threaten innocent people today.
For those who would dismiss the connection between Nazi ideology and modern Islamism as mere rhetoric or exaggeration, the historical record speaks clearly. The Mufti of Jerusalem did not simply cooperate with the Nazis; he embraced their ideology, participated in their crimes, and helped spread their poison across the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood did not simply oppose British colonialism; it translated Hitler's writings, spied for the Third Reich, and built an international movement dedicated to the same totalitarian principles.
The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 was one of history's great moral victories. But the ideas that Nazism represented racial hatred, anti-Semitism, and totalitarian ambition were not defeated in the Middle East. They found new expression in Islamist ideology, and they remain a threat to peace, freedom, and human dignity today.
Conservatives who understand the nature of evil must recognize that the war against this ideology is not over. It has simply taken new forms. The alliance between the Nazis and the Islamists was not a historical accident but a convergence of two movements that shared a common enemy: the Jews, the West, and the Judeo-Christian values that form the foundation of Western civilization. Recognizing this truth is the first step toward confronting it.
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