This book is the first comprehensive history of Muslims under Nazi rule. It鈥檚 very balanced: It deals with Muslim leaders who supported the Axis powers, like the Mufti of Jerusalem; it also deals with the persecution of Muslim Roma and with Muslim inmates in Nazi concentration camps. It鈥檚 monumental. A masterpiece.
Motadel begins by probing the initial German misconception that existed prior to WW I that pan-Islamism was a powerful and monolithic force that could be harnessed to unseat the hegemony of rival British, French and Tsarist empires. Championed by members of the German intellectual elite such as gentleman adventurers/archaeologists and , such incitement was provocative but the Allies were able to offer their own counter inducements. Calls for a Holy War backed by secular Young Turks in Istanbul were seen as hypocritical as were calls attacking Christian powers that excluded Istanbul's ally Germany. Then as now the Islamic world was widely divided into rival sects based on different cultures and theological groupings.
The Nazi decision to recruit Muslims to the cause of National Socialism was not even considered at the start of WW II as the southern front was delegated to Mussolini's Italy. As an example, the led uprising in Iraq against the British in 1941 only received minimal and belated. support from the Reich. But by late 1942 Germany, now in possession of Crimea and the Balkans faced a devastating loss of 戮 of a million men and the faltering of Italian forces . What follows is a well documented in depth analysis of how German strategy played out in each of North Africa, Russia and the Balkan fronts.
The results were far from uniform. By February 1943 in North Africa the Wehrmacht were only able to muster 2400 Arab recruits, mostly from POW camps and former students who had studied in Berlin. Most were considered unsuitable for combat and served in labour brigades. Many proved to be disloyal. There was more success in the Balkans. 25 years of Soviet oppression of religion provided a fertile ground for Nazi propaganda (Motadel draws on and complements ) which frequently invoked Soviet and Yugoslav Bolshevism, British and French imperialism and American capitalist exploitation all connected to Nazi racial hatred for Jews backed by traditional Quranic verses describing Jewish treachery and eternal enmity.
To this end the Germans made extensive use of imams, attaching them to Muslim units. The fugitive Mufti of Jerusalem who was employed to create propaganda, lecture and advise. Rather than lecturing directly to the soldiers on matters of religion, the Nazis set up training schools for imams, the curriculum shortened to emphasize similarities between National Socialism and Islam.
Widely seen as liberators, religious freedom for Muslims was an easy price for the Nazis to pay, though they had to do this delicately in Ustasi run Catholic Croatia. Both Axis and Allied literature advised on respectful attitudes towards Muslims, not always adhered to by enlisted men, however the Nazis had special problems. In the early part of the Balkan campaign many Muslims were executed as, being circumcised they were mistaken for Jews. Muslim Roma were also killed off, alienating co-religionists. Jewish Mountain Tats, because they practiced polygamy and did not conform to Nazi conceptions of Jew were considered Turkic as were the Karaites and were spared, but not the Krymchaks who were murdered. For the Crimean Tatars and others, giving allegiance was a Hobson's choice, sometimes motivated by religion but also by the need to stay alive during wartime. Those following current events in the Ukraine should realize that the Tatars were punished dearly by mass expulsion to Kazakhstan and Central Asia as were Karachais, Balkars, Chechens and Ingush; many were subsequently executed by the NKVD.
The Wehrmacht and the SS moved from an initial concept of a uniform pan-Islamism to a more refined model. They soon realized that mixing Sunni and Shia in the same units didn't work and rejected inserting Muslims supporters from India into units in Bosnia, calculating that the Indians would be motivated more by nationalist and anti-British concerns than by religion. Not everyone in the German political structure were convinced. Gerhard von Mende, a Director of the Eastern Ministry for the Reich, estimated that only 5% of Eastern Muslims identified purely as Muslims and that only 20% would be receptive to a a religious campaign. (pp240).
Hitler's own assessment of the value of the Nazi-Muslim alliance was as follows: "For the time being I consider the formation of battalions of these pure Caucasian peoples as very risky, while I don't see any danger in forming pure Mohammedan units... Despite all explanations, either from Rosenberg or from the military side, I don't trust the Armenians either... The only ones I consider to be reliable are the pure Mohammedans. .... I consider only the Mohammedans to be safe. All others I consider unsafe". (pp222, Dec 12, 1942).
It's a brilliantly constructed read that should be of great interest for WW II enthusiasts and an essential purchase for library collections on the history of the era. Motadel has integrated a comprehensive range of material from the archives of 14 different countries establishing a holistic picture of how the strategy was implemented and played out. His highly nuanced view of Muslim sentiment is one that could well serve as a model for understanding the turmoil going on in that part of the world today and a general warning about attempts to instrumentalize religious and nationalist beliefs.
Incredibly informative but difficult to get through due to overall dryness of the narrative. Nonetheless, a wonderful piece of historical research. Anyone interested in the modern middle east will find many interesting threads connected here.
Dieses Buch ist nichts f眉r Geschichts-Einsteiger! Aber f眉r alle die fundierte Grundkenntnisse in der Geschichte des 20ten Jahrhunderts besitzen ist es ein sehr interessanter und sehr gut geschriebener 脺berblick 眉ber die Islam-Politik der Nazis, mit Ausblicken auf den Ersten Weltkrieg und auf die Zeit des Kalten Krieges bis zu 9/11. Sehr empfehlenswert!
Meine ausf眉hrlichere Rezenssion findet sich unter:
Das Buch w眉rde mir freundlicherweise vom Klett-Cotta-Verlag als digitales Lese-Exemplar zur Verf眉gung gestellt.
Het boek gaat over een van de meest interessante verhalen over de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Het gebruik van de islam en moslims door Duitsland om de oorlog te winnen. Dit boek beschrijft als eerste de uitgebreide geschiedenis van moslims onder het nazibewind. Het vertelt het verhaal van moslimleiders die de Nazi en As-mogendheden steunden, zoals de moefti van Jeruzalem; maar dat niet alleen, het gaat ook over de vervolging van moslim-Roma en moslimgevangenen in nazi-concentratiekampen.
Het boek is verdeeld in drie delen; Basics, moslims in oorlogsgebieden en moslims in het leger. In het eerste deel zal de auteur ons in de juiste context plaatsen door terug te gaan naar het imperialistische beleid ten aanzien van de islam vanaf het einde van de 19e eeuw in de Duitse koloni毛n in Afrika tot het uitbreken van de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Vervolgens wordt ingegaan op de rekrutering van moslimtroepen. Gevolgd door de geopolitieke rol van de islam.
In het tweede deel gaan we in op de ontwikkeling van de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Te beginnen met de rol van de Franse koloniale troepen in de Slag om Frankrijk, de Duitse pogingen aan het front om via pamfletten en luidsprekers tot overlopen aan te sporen.We gaan verder met de rol van de islam in Noord-Afrika en het Midden-Oosten en iets heel interessants, zoals de reactie van de geallieerden op de poging van de Duitsers om de islam voor zich te winnen.
In het laatste deel van het boek, laat Motadel ons de moslims binnen het Duitse leger zien, zowel in de Wehrmacht als in de Waffen-SS. De rekruteringsresultaten in Noord-Afrika waren duidelijk lager dan in de Balkan of gebieden van de Sovjet-Unie, waar nazi-propaganda na jaren van bolsjewistische onderdrukking van religie meer effect had.
Dit boek is dan ook het meest uitgebreide onderzoek naar de relatie van nazi-Duitsland met de wereld van de islam en moslims. Het boek is zeker interessant voor de gevorderde geschiedenisliefhebber, zeker niet voor de beginnende liefhebber. Technische termen uit de nazi-geschiedenis, maar vooral uit de islam, worden niet of nauwelijks uitgelegd. Maar voor iedereen met een goede kennis van de geschiedenis van de 20e eeuw is het een zeer interessant en zeer goed geschreven overzicht van het nazi-islambeleid, met perspectieven op de Eerste Wereldoorlog en de Koude Oorlog-periode tot en met 9/11. Het is echter wel zo dat je er niet aan ontkomt zelf op zoek te gaan naar uitleg en info. Binnen de uitgebreide bibliografie over de Tweede Wereldoorlog zijn er maar weinig boeken over de rol die moslims daarin spelen, maar met dit boek wordt die leegte opgevuld.
De auteur van het boek is een Duitse historicus van Iraanse afkomst. Dit boek is zijn proefschrift, waarop hij in 2010 promoveerde in moderne geschiedenis aan de Universiteit van Cambridge. Het proefschrift won verschillende academische prijzen, waaronder de prestigieuze Prince Consort Award, en won de Seeley Medal voor de beste historische scriptie aan de Universiteit van Cambridge voor het jaar 2010 en andere prestigieuze academische prijzen.
Het kostte de auteur bijna tien jaar van gedegen onderzoek in vele archieven in vele verschillende landen om een 鈥嬧€媔mmense bron van informatie te vergaren, waaronder papieren, rapporten, politieke en militaire handleidingen, administratieve bevelen, propagandafolders, radio-censuuropnames, toespraken en brieven, veldpost, notities, proces-notulen van Neurenberg, petities, talrijke militaire bevelen en tenslotte foto鈥檚 en veel meer.
Samengevat : een aanbevolen boek voor wetenschappers van de Tweede Wereldoorlog , vanwege de onbekende aard van het onderwerp en omdat het de eerste grote studie is die ernaar is uitgevoerd. Een aanrader voor de echt liefhebber van geschiedenis en dan met name de Tweede Wereldoorlog.
A detailed and enlightening study of the attempts that Hitler's government to recruit muslims as soldiers and allies during the second world war. These attempts ultimately failed, if judged on their own terms. While some units composed of muslim recruits were added to the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, the majority of muslims remained unconvinced by the Nazi propaganda. It was, of course, scarcely credible to portray Hitler (or for that matter, Wilhelm II or Mussolini) as a protector of islam, but that didn't stop some Germans from trying to do just that. And in local cases, they did so with success.
Such successes as the Germans had were largely based on the principle that "the enemy of my enemies is my friend", as muslim recruits often had solid grievances against the government of the USSR, the British empire, or the French empire. The failures were largely due to a very simplistic and orientalist attitude towards muslims, which overlooked internal divisions and conflicts of interest of both religious and worldly nature. German academics who lent themselves to furthering the goals of the regime, did not always succeed (or even attempt) to make policy more insightful. And of course the entire effort stumbled over the ingrained racism of the nazi regime, which turned out to be hard to roll back when it was found to be a hindrance to their own interests.
It is not very appropriate to say such a thing of a bloody war, but the effort also lead to scenes that were more than a little Monty Pythonesque. It happened of course against a very serious background. Some muslim soldiers fought very bravely, some committed atrocities, some lost their lives, some lost their families. But it was also accompanied by absurd spectacles which blended religious feasts with nazi propaganda imagery, and by nazi bosses pontificating about islam in a way that was more than just theologically unorthodox. The tragic and the ridiculous hugged together in a deadly embrace, and Motadel describes everything in rigorous detail.
All the machinations of ambitious politicians, civil servants, and clerics aside, this was a part of the war that affected the fate of a large number of people, common soldiers and civilians. It is good that their story is told at last.
With 160 pages of just notes, it is clear this book is an academic work rather than meant for the general audience. The book documents how Nazi Germany tried to weaponize Islam by aligning its followers against colonial powers (for instance in North Africa, Middle East) and, later on, more specifically against Bolshevism and Jews. This was done on the one hand by propaganda behind enemy lines in order to create unrest and uprisings; on the other hand, by active participation of Muslim men in the German Wehrmacht and SS. It illustrates how Nazi Germany tried to facilitate this by installing Imams and Muftis, and by creating Muslim SS battalions that would follow Muslim rules regarding diet and observance of prayer times, fasting and holy days. It also illustrates the cynicism of German leaders such as Heinrich Himmler, who rejected Christianity because it was "too soft".
Not really a book for the general public, but a great resource for those interested in World War II in general and German recruitment strategies in particular.
La quantit茅 de sources consult茅es est impressionnante, mais le r茅sultat final est un peu d茅cevant. Les chapitres d茅di茅s 脿 la manipulation des autorit茅s religieuses musulmanes pendant la guerre sont tr猫s int茅ressants parce que l'auteur parle de toutes les r茅gions de population musulmane occup茅es par les nazies (Bosnie, le nord d'Afrique, les r茅publiques sovi茅tiques) et de la manipulation de l'information vis 脿 vis les populations locales; cependant, les chapitres d茅di茅s 脿 la fin de la guerre et 脿 l'茅volution de la propagande occidentale (surtout celle des 脡tats Unis) dans le monde islamique sont fragmentaires et peu claires. En tout cas, un livre 脿 lire pour connaitre l'usage de la religion comme arme de propagande politique chez le r茅gime nazi.
Resaltar la magn铆fica edici贸n y traducci贸n que ha llevado a cabo Alianza Editorial, adem谩s del gran apartado fotogr谩fico del libro que he disfrutado sobremanera. En resumen, una gran lectura recomendada a los estudiosos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y que solo por lo desconocido del tema y tratarse del primer gran estudio realizado sobre 茅l, merece un importante lugar en sus respectivas bibliotecas. Rese帽a completa: