Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (18 page)

On March 24, Ribbentrop issued guidelines for propaganda aimed specifically at the United States, which would apply to press and radio propaganda sent to the United States, to German-occupied Europe, and to neutral countries abroad, including those in the Middle East." A propaganda assault on President Franklin Roosevelt was at its core. Roosevelt's goal was "world domination" and entailed subjecting Latin America to "Yankee imperialism" and inher iting the British Empire. He was "the sick man in the White House" who was "not psychologically normal." As a result of his paralysis he "suffered from complexes, delusions of persecution, megalomania, dreams of world domination, and views himself as an apostle in this world." Because American society was composed of "all races and peoples, among them a high percentage of Negroes, mixed breeds, and Jews" the "formation of a decisive national will" was not possible. American domestic institutions could not "withstand serious blows." Its people did not want the war. They would awaken, demand an accounting, and direct "their rage at Roosevelt and the war mongers, especially the Jews." The United States was "the land of the bluff." It did not have "impregnable strength." The current century would not be "an American century" because the United States lacked "creative cultural power" and was "a soulless civilization." 12

In this directive Ribbentrop again assigned to Roosevelt primary responsibility for the war: he had rushed into it out of personal ambition, lust for power, and an understanding that he was unable to solve America's domestic economic and social problems. Roosevelt was lying when he claimed to be fighting for democracy and freedom. He was in an alliance with the British Empire, "the century-long oppressor of peoples (Ireland, India, Palestine, Jamaica, Egypt, Iraq, etc.), as well as with Soviet Russia, that is, the most bloody dictatorship and enemy of democracy (Soviet invasion of Finland)." While eliminating the free market economy at home, Roosevelt was "opening America's door to Bolshevism." "Roosevelt's war" was not in the American national interest but instead served "the Jewish position in the world." Roosevelt was "the advocate of world Jewry" and was "surrounded with Jewish advisers." Due to its "complete domination of the American people, world Jewry" hoped to regain the "world position" it had lost in Europe from its base in America. Although World War II would result in an enormous "economic and social crisis ... the American Jew" avoided combat while making "money off the war." In any case, the United States was going to lose the war because it had to divide its forces between the Atlantic and Pacific and was fighting at huge distances. The "huge tonnage in shipping" needed to bring troops and materials to Europe, Africa, and Asia"will never be available." A landing in Europe, as in 1917, "absolutely cannot take place." The United States would lose "a two-front war." The efforts of"Mr. Roosevelt and his Jews to force the American people" to stop the Axis were in vain. "All of America's efforts are hopeless." 13 In other words, although the Jews had been powerful enough to drive the United States into the war against its own best interests, the American war effort was doomed to failure.14

As the Nazis adapted these general lines of attack to the circumstances of the Middle East, Allied officials tried to assess the impact of the propaganda barrage in the region. On January 8,1942, Miles Lampson sent the Foreign Office in London a cable entitled "Growth of Anti-Semitism in Egypt." 15 The report betrayed his own genteel anti-Semitism.16 The Jews, he claimed, had "long enjoyed a privileged situation in Egypt" due to "intimate relations with influential authorities including the Palace." In the prewar years, "the Palestine question began to create feeling against the Jews," which reached "considerable dimensions during the last Palestine rebellion," that is, the Palestine revolt of 1936-39. He accused the Jews in Egypt of attempting to "bribe the press" to moderate its anti-Jewish offensive and to increase its attacks on the British. "No effort was made by the Jewish community to prevent this deflection of popular hostility from themselves to us. In spite of the relative silence in the press, feeling against the Jews was stirred by Palestinian refugees arriving here and by various Moslem societies which naturally espoused warmly the cause of their coreligionists in Palestine. Italo-German propaganda of course made the most of the Palestinian situation to stir up the Egyptians against the Jews and ourselves." 17

Lampson did not elaborate on what the Jews in Palestine or Egypt could have done to prevent "this deflection of popular hostility" onto Britain. Nor did he offer evidence that Egyptian Jews were bribing Egyptian newspapers. Lampson did not reject or criticize anti-Semitism, nor did he acknowledge its absurdity. "After the outbreak of the war anti-Jewish feeling [in Egypt] received a great impetus owing to the widespread allegation" that "various local Jews employed as military officers or civilian officials" ran the economic side of Britain's headquarters "with the result that the Jews were getting most of the army orders," that is, local purchasing contracts. "It was widely asserted that it was impossible for a Moslem to get an order without going through a Jew." Lampson did not determine if the first assertion was true or, if so, what was objectionable about a Muslim having to go "through a Jew" to do business with the British army. He continued, "I did not fail to represent to our military authorities the danger of this situation, and finally steps were taken to establish a joint Anglo-Egyptian Committee for Co-ordination of Purchases in Egypt." There Egyptian complaints could be "ventilated" and the ground was thus "cleared for better understanding." 8

Lampson viewed the situation as dangerous for British interests because he believed anti-Semitism was widespread in Egypt and that the presence of Jews assisting the British reinforced existing stereotypes and prejudices. "There can be no doubt," he wrote, "that 9o% of the Egyptians, including their government, believe that the Jews are mainly responsible for shortages and high prices of essentials of life. Enemy propaganda has naturally been quick to utilize this belief and to represent the Jews as acting as British agents to deprive the people of food supplies in favor of themselves and of British troops." He concluded that "anti-Semitism created by the Palestinian situation and intensified by Jewish monopolizing tendencies during the war, has certainly now become a more or less permanent factor in Egypt."19 Lampson did not entertain the possibility that a previously existing animus against Jews may have been a cause as well as a result of the "the Palestinian situation." He had become increasingly worried about King Farouk's sympathies for the Axis and his willingness to tolerate or even encourage fifth column activity in Egypt.20

On February 4,1942, the crisis came to a head. The British ambassador, with orders from London, surrounded Farouk's palace with tanks and armored cars and told the king that he could either abdicate his throne or appoint a new prime minister, namely, Nahas Pasha, who was favorable to the Allies.2 1 Farouk appointed Nahas Pasha. For many Egyptian nationalists, the events of February 4 represented unacceptable interference in Egypt's internal affairs. From the Allies' point of view, they were essential to prosecuting the war and part of the fight against fascism and the reactionary forces in Egypt that sympathized with the Axis powers.

Lampson's reports to the Foreign Office in London assessed the interaction of the war between the Allies and the Axis and domestic politics in Egypt and in the Middle East. His memos also specified where in Egyptian politics and society the sources of pro-Axis sentiment were strongest. He sought to support the pro-British stance of Egyptian Prime Minister Nahas Pasha in opposition to the pro-Italian and possibly pro-German sympathies of King Farouk. In his review of the political developments of 1941 sent on March 10, 1942, Lampson wrote that British success in Libya and Abyssinia led to a "swing of popular feeling in our favour" in Egypt, yet German-Italian successes in March 1941 in the Mediterranean caused "uncertainty." The Italian and German advances in North Africa in April 1941, preceded by the Iraqi coup d'etat of March 1941, "created fresh apprehension as to the security of our Eastern Front;' one that was also fostered by radio broadcasts from Ankara. He was pleased to report that Egypt's new prime minister, Nahas Pasha, had sought to curb the influence of the former Egyptian prime minister (1936, and 1939-40), Ali Maher, by having him arrested. He also banished Hassan al-Banna, "the leader of the Akwan al Mos- lemin, a widespread fanatical organization," to Qena in Upper Egypt and arrested Ahmed Hussein, the president of the Young Egypt Society. Yet German and Italian advances in spring 1942, including the crossing of the Egyptian frontier by German troops, "put new heart into the fifth columnists in the country, and created an atmosphere of extreme pessimism which furnished just the right medium for their work." Lampson expressed concern about the appearance of "a number of inflammatory pamphlets" urging an Egyptian anti-British revolt but also wrote that Prime Minister Nahas Pasha had taken a "courageous line" and "did much to calm the timorous. 1122 In Berlin, German diplomats also kept a close eye on developments in Cairo. On April 11, the German ambassador in Rome, Hans Georg von Mackenson, in a memo to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, described Ali Maher as "the closest political adviser and trusted aid of King Farouk, who is seen as the strongest figure among the antiEnglish currents in Egypt."23

Lampson referred to the "nefarious" role of Ali Maher, whose "wicked advice ... misled the young King Farouk" and in so doing "was the cause of all the resultant evils from which the country and we were now suffering. It was Ali Maher who, working on his young [twenty-two years old in 1942] and impressionable sovereign, had perverted King Farouk and turned him against us." Yet in February 1942, Nahas Pasha had challenged and curtailed Ali Maher's influ- ence.24 This was welcome news as the "central feature of the Egyptian political situation during 1941, as in the past, had been the unsatisfactory attitude of the Palace," that is, the willingness of King Farouk to lend support to antiBritish and pro-Axis forces. Lampson reported that the "National Islamic party [Young Egypt], the Moslem Brethren, the Young Men's Moslem Association and other reactionary Moslem societies, consistently worked against us with Palace encouragement." Al Azhar University, with support from the king and the university rector, "Sheikh Al Maraghi, had "played a similar part." The Egyptian political leader Ali Maher, "though forced to work behind the scenes, was notoriously the spider in this web of anti-British intrigue." As long as Farouk remained "under the influence of this evil symbol of anti-British activity in his country, it was hopeless to expect that any Government under the existing regime could act whole-heartedly with US . 1115

In several other March dispatches, Lampson discussed "considerable agitation at Al Azhar University of an Anti-Wafd and anti-British nature" and attempts to "enlist reactionary Moslem feeling in the country against us and the Wafd."26 Lampson thought Mohammed Mustafa-el-Maraghi, the rector of Al Azhar University, before and during the war had played "an important but unobtrusive role in Egyptian politics."As a "religious tutor" to King Farouk he had acquired "considerable influence over his young pupil" and had fostered "the conservative tendencies apparent in the policy of the Palace." As rector, he had made Al Azhar University into a "stronghold of the anti-Wafd student movement.... The political activities of this ambitious divine have recently caused concern among the more progressive elements in the country."27

When the war began in Europe in September 1939, the German embassies in Cairo, Beirut, and Jerusalem were closed, severely curtailing the Third Reich's possibilities for regular, well-informed political reporting. Nonetheless, the Foreign Ministry in Berlin and German intelligence services continued to follow trends in Egypt, and they reached conclusions broadly similar to Lampson's. On April 8,1942, German military intelligence reported that the mood in Cairo was "emphatically hostile to England." "Thousands" attended a large demonstration and cheered Rommel as a great general who would "liberate Egypt from the foreign yoke." The German military High Command ordered the leadership of the Africa Corps to "strengthen the mood of hostility to England in parts of the Egyptian population through intensified propaganda" on the radio and in printed material. Its core theme should be that "the German soldier under the leadership of General Rommel will bring about Egypt's liberation from English domination." Among the leaflets to be distributed were those by Hans Alexander Winkler, regarded as a "good observer of the ArabicEgyptian mentality. 1128 Following the arrest of Ali Maher Pasha, German intelligence reported that he had been "the closest political adviser and trusted aid of King Farouk, who is seen as the strongest figure among the anti-English currents in Egypt." German officials agreed with Lampson that the core of proAxis support lay among the Islamists in Young Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, Ali Maher, and the king and his circle.29

Alexander Kirk's decision in these months to expand monitoring of Nazi Germany's Arabic-language radio broadcasts should be understood in light of the strategic importance he attributed to the Middle East in World War II. Kirk's view of the Middle East's importance to the outcome of the war was made clear in a remarkable cable he sent to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles on February 16. Kirk wrote that he needed to know if "this part of the world is being laughed off as a factor in the defeat of Hitlerism" due to the demands of the war in the Pacific following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and other advances in Asia or if this was the result "merely from lack of a practical realistic concept."30 Hitler could only be hit from Russia, England, "and here." Kirk bluntly wrote that "British bungling[,] ... a lack of unified command, defective strategy and dilatory methods have constituted the chief factors of defeat." All of these factors "have brought us to the present situation and as a consequence this place [Egypt and Cairo] is now wide open from the land, from the sea and from the air" to a possible advance by Rommel's tank armies. The Middle East had "the richest oil fields"; made possible communications to India, China, and Japan; and could serve as "the springboard for offensives against Germany and Italy," which had been "germinating the hell to which we have been reduced." If the region was to be laughed off, his job would be "mostly one of discreet preparation for a possible evacuation of Americans." Should Hitler decide to strike in the Middle East, he would "succeed unless something is done immediately either to ward off or to oppose him when he does." If the war was to be won, the United States had to bring victory about "not only with material but with the domination of our judgment in the strategy of selecting the time and place for the infliction of direct and ruthless blows against the Axis Powers, for which the world has been too long waiting." The Middle Eastern theater of the war would have a decisive impact on its outcome.31