Ratlines: a series of clandestine networks out of Europe used by Nazis to escape justice after World War II, often with the help of sympathetic Red Cross and Vatican officials.
ESTIMATES
In 1967, renowned Nazi hunter and Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal estimated that as many as 6,000-7,000 permanently or temporarily found refuge in the Arab world, including as many as 4,000 accused war criminals.
Other historians and researchers, most notably British journalist Guy Walters, have disputed Wiesenthal’s figures, arguing that they are inflated. Nevertheless, Wiesenthal is credited for bringing the cases of hundreds of fugitive Nazis to light.
What we do know for a fact is this: no other countries officially elicited the services of as many Nazi war criminals in military training, military intelligence, and state propaganda as did countries in the Arab world, particularly Egypt and Syria.
Geopolitically-speaking, no region in the world was more influenced by Nazi war criminals post-World War II than the Arab world.
IN 1948: THE WAR AGAINST ISRAEL'S ESTABLISHMENT
I’ve already written several posts on the Nazis who joined the fight against Israel in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, but here’s a quick refresher:
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Both homegrown Palestinian Arab paramilitary groups, Haj Amin al-Husseini’s Army of the Holy War and the Arab League’s Arab Liberation Army were commanded by former Nazis and Nazi collaborator. Al-Husseini himself had been charged as a war criminal for his work as a Nazi propagandist during World War II. His first-in-command, Abdul Qadir Al-Husseini, had been sent to Berlin for explosives training in 1938. His second-in-command, Hasan Salama, had worked for the intelligence arm of the SS.
Meanwhile, the commander of the Arab Liberation Army, Fawzi Al-Qawuqji, had joined the Nazis as a Wehrmacht colonel.
- About 1000 former Bosnian Muslim SS members fought on the side of the Arabs during the First Arab-Israeli War.
- In March 1947, a newspaper report suggested that Egypt had smuggled Nazis out of POW camps and enlisted their services to train two Palestinian Arab youth groups: Al-Futuwwa and Al-Najjada.
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In January 1948, between 800-2000 Bosnian SS soldiers joined the fight under the command of Hasan Salama.
Another report suggested 30 former Nazi POWs were involved in battles in Hebron and Jerusalem. The Haganah executed two former Nazis who’d been found fighting for the Army of the Holy War.
- Per a February 1948 report, tens of thousands of former Nazis or members of other European fascist forces were training Arab fighters in Syria.
- When the Haganah took Haifa in April 1948, one of the terms of surrender for the Arabs was for them to hand Nazi German fighters over to Haganah custody.
- In May 1948, the Haganah shot down five Egyptian pilots. Only two were Egyptian. The other three were actually German.
- In October 1948, Baghdad Radio reported that the Arab countries had recruited former Nazi pilots that had participated in the London Blitz.
NASSER'S PROPAGANDISTS
In the aftermath of World War II, the Egyptian government not only gave prominent Nazi war criminals refuge, but it also enlisted their services as propagandists against the Jewish state.
- Johann von Leers, who’d worked in Nazi Germany’s Propaganda Ministry under Joseph Goebbels, started working as an anti-Israel propagandist for the Egyptians in 1955. Von Leers joined the Information Department, heading Egypt’s anti-Israel propaganda unit.
- Johann Appler, the founding member of the SS in Gunzenhausen, worked for the Egyptian Ministry of Information.
- Franz Bartel, the head of the Gestapo in Kattowitz, Poland, joined Egypt’s Ministry of Information and worked for the Department of Jewish Affairs.
- Wilhelm Bockler, who’d participated in the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, also joined the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance, which oversaw Egypt’s propaganda operations.
- Hans Appier, another one of Goebbel’s subordinates, also joined the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance. Appier converted to Islam and adopted the name Salah Chaffer.
Nasser intentionally recruited former Nazis to oversee his anti-Israel propaganda efforts because he believed them to “understand the enemy.”
NASSER'S BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM
In the early 1960s, Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser developed an entire ballistic missile program with an entire cohort of former Nazi war criminals at the helm. Approximately 300 to 500 German and Austrian scientists, engineers, and technicians, veterans of Hitler’s V-2 programs, were involved.
- Nasser’s program was headed by Dr. Wolfgang Pilz, the creator behind Nazi Germany’s V-1 rocket, and Luftwaffe engineer Dr. Eugen Sänger.
- Intelligence suggested that Dr. Pilz had joined a project to use the missiles for radioactive and chemical warfare against Israel.
- In response, the Mossad launched a covert intelligence campaign known as Operation Damocles to intimidate German scientists and pressure them to drop out of the program, which they ultimately did.
CEMENTING ARAB POLICE STATES
Nazi war criminals in the Arab world also played a prominent role in cementing the authoritarian rule of Arab dictatorships.
- Walther Rauff, who’d helped develop the mobile gas vans during the Holocaust, worked with 47 other Nazis to reorganize Syrian intelligence.
- Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand man, became an important advisor to Syria’s Ba’athist regime.
- Joachim Deumling, a Lieutenant Colonel in the SS, became an advisor to the Egyptian secret service.
- Hans Becher, who oversaw the “Jewish Section” of the Gestapo in Vienna, joined the Egyptian police force.
- Bernhard Bender, who served on served on Heinrich Himmler’s personal staff, became an advisor to the Egyptian police.
SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIAN TERROR GROUPS
Nazi war criminal influence in the Arab world extended far past sovereign governments and extended well into decentralized Palestinian terror networks.
For instance:
- Wilhelm Borner, a Nazi police commissioner who oversaw a number of infamous atrocities at Auschwitz joined the Egyptian Ministry of Interior and later worked directly for the Palestine Liberation Organization.
- François Genoud, a major financier for the Nazis, later supplied arms to Palestinian terror groups (most notably the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP) and bankrolled the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini while he was in exile in France.
- Otto Ernst Remer, best known for stopping the plot to assassinate Hitler, became an advisor to the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas’s parent organization), the father of Palestinian nationalism Haj Amin al-Husseini, and a young Yasser Arafat.
WHERE'S THE ACCOUNTABILITY?
On the eve of the Nuremberg Trials, the popular and influential Palestinian Arab newspaper, Falastin, condemned the Allied pursuit to bring Nazi war criminals to justice, calling Nazism “as much a way of life as democracy and socialism.” This attitude was later reflected in the manner in which Arab governments dealt – or did not deal – with the Nazis that they took under their wing.
As in South America, Arab governments not only gave Nazi war criminals refuge, but they openly embraced them and protected them from extradition and international prosecution. Just as the Pinochet regime did in Chile, when it enlisted the services of Nazis like Klaus Barbie and Walther Rauff, Arab regimes sought the services of fugitive Nazi war criminals. In the Middle East, Arab governments saw Nazis as useful tools in their campaign to annihilate the Jewish state.
No Arab government ever extradited Nazi war criminals or brought them to justice.
ASKING THE HARD QUESTIONS
Most of us know that in the shadow of World War II, a number of South American countries, and in particular Argentina, gave Nazi war criminals refuge. It’s almost a joke at this point.
But there has been little – if any – acknowledgment of the fact that thousands of Nazis not only escaped to the Arab world, but they fundamentally shaped the geopolitical and social landscape of those countries through their military, intelligence, and propaganda “contributions.”
This raises some difficult questions that few want to address, particularly in today’s political climate. Was the Arab opposition to Zionism really rooted in support for the human rights of Palestinians, or was there something much darker at play? Is the relentless pursuit for the annihilation of the Jewish state not just the Final Solution by another name? How influential was Nazi ideology to the development of the Palestinian national movement? And, most importantly: is it past time we acknowledge that Nazism is not just generalized racism, but a specific ideology driven first and foremost by a genocidal hatred of the Jewish people?
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