Author Topic: How Nazis courted the Islamic world during WWII  (Read 877 times)

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How Nazis courted the Islamic world during WWII
« on: January 22, 2020, 04:39:30 pm »
How Nazis courted the Islamic world during WWII

Tens of thousands of Muslims fought for the Nazis in World War Two. DW spoke with historian David Motadel about whether pragmatism or anti-Semitism drove Adolf Hitler's overtures and why some Muslim leaders backed him.
 

DW: In your book, "Islam and Nazi Germany's War," you wrote about the policies of the Nazis towards Islamic political entities. What did these policies look like?

David Motadel: At the height of the war in 1941-1942, when German troops entered Muslim-populated territories in the Balkans, North Africa, Crimea, and the Caucasus, and approached the Middle East and Central Asia, Berlin began to see Islam as politically significant. Nazi Germany made significant attempts to promote an alliance with the "Muslim world" against their alleged common enemies — the British Empire, the Soviet Union, America and Jews.

In the war zones, Germany engaged with a wide range of religious policies and propaganda to promote the Nazi regime as the patron of Islam. As early as 1941, the Wehrmacht distributed the military handbook "Islam" to train its soldiers to behave correctly towards Muslim populations. On the eastern Front, the Nazi occupiers ordered the rebuilding of mosques, prayer halls, and madrasas — previously destroyed by Moscow — and the re-establishment of religious rituals and celebrations in order to undermine Soviet rule.

https://www.dw.com/en/how-nazis-courted-the-islamic-world-during-wwii/a-41358387