Are any of you familiar of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem? He was around during 1948, and he tried to hide his past...
Upon al-Husayni's arrival in Europe, he met the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop on November 20, 1941 and was officially received by Adolf Hitler on November 28, 1941 in Berlin. He asked Hitler for a public declaration that "recognized and sympathized with the Arab struggles for independence and liberation, and that it would support the elimination of a national Jewish homeland". Earlier, al-Hussayni submitted to the German government a draft of such a declaration, containing a clause:
Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic (völkisch) interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy.
Hitler refused to make such a public announcement, but "made the following declaration, requesting the Mufti to lock it deep in his heart:
He (the Führer) would carry on the fight until the last traces of the Jewish-Communist European hegemony had been obliterated.
In the course of this fight, the German army would - at a time that could not yet be specified, but in any case in the clearly foreseeable future - gain the southern exit of Caucasus.
As soon as this breakthrough was made, the Führer would offer the Arab world his personal assurance that the hour of liberation had struck. Thereafter, Germany's only remaining objective in the region would be limited to the Vernichtung des...Judentums ['destruction of the Jewish element', sometimes taken to be a euphemism for 'annihilation of the Jews'] living under British protection in Arab lands.." [3]
The Mufti established close contacts with Bosnian and Albanian Muslim leaders and spent the remainder of the war conducting the following activities:
- Radio propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany
- Espionage and the fifth column activities in Muslim regions of Europe and the Middle East
- Assisting with the formation of Muslim Waffen SS units in the Balkans
- The formation of schools and training centers for Muslim imams and mullahs who would accompany the Muslim SS and Wehrmacht units.
The Mufti's knowledge about the holocaust while living in Nazi Germany has been debated with the Mufti himself denying any such knowledge after the war. Testimony presented at the Nuremberg trials, however, accused the Mufti of not only having knowledge about the holocaust but of also actively encouraging the initiation of extermination programs against European Jews. Adolf Eichmann`s deputy Dieter Wisliceny testified during his war crimes trial in 1946 that ... "The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz."
When the Red Cross offered to mediate with Adolf Eichmann in a trade prisoner-of-war exchange involving the freeing of German citizens in exchange for 5,000 Jewish children being sent from Poland to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, Husseini directly intervened with Himmler and the exchange was cancelled, although there is no evidence that his intervention prevented their rescue.[
Who are the Nazi's again?
Beginning in 1943, al-Husayni was involved in the organization and recruitment of Bosnian
Muslims into several divisions of the Waffen SS and other units. The largest was the 13th "Handschar" division of 21,065 men (sometimes spelled Hanjar: the word Scimitar in Turkish, Arabic Khanjar خنجر).
One of the SS's responsibilities was to run the Nazi death camps.
Sources of all the information.
The Mufti of Jerusalem by Philip Mattar (Columbia University Press revised edition, 1988, ISBN 0231064632)
The Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Arab Politics, 1930-1937 (Outstanding These from the London School of Economics and Political Science) by Yehuda Taggar (Garland Pub, 1987, ISBN 0824019334)
Palestinian Leader, Hajj Amin Al-Husoyni, Mufti of Jerusalem (Kingston Press Series. Leaders, Politics, and Social Change in the Islamic World, No 5) by Taysir Jbara (Kingston Press, 1985, ISBN 0940670216)
The Mufti of Jerusalem: Amin el-Husseini, and his diplomatic activity during World War II, October 1941-July 1943 by Daniel Carpi Studies in Zionism, Vol VII (1983), pp101-131.
"Al-Husayni and Iraq's quest for independence, 1939-1941" by P. Mattar in Arab Studies Quarterly 6,4 (1984), 267-281.
"The Formation of Palestinian Identity: The Critical Years, 1917-1923" by R. Khalidi in Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East edited by James Jankowski and Israel Gershoni (Columbia University Press, 1997, ISBN 0231106955)
Mufti of Jerusalem: The Story of Haj Amin el Husseini by Moshe Pearlman (V Gollancz, 1947)
Days of our Years by Pierre van Paassen (Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1939, LC 39027058) pp. 363-373
Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 by Philip Rees (Macmillan Library Reference, 1991, ISBN 0130893013)
The Mufti and the Fuehrer: The rise and fall of Haj Amin el-Husseini by Joseph B Schechtman (T. Yoseloff, 1965)
The Grand Mufti: Haj Amin Al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement by Zvi Elpeleg, translated by David Harvey and edited by Shmuel Himelstein (Frank Cass Publishers, 1993, ISBN 0714634328)
Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691008078.
The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict edited by Walter Laqueur and Barry M. Rubin (Penguin Books 6th Rev edition, 2001, ISBN 0140297138)
Extreme Islam: Anti-American Propaganda of Muslim Fundamentalism edited by Adam Parfrey (Last Gasp, 2002, ISBN 0922915784)
Article on Amin al-Husayni, including a picture with Hitler
Levenberg, Haim (1993). Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine: 1945-1948. London: Routledge. ISBN 0714634395
Robinson, Glenn E. (1997). Building a Palestinian State: The Incomplete Revolution. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253210828
Sayigh, Yezid (2000). Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198296436
Shlaim, Avi (2001). Israel and the Arab Coalition. In Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim (eds.). The War for Palestine (pp. 79-103). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521794765
Zertal, Idith (2005). Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521850967
"Encyclopedia of the Holocaust" 1990 Macmillan Publishing Company New York, NY 10022
"Himmler's Bosnian Division; The Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943-1945" by George Lepre. Algen: Shiffer, 1997. ISBN 0764301349
Deutsche - Juden - Völkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart (Germans, Jews, Genocide — The Holocaust as History and Present). Klaus Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt, 2006.
