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If Rommel had succeeded in North Africa, he would have sealed the
fate of thousands of Jews who had fled to Palestine from the Nazi terror in
Europe
New Research Taints Image of Desert Fox Rommel
By <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Jan Friedmann
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,484510,00.html
Gentleman warrior, military genius. The legend of Erwin Rommel, the German
Field Marshal who outfoxed the British in North Africa, lives on. But a new
TV documentary seeks to correct that image by arguing that his victories
nearly brought the Holocaust to the Middle East.
If Erwin Rommel, lauded as a master military tactician even by his enemies,
had managed to fight his way through North Africa, he would have sealed the
fate of thousands of Jews who had fled to Palestine from the Nazi terror in
Europe.
A new documentary broadcast on Germany's ZDF television channel this week
seeks to correct Rommel's image as a gentleman warrior whose campaigns in
North Africa weren't connected with the murderous wars of destruction Nazi
Germany unleashed in Europe.
Separately, recently published research by two Stuttgart-based historians,
Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, claims that Hitler had worked out
plans to extend the Holocaust to the Middle East, and that the Nazis had
forged an alliance with Arab nationalists who wanted to drive the Jewish
refugees out of Palestine -- a murderous version of German-Arab friendship
founded on common hatred of Jews. Jews living in the Middle East were
petrified by Rommel's victories. After seizing the British fortress of
Tobruk in Libya in June 1942 he set his sights on the Suez Canal, on
Palestine and the oil fields of the Middle East.
"Those fighting Jewry can always rely on the sympathy of the Arab
population," the German army general staff wrote in an information booklet
to prepare troops for the conquest of Palestine.
Arabs Shouted "Heil Rommel"
Hitler was celebrated in large parts of the Arab world, and some newspapers
even likened him to the Prophet. The Desert Fox was almost as popular as
Hitler. "Heil Rommel" was a common greeting in Arab countries.
Many Arabs thought the Germans would free them from the rule of the old
colonial powers France and Britain. Hitler had shown how to burst the
shackles of the Treaty of Versailles. After Germany defeated France in 1940,
chants against the French and British echoed around the streets of Damascus:
"No more Monsieur, no more Mister, Allah's in Heaven and Hitler's on earth."
Adolf Hitler assured the exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Amin
al-Husseini, at a meeting in Berlin in November 1941 that his goal was the
"destruction of Jewry living in Arabia." The Führer had racist objections to
Arabs as well, though. He declined to shake the Mufti's hand and refused to
drink coffee with him.
Hitler nevertheless provided the Mufti, who later sponsored Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat, with a budget of 750,000 Reichsmark per month to
foment Jihad in Palestine. In an example of ideological flexibility, the SS
even recruited Muslim volunteers and declared that the Muslims living in the
Balkans belonged to the "racially valuable" peoples of Europe.
SS Unit Created to Kill Jews in North Africa
Behind the front line of Rommel's Afrikakorps, a special unit was created in
July 1942 to to plan the murder of Jews in the region. It was led by SS
Obersturmbannführer, or Lieutenant Colonel, Walther Rauff, an experienced
mass murderer who helped develop the mobile gassing vehicles the Germans
used to murder Jewish people in their campaign in eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union.
Rauff and his men were empowered to "take executive measures against the
civilian population", Nazi jargon for robbery, murder and enslavement.
The Jews of Palestine were spared that fate. In October 1942 the Allies
halted the German advance at the Egyptian town of El Alamein and thereby
destroyed the myth of Rommel's invincibility. The Desert Fox had to evacuate
his beaten army to Tunisia, back where his African campaign began.
The SS had established a network of labor camps in Tunisia. More than 2,500
Tunisian Jews died in six months of German rule, and the regular army was
also involved in executions.
Rauff's men seized silver, jewellery and sacred objects. On the Tunisian
island of Djerba alone, 43 kilograms of gold was taken from the local Jewish
population. The SS later deposited the treasure in the sea off the island of
Corsica. Ever since, the undiscovered "Rommel's Treasure" has attracted
generations of treasure hunters.
Rommel's reputation was spared only because his strategy failed. He was
later dispatched to Italy and then to France, where his contact with the
plotters who tried to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944, cost him his
life. He committed suicide after Hitler ordered that he be given the choice
between killing himself and being tried in court.
The notion that the North African war was a clean one was a "legend", said
Jörg Müllner, who made the TV documentary together with Jean-Christoph
Caron. Rommel himself was no racial fanaticist, but he "paved the way for
ther machinery of destruction with his victories." Consumed by ambition, he
only thought of his own glory, and ignored the consequences of his campaign.
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