SS chief wished Mufti victory against the ‘Jewish invaders’

The close ties between Nazi Germany and the Arabs is highlighted in a newly exposed telegram. 

By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News

A rare document further confirming the close ties between Nazi Germany and the Arab population in the land of Israel, then British-Mandate Palestine, has been exposed by the National Library of Israel (NLI).

On Wednesday, the NLI published a telegram from leading Nazi commander Heinrich Himmler to Jerusalem’s Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, sending “best wishes in your continued battle” against the “Jewish invaders” until “the great victory.”

In the telegram, written in 1943, Himmler underscores how Nazism is warring against “global Judaism” and, therefore, closely monitoring the battle of “the freedom-seeking Arabs,” especially in Palestine, “against the Jewish invaders.”

“The mutual recognition of the enemy and the shared conflict against it is what creates the strong foundation between Germany and the freedom-seeking Muslims around the world,” he stated.

“In this spirit, I am pleased to congratulate you on the anniversary of the unfortunate Balfour declaration, best wishes in your continued battle until the great victory.”

Al-Husseini had fled the British and ended up in Germany, where he met Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The Mufti encouraged Hitler, Himmler and other Nazi officials to exterminate European Jewry.

After World War II, during the Nuremberg trials, a deputy of Adolf Eichmann who had carried out Jewish genocide testified that the Mufti was instrumental in the decision to exterminate the Jews of Europe, having considered it a suitable solution to the so-called Palestinian question.

Eichmann’s deputy stressed that the Mufti was one of the instigators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry. He was a partner and adviser to Eichmann and Hitler.

In 1945, Yugoslavia sought to indict the Mufti for war crimes for his role in recruiting 20,000 Muslim volunteers for the SS, who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungary. The Mufti escaped from French detention in 1946 and continued his fight against the Jews from Cairo and later Beirut, where he died in 1974.

Al-Husseini is still a revered figure in Palestinian society, where children are taught that he is one of the founding fathers of the “nation.”