Middle East Nazis
This morning Die Weit publishes a chronicle by documentary filmmaker Géraldine Schwarz. It’s narration takes us along the path former Nazi’s took to into the Middle East – taking their backgrounds in strategic intelligence to work for Arab countries.
Géraldine Schwarz 2014 documentary film Nazi Exiles – The Promise of the East synopsis by Art Line Films describes her historical work:
The recent opening of secret German State archives sheds new light on the destiny of former Third Reich officials.
Historians discover that Nazis were recruited in the Middle East after World War II to join the fight against Israel by military actions and propaganda. Nazi activities in the region also targeted British and French interests, just as the Third Reich had supported Arab countries against the old colonial powers.
In secret, West Germany mysteriously supported some of these very special agents, rather than bringing them to justice. The turmoil of the Cold war, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the struggle for economic influence gave those Nazis a second chance as exiles in the Middle East.
Following is a brief synopsis of Géraldine Schwarz’s article in Die Weit. Read the full article here Nazis im Nahen Osten
After the Second World War, thousands of Nazis fled Europe. What is unknown: Egypt and Syria hired dozens of Nazi war criminals and men – to raise an army to fight against Israel build. The West German government knew it.
Rome after the Second World War was a hub for Nazis, who were on the run and were looking for a new job. Offers were plentiful. Americans and Russians scrambled to lure outstanding scientists. The Latin Americans collaborators welcomed them.
The Vatican covered Nazis. Since 1946, it was known internally that several prelates as Alois Hudal or Krunoslav Draganovic, a priest of the Croatian community in Rome, helped war criminals escape. An Italian historian has found a telegram to the Vatican from 1947 in the archive.
In it, he warns the prelates in Rome against “hiding foreigners”, but not threatening consequences. Also Hudal writes in his memoirs that there were no sanctions. In documents of the Federal Intelligence Servic says that Draganovic worked in secret for the Vatican State. The Church has never denied it.
The Holy See campaigned openly for a “general reconciliation” with the “enemies of yesterday”. To strengthen the fight against communism, atheism which threatened the power of the Catholic Church.
The Foreign Office, however, hindered prosecutions. It warned former Nazis when they were threatened with prosecution in third countries. And Italy, the former allies of Hitler’s Germany, both eyes were squeezed tightly.
The German Embassy in Rome quoted a senior Italian officials as saying: “On the day on which the first German criminals is shipped, there will be a wave of protests in countries that require delivery of Italian criminals.”
Many were powerful, sacred and secular protected the German Nazis.
Bonn was not disappointed. Voss ordered German products to equip the Egyptian army. Other military trainers soon discovered an even more lucrative vocation as a representative of the German economy. In the fifties Germany was trying to rebuild. The industry was looking for buyers. And freed from colonial rule Arab countries were a promising market for them.
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