U.S. Report: German Nazis Paid "a Fortune" to Jerusalem Mufti

by Sam Roberts


A report published Friday by the U.S. National Archives reveals the close working relationship between Nazi leaders and the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who later claimed that he sought refuge in wartime Germany only to avoid arrest by the British.

The report says the Muslim leader was paid "an absolute fortune" of 50,000 marks a month (when a German field marshal was making 25,000 marks a year).

It also said he energetically recruited Muslims for the SS, the Nazi Party's elite military command, and was promised that he would be installed as the leader of Palestine after German troops drove out the British and exterminated the Jews there.

The report details how Husseini was allowed to flee after the war to Syria - he was in the custody of the French - and how high-ranking Nazis escaped from Germany to become advisers to anti-Israel Arab leaders and "were able to carry on and transmit to others Nazi racial-ideological anti-Semitism."

In October 1945, the report says, the British head of Palestine's Criminal Investigation Division told the assistant American military attache in Cairo that the mufti might be the only force able to unite the Palestine Arabs and "cool off the Zionists. Of course, we can't do it, but it might not be such a damn bad idea at that."

Sam Roberts, New York Times

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