The Arabs as Nazis? Some Reflections on “Islamofascism” and Arab Anti-Semitism

2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 450-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Flores

One of the main constituents of the so-called Islamofascism is, in the eyes of those who subscribe to this conception, the close affinity of Arabs (and sometimes, Muslims) to Nazi ideology and possibly practice. To bolster this notion, its proponents do basically three things: first, they try to prove that a massive majority of Arabs took a pro-Nazi stand during the Third Reich and especially during World War II and that important Arab figures collaborated with Nazi Germany during the War. Secondly, they point to widespread—real and alleged—anti-Jewish beliefs among present-day Arabs. And thirdly, they claim that there is a personal, political and ideological continuity between both phenomena and that, thus, present-day Arab Judeophobia has the same character, scope and possible effect as the anti-Semitism of the Nazis. During the War, so the argument goes, Arab attitudes were part and parcel of Nazi ideology, and they largely retained this quality although, after the War, Nazism was overcome in Europe. In this article, three more recent publications which subscribe to the above mentioned argument will be critically discussed.

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Anna M. Rosner

Between 1933 and 1939 many British organisations, as well as individuals, who witnessed the rise of Nazi Germany, the implementation of anti-Jewish laws, and growing anti-Semitism, decided to take action. There were numerous attempts aimed at supporting Jews living in the Third Reich, either by providing them with money or by helping them emigrate. This article describes two largest such programmes, i.e. the Kindertransports, and an unnamed action focused on intellectuals, scientists, and artists. The article first discusses the character of both, and then proceeds to explore the question of the character of the migrations presented, as well as the differences between migration and refuge seeking. It concludes with the issue of post-war mobility of the participants of both programmes.


Author(s):  
Pavel Gotovetsky

The article is devoted to the biography of General Pavlo Shandruk, an Ukrainian officer who served as a Polish contract officer in the interwar period and at the beginning of the World War II, and in 1945 became the organizer and commander of the Ukrainian National Army fighting alongside the Third Reich in the last months of the war. The author focuses on the symbolic event of 1961, which was the decoration of General Shandruk with the highest Polish (émigré) military decoration – the Virtuti Militari order, for his heroic military service in 1939. By describing the controversy and emotions among Poles and Ukrainians, which accompanied the award of the former Hitler's soldier, the author tries to answer the question of how the General Shandruk’s activities should be assessed in the perspective of the uneasy Twentieth-Century Polish-Ukrainian relations. Keywords: Pavlo Shandruk, Władysław Anders, Virtuti Militari, Ukrainian National Army, Ukrainian National Committee, contract officer.


Author(s):  
Klaus J. Arnold ◽  
Eve M. Duffy

In this introductory chapter, the author narrates how he searched for his missing father, Konrad Jarausch, who had died in the USSR in January 1942. After providing a background on Jarausch's nationalism and involvement in Protestant pedagogy, the chapter discusses his experiences during World War II. It then explains how Jarausch grew increasingly critical of the Nazis after witnessing the mass deaths of Russian prisoners of war. It also considers how the author, and his family, tried to keep the memory of his father alive. The author concludes by reflecting on his father's troubled legacy and how his search for his father poses the general question of complicity with Nazism and the Third Reich on a more personal level, asking why a decent and educated Protestant would follow Adolf Hitler and support the war until he himself, his family, and the country were swallowed up by it.


Author(s):  
Laura Heins

This concluding chapter reflects on the development of German melodrama in the aftermath of World War II. It traces a sense of disillusionment with the Nazi “deployment of sexuality” in films and how it had prepared the ground for the renewed postwar cultivation of domesticity and feminine nurturance in West Germany. The return to private life and to puritanical mores in the postwar era was partly a response to the attack on “bourgeois” sexual morality that had been carried out by the mass culture of the Third Reich. Turning against nudity and licentiousness in the early 1950s could be represented and understood as a turn against Nazism. Thus, this “reprivatization” and newly conservative culture left its mark on West German melodramas of the 1950s.


1970 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 271-283
Author(s):  
Jarosław Robert Kudelski

German cultural institutions had been conducting preparations to secure their collections in the event of a war since mid-1930s. The Prussian State Library, the holdings of which included the most precious German manuscripts and prints, was one of those institutions. Air attacks carried out on the capital of the Third Reich triggered the decision to evacuate the collection to Thüringen, Brandenburg, Pomerania and Lower Silesia. Largest deposits had been located in the latter. The unique heritage items stored there included medieval manuscripts, prayer books, music autographs and newspaper yearbooks as well as letters and private documents of many prominent representatives of German culture and art. Those items were evacuated, among other places, to Fürstenstein (Książ) Gießmannsdorf (Gościszów), Gröditzburg (Grodziec), Grüssau (Krzeszów), Fischbach (Karpniki) and Hirschberg (Jelenia Góra). The evacuation was conducted in cooperation with the heritage conservator for Lower Silesia, professor Günther Grundmann. With his assistance, in the course of a few years, a unique collection was created in Lower Silesia. Towards the end of the war the collection was deprived of proper care, as the authorities lacked resources to secure it. This resulted in the destruction of some items during military actions. The remaining parts of the collection had been taken over by Polish officials and were transferred to library collections in Krakow, Warszawa, Olsztyn, Toruń, Lublin and Łódź.


2015 ◽  
pp. 104-123
Author(s):  
Wanda Jarząbek

The policy of the Polish government in exile during World War II has been the subject of numerous studies, but it still seems reasonable to trace their relation to crimes committed on Polish soil. The aim of this article is not to present the whole problem, but just outline the attitude towards German crimes. It must be remembered that the Polish government was also confronted with the occupation policy of the Soviet Union and the crimes committed in Volhynia and Galicia by Ukrainian nationalists. The final caesura of the article is the President’s decree of on punishment for war crimes released on March 30, 1943.The Polish government was of the opinion that the crimes should be punished primarily on the level of individuals who committed them, but the consequence of the criminal policy of the Third Reich should be the adoption of such a post-war policy against Germany that would guarantee compensation for victim countries, including compensation for material damage, and lead to a change in the German mentality, which was blamed partly responsible for the policy of the Third Reich. Such an attitude was shared by the anti-Hitler coalition countries.On the practical level, the Polish government’s policy had several stages. Initially, they collected information, tried to make it public and sough the cooperation of other countries. Despite numerous doubts were reported, they decided to amend the Polish criminal law to allow punishing war criminals more proportionally, as they thought, to the committed acts. The government’s activity probably influenced the attitude of the Allies, although it is difficult to accurately recognize and describe this issue. As a result of the situation after World War II, the new Polish authorities pursued a policy of punishing the guilty. Due to the international situation, i.e. the growing conflict between the coalition partners, many criminals escaped  punishment.


2009 ◽  
pp. 103-113
Author(s):  
Andrzej Hanich

The article describes the situation of the Jewish Judaic community in Opole Silesia under the Third Reich. It shows also its territorial distribution during the inter-war period. The main body of the article consists of a description of the events in Opole Silesia during so called Crystal Night on 9/10th November 1938, both as far as that action itself is concerned and in terms of the reaction to it. In the section dealing with the later years of World War II, the author points out the difficulties, faced by the Catholic clergy in providing assistance to the Jews, as well as indicates the fate met by the Jews from other parts of Europe whom the war years took to the concentration camps on the soil of Opole Silesia.


2018 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 280-297
Author(s):  
Gerard den Hertog

AbstractIn the first years after the end of World War II, Hans Joachim Iwand (1899-1960) was inten­sely engaged for repentance and a radical farewell to the wanderings of the Third Reich in church, society and the political realm. This article traces how he, in doing so, elaborated a genuine theology of peace while practicing pastoral care to refugees from East Prussia. Iwand experienced the antithesis between East and West, resulting in a gradual development of the »Cold War«, as a temptation originating from the continuation of the dualistic worldview of Nazi-ideology. His theological approach is characterized by advancing the question of who and where God is, thus rethinking and renewing Luther’s theology of the cross.


2019 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Wójcik

Der Artikel soll einen kurzen Überblick über die Entstehung und Verbreitung der Propagandatexte im Distrikt Lublin geben. Das Textkorpus besteht aus den Texten über den Distrikt Lublin mit der damals größten Anzahl der verlegten Exemplare. Die damals von deutschen Journalisten, Archivaren, Historikern und Volkskundlern verfassten Texte waren vor allem als Propagandamittel für den Gebrauch der im Distrikt Lublin eingesetzten Deutschen, die über den ganzen Distrikt verstreut waren, gedacht. Zahlreiche Autoren haben sowohl gegenwärtige als auch geschichtliche Themenbereiche ins Auge gefasst. Mit Rücksicht auf den geplanten Weitergang des sog. Nationalsozialistischen Aufbaus wurden verschiedene Themenbereiche aufgeworfen. Das Ziel, der von den NS-Forschern „produzierten“ Texte über den Distrikt Lublin war vor allem die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums auf den besetzten Gebieten.National Socialist propaganda texts in relation to the Lublin district 1939–1944Propaganda texts published in the period of World War II by German journalists, historians and cultural analysts first of all consist of propaganda materials dedicated to Germans and Volksdeutsche scattered around the entire district. The corpus consists of texts about the Lublin district with the largest number of copies published at the time. The propaganda texts created in those times also aroused interest in the problems of Germans and Volksdeutsche from the General Governorate in the Third Reich. In relation to the National Socialist plan of “Aufbauarbeit” the texts addressed numerous topics which required scientific research of the district’s area and a statistical analysis. The aim of these texts “produced” by National Socialist researchers concerning the Lublin district was primarily to strengthen Germanness in the occupied areas.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document