This makes me confused. **Little **interest? What was he doing in Russia and Africa? 
The parts of Russia that Hitler was interested in were mainly European (of course, the arbitrary nature of the Europe/Asia border makes it impossible to say he had NO interest in Asia).
Germany was in Africa mainly to pull Italy’s bacon out of the fire, as they were in the middle of being chased across the continent before the Germans showed up to save them, much to Mussolini’s discomfort.
Russia: kill or enslave the natives and repopulate with Germans
Africa: rescuing the Italians
(Although Tarzan did repel a small incursion. This was when the Germans mistook Cheetah for Hitler)
The end goal for Barbarossa was the A-A Line (Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan), the Urals were used as the demarcation line for Generalplan Ost.
I know who that was. I meant “Kaiser who?” in a dismissive sense, as though from the point of view of Turks who neither knew nor cared anything about Germany, but who cared very much about defending Turkey when it was being invaded.
Probably because there was the realistic hope they would come in on the Axis side. 1 of the lesser-publicized shameful facets of the war was the general Moslem support of the Nazis. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a notorious anti-Semite, and got very cozy with Hitler, meeting with him to discuss plans for revolution & upheaval in the MidEast. It was his actions and call for jihad against the Allies that greatly influenced the formation of a Moslem S.S. unit in Yugoslavia, which became infamous for its atrocities that supposedly shocked the German S.S. officers advising.
In any event, for various reasons Iran & Iraq wanted freedom from England, and there was fighting there, and Lebanon & Syria (French colonies). It’s believed (no proof that I could find) that the Turks were simply waiting for an overwhelming victory against Russia, which probably would’ve been Stalingrad had it gone the other way. By that time, January 1943, the German army was in no condition to invade anywhere, & was retreating on all fronts. It’s estimated they (the Turks) had 4,000,000 men in uniform, and as some1 else rightly pointed out, the Bosphorus straight which is very hard to assault. The strength of the Turkish army and the difficulty of assaulting its terrain can’t be overstated. The ties to Islam are obvious, and it appears to have a Jekyll-Hyde syndrome, vaccilating between secular Western-leaning and zealous religious anti-Semitic/anti-Western, as its current incarnation. Turkey falling down onto the Axis side would’ve lengthened the war with its outcome no slamdunk. The Germans knew this, as some suggestion has been made this was part of the inspiration for Hitler’s manic obsession with taking all of Stalingrad; to assure the Turks that joining the Axis wouldn’t threaten their territory. Had they not waited for Stalingrad, the world would be a very different place for a long time.
Of course you did, and of course I knew you did, and of course you knew I knew you did, and of course you knew I knew you knew I knew you knew…
[Oh, bother, he’s stuck in an infinite loop again.]
This is false and a falsehood very promoted by some circles.
There was no general support of the muslims for the Nazis. Many tens of thousands of muslims fought for the Free French, some even as volunteers, against Vichy and the Germans including now elderly members of my family. The Sultan of Morocco even banned and prevented the Vichy from taking his Jewish subjects.
There was the sympathy for the Germans among the Arabs who were living under the British rule and it was only very simply a sympathy of the kind of ‘your enemy is my enemy’ and we must recognise that the Arab sympathy in the terrirtories under the British, it was not by religion but general, so that the christian Maronites were very sympathitic to fascist movements in general. There is no history of general muslim support of the nazis and the falsehood should stop being repeated if even innocently.
Other way around. If Turkey was leaning in any direction, it was in favor of the Allies.
Although İnönü leaned toward the Allies, he was above all committed to keeping Turkey out of war. This “Turks almost went Nazi” jive is complete bosh. My take is that İnönü was hoping the Nazis and Soviets would destroy each other, so that they would both leave Turkey the hell alone.
Bullshit.
Again, bullshit. The idea of the formation of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) had nothing to do with the Grand Mufti, he was brought in to aid in its formation after it had already been decided on. There is nothing unusual about SS formations formed from foreign troops, from the link:
Saying the actions of the division shocked even the German SS officers advising is even more bullshit, and one I’d like a cite for rather than relying on a supposition on your part. The partisan fighting in Yugoslavia was notorious for atrocities, as was the Waffen SS in general. Using the existence of this division as proof of general Moslem support of the Nazis makes as much sense as using the existence of the S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A. as proof of general support by the Russians for the Nazis, the existence of 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) as proof of general French support for the Nazis, the British Free Corps as proof of general British support for the Nazis or the Dirlewanger Brigade as proof of general support for the Nazis from homosexuals, Roma, political and common criminals and psychiatric patients.
Aside from yourself, who is this believed by? You might wonder why you can find no proof for this belief you adhere to. In any event, what does nascent nationalism and anti-colonialism in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon have to do with Moslem support for Nazism? You should do some actual digging about the fighting in these places, the 1941 Iraqi coup against the British was conducted by nationalists, Iran wanted freedom from England and the USSR as it was an independent nation andinvaded by the two of them in WW2, and the fighting in Syria and Lebenon in WW2 didn’t even have anything to do with the locals, it was a fight between the British and Free French on one side and Vichy France on the other.
Thank you I hope that this informations will help stop the lies that are spread that try to make some great Muslim sympathy for the Nazis, and take a few thousand Bosniacs who went against the united advices of the Bosniac muftis and make this a great conspiracy but ignore the hundreds thousands of muslims who voluntarily fought the nazis as Goumiers and Tirrailleurs.
Uh huh. So explain the Grand Mufti living in Berlin as a guest of *Der Fuhrer, *and the S.S. division of Moslem volunteers. Your examples of the *goumiers *& such, are the exceptions & outliers; my examples of the Mufti & enthusiastic volunteers are the mainstream. Iraq and Iran were brought in as further proof of mainstream Moslem resistance to the Allies. There was additionally the Indian Home Army, which rebelled & sided with the Japanese, and ended up fighting the Brits and their Indian countrymen in India. U can cite exceptions all u want; the rule is, Moslem participation was mostly Axis, and Turkey’s neutrality is not the simple choice to stay out as it’s been presented as schoolkids.
*What is to explain to you? He was opposed to the rule of the Britishfor many reasons and sought power. One mufti is what?
A small number of Bosniak volunteers in a unit less numerous than the French and the Russian volunteers of the SS, and which did not succeed in its own objectives in raising the Muslim volunteers and had to see more catholic Croats, this does make a great story of general muslim backing.
The volunteers of the Tirailleurs and the Goumier troupes which made the majority to 75% of the Free French troop are in the hundreds of thousands in number. This is a number many times any of the nazi affiliations.
That is not exceptions and outliers, it is large numbers. It is only prejudice that could say otherwise.
You make up non-facts. It is unforuntate to see falsehoods promoted here, and deliberately it begins to seem.
Were there Muslims who fought for the Nazis? Absolutely. But was there a general support for Nazism among Muslims? No.
There were a lot of Christians who fought for the Nazis but that doesn’t mean there was a general Christian support of the Nazis.
It also bears an emphasis as it is written in the French that of the SS units it was only the semi-Bosniac unit that mutinied of all SS units and the entirity went over to the Partisans when they understood the germans had lied in presenting the unit as a reforming of the old habsbourg bosniac tradition. And the actual muftis of the Bosnians and the Albanians, they issued fatwa against actions against the jews. It is a form of libel against muslims pushed by certain types of prejudices.
they never mention the actual muftis of the Balkan muslims nor the Sultan of morocco standing against the Vichy Residents Generals who eventually exile him nor hundreds of thousands of the Muslims fighting for the free French. No it is the Jerusalem Mufti they present and pretend has some role like a Pope although no one outside of Jerusalem cared about him.
I already did.
This defies the most basic logic. Take a quick look here at the composition of the Free French Army at the end of WW2. No less than 4 divisions of Moroccan and Algerian troops were serving in the Free French Army. How can they be outliers if they outnumber the only example on the other side in the form of the 13th SS Division four to one? I’ll also note that they weren’t motivated by zeal for Nazism any more than other foreign SS formations were.
Which as I already showed you had nothing to do with Islam. The Iraqi coup was motivated and lead by nationalists, and Iran was invaded by the Allies both to secure a land route for supplies to the USSR and fears of pro-Axis leanings due to decades of German aids and cultural ties with Iran predating the rise of Nazism.
You should really do your homework, the motivation of the Indian National Army should be clear simply from its name; it was formed from Indian POWs with the aim of Indian nationalism. Its a mystery why you would even include this as proof of Muslim siding with the Axis as not only was it not religiously motivated, it wasn’t even Muslim. Its leader, Subhas Chandra Bose was a Hindu, as were most of its members.
Nothing exists in a vacuum. Y’all wanna overlook the obvious for the exceptions, ok by me. All of which I was providing background for, was the Nazi belief that Turkey, if it did enter the war, would be on the Nazi side. U wanna delude, delude. While I didn’t specifically say ‘…except for French North Africa, including the goumiers’, when talking generalities one must be general. Revisionism is its own penalty, in the lack of background added to popular history. I need do nothing more than point to the Turkey of today to illustrate my point.
Hitler was a vegetarian. Of course he wouldn’t attack Turkey.
This is presented with no support of facts whatsoever. Pretty pathetic, especially because the facts contradict this supposition. That post reveals abject ignorance of 20th-century Turkish politics and national identity. If you think al-Islam was any kind of a motivator for the Republic of Turkey in the 1930s, well you’ve got another think coming. Try looking up the facts next time. Ramira was right, this is nothing but prejudice.
I am disappointed with the Dopers in general here, trying to discuss Turkey at the time of WWII, and nobody even remembered the name of the Turkish leader, İsmet İnönü, and why he tried so hard to keep his country at peace. He’d been a commander in WWI and in the Turkish War of Independence, and having seen what war did to a nation, he wanted peace in which to pursue rebuilding the nation and economic development.
Speculating on what Turkey might have done without even looking up their actual motivations and foreign policy is an idle, empty waste of time that allows ignorance to fester and prejudice to make inroads.
You know who else didn’t read threads before posting? 