NAZI Broadcast

NAZI Broadcast to the Islamic / Arabic World


It is interesting (I should better say: embarrassing) that I never heard of it before. Not in school, not in my neighborhood where I grew up, not elsewhere. And it never crossed my mind either.

I’m talking about the influence, NAZI Germany had (or tried to have) on the Muslim / Arabic world before and during  WWII.  

Why didn’t I hear anything about this? I don’t know. Maybe, that nobody I knew, had ever heard of it, or may be  no one wanted to raise a sour subject? I was born 10 years after WWII and no one cared to educate their children about what happened just some years before. Maybe it was too disturbing, maybe silenced by guilt, maybe a PTSD syndrome sealed their minds and mouths, or maybe the Great Amnesia set in.

Be it as it may.

It is widely known (I assume) that the relationship between the Arabic/Muslim world and the Jewish one (and vice versa) is not the easiest. Hitler NAZIs knew this and wanted to ignite and increase the level of hatred, violence and commitment to achieve the (German intended)  Endlösung (final solution), i.e., the extermination of all Jews.

In order to do this, a wide arsenal of activities were undertaken by the NAZIs with great effort.

One of the most prominent NAZI activities was their extensive radio propaganda broadcasting to many Middle East countries in Arabic and other languages.  The broadcast was primarily done using the radio station in Zeesen (part of the city Königs Wusterhausen, south of Berlin, Germany). They broadcasted NAZI indoctrination in their programs  ‘Voice of Free Arabism’ and „Radio Berlin“.

Bundesarchiv Bild 102-11591, Königswusterhausen, Rundfunk-Antennenanlage; CC-BY-SA 3.0, https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-11591,_K%C3%B6nigswusterhausen,_Rundfunk-Antennenanlage.jpg


The Zeesen short wave radio station proved to be a very powerful tool of influence and manipulation.

NAZI Germany tried to manipulatively influence the religious teachings and self-understanding of the (certainly not uniform) Islamic World. The doctrines of the Quran were only interpreted in a very polarized and aggressively antisemitic way.

NAZI Germany tried to strengthen ties to both, the Sunnite and the Shiite Islamic countries

Nazis propagated ‘emotions instead of ratio’, ‘unforgiveness instead of pragmatism’, ‘final solution instead of compromise’ (Matthias Küntzel).

And even nowadays, I seem to hear voices that are very reminiscent of what was broadcasted by the NAZIs many years ago ...


Literature: Matthias Küntzel:  Nazis und der Nahe Osten (2019)


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