Muslim Brotherhood Part III – Adolph Hitler’s Imam (Haj Amin al-Husseini)

Posted by RC_Anderson – Source: Family Security Matters – by PETER FARMER
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Part I – A Brief History of the Muslim Brotherhood (Can be found by clicking here)

As detailed in this writer’s previous column (“Our Achilles’ Heel” FSM, 1 August 2012),  there exist numerous vulnerabilities in the security protocols of our  nation’s most powerful institutions, including those of the federal  government and the military. Not surprisingly, our adversaries have  moved to exploit these weaknesses by infiltrating agents into these  organizations; they have done so with remarkable success. Perhaps no  group has exploited these opportunities as adroitly as the Jamiat al-Ikhwan al-muslimun, better-known to westerners as the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) or simply the Ikhwan (Arabic  for “Brothers”).  The recent controversy over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and senior aide Huma Abedin is  just one example of a senior government official with verifiable ties to  the Brotherhood and its sister organization for Muslim women.

The Abedin incident is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the incident offers the opportunity to review the history of the Ikhwan and educate readers unfamiliar with it. Second, it provides a window of observation into the modus operandi  of the Brotherhood and some of the methods used to advance their cause  of civilizational jihad. Third, the reaction of the leftist mainstream  media and political class to the incident offers prima facie evidence of the complicity of both groups in excusing, rationalizing and otherwise covering-up actions by the Brotherhood. [....]

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Part II – The Muslim Brotherhood – Haj Amin al-Husseini (Can be found by clicking here)

The identity of today’s Muslim Brotherhood, in many ways, parallels  the lives of just three influential men, who founded and shaped the  Brotherhood as it grew into the largest and most-influential Pan-Islamic  movement in the world today. The three men were Hasan al-Banna,  Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, and Sayyid Qutb. In the previous installment  of this series, we examined the life of the founder of the movement,  Hasan al-Banna. In this, the second installment, we turn our attention  to a second key figure – Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini.

Mohammed Amin al-Husseini was born in 1895 in Jerusalem in what was  then British Mandatory Palestine into an influential,  politically-powerful clan. Young al-Husseini was indoctrinated by his  father and other clan members, who hated the British and the Jews. He  attended a Koranic primary school and then a Turkish-funded secondary  school, where he learned the language of that nation. He matriculated  briefly in 1912 at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, where he learned  Islamic (sharia) law. In 1913, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca required  of all Muslims, and thereafter appended the prefix “Haj” to his name.

With the start of World War One in 1914, al-Husseini joined the  Turkish army and became an artillery officer. He was on disability leave  in Jerusalem in 1916 when British forces captured the city. During the  period 1916-1918, al-Husseini participated in the Arab revolt against  the Ottoman Empire. Immediately after the war, al-Husseini’s views  remained those of an Arab nationalist, but his political and ideological  views shifted towards overt anti-Semitism and a greater Muslim  consciousness. Other Palestinian Muslims began to look to him for  leadership. Al-Husseini then participated in efforts to destabilize the  British mandatory government; he also became a hardline opponent of  Jewish immigration into Palestine. In 1920, during the implementation of  the Balfour Declaration, violent rioting between Jerusalem’s Jews and  Arabs broke out; al-Husseini was charged with incitement for his role in  the uprising and received a ten-year prison sentence from a military  court. He fled to Trans-Jordan before being apprehended. [....]

After escaping Iraq ahead of pursuing British security forces and  making his way to fascist Italy, Amin al-Husseini arrived in Germany in  November 1941. Upon reaching Berlin, al-Husseini was treated as visiting  royalty; a head of state in exile. The Nazi Party supplied him with  several luxurious homes staffed with servants, a chauffeured Mercedes  limousine, a monthly stipend equivalent to $10,000, and suites in two of  Berlin’s most-prestigious hotels. He was also allocated a generous  entertainment allowance, intended for his use in influencing the  substantial Arab expatriate community then in Berlin.

World Islamic Council – Mohammed al Husseini was President & Founder

Seeking support for Arab pan-nationalism and Muslim causes,  al-Husseini had been in contact with members of the Nazi regime as early  as 1933. He presented the Nazi leadership with a draft proposal of  German-Arab cooperation, under which Germany would recognize the  legitimacy of an Arab state encompassing Palestine, Syria, Trans-Jordan  and Iraq, in return for Arab support of the Axis Powers in the Middle  East. These views found favor in the highest reaches of the Nazi Party.  On November 28, 1941, after meeting with Foreign Minister Joachim von  Ribbentrop, al-Husseini was granted an audience with Führer Adolf  Hitler.

In Hitler, al-Husseini found a soul mate. Although Hitler had written years before in Mein Kampf  of the “racial inferiority” of Muslims, the Führer’s views had modified  considerably since that time. Indeed, in the blond-haired, blue-eyed  and light-complexioned al-Husseini, Hitler found a fellow Aryan. The  Mufti and he shared a passionate hatred of the Jews and the British. Thus united, they formed a new strategic partnership.

In the months following his successful meeting with Hitler, al-Husseini formed a number of close relationships with members of the  Nazi inner circle, including friendships with Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Hitler’s elite body guard and the chief paramilitary force of the Reich; and SS- Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) Adolf Eichmann. The Grand Mufti remained close with Reichsminister von Ribbentrop. Soon, al-Husseini and these men discovered a shared passion for the extermination of Jews.

At al-Husseini’s request, Von Ribbentrop ordered that no Jews within  German-controlled territory be allowed to leave Europe to enter  Palestine. He also directed the formation of a special bureau within the  Foreign Ministry devoted to extermination of Jewry abroad, called the  “Anti-Jewish Action Abroad.”

With the assistance of Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels,  al-Husseini began pro-Axis Arabic-language radio broadcasts from Berlin  to the Middle  East as early as December, 1941. In these broadcasts, he  called upon his Arab brethren to commit acts of sabotage against the  British and to kill Jews and other infidels at every opportunity.  Assisted by Iraqi fellow exile Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, the Mufti called  upon Muslims worldwide to wage jihad against the  Allies. In one such broadcast on March 1, 1944, al-Husseini urged his  listeners, “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God,  history and religion.”

Bosnian Muslim civilians greet members of the Handschar division with Nazi “Heil Hitler” salutes, on right, as the division arrives in Bosnia. Some of the Bosnian Muslim civilians on the right are wearing Ottoman Turkish fezzes. Wiener Illustrierte, May 24, 1944, issue number 21.

The Grand Mufti collaborated actively with Himmler and Eichmann in  the conduct of the “Final Solution” to exterminate the Jews of Europe.  He toured Auschwitz concentration camp with Eichmann, and according to  later testimony at the Nuremburg Trials by top Eichmann aide and SS-Hauptsturmführer Dieter Wisliceny, al-Husseini constantly urged greater haste in the killing of the Jews.

In 1943, Himmler asked for al-Husseini’s assistance in recruiting  Muslims into the SS for use in the Balkans; under the Mufti’s  enthusiastic direction, the notorious 13th Mountain Division “Handschar”  of the Waffen-SS was formed from some 20,000 Croatian Muslim  volunteers. It later saw action against Yugoslav partisans under  Marshall Tito, and participated in ethnic cleansing operations against  Jews and other “undesirables” in the region. Over 800,000 Yugoslav  Serbs, Jews and Roma (gypsies) were exterminated, many by the cruel  members of the Handschar division.

Gebirgs Division der SS “Handschar” Collar Tab. A Nazi swastika with a hand holding an Ottoman Turkish dagger, a handzar.

At the conclusion of WWII, al-Husseini escaped to neutral Switzerland  aboard one of the last flights out of the Third Reich. Unable to secure  political asylum there, he fled to France – where he was placed under  house arrest in a residence near Paris. The British, French and Yugoslav  governments all considered criminal charges and/or extradition  requests; despite overwhelming evidence of his complicity in numerous  war crimes and crimes against humanity, these governments – for their  own reasons – declined to press the issue. Moreover, despite being one  of the few members of the Nazi inner-circle to have had definitive  knowledge of the “Final Solution,” and testimony by Wisliceny and other  captured members of the SS confirming his role in the Holocaust,  al-Husseini managed to escape being brought before the bar of justice at  the Nuremburg Trials.

When a series of investigative reports on his wartime activities – authored by New York Post reporter Edgar A. Mowrer – appeared in print in 1946, pressure mounted on al-Husseini to leave France.

Using a false identity and posing as a member of the Syrian  diplomatic delegation, the mufti slipped out of France aboard a midnight  flight bound for Cairo, where he received political asylum and a hero’s  welcome from Egyptian King Farouk. Over the coming weeks and months,  al-Husseini met with many friends and associates as he renewed old ties  to such figures as Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, and  influential commentator and theorist Sayyid Qutb. During this time, he  also made the acquaintance of young firebrand and Cairo native Yasser  Arafat. Arafat, the future leader of the notorious Palestinian  Liberation Organization (PLO), was in fact a distant cousin to  al-Husseini. The mufti quickly became the younger man’s mentor, a role  al-Husseini welcomed and was to hold until the end of his life. Aware of  his advancing years and the taint of the numerous intrigues in which he  had been involved, al-Husseini sought to pass his vision to the next  generation, even as he sought to re-establish his power in the region by  reactivating the Muslim Supreme Council and Arab High Committee.

With the formation of the state of Israel in May 1948 and its  subsequent diplomatic recognition by the United States and other powers,  al-Husseini and his supporters devoted their energies to forming an  all-Palestinian Arab government seated in Gaza, Palestine.  In October,  1948, the governments of Syria, Lebanon and Egypt recognized the new  government, but Jordan did not;

King Abdullah – who held a profound distrust and hatred of  al-Husseini – told the other members of the Arab League that he would  oppose utterly any government headed by the mufti, whom he saw as a  threat to Jordanian control of Arab Palestine. Unable to obtain western  recognition and approval for his unelected government-in-waiting,  support for al-Husseini gave way. In May, 1949, over al-Husseini’s angry  opposition and with the concurrence of the Second Palestinian Congress,  Jordan assumed formal control over Palestine. King Farouk – his  confidante and ally only two years earlier – ordered al-Husseini to  leave Gaza, then under Egyptian control, and return to Cairo. Al-Husseini’s aspirations of national leadership had been dashed; he  governed no territory and held no concrete power.

Despite the setback, al-Husseini remained influential within the Arab  Muslim community during the post-war period and into the 1950s. In  1951, the mufti gained a measure of revenge against King Abdullah of  Jordan, when the latter was assassinated by a member of the Husseini  clan during a visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque. Protected by allies in the  Muslim Brotherhood, the ever-elusive al-Husseini was able to avoid  implication in the murder, despite his direct involvement in the plot.  The mufti was also consoled somewhat by the increasing influence of  protégé Arafat within the Muslim High Council, and he continued to meet  and cultivate a who’s-who of current and future Middle East leaders,  whose ranks included future Egyptian President and fellow Muslim  Brotherhood member Anwar al-Sadat. Al-Husseini and Sadat had met during  the war years, when Sadat had worked for the mufti and the Nazis as a  spy against the British. The mufti also inspired a young Iraqi named  Saddam Hussein, the future president and dictator of Iraq. Saddam’s  uncle, Khairallah Talfah, had been one of al-Husseni’s most-trusted  subordinates during the abortive pro-Nazi coup in Iraq during WWII.

In 1959, Amin al-Husseini left exile in Heliopolis, Egypt and moved  to Lebanon. Two years later, in May, 1961, agents of the Israeli Mossad  captured wanted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires,  Argentina, and flew him to Jerusalem to stand trial. Despite efforts by  Israeli interrogators to uncover the truth, Eichmann steadfastly denied  his relationship with Haj al-Husseini, and lied on his behalf to hide  the mufti’s role in the Holocaust. After Eichmann’s execution, daily  newspapers throughout the Middle East and Arab world printed tributes to  him penned by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Writing his memoirs,  the Haj later thanked Eichmann profusely for his protection.

Throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, Husseini remained an  elder statesman figure within the Muslim world, albeit a sometimes  controversial one. Overlooking the mufti’s role in the death of his  grandfather, King Hussein of Jordan received Haj al-Husseini as an  honored guest in 1967. The Haj lived to see his circle of protégés and  acolytes attain considerable power within the Middle East; by 1970 -  with al-Husseini’s consent – Yasser Arafat headed the PLO and assumed de  facto leadership of the Palestinians; Anwar Sadat was Egyptian  President and Saddam Hussein was president and dictator of Iraq. All, at  various times, publicly-acknowledged the ideological debt they owed to  al-Husseini and his beliefs (including those of National Socialism). The  mufti, his hatred of the Jews undimmed, also lived long-enough to see  the Black September/PLO terrorist attacks at the 1972 Olympic Games in  Munich, Germany, and the subsequent deaths of eleven Israeli athletes  and a German policeman. Al-Husseini’s granddaughter married Ali Hassan  Salameh (aka Abu Hassan), one of the founders of Black September. Haj  Amin al-Husseini died in Beirut, Lebanon in 1974. Among the thousands of  mourners at his funeral was a visibly grieving Yasser Arafat.

The photograph – never published before – was apparently taken in the summer of 1915. Human skulls are scattered over the earth. They are all that remain of a handful of Armenians slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War. Behind the skulls, posing for the camera, are three Turkish officers in tall, soft hats and a man, on the far right, who is dressed in Kurdish clothes. But the two other men are Germans, both dressed in the military flat caps, belts and tunics of the Kaiserreichsheer, the Imperial German Army. It is an atrocity snapshot – just like those pictures the Nazis took of their soldiers posing before Jewish Holocaust victims a quarter of a century later.