During the Second World War, Nazi Germany mounted an extensive campaign to win over Arab and Muslim populations in the Middle East and North Africa. The Nazis portrayed themselves as anti-colonial liberators standing against the British and French empires and even sought to tie their ideology to Islamic principles.
High-profile alliances were forged with Arab leaders, propaganda flooded the airwaves, and Axis support was offered to uprisings in the region. Yet despite these efforts, Hitler’s courtship of the Muslim world yielded only fleeting gains.
A combination of Nazi cynicism, Allied resistance, and geopolitical obstacles – notably the neutral but strategically crucial stance of secular Turkey – meant that Berlin’s bid for an “Islamic alliance” ultimately fell flat.
Nazi Anti-Imperial Pitch and Propaganda Blitz
From the war’s outset, Nazi strategists saw anti-British and anti-French sentiment in the Muslim world as an opportunity. German propaganda trumpeted a secular anti-imperialist message, claiming common cause with subjugated Arab nations. Adolf Hitler and his inner circle publicly lambasted British rule in Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine, hoping to position Germany as a champion of Arab independence. Behind this rhetoric lay practical goals: undermining Allied control of Middle Eastern oil fields and trade routes, and diverting British attention by fomenting unrest.
To reach Muslim audiences, the Nazi regime launched an unprecedented propaganda blitz. Starting in 1939, shortwave radio broadcasts in Arabic beamed out of Berlin seven days a week across the Middle East and North Africa. These broadcasts – along with millions of leaflets and a dedicated Arabic-language newspaper out of Berlin – urged Arabs to rise up against British and French colonialists. Nazi radio programs selectively quoted the Qur’an and Islamic history, trying to cast Hitler’s war as aligned with Muslim interests. For example, German broadcasts into Egypt vilified the British as oppressors and even spread virulent antisemitism, absurdly accusing local Jews of abetting British imperialism. The message was clear: “Your fight for freedom is our fight”, Berlin claimed, attempting to rally Muslims into viewing the Axis as liberators rather than new oppressors.
Despite the intensity of this propaganda, its reception was mixed. Many Arabs and Muslims were indeed resentful of European colonial rule and initially found Nazi anti-imperial talk appealing. After France’s defeat in 1940, some in Syria reportedly chanted, “Allah’s in heaven and Hitler’s on earth”, imagining Hitler might free them from French rule. However, on the whole the propaganda yielded limited results. Surveys showed most local listeners preferred their own national radio stations or the BBC, and regarded German broadcasts with skepticism.
One British official in wartime Egypt noted that Germans’ Arabic programs were usually “switched off as being offensive rubbish” by Egyptian audiences. The grand promises coming from Berlin often rang hollow against the daily reality of Nazi actions, which sometimes contradicted their words. (For instance, Germany’s alliance with Italy and Vichy France, both of whom held Muslim lands captive, undermined the Nazi claim to be anti-colonial liberators.) Even Hitler privately conceded, in his final political testament, that these **“insufficient” efforts had been “disastrous” in winning Muslim support.
The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Iraq Coup
Beyond propaganda, Nazi Germany actively courted influential Middle Eastern leaders to spur revolts against the Allies. Two of the most prominent collaborators were Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, an Iraqi nationalist politician. Both saw in the Axis a potential patron for Arab independence, and both played starring roles in Nazi schemes – with mixed outcomes.
Amin al-Husseini, the exiled Grand Mufti, became a key figure in the Nazi outreach. Wanted by the British for leading a Palestinian revolt in the 1930s, al-Husseini fled to Axis territory and arrived in Berlin in 1941. Hitler received him with great fanfare – photographs from November 1941 show the Mufti seated with Hitler in Berlin, signaling their alliance. Al-Husseini was given a lavish welcome and even honorary “Aryan” status in Nazi eyes, an astonishing gesture from a regime obsessed with racial hierarchy.
In Berlin, the Mufti made Arabic radio speeches praising Nazi Germany, calling on Muslims to join a holy war against British occupiers and Zionists. He forged friendships with top Nazis like Heinrich Himmler and helped organize Muslim volunteer units for the German Waffen-SS. By war’s end, several tens of thousands of Muslims – from Bosnia, the Caucasus, and beyond – had been recruited into German forces with al-Husseini’s encouragemen.
Berlin touted the Mufti as the symbolic leader of an Islamic alliance. However, behind the grand propaganda, his actual influence was limited. Nazi officials scripted their own messages and did not treat Arab allies as equals. Recent scholarship shows that Radio Berlin’s Arabic programs were written and controlled by Germans, with al-Husseini merely reading prepared texts. One historian noted that the man Berlin called “the Reich’s most important Muslim” “did not have any influence” on Nazi policy or broadcast content. In Nazi eyes, Arab partners were junior players – useful for rallying co-religionists, but not to be consulted on strategy. This one-sided partnership, focused only on a “common battle against colonialism”, never developed into the genuine alliance the Mufti had hoped for.
Another bold attempt to shake British dominance was the pro-Axis coup in Iraq. In April 1941, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and a group of nationalist Iraqi generals (the “Golden Square”) overthrew Iraq’s pro-British government and declared a new regime aligned with the Axis. Baghdad’s rebels received encouraging words – and eventually limited military aid – from Berlin and Rome. Nazi and Italian aircraft were secretly dispatched to support the Iraqi coup, and the Mufti of Jerusalem, who was then in Baghdad, egged on the uprising. For a moment, it seemed Hitler might gain a foothold in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
That moment was short-lived. By May 1941, British forces counterattacked in what became known as the Anglo-Iraqi War. Within weeks, colonial troops (aided by local Assyrian and Kurdish levies) defeated Rashid Ali’s fighters and restored a pro-British government in Baghdad. The Mufti and Rashid Ali fled, eventually finding refuge in Nazi-occupied Europe. Hitler’s regime had failed to secure Iraq, largely because it could not deliver sufficient, timely support – the German help arriving via Vichy French Syria was too little, too late, and risky over long distances. The collapse of the Iraq coup was a major setback to Nazi ambitions: it showed that without direct military intervention (which Germany was unable to provide in the Middle East), local uprisings against the British would be swiftly crushed.
Outreach in Egypt and North Africa
Nazi Germany also made overtures in Egypt, the linchpin of Britain’s position in the Middle East. German intelligence agents slipped into Cairo during the early 1940s, looking for allies among Egyptian nationalist circles. They found some receptive ears. Notably, Anwar Sadat – a young Egyptian officer who decades later would become Egypt’s president – cooperated with Nazi spies and plotted against British troops, by his own later admission. Egyptian groups such as the Young Egypt Party admired fascist-style nationalism and resented British control, making them potential if unreliable partners for the Axis.
When Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps swept toward Egypt in 1942, Berlin’s hopes of igniting an anti-British revolt in Cairo surged. German radio broadcasts urged Egyptians to rise up, painting Rommel’s advance as liberation. Grandiose promises were made – hinting at Egypt’s full independence and an end to British influence – and Nazi propaganda vilified the Allied war effort as a Jewish-driven plot against Arabs. Yet as in other Arab countries, Egyptians’ overall response was tepid. Beyond a fringe of nationalist officers, few were willing to gamble on an Axis victory. The British ultimately defeated Rommel at El Alamein in late 1942, removing the immediate Axis threat to Egypt. Any nascent pro-Axis sentiments in Egypt quickly faded as the danger passed. As one British assessment concluded that year, German propaganda had “surprisingly little effect” in Egypt – the vast majority of Egyptians remained either loyal to the Allies or simply unmoved by Nazi ideology.
In North Africa, the pattern was similar. Many Arabs in French colonies like Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco initially saw an Axis arrival as a chance to end French rule. But their experiences under Vichy French control and subsequent German occupation proved disillusioning. When German troops entered Tunisia in 1942 (after Allied landings in Morocco and Algeria), they did nothing to foster Tunisian independence; instead, the Nazis imposed anti-Jewish policies and commandeered resources, behaving like occupiers. Hitler’s regime in fact propped up Vichy France’s colonial authority in North Africa until the Allies drove them out.
This inconsistency – courting Arab Muslims as “friends” while upholding Italian and Vichy colonialism – did not go unnoticed. “Everywhere, we see the real opinions of the Germans contradict their proclamations,” one Arab observer complained during the North African campaign. By late in the war, even Hitler recognized that aligning with Europe’s colonial powers had fatally undermined Nazi claims of solidarity with Muslims. Indeed, large numbers of North African Muslims fought against the Axis as part of Free French forces – over 200,000 served in Allied armies, some clerics even calling for jihad against Hitler, whom they labeled “the enemy of Islam”.
Turkey’s Neutrality: A Barrier to Axis Expansion
A critical factor in the failure of Nazi outreach was geopolitical reality. The most significant barrier between Hitler and the Muslim world was Turkey – a secular Muslim-majority republic that straddled Europe and the Middle East. Unlike in World War I, when the Ottoman Sultan had aligned with Germany and called for jihad, Turkey under President İsmet İnönü stayed determinedly neutral throughout most of WWII. This neutrality proved decisive. Geographically, Turkey controlled the land bridge to the Arab Middle East, blocking direct Axis access. Had Turkey joined the Axis or allowed German transit, Nazi forces might have marched through Anatolia into Syria or Iraq. Instead, Ankara’s government refused, effectively bottling up Hitler’s armies in Europe.
German war planners understood Turkey’s pivotal position. Hitler’s War Directive No. 32 in mid-1942 envisioned a grand three-pronged assault toward the Middle East – one thrust through southern Russia into Persia, another through Turkey into Syria, and a third from Egypt into Palestine – but only if Turkey abandoned its neutrality (and if victories in Stalingrad and North Africa were achieved).
In reality, those conditions never materialized. Turkey, led by a staunchly secular nationalist regime, was deeply suspicious of Nazi intentions and immune to Hitler’s ideological seduction. Nazi envoys tried at times to sway Turkey or at least secure transit rights, but İnönü held firm, balancing diplomatically between both sides and keeping Turkey out of active combat until the final weeks of the war. This meant that Nazi Germany could not physically reach or supply any uprising in the Arab Middle East except by risky long-distance measures. The failed Iraqi coup was a stark example: without a land route across Turkey (or a friendly Syria, which itself was secured by Allied forces in 1941), Germany simply could not reinforce its Arab allies in meaningful strength. Turkey’s stance, combined with British dominance of the Mediterranean and Allied control of the Suez Canal, ensured the Middle East remained largely sealed off from Hitler’s grasp.
Importantly, Turkey’s secular orientation also deprived the Nazis of a potential religious rallying point. As a Muslim-majority nation that chose nationalism over pan-Islamic politics, Turkey did not endorse any call for an Islamic holy war on behalf of the Axis. Nazi propagandists had to tiptoe around religious themes in the region; a German Foreign Office memo even cautioned that “the Islamic concept of Holy War cannot be applied” to their situation, noting that Arab fighters pursued political goals, not religious ones. The government in Ankara exemplified this reality – it prioritized Turkish sovereignty and modernization over religious alliances, leaving no opening for a Nazi–Islamist coalition. In short, Turkey’s neutrality and secularism served as a geopolitical wall that Hitler’s outreach campaign could never scale.
A Failed Courtship
By the end of World War II, Nazi Germany’s grand attempt to “woo” the Muslim world had largely failed. Despite investing significant resources into propaganda and diplomacy, the Axis won no major strategic ally among Middle Eastern or North African nations. Their brief successes – such as fostering the Iraqi coup or gaining the Mufti’s collaboration – were either swiftly reversed or carried little military value. Germany’s overtures ultimately faltered for several reasons that became starkly clear as the war progressed:
- Cynical motivations: It was evident that Nazi Germany’s interest in Arab and Muslim lands was driven by wartime expedience, not genuine support for independence. Hitler himself admitted he “wanted nothing from the Arabs” beyond their strategic location, and he refused to offer any firm post-war sovereignty due to deals with Italy and Vichy France. This lack of sincere commitment bred mistrust among the very people the Nazis sought to recruit.
- Contradictory policies: The Axis tried to wear the mask of liberators while their partners (Italy in Libya/East Africa and Vichy in North Africa) continued imperial rule. Such double-dealing – denouncing British-French colonialism but upholding their own – made Nazi promises ring hollow. Many Muslim leaders who initially leaned toward the Axis grew disenchanted when liberation never materialized.
- Allied response: The British and their Allies proved highly effective at containing Axis intrigues. They suppressed uprisings (Iraq 1941), won key battles (El Alamein 1942), and deployed robust counter-propaganda that painted the Nazis as foreign oppressors and even enemies of Islam. Once the tide of war turned against Germany after 1942, any lingering hopes that Hitler could deliver freedom to the Middle East quickly evaporated.
- Ideological mismatch: While Nazi propaganda attempted to invoke Islam, the partnership never overcame fundamental differences. Arab nationalists were fighting for self-determination, not for Hitler’s racist new order. Nazi racism itself was an obstacle; Muslims were courted, but not truly respected as equals. Cooperation remained shallow, limited to tactical agreements against common foes. Without a deeper ideological bond or trust, the alliance could not endure setbacks.
- Turkey’s strategic block: Finally, Turkey’s neutrality denied the Axis the physical bridge and symbolic leadership needed for a broader Nazi–Muslim alliance. Hitler could neither march armies into Palestine or Iraq nor convincingly claim pan-Islamic solidarity so long as Turkey – the successor to the Caliphate in many eyes – stood aloof. This crucial barrier ensured that Nazi outreach efforts were largely isolated and fragmented, never coalescing into a regional front.
In the end, Nazi Germany’s attempt to pivot toward the Middle East became a historical footnote – a story of bold gambits that yielded little. The Grand Mufti spent the war as a propagandist in Europe, but Palestine’s fate was decided by Allied victory. Rashid Ali’s coup fizzled, and Iraq remained under Allied influence. Egypt and the Maghreb stayed out of Axis hands, and Turkey’s steadfast neutrality kept Hitler at bay.
What remained were mostly lessons for the post-war world: the Nazi propaganda in Arabic left seeds of antisemitic conspiracy that would outlast the war, and the brief Nazi-Arab connections would later be mythologized by some and exaggerated by others. But during WWII itself, the Nazi bid to “woo” the Muslim world was, by and large, a failure – outmaneuvered by Allied power, undermined by Nazi contradictions, and contained by the very geopolitical realities that Hitler could not overcome. The era closed with the Middle Eastern nations charting their own paths, and Nazi Germany defeated without ever realizing its vision of an Axis-aligned Islamic uprising.