Living Propaganda and Self-Serving Recruitment: The Nazi Rationale for the German-Arab Training Unit, May 1941 to May 1943

Title
Living Propaganda and Self-Serving Recruitment: The Nazi Rationale for the German-Arab Training Unit, May 1941 to May 1943
Publication Date
2017
Author(s)
Kehoe, Thomas
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8182-0390
Email: tkehoe@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:tkehoe
Greenhalgh, Elizabeth
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Sage Publications Ltd
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1177/0968344516641457
UNE publication id
une:22436
Abstract
In 1941 Hitler set aside racial purity restrictions for the Wehrmacht to form the German-Arab Training Unit. New sources reveal Arab recruitment was self-serving, meant to bolster Nazi propaganda and foment anti-Allied Arab violence. Racism towards Arabs was pervasive throughout the Nazi regime and the Wehrmacht, stemming from Nazi ideology and older colonial attitudes. Consequently, the unit’s two-year history from May 1941 to May 1943 was defined by tension between retaining racial segregation and feigning collaboration. The results were command indecision, neglect, reticence to deploy into combat, and reluctant expansion, which together created dysfunction and disorder in the unit.
Link
Citation
War in History, 24(4), p. 520-543
ISSN
1477-0385
0968-3445
Start page
520
End page
543

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