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218 20 A Nazi-Inspired Revolt, 1941 Crossing Faisal Bridge one morning, an automobile stopped at my side, and a friendly voice invited me to share the car. It was the wife of Herr Doctor Grobba, the German minister to Iraq. Incidentally while conversing , she made some reference to her husband, and this gave her an occasion to say, “My husband is the most popular man in Baghdad.” I did not disagree with her, and no one else would have questioned her statement. He overtopped and outshone every other diplomat in Iraq. He knew how to win people and how to stay in the spotlight. He belonged to that group of men occupying key positions all over the world who by their suavity and friendly patronage ingratiated themselves into the very core of the life of the people. Herr Grobba was the outstanding agent in Goebbel’s espionage network in the Middle East. Through his untiring efforts he caused most of the minds of Iraq to become infected with Hitler’s madness. For six or more years he kept the propaganda machine going day and night. His house was constantly thrown open to social functions, and he entertained lavishly. He appeared at most of the public affairs, even at our school plays; with his gold and his promises he was generous. He saw to it that his compatriots in the land became aggressive missionaries for the Nazi cause, and the literature they left with me was voluminous and attractive. One evening in Baghdad, we saw the house in which dwelt, openly, unmolested, and in state, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haji Amin alHussaini , brilliantly lighted and full of people as if for a special occasion. It was not a special occasion but a nightly occurrence, we were told. “Who attends these conclaves?” I innocently asked. The answer was “The mufti’s househasbecomearendezvousforNazisympathizersandanti-Britishers.” A Nazi-Inspired Revolt, 1941 • 219 The mufti, after his escape from Palestine and Syria, came to Baghdad , where he was allowed to live freely in a house once occupied by Jafar Pasha al-Askeri. At this time there had also come to Baghdad a large number of inflated and bigoted nationalists from Palestine and Syria, who either received subsidies from the mufti himself, who was generously aided financially, or who were employed as teachers in the schools of Iraq or given other posts in the government. Both the mufti and his satellites were received as heroes and given full freedom of movement and speech and the best of good treatment. After the unsuccessful revolt against the British, the mufti fled Palestine to Iran, where he was in hiding. General Wavell offered a reward of , pounds for his capture. I was dazed; in Baghdad he could have been seized for nothing. Passing the coffee shops one evening at seven o’clock, I saw something unusual. Not only were the coffee shops crowded, but people were standing outside, overflowing into the street, and all were listening eagerly. I thought possibly the prime minister, or some other important official, was giving a message to the people. But when on another night there was a recurrence of this, I became curious and asked what was going on. My informant told me that the men were listening to a radio broadcast from Berlin, and that the broadcast was given by an Iraqi citizen, Yunis al-Bahri, formerly the editor of a newspaper in Mosul. While traveling in Europe, he wrote a series of inflaming articles for his paper, with the result that the paper was suppressed, and he was forbidden to return to Iraq. Hitler then picked him up to broadcast to the Arab world from Germany, which he did daily. In his radio talks he usually spoke directly to the Iraqis, many of whom knew him personally, and he did this with vehemence and fierceness . Nothing was more pernicious to the Arab mind than his colossal and fantastic lies, his frightful invectives against the Jews, and the promise to the Arabs of an Eldorado when the Germans come. He took a special delight in meticulously and maliciously relating the terrorism in Europe and the Nazi atrocities against the Jews. So menacing were these radio utterances of his to which the coffee shop crowd listened every evening that the Iraq government, before a Nazi-inspired ministry was in power, tried to intercept them and to jam Berlin at the local station...

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