Germany and the Middle East: From Kaiser Wilhelm II to Angela Merkel

188 Pages·2018·10.75 MB·English

by  Rolf Steininger

Germany and the Middle East

Germany and the Middle East
From Kaiser Wilhelm II to Angela Merkel
R S
OLF TEININGER
berghahn
N E W Y O R K • O X F O R D
www.berghahnbooks.com
Published in 2019 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
English-language edition
© 2019 Rolf Steininger
German-language edition
© 2015 Lau Verlag & Handel KG
Originally published in German as
Deutschland und der Nahe Osten: Von Kaiser Wilhelms Orientreise 1898 bis zur Gegenwart
in 2015
All rights reserved.
Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A C.I.P. cataloging record is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78920-038-6 hardback
ISBN 978-1-78920-039-3 ebook
C
ONTENTS
List of Illustrations vi
List of Abbreviations viii
Chronology x
Introduction to the English Edition 1
Chapter 1 Before the First World War, 1898–1914 6
Chapter 2 During the First World War 13
Chapter 3 Weimar and the Third Reich, 1918–1939 30
Chapter 4 During the Second World War 47
Chapter 5 From the Founding of the Federal Republic
to the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations
with Israel, 1949–1965 59
Chapter 6 From the Six-Day War to Reunifi cation, 1967–1990 108
Chapter 7 From Reunifi cation to the Present 150
Conclusion 158
Epilogue to the English Edition 161
Selected Bibliography 162
Index 168
I
LLUSTRATIONS
1.1 Kaiser Wilhelm II in Damascus 8
1.2 The Jaffa Gate in 1903 9
1.3 The Wailing Wall in 1910 11
2.1 General Allenby with ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and Emir Abdullah 22
3.1 British soldiers in front of the Damascus Gate 32
3.2 British soldiers in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem 33
3.3 Arabic pamphlet to boycott Jewish goods 35
3.4 The German colony in Haifa, 1934 37
3.5 Scene on a Haifa street 39
3.6 The Jaffa Gate 41
3.7 General strike in Jerusalem 42
3.8 British soldiers protecting Government House in Jaffa 44
4.1 Meeting between Adolf Hitler and the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem, 1941 51
5.1 Jerusalem, ca. 1949 61
5.2 Jewish celebrations in Vienna after the UN decision to
divide Palestine 61
5.3 Proclamation of the new state of Israel 62
5.4 The secretary general of the Arab League proclaims a state
of war 62
5.5 and 5.6 Transfer of the Herzl coffi n from Vienna to Israel 63
5.7 Herzl’s grave on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem 64
– vi –
Illustrations
5.8 Protests in Jerusalem against West Germany 64
5.9 Konrad Adenauer and Nahum Goldmann 65
5.10 Gamal Abdel Nasser 79
5.11 Israeli soldiers near El Arish on their way to the Suez Canal 80
5.12 General Moshe Dayan with Brigadier-General Assaf Simhoni
and Colonel Avraham Yaffe 80
5.13 From the Suez Canal back to the Negev, 1957 81
5.14 Lowering the Israeli fl ag, 1957 82
5.15 Theodor Heuss in Israel 86
5.16 Franz Josef Strauß and Shimon Peres 87
5.17 Ambassador Rolf Pauls 92
5.18 Rainer Barzel in Israel 96
5.19 Konrad Adenauer and David Ben-Gurion 98
6.1 Beginning of the Six-Day War, 5 June 1967 109
6.2 ‘Motta’ Gur, paratroop commander, overlooking the Old City
and Temple Mount of Jerusalem 110
6.3 Israeli paratroopers beside the Wailing Wall in
East Jerusalem 111
6.4 Major-General Uzi Narkiss, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan,
and Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin entering the Old City
of Jerusalem through the Lion’s Gate 113
6.5 Arab families living close to the Wailing Wall are forcibly
removed from their homes 115
6.6 Israel’s prime minister, Golda Meir, welcomes West German
chancellor, Willy Brandt 125
6.7 Protests against Willy Brandt in Israel 126
6.8 The Yom Kippur War 128
6.9 Yitzhak Rabin in Bonn 140
6.10 Helmut Kohl in Jerusalem 144
7.1 A development project in Palestine fi nanced by Germany 152
7.2 Angela Merkel in Jerusalem 156
– vii –
A
BBREVIATIONS
AA Auswärtiges Amt (German Foreign Offi ce)
AAPD Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland;
Edition of Documents from the AA: Institut für
Zeitgeschichte, ed. on behalf of the Auswärtiges Amt
(Munich: Oldenbourg, 1994–2014).
ABC Atomic, biological, chemical weapon Bi-Zone, 1947–1949,
Union of British and American Zones in Germany
AMAN Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)
CDU Christlich Demokratische Union (German party)
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
CSU Christlich Soziale Union (German party)
DEFCON Defense Condition
DM Deutsche Mark
DP Displaced Person
EEC European Economic Community
EU European Union
FAZ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
FDP Freie Demokratische Partei (German party)
FOIA Freedom of Information Act
FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States
– viii –
Abbreviations
GDR German Democratic Republic
IDF Israeli Defense
k.u.k. kaiserliche und königliche Truppen (imperial and royal army)
MGZ Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NS National Socialist
NSAP National Socialist Arab Party
NSDAP Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiterpartei
OKW Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the
Wehrmacht, the German Armed Forces)
PLO Palestine Liberation Organization
QED quod erat demonstrandum (what was to be demonstrated)
SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German party)
UAR United Arab Republic: union between Syria and Egypt from
1958 to 1961. Egypt continued to be known offi cially as the
UAR until 1972.
UN(O) United Nations (Organization)
US United States (of America)
VAR Vereinigte Arabische Republik (= UAR)
– ix –