The Middle East and Axis puppet regimes

First, on the ME itself- how would the Middle East in a Nazi Reich Victory or a Hitler looks elsewhere TL have responded to the Axis showing up in their neighborhood?

Which nations would have, given the chance, joined the Axis? This doesn't mean they were intrinsincally pro-fascist or anti-Semitic, but also possibly just pro-German and anti-British/French.

I'd say:

Egypt (Muslim Brotherhood, plus even the King hired a lot of German advisors)
Iran (the Shah was famously famous friendly to the Germans)
Syria (Ba'ath presence)
Iraq (ditto)
Palestine (anti-British rule, after all)

Turkey is a toss-up. Just like in OTL, they could go either way.

I don't think Transjordan was much pro-Axis. They did have the Arab Legion, which turned out to be one of the best Arab fighting forces even though they were under British command... which means something, I guess.

I think the Saudis were actually very friendly with both the Brits and the Americans. Though there's always that famous bit about the Grand Mufti and 'islamofascism.'

I don't know anything about Lebanon. I think they would be under Vichy control, but what did the natives feel?
As for other Axis puppet regimes-

South Africa almost always seems to be a willing vassal to the Axis, but hey, they were Apartheid and Germanic by ancestry.

Most ATLs have the nations of Latin America responding differently, but Peronist Argentina surely had good relations with the fascists.
 
yeah. the middle east would lay out the welcome mat for the nazis at first. but after taking a look at nazi racial policy (maybe end up a victim of it), and their own semitic backgound, no. i see the middle east playing one side against the other.
 
Syria (Ba'ath presence)
Iraq (ditto)

See, now you're projecting backwards. Just because Syria's ruled by Ba'ath and Iraq was too before the invasion doesn't mean that they were ruled by Ba'ath way back then, or even that the party was stronger here. Ba'ath in the '40s was not exactly an important party.
 
Iraq certainly is a possibility. Assuming the Germans can kick the British out of the Middle East, Rashid Ali and the Four Colonels would likely stage a coup and institute a pro-German regime - though its really more anti-British than pro-German at heart. If the Germans became as intrusive as the British, we might see something like an anti-German bloq starting to agitate - perhaps looking to the U.S. for support? A power that hasn't interferred with them, at least not by that point.

Iraq wouldn't prove too terribly useful as an ally if the war is still going on. I can't see the Germans getting much oil out of it unless Germany has control of the Med. If the Germans and Italians have control of the region, there are already pipelines running from the Iraqi oilfields to Haifa and Tripoli (the Syrian one, not the one in Libya). The Iraqi military itself performed rather poorly during the short-lived war with the British in May 1941. The British went through them like a knife through warm butter.
 
They were probably more anti-British (and maybe anti-Jewish, esp. in Palestine, because of immigration) than pro-German.

Theoretically the Arabs are Semites, but antisemitism was always against the Jews, not Arabs.

There's even a joke:
The Egyptian ambassador in Germany is heckled by some nazis, because he "looks Jewish". When he shows them his passport, they suddenly become very polite: "We're sorry, your excellence! But you have to udnerstand: We have to eradicate the Jews!"
The Egyptian: "Forget it! We tried that 5,000 years ago too!"
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
I think the Saudis were actually very friendly with both the Brits and the Americans. Though there's always that famous bit about the Grand Mufti and 'islamofascism.'

I don't know anything about Lebanon. I think they would be under Vichy control, but what did the natives feel?
The Gemayels and their Kataeb were fascistic (but fascistic in the sense that Mussolini or Franco were fascist, rather than Hitler). I could easily see a Maronite-Axis alliance.

As for the Grand Mufti, Amin al-Husseini, he was Palestinian, not Saudi. I can't see the Saudis ditching their alliance with the British and the Americans to side with the Axis.
 
Okay, then the Saudis are out, then. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that ibn Saud had excellent relations with FDR as well.

As for Phalangists coming to power in Syria as an Axis satellite- that could work, yeah.

But again, don't the Arab nationalists (in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and anywhere else) share certain key features as the fascists? Anti-British, anti-Jewish, and aspects of national socialism? So why not Egypt? Iraq is almost destined to be an Axis puppet; it basically is in most of these timelines already.

I'm still not sure of what happens in Lebanon, Transjordan. Am I missing anywhere else?
 
On what basis do you feel Turkey was a "toss-up"? Turkey was a pro-Allied neutral and would never have willingly joined the Axis.

I think he meant that as in OTL, they would have had to succumb to Nazi pressure to remain independent in any way. Like Romania, Hungary etc.
 
Yep. Also, in several TLs I've seen the Germans make them a deal they couldn't refuse to bomb/capture the Baku oilfields, etc. And in Shattered World they get a peace of the Balkans, or possibly just part of Greece.
 
Okay, then the Saudis are out, then. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that ibn Saud had excellent relations with FDR as well.

As for Phalangists coming to power in Syria as an Axis satellite- that could work, yeah.

But again, don't the Arab nationalists (in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and anywhere else) share certain key features as the fascists? Anti-British, anti-Jewish, and aspects of national socialism? So why not Egypt? Iraq is almost destined to be an Axis puppet; it basically is in most of these timelines already.

I'm still not sure of what happens in Lebanon, Transjordan. Am I missing anywhere else?

Lebanon and (Trans)Jordan would go to Syria.
 

Keenir

Banned
First, on the ME itself- how would the Middle East in a Nazi Reich Victory or a Hitler looks elsewhere TL have responded to the Axis showing up in their neighborhood?

Egypt (Muslim Brotherhood, plus even the King hired a lot of German advisors)
Iran (the Shah was famously famous friendly to the Germans)
Syria (Ba'ath presence)
Iraq (ditto)
Palestine (anti-British rule, after all)

How much of their friendliness to the Germans was an attempt to get the Russians and British out of their backyard?

If the Nazis started to win, and the MidEast began to go German, how much of that friendliness might be directed elsewhere?

I think the Saudis were actually very friendly with both the Brits and the Americans. Though there's always that famous bit about the Grand Mufti and 'islamofascism.'

As for other Axis puppet regimes-

surely the Stern Gang would wrangle an Israel out of Germany.
 
Why wasn't the Grand Mufti put on trial for War Crimes after World War II, he was a member of the SS after given special permission by Hitler, organized a SS unit in Bosnia, was leader of unit that killed thousands of Jews and Gypsies in 1944 and 1945.


Why wasn't he put on Trial for War Crimes after World War II?
 
Why wasn't the Grand Mufti put on trial for War Crimes after World War II, he was a member of the SS after given special permission by Hitler, organized a SS unit in Bosnia, was leader of unit that killed thousands of Jews and Gypsies in 1944 and 1945.


Why wasn't he put on Trial for War Crimes after World War II?

A list of reasons:
Egypt
Libya
Somaliland (Italian, French, British)
Tunisia
Algeria
Morocco
Jordan
Syria
Lebanon
Trucial states (UAE, Qatar, Bahrain)
Iraq
Kuwait
Aden-Hadramaut (Now in Yemen)
Oman.

Need I say more?
 
They the Allies did a great many things to angered the Arab World after World War II, and they did put some Bosnia SS leaders on Trial for War Crimes. The Grand Mufti was a organizer of Anti-British violence in the Middle East before the War, so why didn't they bring him before the War Crimes Court? Was he under Allies control after the War?

Is there any Official Government Answer?


Thank you for your response.


orion
 
If the Nazis started to win, and the MidEast began to go German, how much of that friendliness might be directed elsewhere?

Would it go German? There's as much of a chance of the ME going Italian or Vichy France. But regardless, it doesn't matter- there are any possible number of different approaches the Uber-Reich could take in administering the area. What I'd like to concentrate on is who would have joined the Axis, and had the ideological compatability to stay. I still think some of the Arab Nationalists, especially Baathists, would be comfortable with national socialism. The question then becomes, to what degree would their support be, and in which countries did they have the most power and influence?
 
Syria, Iraq and Palatine there were Anti-European/Western violence before the War. Britian had to sent in forces to retake Iraq from a Pro-German Party takeover.

Thanks

Orion
 
Top