War Criminals

October 21, 1944 | The Australasian

HADJ AMIN AL-HUSSEINI

HADJ AMIN AL-HUSSEINI, that crafty, perjured old man, once Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, is another who came close to evil eminence, for had his plans not gone awry he might have made himself Fuhrer of the Arab world. Thug, saint, swindler, racketeer, killer and fanatic, he has no parallel even in the Rogues’ Gallery of the Axis. For 15 years he gave all Palestine a blood bath, murdering and pillaging with a ferocity that did not spare women and children, yet until the very last he enjoyed the trust of those he butchered and betrayed.

In the First World War he took money from the Turks with one hand, and sold information to the British with the other. After the war he hired out to the great Arab landlords in Palestine as a gangster and led bloody raids on Jewish communities. Arrested in 1920 for a particularly brutal pogrom, he served just one year of his 10-year sentence, cozening the British High Commissioner into believing he was repentant. And the man he fooled was Sir Herbert Samuel, a Jew! More than that, the British proceeded to force the parolee’s election as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Thanks to this incredible stupidity, the murderous old man now held a post of extraordinary power, and with a subsidy of £18,000 a year from the confiding Britons, he gave free rein to his avarice and his hates. Even as he stole from the funds raised by Arabs for relief, so did he order massacres as part of a dark design to rid the country of Jews and Christians, and all the time he sat in Jerusalem bemoaning the “outrages,” and begging the British to believe that his prayers were for peace and accord.

Meanwhile the Mufti watched the rise of Adolf Hitler, and by 1936 he had made his secret bargain to start a “holy war” that would drive the British out of the Near East and realise the Berlin to Bagdad dream. Soon arms and munitions began to be slipped in and stored against the day when the Fuhrer would give the word to strike. By a stroke of luck, British agents uncovered the plot, and Hadj Amin fled to Lebanon. From there he shouted vain calls for a jehad, and at last, in fear of his life, he weaseled out of Germany.

Still oozing saintliness at every pore, the Mufti broadcasts appeals from Berlin, urging the Arabs to recognise the Fuhrer as champion of Islam. All without effect, for Moslems remember his murders, his looting of relief funds, and wait for the time when they can lay avenging hands on him.

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JULIUS STREICHER

JUST as the career of Pierre Laval is an indictment of the French people, so is the whole Nazi regime indicted by Julius Streicher’s position as gauleiter of Franconia. Ignorance cannot be pleaded as an excuse, for even at the time of his appointment the crimes, degeneracies, and obscenities of the man were matters of court record and Press report. His vilenesses are so open and notorious that he is known throughout all Germany as the Mad Dog.

NEXT WEEK: Joachim von Ribbentrop and Robert Ley.

Original Source

October 21, 1944 | © The Australasian

Archival material reproduced here for educational and research purposes under fair use. Original copyright belongs to the respective publisher.

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