49
effectively annihilating the Jewish homeland and handing Palestine to the
Arabs, Hitler designated the USSR as his priority and missed the opportu-
nity to claim almost half the globe as his territory.
The relentless anti-British propaganda campaign in Iraq that was largely
the brainchild of the resident German minister, Fritz Grobba, was the
chief factor in ensuring that Rashid Ali al-Gaylani enjoyed sufficient popu-
larity and support among Army élites and some other influential Iraqis to
seize power, buttress his leadership, and sustain his regime for the two
months of its existence.^4 In other words, Germany represented itself to the
Iraqis less with substantive, proactive aid measures than with what
amounted to hot air—negative distortions and misrepresentations of
British policy and actions (described by the GFO as ‘news with an anti-
British slant’), frequently accompanied by crowing over the Wehrmacht’s
military achievements (‘emphasis on German military feats’) and seasoned
with Koranic readings and other religious content.^5
In this way, the actual manifestation of Nazi support for Iraqi national-
ism was nothing more than a propagandistic and insubstantial after-
thought: too little help, too late. In seeking post facto to justify their weak
response and ultimate failure, the Germans would of course argue the
reverse: that the Iraqis had moved precipitously and without adequate
prior consultation or preparation (too little, too soon). Nevertheless,
however poor their timing in May 1941—as massive German resources
were being diverted to Operations MERKUR and BARBAROSSA—to
succeed and persist, the Gaylani nationalists urgently needed tangible
financial and military support, and plenty of it: gold, guns, munitions, and
German forces. What they received instead were some vague promises,
some limited funding, some limited arms shipments via Syria, and a few
German aircraft that were neither refitted for desert operating conditions
nor supplied with sufficient fuel or parts.^6 With the Luftwaffe pilots and
ground crew came a handful of political and intelligence experts, includ-
ing Grobba and five representatives of the Abwehr sabotage branch (Abw
II), who arrived too late to initiate their missions in support of an Iraqi
government that was already beyond redemption and on which—six
weeks before he invaded the USSR—Hitler had already turned his back.^7
In its appreciation of 1 July 1941, the Combined Intelligence Centre
Iraq and Persia (CICI) made it clear from the start that the blame for what
had recently happened in Iraq lay principally with Adolf Hitler. The swift-
ness with which Rashid Ali, backed by the Iraqi army, had carried out his
coup in April; the unscrupulous and daring manner in which he had vio-
lated the Iraqi constitution and had made himself virtually a military dicta-
WAR WITHIN WAR