57
Philipp Schröder, Deutschland und der Mittlere Osten im Zweiten Weltkrieg
(Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1975); Schröder, Irak 1941 (Freiburg:
Rombach, 1980).
- Büro des St.S., Arabien, Bd. I, OKW Amt Ausland/Abw., Nr. 526/41,
g.Kdos. Abw.II/Ch., Geplante Massnahmen des Amts Ausland/Abwehr
im vord. Orient, 25. März 1941, R29539, Politisches Archiv, Auswärtiges
Amt, Berlin [AA] (also quoted by Nicosia, Nazi Germany, 161).
Interestingly, around the same time, one of Ribbentrop’s senior officials
(Ernst Woermann, director of the GFO political department) stated that,
while the Abwehr might carry out acts of sabotage against British installa-
tions in Iraq, uprisings would only be of some purpose in Palestine and
Transjordan, confirming how inopportune, when it happened, the Gaylani
coup was from the viewpoint of the GFO. Auswärtiges Amt, Woermann to
Weiszäcker, ‘Memorandum on the Arab question’ (no. 133), 7 March
1941, Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D (1937–1945): From
the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry, vol. 12 (Washington, DC: US
Government Printing Office, 1962) [DGFP], 237. Ribbentrop’s response
a month later was to permit the Abwehr to organize sabotage in Palestine,
Transjordan, and Iraq, while prohibiting it from organizing insurrections
anywhere! Furthermore, in a clear attempt to clip the wings of both Canaris
and Heydrich, Ribbentrop authorized Woermann immediately to organize
a GFO intelligence service in North Africa and the Middle East, indepen-
dent of the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst (SS Security Service [SD]),
that is, RSHA VI. Woermann to Weiszäcker, ‘Memorandum by the
Director of the Political Department’ (no. 299), 9 April 1941, DGFP,
498. See also Martin Kolinsky, Britain’s War in the Middle East: Strategy
and Diplomacy, 1936–42 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999), 154–5. For
Woermann’s diplomatic curriculum vitae, see Maria Keipert and Peter
Grupp, eds., Biographisches Handbuch des Deutschen Auswärtigen Dienstes,
1871–1945, vol. 5 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2014), 313–14. It should be
noted that Woermann was a devoted Nazi: he was a personal friend of
Ribbentrop and also held the rank of SS colonel.
- One year after leaving Iraq, Grobba simply could not resist publishing a
ludicrously distorted, anti-British ‘manual’ on the ‘British secret service in
the orient.’ See Hans Ludwig Wegener [Fritz Grobba], Der Britische
Geheimdienst im Orient: Terror und Intrige als Mittel englischer Politik
(Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1942).
- Rundfunkpolitische Abteilung, Verbindungsmann RAM, usw., Bd. I,
Aufzeichnung betr. die Rundfunkpropaganda in dem arabischen Raum
(Rühle), dem Herrn Reichsaussenminister weisungsgemäss vorgelegt,
5. Mai 1941, R67482, AA (also quoted by Nicosia, Nazi Germany,
270).
WAR WITHIN WAR
