59
88–121. Martin Kolinsky (Britain’s War, 145–69) has done an excellent
‘dot-connecting’ job, accurately situating the operational narrative in its
strategic context. See also a thorough (but far from objective) archival
study by an Iraqi scholar: Walid Muhammad Said Hamdi, Rashid Ali al-
Gaylani and the Nationalist Movement in Iraq, 1939–1941: A Political and
Military Study of the British Campaign in Iraq and the National Revolution
of May 1941 (London: Darf, 1987), 107–62.
- The Brandenburgers (Lehrregiment Brandenburg zbV 800) were uni-
formed, in part airborne special forces, camouflaged as a ‘training regi-
ment,’ at the disposal of Admiral Canaris and Abw II, though as the war
progressed, they were deployed increasingly as conventional forces on the
Russian front. The significant talents of these multilingual, highly trained
commandos, experienced in tactical and strategic deception, and used to
operating under deep cover behind enemy lines, were thus squandered as
a blunt instrument on Germany’s ideological war of attrition against the
Soviet Union. An additional so-called training regiment, the Kurfürsters
(Lehrregiment Kurfürst zbV), spun off in April 1943 from the 5th
Battalion, Brandenburg Regiment, and placed under direct Abwehr con-
trol, was in reality not a fighting force but a training school for Abwehr
spies and other covert operatives. See Helmut Spaeter, Die Brandenburger
zbV 800: Eine deutsche Kommandotruppe (Munich: Angerer, 1982), 313.
- Ib Monthly Summary: June 1941, CICI Iraq, 1 July 1941, AIR 29/2510,
TNA; Note on German petroleum mission in Baghdad during the rebel-
lion, 21 June 1941, FO 624/26/567, TNA.
- Hansen (JOHANNSEN) was accompanied by two other Abwehr officers:
Major Arnold (MEINECKE) of Abw II acting for the OKW, and Rudolf
Roser of Abw I (Beirut). All three had apparently been sent to ascertain
whether the mission had been successful, and to assess whether any future
operations might be feasible. Having determined that there was no chance
of success, they instructed Grobba to withdraw immediately. Schröder,
Deutschland, 134n287; Schröder, Irak, 87n150; Kohlhaas, Hitler-
Abenteuer, 93–9. About Roser, see Götz Nordbruch, Nazism in Syria and
Lebanon: The Ambivalence of the German Option, 1933–1945 (London:
Routledge, 2009).
- Kohlhaas, Hitler-Abenteuer, 100–7; Eichholtz, War for Oil, 53–7.
- Details of the Luftwaffe deployment are to be found in ‘Status of military
aid to Iraq’ (no. 528), 16 May 1941, DGFP, 833–5.
- The desperate search for fuel is illustrated by a frantic cable sent by the
GFO to their minister in Tehran urging him to procure fuel from the
Persian government. All requests were denied by the Shah. See Ritter to
Ettel, no. 541, 22 May 1941, DGFP, 853.
WAR WITHIN WAR
