a house divided, 1933–73Khan called in the German ambassador and presented him with detailed
evidence of his country’s complicity in the Turkistan uprising. When he
admitted his country’s involvement, he was ordered to leave and close the
embassy; in August 1943 all German, Italian and Japanese diplomats quit
the country and did not return until after the Second World War ended.
Afghanistan may have remained neutral in the Second World War but
during the 1930s and ’40s the ideology of Germany’s National Socialism
was regarded with sympathy by many in government. The belief in the
Aryan origins of the Pushtuns became embedded in the state’s nation-
alist discourse. Among the many claims made by the Pushtun Academy
was the assertion that the Zoroastrian Avesta and the Hindu Ve d a s were
masterpieces of ‘Pushtu’ literature, 9 while Nazi anti-Semitism fuelled
racial prejudice against those of Jewish descent, which eventually led to
the expulsion of most of Afghanistan’s Jewish population. The mythic
claim that Pushtuns were part of the Aryan master race also had devas-
tating consequences in northern Afghanistan during the era that Wazir
Muhammad Gul Khan Mohmand was Minister of Interior and the military
governor of Balkh.
Muhammad Gul Khan Mohmand’s Turkistan policyGul Khan Mohmand, as we have seen, was one of the leading promot-
ers of the state-sponsored Pushtunism. His family had also been deeply
involved in the Durrani occupation of the wilayat of Balkh for three gener-
ations. His grandfather, ‘Abd al-Karim Mohmand, took part in Muhammad
Akram Khan’s original invasion of Balkh in 1849, while his father had
been commander of the Star Fort at Dehdadi. Muhammad Gul Khan
Mohmand’s involvement with the wilayat began in the reign of Amir
’Aman Allah Khan when he was appointed governor of Balkh and after
his father died he succeeded him as commander of the Star Fort. Gul Khan
Mohmand also shared Nadir Khan’s anxiety about the possible repercus-
sions of Amir ’Aman Allah Shah’s policy of support for the basmachis and
their promotion of Turkistanian nationalism.
In 1931, following the suppression of Ibrahim Beg’s nascent inde-
pendence movement in Qataghan, Gul Mohmand made his base in
Balkh where he oversaw the pacification of the region, imprisoning or
executing basmachi le aders, supporters of Habib Allah Kalakani and local
nationalists. In an attempt to break the secessionist movement once and
for all, Gul Khan Mohmand forcibly relocated indigenous communities as
well as Turkman and Uzbek refugees from Central Asia to the Helmand,