Free Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World by Jeffrey Herf Page B

linguistic resource in short supply in Berlin.

    German Orientalists worked with Arab native speakers to find Arabic terms for the vocabulary of twentieth-century warfare, economics, science, culture, and technology. Though the number of Arabic speakers among the Germans was small, it was sufficient to ascertain that the on-air broadcasts corresponded to the prepared German texts. Comparison of the fraction of German originals that survived the war with English translations of the Arabic broadcasts done by Allied diplomats and intelligence agents confirms that they closely follow Foreign Ministry guidelines.7 One historian of the regime's foreign-language radio offices has written that within the broader program of foreign-language shortwave broadcasts, "the Orient Zone had absolute priority." Its staff of 80 persons broadcast programs to Arabs, Turks, Persians (Iranians), and Indians.' Joseph Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry and Joachim von Ribbentrop's Foreign Ministry competed for several years for control over the programs. In October 1941, Hitler resolved the dispute for most of the remaining war years when he gave primary responsibility to Ribbentrop and the Foreign Ministry.9
    Within the Foreign Ministry, policy toward the Middle East was developed in the Political Department's Orient Office, also called Office VII. Throughout the war its director was Wilhelm Melchers. On December 16, 1939, Melchers (1900-1971) replaced Otto von Hentig as the director of the Orient Office, remaining in that post until the end of the war. In that position he worked closely with the Orient Office in the Department of Radio Policy. He had served in the German army in 1918 and studied at the universities of Gottingen, Freiburg, Kiel, and Jena, where he received a law degree in 1923. He joined the Foreign Ministry in 1923 with a focus on international economic issues. In the 193os, he served in German embassies in Addis Ababa (1927-31) and Tokyo (1934-35). In the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, he worked in Division III dealing with Britain, the United States, and the Orient. He served in Germany's legation in Tehran from 1935 to 1937, and in Haifa from 1937 to 1939. He joined the Nazi Party on September 1,1939.10

    In coordination with Ribbentrop's office, the Orient Office established guidelines for propaganda and political strategy toward Egypt, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, India, Iran, Sudan, and Ceylon." The production of the radio broadcasts themselves was the responsibility of Office VII within the Foreign Ministry's Department of Radio Policy (Rundfunkpoli- tischeAbteilung). Kurt Munzel was the preeminent German official in that office from the beginning of the war. He became its director from 1942 onward. The budget for the entire Department of Radio Policy for 1942-43, the only year for which figures are available, was 6,653,000 reichmarks,' 2 which paid for a staff that, as of September 1,1943, had 226 employees.' 3 Kurt Georg Kiesinger, later chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1966-69), was director of the entire Department of Radio Policy from 1943 to 1945.14 The staff of the Orient Office within the Department of Radio Policy wrote and discussed German texts for broadcast primarily in Arabic, but also in Persian or Hindi, and intended for audiences in North Africa, the Middle East (Egypt to Iraq), Afghanistan, Sudan, Ceylon, Turkey, Iran, and India. The Orient Office in the Radio Department met regularly with the Orient Office in the Political Department, one that included experts on the region and officials responsible for contact with prominent Arab exiles, such as Haj Amin el-Husseini (the Germans referred to him simply as the Mufti) and Rashid Ali Kilani.15 Among the various divisions of the Foreign Ministry working on foreign-language broadcasts to Europe and indeed all over the globe, only the Russian division's staff of 51 was larger. 1 6
    Kurt Munzel (1905-82) lived in Egypt from 1929 to