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Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, Islam in Europa, Revolten in Mittelost: Islamismus und Genozid von Wilhelm II. und Enver Pascha über Hitler und al-Husaini bis Arafat, Usama bin Ladin und Ahmadinejad sowie Gespräche mit Bernard Lewis [Islam in Europe, Revolts in the Middle East: Islamism and Genocide from William II and Enver Pasha through Hitler and al-Husaini up to Arafat, Osama bin Laden and Ahmadinejad as Well as Conversations with Bernard Lewis], Berlin: Trafo Wissenschaftsverlag, 2013, xii + 782 pp.
Reviewed byJoSEPH S. Spoerl
This lengthy and ambitious study mainly focuses upon the history of German policy toward the Muslim world since the late nineteenth century. The author, Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, was born in Communist East Germany in 1955 and grew up in Cairo as the son of East German diplomats. Fluent in Arabic and several European languages, his book includes extensive original research in German, American, British, Egyptian, Russian, Israeli, Serbian and French archives.
The main theme of the book is that German policy, conceived by Kaiser Wilhelm II and continued by Adolf Hitler, deliberately cultivated Islamist allies and promoted jihadist extremism in order to foment rebellions in the colonies of the Western democracies, especially Great Britain, during both world wars. Schwanitz shows that the same cadre of diplomats and academics who served the Kaiser in World War I (and coined the term "Islamism," or Islamismus in German) continued to pursue similar policies under Hitler in World War II. Some even served in the government of West Germany after 1945. Their ranks include several founders of modern Islamic studies in Germany.
The architects of this policy, including the Kaiser himself, were well aware of its potentially lethal side effects, such as the genocidal violence against the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, Germany's ally in World War I. The Kaiser and his officials were quite willing to stand by and allow the genocide of the Armenians and even to cover up for the killers. However, when jihadist xenophobia threatened to unleash a similar genocide against the Jews of Ottoman Palestine, the Kaiser and his officials intervened decisively and saved the...