relationship between Nazi Germany (1933–1945) and the leadership of the Arab world

Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world - Wikipedia
arab recruits line up in the british mandate of palestine on december 28 1940
editing file franklin d roosevelt winston churchill mohammed v and hassan ii at the casablanca conference
bundesarchiv bild 101iii alber 164 18a gro%c3%9fmufti amin al husseini heinrich himmler
heinkel he 111 in syria 1941
Relations between Nazi Germany (1933–1945) and the Arab world ranged from indifference, fear, animosity, confrontation to collaboration. In terms of confrontation, the Arab intellectual elite was very critical towards Nazism, which was … Wikipedia

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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world
Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world - Wikipedia
20 hours ago - During the war, Nazi Germany launched a massive propaganda campaign for the Arab world. This propaganda portrayed Germany as a "savior" of Arabs from colonialism, while relying heavily on anti-Jewish verses in the Quran to incite antisemitism in the region.
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DW
dw.com › en › how-nazis-courted-the-islamic-world-during-wwii › a-41358387
How Nazis courted the Islamic world during WWII
November 14, 2017 - They politicized sacred texts like the Quran as well as religious imperatives, most notably the concept of jihad, in order to foment religious violence for political ends. · From 1941 onwards, the Nazi Wehrmacht army and the paramilitary SS recruited tens of thousands of Muslims, mainly to ...
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Fathom
fathomjournal.org › book-review-nazis-islamic-antisemitism-and-the-middle-east
Fathom – Book Review | Nazis, Islamic Antisemitism and the Middle East
German Nazi agents also had friendly ties with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Brotherhood, founded in 1928, was the prototype Islamist organisation. In 1938-39 the focus of the collaboration between the two sides was Palestine. El-Husseini, while not a member of the Brotherhood, also ...
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Harvard University Press
hup.harvard.edu › books › 9780674979765
Islam and Nazi Germany’s War — Harvard University Press
Winner of the Ernst Fraenkel Prize, ... the Allies across lands largely populated by Muslims. Nazi officials saw Islam as a powerful force with the same enemies as Germany: the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Jews....
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Nazis,_Islamists,_and_the_Making_of_the_Modern_Middle_East
Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East - Wikipedia
May 26, 2025 - The authors argue that there is a high degree of similarity in the ideologies of Nazism, radical Arab nationalism, and Islamism. The book received a mixed reception, with some historians criticizing the authors' methodology and conclusions. The authors start their analysis in the nineteenth ...
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Boston University
bu.edu › historic › conference08 › Herf.pdf pdf
Nazi Germany and the Arab and Muslim World
With such considerations in mind, the Historical Society is pleased to announce that the organizing theme for 6th conference, June 5-8 2008, will be “Migration, Diaspora, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in History.” The conference will be held at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.
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Stack Exchange
skeptics.stackexchange.com › questions › 41894 › did-hitler-use-a-verse-from-the-quran-in-one-of-his-speeches
history - Did Hitler use a verse from the Quran in one of his speeches? - Skeptics Stack Exchange

The original Arabic seems to be from Surah 54,1 Al-Qamar:

The Hour has come near, and the moon has split [in two].
__Translation into English from Quran.com

What that sentence alone might mean is of course up for debate, but the claim seems to explicitly refer to using the quote as is, albeit and in all likelihood in a German version; not the meaning or interpretation of it. That makes the first part quite mundane, and the second part with the description of attributes about the moon the significant part.

In German the Koran reads:

Näher ist die Stunde (des Gerichts) gekommen, und gespalten hat sich der Mond.

Or perhaps:

  1. Die «Stunde» ist nah, und der Mond ist entzwei gespalten.

That is a sentence start that Hitler indeed loved.

Translated into German, that would render as Die Stunde naht/ ist nahe/ ist gekommen…

Of course, this is common expression in German. Yet, he had a special preference for it. And it seems equally insignificant as a special expression in the Koran or the Arabic language. To find older – and for a Catholic more fitting sources, one might consult the bible in John 12:23 or Matthew 26:45, and several more hits from the New Testament.

For that and close variations you will find many, many hits in his speeches:

Die Stunde der Auseinandersetzung mit den Novembermännern ist damit gekommen. / Die Stunde der Niederbrechung dieses Terrors kommt. / Es wird die Stunde kommen, da wir auch vor die Gräber der Gefallenen des großen Krieges hintreten und sagen werden können:…

Just to quote a few examples. As a Catholic he was also naturally prone to invoke religious imagery in his speeches, one of the better known examples:

Denn ich kann mich nicht lösen von dem Glauben an mein Volk, kann mich nicht lossagen von der Überzeugung, daß diese Nation wieder einst auferstehen wird, kann mich nicht entfernen von der Liebe zu diesem meinem Volk und hege felsenfest die Über­zeugung, daß eben doch einmal die Stunde kommt, in der die Millionen, die uns heute hassen, hinter uns stehen und mit uns dann begrüßen werden das gemeinsam geschaffene, mühsam erkämpfte, bitter erworbene neue deutsche Reich der Größe und der Ehre und der Kraft und der Herrlichkeit und der Gerechtigkeit. Amen."

__Translation: I cannot renounce the conviction that this nation will one day rise again, I cannot renounce my love for this people of mine and I firmly hold the conviction that the hour will come when the millions who hate us today will stand behind us and welcome with us the jointly created, laboriously fought, bitterly acquired new German kingdom of greatness and honour and power and glory and justice. Amen."

(February, 10, 1933)

This is however only the first part of the quote. And the examples I quoted were from way before Operation Barbarossa, or whatever we might choose to identify "when his armies rushed to Moscow."

He used that insignificant part of the quote indeed on June, 22, 1941, the day of the invasion into of the Soviet-Union (English version on Wikisource). In fact he opened his speech with it:

„Deutsches Volk! Nationalsozialisten!
Von schweren Sorgen bedrückt, zu monatelangem Schweigen verurteilt, ist nun die Stunde gekommen, in der ich endlich offen sprechen kann.

__Translation: German people! National Socialists!
Distressed by grave worries, condemned to months of silence, the time (hour) has come when I can finally speak openly.

And he continues in the same speech with it:

Damit aber ist nunmehr die Stunde gekommen, in der es notwendig wird, diesem Komplott der jüdisch-angelsächsischen Kriegsanstifter und der ebenso jüdischen Machthaber der bolschewistischen Moskauer Zentrale entgegenzutreten.

__Translation: Now, however, the time has come to oppose this plot by the Jewish Anglo-Saxon war instigators and the equally Jewish rulers of the Bolshevik Moscow headquarters.

But unlike the quote claims, this speech ends quite differently:

Die Aufgabe dieser Front ist daher nicht mehr der Schutz einzelner Länder, sondern die Sicherung Europas und damit die Rettung aller.
I habe mich deshalb heute entschlossen, das Schicksal und die Zukunft des Deutschen Reiches und unseres Volkes wieder in die Hand unserer Soldaten zu legen. Möge uns der Herrgott gerade in diesem Kampfe helfen!

__Translation: The task of this front is therefore no longer to protect individual countries, but to secure Europe and thus save everyone.
I have therefore decided today to put the fate and future of the German Reich and our people back into the hands of our soldiers.
May the Lord help us in this fight!

Quotes in German from: Max Domarus: "Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1942. Kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen.", Pamminger und Partner: Leonberg, 1988. (Availabe on archive.org[PDF-link])

Looking through all of these speeches searching for the occurence of "Mond" (moon) we find very few hits at all:

Ich bin auch kein Gymnasiast, der in einen Schulatlas Karten einzeichnet. Südamerika liegt so weit weg wie meinetwegen der Mond. Es sind das dümmste Behauptungen.
__Translation: I'm not a high school student who draws maps in a school atlas either. South America is as far away as the moon for me. These are the stupidest claims.

The background information surrounding this claim should raise doubts from the beginning. It just wouldn't make any sense to play with religious imagery from the Koran when soldiers are rushing to Moscow. It is known that Hitler had a "soft spot for Islam" whereas Himmler might have had even considerable more interest for that special book.
But the timing is quite off. So, if it were Himmler using that quote in a public speech when the Wehrmacht was rushing towards Belgrad, we would have seen some semblance of plausibility. After all the SS did recruit some Muslims into their ranks from that region.

Who is the most likely candidate for the claim? The mufti of Jerusalem is said to be "Hitler's Arab friend", but it has to be someone from Iraq the most likely person seems to be Rashid Ali al-Gaylani. Unfortunately, neither he nor his entourage where in Berlin to advise for any speeches:

On 25 August 1941, British and Soviet forces invaded Iran and removed Reza Shah from power. Gaylani then fled to German-occupied Europe.

Conclusion

Drawing together his remnant Catholic educational background, the lack of evidence for the quote as claimed, and the non-sensical construction to relate a surah, this surah – or in fact anything from the significant part of it relating to the moon – with events that pertain to the invasion of the Soviet-Union, I conclude that this "quote" is not a misunderstanding, nor a mistranslation. It is an invention.

Answer from LangLаngС on skeptics.stackexchange.com
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UTRGV Scholarworks
scholarworks.utrgv.edu › cgi › viewcontent.cgi pdf
Nazi Policies towards the Arab World and European Muslims
university of texas rio grande valley, institutional repository, faculty work, theses and dissertations, special collections & archives
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JSTOR
jstor.org › stable › j.ctt5vkz54
Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East on JSTOR
During the 1930s and 1940s, a unique and lasting political alliance was forged among Third Reich leaders, Arab nationalists, and Muslim religious authorities. F...
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ResearchGate
researchgate.net › publication › 308753622_Nazis_in_the_Middle_East_Assessing_Links_Between_Nazism_and_Islam
Nazis in the Middle East: Assessing Links Between Nazism and Islam
September 29, 2016 - Download Citation | Nazis in the Middle East: Assessing Links Between Nazism and Islam | Since the early-2000s there has been an increasing amount of research on connections between the Nazi regime and the Arab world largely spurred by... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ...
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JSTOR
jstor.org › stable › j.ctt1287gpk
Islam and Nazi Germany’s War on JSTOR
Winner of the Ernst Fraenkel Prize, Wiener HolocaustLibrary An Open Letters Monthly Best History Book of theYear A New York Post "Must-Read" In the mo...
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ISGAP
isgap.org › flashpoint › from-hitler-to-hamas-a-genealogy-of-evil
From Hitler to Hamas: A Genealogy of Evil » ISGAP
In this non-negotiable absolute we find the tie that binds Hitler to Hamas. ... Their Bible may be the Quran and not Mein Kampf, but the mental structures and world view behind their actions have striking analogies with German National Socialism. The Muslim fundamentalists—like the Nazis ...
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The Guardian
amp.theguardian.com › books › 2010 › sep › 10 › book-burning-quran-history-nazis
Book-burning: fanning the flames of hatred | Books | The Guardian
February 22, 2018 - Pastor Terry Jones's plan to burn 200 copies of the Qur'an in Florida was widely condemned. But the unique symbolism of book-burning has a long and sinister history
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Amazon
amazon.com › Nazi-Connection-Islamic-Terrorism-al-Husseini › dp › 0595289444
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini: Morse, Chuck: 9780595289448: Amazon.com: Books
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini [Morse, Chuck] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini
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Amazon
amazon.com › Islam-Nazi-Germanys-David-Motadel › dp › 0674724607
Amazon.com: Islam and Nazi Germany’s War: 9780674724600: Motadel, David: Books
A part of history rarely discussed that helps to lay the groundwork of where we are today. ... Michael Kasli. very good read · Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2019 ... Overall, a well written examination of the ties existent between the world of Islam and Nazi Germany, and to ...