Islam and Germany’s War in the Soviet Borderlands,1941–5

Abstract

The article examines Germany’s policy towards Islam in the Soviet Union during the Second World War. At the height of the war, when German troops entered Muslim territories in the Crimea and the Caucasus, officials in Berlin began to see Islam as politically and strategically significant. In both areas, Nazi Germany started to promote a military alliance with the Muslim population against the Soviet Union. The article enquires into the ways in which German authorities, most notably in the Wehrmacht and the SS but also in the Ministry of the East and the Foreign Office instrumentalized religious practice, custom and iconography, as well as religious rhetoric and terminology, for political and strategic ends. It adds a crucial dimension not only to the history of the Second World War, but also to the history of the engagement of the great powers with Islam in the modern age.