While researching the topic of the Mufti's collaboration with the Nazis I stumbled upon a really embarrassing series of mistakes in Barry Rubin's and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz's Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Yale University Press, 2014).
The authors zealously struggle to pin as many crimes on the Mufti (surely an execrable Nazi collaborator) as they can get away with. One example would be the visit of an Arab delegation to Sachsenhausen in the summer of 1942, which consisted of 3 of al-Kailani's attendants and 1 attendant of the Mufti (for the details of the visit see the authors' archival references or the Nuremberg document NG-5446).
The authors even name their first chapter "From Station Z to Jerusalem", to imply that this delegation also visited the crematorium called "Station Z", which contained the shooting equipment. They also claim that at this time the gas chambers (note plural) "had just been installed" (p. 2; so they are not talking about gas vans) in the Station Z. Their source is Morsch's and Ley's book, but on p. 4 of that same book they could have read that the small gas chamber (one; not "gas chambers") was actually installed in the crematorium only in 1943, long after the visit. So much for the authors' use of source and general historical knowledge.
Worse, there's zero evidence that the delegation was anywhere near the Station Z or even knew about it. The authors themselves list the places in the camp visited by the group: "barracks, eating halls, washrooms, kitchens, and dispensary" (p. 9). What's missing from the list? Right. The crematorium. Which, due to the extremely sensitive nature of the whole affair, would have been mentioned by the RSHA man who told the Mufti's German handler Grobba about the visit. So not only there is no evidence that the group visited the Station Z, there's strong evidence against such a visit. Rubin and Schwanitz ignore this, of course, claiming all the way that Station Z was the reason for the visit.
They further write: "whether or not he personally visited the death camp on that occasion, the grand mufti..." - as if there was any suggestion at all that he visited the camp, as if the question existed in the first place and was somehow open. It isn't. The Mufti did not visit Sachsenhausen, his attendant did.
Finally, the writers correctly mention the whole affair caused a scandal in the German Foreign Office and that the "SS" (actually RSHA) promised not to make any tours for Arabs in the future. Despite this strong evidence that any such further visits were thus extremely improbable, Rubin and Schwanitz try to show the plausibility of the Mufti having visited not mere concentration camps, but some outright extermination camps including Auschwitz (even though there is no credible evidence of such a visit). And so they write on p. 164:
The authors zealously struggle to pin as many crimes on the Mufti (surely an execrable Nazi collaborator) as they can get away with. One example would be the visit of an Arab delegation to Sachsenhausen in the summer of 1942, which consisted of 3 of al-Kailani's attendants and 1 attendant of the Mufti (for the details of the visit see the authors' archival references or the Nuremberg document NG-5446).
The authors even name their first chapter "From Station Z to Jerusalem", to imply that this delegation also visited the crematorium called "Station Z", which contained the shooting equipment. They also claim that at this time the gas chambers (note plural) "had just been installed" (p. 2; so they are not talking about gas vans) in the Station Z. Their source is Morsch's and Ley's book, but on p. 4 of that same book they could have read that the small gas chamber (one; not "gas chambers") was actually installed in the crematorium only in 1943, long after the visit. So much for the authors' use of source and general historical knowledge.
Worse, there's zero evidence that the delegation was anywhere near the Station Z or even knew about it. The authors themselves list the places in the camp visited by the group: "barracks, eating halls, washrooms, kitchens, and dispensary" (p. 9). What's missing from the list? Right. The crematorium. Which, due to the extremely sensitive nature of the whole affair, would have been mentioned by the RSHA man who told the Mufti's German handler Grobba about the visit. So not only there is no evidence that the group visited the Station Z, there's strong evidence against such a visit. Rubin and Schwanitz ignore this, of course, claiming all the way that Station Z was the reason for the visit.
They further write: "whether or not he personally visited the death camp on that occasion, the grand mufti..." - as if there was any suggestion at all that he visited the camp, as if the question existed in the first place and was somehow open. It isn't. The Mufti did not visit Sachsenhausen, his attendant did.
Finally, the writers correctly mention the whole affair caused a scandal in the German Foreign Office and that the "SS" (actually RSHA) promised not to make any tours for Arabs in the future. Despite this strong evidence that any such further visits were thus extremely improbable, Rubin and Schwanitz try to show the plausibility of the Mufti having visited not mere concentration camps, but some outright extermination camps including Auschwitz (even though there is no credible evidence of such a visit). And so they write on p. 164:
