Hitler’s Mufti

Rabbi David G. Dalin writes:

Many readers of the New York Times no doubt believe that Pope Pius XII was “Hitler’s Pope.” John Cornwell’s bestselling book told them that, and it’s been reaffirmed by Garry Wills, Daniel Goldhagen and other writers since. It’s been said so often in fact that most well-read liberals know it for a certainty. The only trouble is: it isn’t true.

Not only does it contradict the words of Holocaust survivors, the founders of Israel, and the contemporary record of the New York Times, but even John Cornwell, the originator of the phrase “Hitler’s pope,” has recanted it saying that he was wrong to have ascribed evil motives to Pius and now found it “impossible to judge” the wartime pope.

But there’s something else that has been ignored nearly all together. Precisely at the moment when Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church in Rome (and throughout Europe) was saving thousands of Jewish lives, Hitler had a cleric broadcasting from Berlin who called for the extermination of the Jews.

He was Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the viciously anti-Semitic grand mufti of Jerusalem, who resided in Berlin as a welcome guest and ally of the Nazis throughout the years of the Holocaust.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to Thomas Woods for e-mailing!)

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

13 thoughts on “Hitler’s Mufti”

  1. Oh boy oh boy! I can’t wait for my tax-funded CBC to give hours and hours of airtime interviewing Rabbi Dalin like they did Mr. Cornwell.
    I’ll start holding my breath…
    right…
    now.

  2. You know about the Muslim brigade of the SS, right? When they ran short of Aryan Nazi’s who could stomach administering the death camps, they starting signing up Muslims to gas the Jews and Poles.

  3. I recently read “Salvation is from the Jews” by Roy Shoeman. He delves into some of the history of anti-semitism starting with Nazi Germany and traces this anti-semitism into much of the Muslim world today. Many who praise Hitler and wish that he had finished what he started. Frightening!

  5. Haj Amin el-Husseini was one of the truly great scumbags on the 20th century. He’s also one of the least known. I remember my father complaining to my grandfather at Shabbat dinner once when I was a kid in the 70’s that they weren’t even teaching about him in my Hebrew school.
    And not only was Haj Amin the anti-semite’s anti-semite and one of Hitler’s best buds, but he was also more than willing to use violence and intimidation to terrorise his fellow Arabs for his own personal political gain.
    Anybody who is interested in reading more about him should get a copy of the oral history “O Jerusalem” by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre. It’s about the 1948 Arab-Israeli war (and particularly the siege of Jerusalem), but delves a great deal into the personalities involved, especially Haj Amin.
    –arthur

  6. Should we be doing this? We are not supposed to judge anyone, either as bad or good.

  7. I remember reading a book once written by a soldier in the German army on the Eastern-South Eastern front and he recalled encountering a unit of muslims trained by the SS. Can’t remember if he said they were Turks or Balkan muslims.
    (There, I’ve wasted my last few molecules of O2 in the blood stream writing that…Goodbye cruel world!)

  8. Should we be doing this? We are not supposed to judge anyone, either as bad or good.
    I don’t see anybody judging anybody.

  9. I think he was talking about this: “Haj Amin el-Husseini was one of the truly great scumbags on the 20th century.”

  10. Such a statement is graphic, but gives no indication whether the author thinks the munificent mufti should go to heaven or hell. It is merely an acknowledgment of el-Husseini’s abundant manifest grave sins. If admonishment of another’s sin is a spiritual work of mercy, then surely merely acknowledging the existence of such sins is not sinful.
    Also, Arthur is Jewish (I think), so he isn’t bound by New Covenant precepts.

  11. Yes I am Jewish (and therefore not unbiased) and yes it was a judgemental comment. But I think that anyone who does any research into the life of Haj Amin el-Husseini would come to the same judement about him, his life and his character.
    –arthur

  12. Didn’t know they recruited Muslims for the Holocaust, but am not surprised.
    They recruited Slavs — Poles, etc. — and then they pointed out these subhuman Slavs, they enjoy this filthy business.
    (Yes, Germans were supposed to find the Holocaust unpalatable. One order referred events that are repugnant to the soldiers as Germans, and on the grounds, ordered them not to gawk at them, or take pictures. . . .)

  13. Just a technicality: arabs (be they muslims or christians) are semites as well – so it would be difficult to be “anti-semitic” (although, not impossible). After all is said and done, it is wiser not to look for divisions and differences between races, ethnicities, and religions to justify any kind of discrimination (including land claims) – since we are all sketched on the same fabric. The challenge faced by our suicidal species is to progress both mentally and spiritually to a level we are no longer motivated by a “herd mentality” – an “us” vs “them” perspective is primitive if not destructive.

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