Comment: The Legacy of the Muslim Brotherhood and Third Reich geopolitics–before, during and AFTER World War II–looms large here.
Germans are popular in India and Pakistan, but not always for the right reasons. Many in South Asia have nothing but admiration for Adolf Hitler and still associate Germany with the Third Reich. Everyday encounters with the love of all things Nazi makes German visitors cringe.
Pakistan is the opposite of Germany. The mountains are in the north, the sea is in the south, the economic problems are in the west and the east is doing well. It’s not hard for a German living in Pakistan to get used to these differences, but one contrast is hard to stomach: Most people like Hitler.
I was recently at the hairdresser, an elderly man who doesn’t resort to electric clippers. All he has is creaky pair of scissors, a comb, an aerosol with water. He did a neat job but I wasn’t entirely happy.
I said: “I look like Hitler.”
He looked at me in the mirror, gave a satisfied smile and said: “Yes, yes, very nice.”
I decided not to challenge him, went home and tried to get rid of the strict parting he’d given me.
Embarrassing Moments
I was glad I avoided the usual Hitler conversation. Pakistanis always hone in on that topic whenever they talk to Germans. “We’re Aryans too,” they say, because there was an Indo-Germanic race, the Aryas. Besides, Hitler was a military genius, they add.
Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet about one’s German origins. It’s embarrassing because people here think they’re doing you a favor by expressing their admiration for the Nazi leader. I suspect most Indians and Pakistanis have no idea what this man did. They see him as the bold Führer who took on the British and Americans.
In the Islamic world, not just in Pakistan but right across from Iran to northern Africa, anti-Semitic sentiment of course plays a role. Conversations with German visitors rapidly turn to the injustice being suffered by the Palestinians who were robbed of their land.
The Desire to be Swallowed up by the Ground
One can try to cut such conversations short, like a German acquaintance of mine did recently. He told a taxi driver in Iran he should stop talking nonsense because he as a dark-skinned person wouldn’t have survived long in Nazi Germany. The taxi driver looked at him surprised and said: “But I’m Aryan!” . . .
Martin Borman, Nazi in Exile
Howdy D,
I’ve been a regular listener of your show since the late 1980’s on KPFK.
Love your work and want to thank you for the sacrifices you’ve made to make this extremely important information available to the public consistently for so many years. On the matter of the word “Aryan”. I once googled images of Aryan’s and found MANY thumbnails and links to sites were Persians and Pakistani’s were announcing their Aryan heritage. However, I did not see it at the time as an effort to align themselves with National Socialist. It seemed to me these links were simply showing women and men of mid-eastern descent who are considered Aryan also, as if it were anthropological. However, I did sense that in some of the sites instances there was smugness of superiority and I don’t know why.