The German army during WW2 is generally pictured with men like this, or this. White
Europeans that either volunteered or were forced to fight a war based on bigotry and propaganda.
Many, following those believes/ Yet, upon digging, photos such as this,
or this. Can be found. Arabian and African members within the Werhmatch.
This is the tale of the Free Arabian Army. The Arabs and Africans, of Hitlers Reich.
'41 and ask for assistance from both the Germans and the Italians, which would include a German
led Arab army to fight in the middle east, but the British invasion shortly after the coup, prevented
these plans from being put into motion. I already have a video talking about the British invasion of
Iraq that you can watch by clicking on the card here or following the link in the description.
The war would be failure, but a section of men that were de-facto allied with the Germans at
this point, and many would make their escape first to French Syria, then to Cape Sounion, Greece.
Hellmuth Felmy, commander of Army Group Southern Greece, was left to the task of
raising these men into a fighting force. Thus, the Arabians that had fled from the Middle East
and French Africans who had been captured, would form and be dubbed as Sonderstab F,
or 287, with a second unit Sonderstab G or 288. Both created in August of 1942.
Now, many would imagine that the race issue would be a major point of contention with
the German high command, but, even with the extremely racial propaganda campaign,
they were in need of all men that they could get, and the race issue was largely ignored, with them
given a simple patch, to denote members of the legion. German officers assigned to the unit,
would comment that they didn't view the men as competent in their fighting prowess however,
regarding them as able to do little more then rearguard duties.
The men themselves, had a multitude of reasons for joining, some wanted steady work and pay,
others joined who they believed would be the winning side, joined the Germans as a way to
fight against a common enemy, shared similar ideological believes, among many others.
While most of the legion would be used for anti-partisan activity,
the third battalion would assist the German invasion into the caucuses, with the goal of
establishing an Iraqi government in Exile as the Germans continued their advance across the range,
but of course, that didn't occur due to heavy German setbacks against the Soviets.
Instead, the third battalion would be sent to fight in Tunisia in early 1943 where they
were used primarily as a recruitment tool for local Arabs, and manged to get enough recruits,
that a rear battalion would be formed of these recruits. However, the whole unit would be
captured, along with the vast majority of the Axis African army, in May of 43.
The same month, some of the original Legion third battalion, and men from French Africa, would be
formed into Battalion 845, seeing action against partisans in the Peloponnese region of Greece.
In October '44 it was withdrawn from Greece into Yugoslavia and was strengthened by additional
Arab volunteers. This Battalion, would end the war near Zagreb as part of the 104th J ger Division.
The 1st and 2nd battalions of the Arabian Legion would largely be used to replace combat losses,
before being administered and combined to form the 92nd Grenadier Regiment in June of '44,
fighting against Yugoslav partisans. They would suffer heavy losses while
fighting near Belgrade in October, and be pulled from the front by January of 45.
Disappearing in Austria, as the chaos of the German collapse covered their tracks.