Johann von Leers
Johann von Leers, alias Omar Amin, (b. January 25, 1902 in Vietlübbe, Germany, d. March 5, 1965 in Cairo, Egypt). was an Alter Kämpfer and honorary Sturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS in Nazi Germany, where he was also a professor known for his anti-Jewish polemics.[1][2][3]
Von Leers was "one of the foremost antisemitic propagandists of the Third Reich. He hated Jews and Judaism, as well as Christianity, which he regarded as a Jewish sect."[4]
As a most important ideologues of the Third Reich, he was serving as a high-ranking propaganda ministry official. He also contributed occasionally to Palestine Grand Mufti's Barid al Sharq Nazi propaganda in Arabic publication.[5][6] Von Leers advanced the idea of a historical hostility between Islam and Judaism. The Qur'an, he claimed in an article in the propaganda journal Die Judenfrage in late 1942, described the Jews, in Von leers view, "satanic."[7]
The Mufti facilitated[8][9][10] his coming to Egypt, where he later served in the Egyptian Information Department continuing his venemous hatred, as well as an advisor to Gamal Abdel Nasser.
He published[2] for Goebbels, in Peron's Argentina, and for Nasser's Egypt. As a Nazi disciple of the Mufti, converted to Islam.[11]
See also
References
- ↑ Wegner, G. P. (2007). ‘A Propagandist of Extermination:’ Johann von Leers and the Anti‐Semitic Formation of Children in Nazi Germany. Paedagogica Historica, 43(3), 299–325. [1]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Justin Marozzi, The Nazi influence in Egypt, The Spectator, Aug 6, 2022.
Johann von Leers, a key Nazi propagandist and ideologue, honorary Sturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS and a baby-faced anti-hero of Nazis on the Nile. An acolyte of Joseph Goebbels, this was a man who dashed off 27 hate-filled books, including Jewry and Knavery, Blood and Race and Jews are Looking at You, between 1933 and the end of the war.
Having spent several years spewing out anti-Semitic propaganda in Juan Perón’s regime in Argentina, in 1956 von Leers relocated to Cairo, where he served as a political adviser and anti-Israel propagandist for Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s firebrand president, until 1965. When a Toronto Star journalist ferreted him out in his office in the ministry of national guidance in 1956, after a few nervous moments the unrepentant Nazi revealed his true self, launching into tirades against American Jews, Zionist-driven press attacks on Nasser and his uncompromising position on the new Jewish state. ‘Israel is abnormal,’ he told the newspaperman. ‘It must go. It causes trouble.’ Like several of his compatriots, he later converted to Islam, and changed his name to Omar Amin. - ↑ Edwin Black, The expulsion that backfired: When Iraq kicked out its Jews, Times of Israel, 31 May 2016.
Bent on destroying Israel, and gripped by anti-Semitism, Baghdad 'pauperized' its Jews and forced them to leave for nascent Jewish state in 1951-2. It was Iraq that suffered... Two of Goebbels’s Nazi propagandists, Alfred Zingler and Dr. Johann von Leers, became Mahmoud Saleh and Omar Amin respectively, working in the Egyptian Information Department. In 1955, Zingler and von Leers helped establish the virulently anti-Semitic Institute for the Study of Zionism in Cairo. Hans Appler, another Goebbels propagandist, became Saleh Shafar who, in 1955, became an expert for an Egyptian unit specializing in anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist hate propaganda. Erich Altern, a Gestapo agent, Himmler coordinator in Poland, and expert in Jewish affairs, became Ali Bella, working as a military instructor in training camps for Palestinian terrorists. A German newspaper estimated there were fully 2,000 Nazis working openly and under state protection in Egypt.
Franz Bartel, an assistant Gestapo chief in Katowice, Poland, became El Hussein and a member of Egypt’s Ministry of Information. Hans Becher, a Gestapo agent in Vienna, became a police instructor in Cairo. Wilhelm Boerner, a brutal Mauthausen guard, became Ali Ben Keshir, working in the Egyptian Interior Ministry and as an instructor for a Palestinian terrorist group.
Egyptian society was so enamored with the Nazi war against the Jews that a young army officer felt compelled to write a postwar letter to Hitler via the Cairo weekly, Al Musawwar, as though Hitler were still alive. “My dear Hitler,” the officer wrote. “I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart. Even if you appear to have been defeated, in reality you are the victor. You succeeded in creating dissensions between Churchill, the old man, and his allies, the Sons of Satan … Germany will be reborn in spite of the Western and Eastern powers … The West, as well as the East, will pay for her rehabilitation—whether they like it or not. Both sides will invest a great deal of money and effort in Germany in order to have her on their side, which is of great benefit to Germany … As for the past, I think you made mistakes, like too many battlefronts and the shortsightedness of [Foreign Minister Joachim von] Ribbentrop vis-a vis the experienced British diplomacy … We will not be surprised if you appear again in Germany or if a new Hitler rises up in your wake.” The letter was signed “with affection” by Col. Anwar Sadat, later president of Egypt and the first Arab leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel. - ↑ Joel Fishman, The Postwar Career of Nazi Ideologue Johann von Leers, aka Omar Amin, the “First Ranking German” in Nasser’s Egypt JCPA, July 10, 2016
- ↑ Wien, P. (2017). Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, p.252
- ↑ Motadel, D. (2014). Islam and Nazi Germany’s War. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press, p.88
- ↑ Motadel, D. (2014). Islam and Nazi Germany’s War. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press, p.66
- ↑ Ex-mufti Brought Van Leers to Egypt, German Authorities Believe, JTA, Aug 30, 1956
- ↑ Elie Conaim and Maya Karlin, Has mufti of Jerusalem earned his place in Holocaust museum exhibits, Israel Hayom, 2022.
- ↑ Lyn Julius, The Nazi-Arab alliance: A neglected aspect of Holocaust education, JPost, May 23, 2024
- ↑ Andrew G. Bostom,,
“Omar Amin” von Leers and the Islamization of Nazism, INN, Jun 10, 2019
Exclusive: How a Nazi disciple of the Mufti of Jerusalem converted to Islam and embraced the millenium-old Muslim ideology of destroying the West by Jihad.
