Mamdouh Al-Maidani

Mamdouh Al-Maidani [ممدوح الميداني] (Mamdauh el Meidany / Mamdouh Al-Maidani) - Syrian Arab (b. 1920).

Mamdouh Al-Maidani

• Worked with Rashid Ali Al Gaylani at the pro-Nazi coup 1941, Iraq with Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and others. Escaped to France with Al Gaylani after the failure.

• In Nazi Germany linked with the Mufti and Commander Fawzi Al-Qawuqji, and cooperated with them in various fields.

• An officer in the Free Arab Legion in the German Armed Forces during World War II.

• Trained Arabs in an underground Nazi-Arab organization. His chief assistant: Akram Zuaiter (head of the Arab Section of the Nazi sabotage school in Athens during the war and responsible for briefing Nazi paratroops dropped in the Middle East). Reported June-1946.

• In a plot (attempting) to abduct Adolf Eichmann from Israeli jail.

See also

• Rashid Ali al-Gaylani
• Akram Zuaiter
• Darwish Al-Miqdadi
• Fawzi al-Qawuqji
• Muhammad 'Izzat Darwazeh
• Munif al-Husseini
• Joseph Francis (journalist)
• Fuad Saba
• Yaqub al-Ghusayn

• Nazism at Arab Palestinians

Notes

• Less known Arab-Nazi: Mamdouh Al-Maidani. Danielpipes.org. Dec 30, 2022.

• Hitler's man in Damascus: how did they plan to rescue Eichmann from the Israeli prison? D. Orbach. April 4, 2020.

The duo worked with German-speaking Syrian officers who served in the SS during World War II. They also took part in the dirty arms business with the Algerian underground, while cutting off a fat coupon. Under the command of Captain Laham and another officer, Mamdouh Al-Maidani, they gathered intelligence about Germans and Austrians who lived in Syria and Lebanon, and probably also exchanged information with agents of the BND. Journalist and amateur detective Herman Schafer, who managed to infiltrate the Nazi community in Damascus, said that every time an extradition request came against Brunner, Maidani summoned him and Rademacher to the ministry, and asked them if they were "in Syria". When they replied in the negative, struggling to stifle their laughter, Midani replied on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior that there are no such people in the country. This will be the regular Syrian answer to every extradition request for decades to come...

• The Sydney Jewish News⁩, 30 August 1946⁩.

WORKING FOR CONFLICT

On June 14th., the English 'Tribune' published a few inte resting items. They dealt with the position in Palestine, as at the time of the "escape" of the Mufti. The. following precis presents a side of the case never shown by the daily press here. Ed.

'THE MUFTI AGAIN'

It was a foregone conclusion that the ex-Mufti would disappear from France.

For almost a month beforehand important newspaper correspondents in Paris were advised by London and New York offices to watch closely for the event of the Mufti's disappearance. He had received exceptionally lenient treatment from both Britain and France.

The Palestine Government had a warrant out for his arrest in connection with the murder of the British District Commissioner of Nablus in 1937. Later he was associated with the Nazi rising in Iraq, for this his colleague Rashid Ali, was sentenced to death by the Iraq Government.

Then the Mufti went to Berlin and from there broadcast for the Nazis and travelled in the Moslem areas of Yugoslavia to recruit Moslems for the S.S. The most important implication of his escape is not his past re cord but his connection with a fairly extensive Nazi terrorist organisation operating in the Middle East, "which has come to the notice of the British Security Authorities."

'THE NAZI LEGACY'

For some time now British counter-intelligence has suspected the existence of a Nazi under ground system in the Middle East set up during the war an operating with a number of Arab collaborationists.

A group of Germans and Arabs trained at the Nazi sabotage school at Athens was parachuted into Palestine and Iraq as late as October 1944, with in structions not directly concerned with the outcome of the war but with longer-term policy. A few were caught, but the leaders with the bulk of substantial funds, escaped and disappeared.

Some weeks ago British security officials again picked up the trail which led them to Acre, where a prominent Nazi was arrested.

At the same time they uncovered, in conjunction with the Egyptian police, the organisation responsible last January for the murder of the pro-British Wafd leader, Amin Osman Pasha & for many recent bomb outrages in Cairo and Alexandria (we have heard very little here of these outrages in Egypt prior to June, Ed.)

The organisation, it was found, had been financed and run by Nazis and pro-Axis Egyptians. Its leader was an officer in the Egyptian Army.

THE 'TRAINER' OF ARABS

Our daily press a few days ago itemised a reference to the newly organised training of the Arabs by a former lawyer.

The 'Tribune' in June carried the following item:

"Attention has also been directed to an organisation which ostensibly trains volunteers to help the Palestine Arabs and which has set up a training camp in Syria.

The officer in charge of training is Mamdauh el Meidani, who escaped from France with Rashid Ali, the leader of the Iraq Rebellion, and with him sought refuge in Mecca. During the war he acted as in termediary between pro-Nazi Arabs and Germans.

His chief assistant is Akram Zeitar, head of the Arab Section of the Nazi sabotage school in Athens during the war and responsible for briefing Nazi paratroops dropped in the Middle East.

At present 150 volunteers are being trained at this camp, which has been visited by the Syrian Minister of Defence, Nabih el Amzeh, who was interned by the Allies as one of the leaders of the pro-Nazi party in Syria and a close friend of the Hitler Youth leader, Baldur von Schirach."

All the forgoing indicates how vitally important to the Jewish community in Palestine is the existence of its own defense organi sation— Haganah. Ed.

• Arab Nazis - The full story of an unfinished alliance.' By Ramy Raafat, Al-Riwaq for Publishing and Distribution. 2020.

who accompanied Rashid in his exile ... the Belgian and stayed there for about a month, and there were two Syrians with him: (Mamdouh al-Maidani) and (Jamil al-Jabi)...

• Arab horizons, Volume 1, Issues 9-12, 1976, p. 139.

And aid on behalf of them and their families, so this ship came, and I hid as a Syrian student and worked with a Syrian passport and named my name Rashid Ali). ... In Prague, when there was a Swiss consul looking after the affairs of the Syrians, I went to him with two Syrians, one of whom was named Mamdouh Al-Maidani...

• Iraqi-Saudi relations between 1914-1953

Muhammad Saeed Ahmed, Al Manhal, 2013, p. 298. [1]

He added that the second man was named Mamdouh al-Maidani. The British ambassador rose to his feet, protesting: "This is a war criminal, and he did not carry an identity card in the name of Ahmed Abdel Qader, a Syrian sheep merchant."

• Syrian Modern History's Post.

Syrian Modern History. February 8, 2020. [2]

We are pleased with the contribution of.. researcher Khaled Al-Subaie from Riyadh, about Mamdouh Al-Maydani, an officer of the Free Arab Legion in the German Armed Forces during World War II.

Mamdouh Al-Maydani | Contemporary Syrian History. Prepared by: Khaled Al-Subaie. 01.14.2020.

Captain in the Public Security - Aide to the Prime Minister of Iraq Rashid Ali al-Kilani. He was born in Damascus in the 1920s. He belongs to a Damascene family that included prominent religious scholars, including Sheikh Abu al-Khair al-Maydani. Graduated from the first preparatory school in Damascus. He participated in the strikes that brought down the administration of Bahij al-Khatib, and led several student demonstrations in 1941 during World War II. In the same year, he led the Iraqi Liberation Revolution, led by Rashid All al-Gaylani, the then Prime Minister of Iraq, against British colonialism[sic]. . Mamdouh al-Midani joined the ranks of Arab nationalist youth fighting to support the Arab Revolt. When the revolution failed and Iraq's political leaders fled to the Axis powers, some young Arabs, including Mamdouh al-.Midani, decided to accompany them to continue the struggle for Arab independence. In Germany, Mamdouh Al-Midani met with the Mufti of Palestine, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Prime Minister of Iraq, Rashid Ali Al-Kilani, and Commander Fawzi Al-Qawuqji, and cooperated with them in various fields. At the end of World War II and the fall of Germany at the hands of the Allies, the political leaders were in dire straits, no Mamdouh Al-Midani accompanied the Iraqi Prime Minister, Rashid All Al-Kilani, on a long journey to smuggle him to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he sought refuge and protection from King Abdulaziz... who prevented his extradition to Iraq or to Britain, who had sentenced Rashid All to death. After returning to Syria, Mamdouh al-Meidani was appointed to the General Security with the rank of First Lieutenant. He then became Deputy Director of the Tapline Security Office with the rank of Captain. He remained in this position until Adib al-Shishakli's coup, when he was ignored and then accepted a position collecting political information for the Second Division with a small salary under the pseudonym Ziad al-Asaad until 1969. When the Syrian authorities discovered a spy network working for West German intelligence, al-Meidani was part of it. He managed to escape to Germany, where the German Authorities granted him political asylum.

Mamdouh Al-Meidani died without knowing the date of his death, and he was buried in Germany, as mentioned by Sarni Juma .in his book (Pages from the Homeland's Notebook).