Fausi al-Kawukdschi

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Fausi al-Kawukdschi (1936)

Fausi al-Kawukdschi (* 1890 in Tripoli , † July 4, 1977 ; Arabic فوزي القاوقجي Fawzi al-Qawuqdschi , DMG Fauzī al-Qāwuqǧī , also Fauzi el Kaoukji ) fought between the 1920s and 1940s as an Arab nationalist and military leader in Syria and Iraq against French and British mandate troopsand in Palestine against the armed forces of the Zionist movement .

Life

Kawukdschi was born in Tripoli in what is now Lebanon and was therefore a subject of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire . Kawukdschi came from a modest background and chose a career as an officer. After his training at the Military Academy in Istanbul, he fought in 1912 in the Italo-Turkish War in Libya. During the First World War , he served four years as an officer in the army of the Ottoman Empire. After its defeat, the British and French divided the Levant in the Sykes-Picot Agreement . He joined the French army of the Levant and attended the French military school Saint-Cyr .

In 1925 an uprising against the French mandate broke out in the newly established state of Syria and Kawukdschi joined Sultan Pasha al-Atrasch , who fought against the French. He ran over to the rebels with his unit and organized a rebellion at the location of his unit in the city of Hama . According to his own statement, he used Islamic symbols to win the population for the goals of Arab nationalism. This is what he called his resistance group in Hama Hizb Allah ( Party of God ). After the French bombarded the city, Kawukdschi left the city at the request of the local notables.

He later fought against the French colonial power in Syria during the uprising from 1925 to 1927 and against the British mandate power in the Arab uprising from 1936 to 1939. After he was exiled to Iraq , he took part in the 1941 military coup against the ruling pro-British monarch there Faisal II . The putschists were driven out by British forces, and Kawukdschi found asylum in National Socialist Germany . He married a German for the third time and subsequently worked as an officer in the Wehrmacht for Palestine. The Islamic scholar Gerhard Höpp considers him to be a relatively important figure in the National Socialists' efforts to win over the Arabs.

After the war ended in 1945, Kawukdschi stayed in Berlin and was arrested by Soviet authorities in 1946. In 1947 he was released again on the condition not to leave the Soviet zone of occupation . With French help, he came into possession of forged papers that enabled him to travel to Paris . From there he left for Beirut in February 1947 .

On October 22, 1947, in Cairo, the Arab League appointed him commander of the Arab Liberation Army, which was supposed to defend Arab population centers in Palestine against the Zionist troops perceived as a threat. He was selected primarily as a political counterweight to the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini , not because of military skills. He was nominally subordinate to the Iraqi General Ismail Safwat . His tactics during the war were aggressive but completely ineffective. He failed to win a single major battle against either Jewish paramilitaries or the Israeli army . He also made personal arrangements with an officer of the Hagana and assured him that his force of 4,000 men would not support the Grand Mufti's troops. The forces he commanded were expelled from Palestine by the Israeli army on October 30, 1948 as part of Operation Hiram .

literature

  • Bernd Philipp Schröder: Germany and the Middle East in the Second World War. Series: Studies and documents on the history of WWII. # 16. Ed. Working Group for Defense Research . Musterschmidt, Göttingen 1975 ISBN 3-7881-1416-9
  • Gerhard Höpp: Glorious interlude. Fawzi al-Qawuqji in Germany 1941 - 1947. in Peter Heine, Ed .: Al Rafidayn. Yearbook on the history and culture of modern Iraq. Volume 3. Ergon, Würzburg 1995 pp. 19-46
  • Laila Parsons: Soldiering for Arab Nationalism: Fawzi al-Qawuqji in Palestine. In: Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 36, No. 4 (summer 2007), pp. 33–48 (English), ( summary )
  • Laila Parsons: The Commander. Fawzi al-Qawuqji and the Fight for Arab Independence, 1914-1948 . Hill and Wang / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016, ISBN 978-0-8090-6712-1 .

Web links

Commons : Fawzi al-Qawuqji  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Provence: The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism , Austin 2005, pp. 95f.
  2. ↑ Michael Provence: The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism , Austin 2005, pp. 95-99.
  3. ↑ Klaus-Michael Mallmann , Martin Cüppers : Crescent and Swastika - The Third Reich, the Arabs and Palestine , Darmstadt 2006, p. 250.
  4. ↑ Fauzi el Kaoukji which nominated by the Arab League. Press photo with short message dated October 22, 1947, Getty Images website , accessed November 6, 2015
  5. ↑ Avi Shlaim : Israel and the Arab Coalition, in: Eugene L. Rodan, Avi Shlaim (Ed.): The War for Palestine , 2nd edition, Cambridge 2007, p. 82.
  6. ↑ Avi Shlaim: Israel and the Arab Coalition, in: Eugene L. Rodan, Avi Shlaim (Ed.): The War for Palestine, 2nd edition, Cambridge 2007, pp. 85f.
  7. ↑ Register under al-Kaukji: 16 mentions, also multiple pages; in the documentary section report of a major Meyer-Ricks, † February 24, 1943 in Africa, by Sonderstab P , presumably read from "Sonderstab F" of July 4, 1941, from the Federal Archives - Military Archives, about Nazi "experiences" with him in June / July 1941.
personal data
SURNAME Kawukdschi, Fausi al-
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kauokji, Fawzi Al-; Qawuqji, Fawzi al
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Arab nationalist and military leader
DATE OF BIRTH 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Tripoli (Lebanon)
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1977
Place of death Beirut