Posted on 02/14/2024 6:57:57 AM PST by Conservat1
»SINCE HITLER WE HAVE ADMIRED THE GERMAN PEOPLE« July 2, 1967, 1:00 p.m. • from DER SPIEGEL 28/1967
SPIEGEL: Mr. General, what happens if Israel doesn't give back the western part of your country?
NASSER: Then we have to rearm and prepare again to defend our interests. West of the Jordan River is Jordanian land. We won't give that up.
SPIEGEL: So that means...
NASSER: If Israel says no, there will be a new Korea. UN forces must then be deployed with Arab troops against Israel. If the Israelis think they can do to us Arabs what the Americans did to the Indians, they are very mistaken. We will not live in concentration camps.
SPIEGEL: And you are satisfied with the performance of the Arab armed forces, even though they lost the war so quickly and decisively?
NASSER: We have lost a battle, but not the war yet. At one point in history the Arabs fought together to retake Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Today it is very similar. If the worst comes to the worst, we are still the Saladins; King Hussein will be the Saladin of the 20th century.
SPIEGEL: Did you expect such a catastrophic defeat?
NASSER: The Israelis tried to crush our forces, but they failed. Our Jordanian troops fought heroically, especially when you consider that 86,000 Egyptians were captured in the Sinai Desert and 600 Egyptian tanks fell into enemy hands. The Israelis also admitted that we were the toughest opponents of all. No force in the world could have fought better than our army.
SPIEGEL: Then why did you lose the war?
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
“I have been to Germany and I know the opinion of the people.”
Nasser is implying that, “Hey, I know the ordinary German on the street favors us over the Jews.” And in 1967, just 22 years after the end of WW2, there was likely a fair amount of truth to his statement. The official narrative from the government and media had long been that, from the late ‘40s onward, the fever broke and the Germans very badly regretted everything to do with Nazism and Hitler. Every decent German agreed that they’d been on the wrong side in the war, and that was that. The truth, however, was more complicated. I’ve talked to friends and family members who were stationed with the U.S. military in West Germany in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and the tales they tell are of interacting with a significant segment of the German population, particularly older people, who were still very angry at the outcome of the war and badly resented the American presence there.
I can’t figure out how to get a translation.
Sure, some of the older generation were disappointed on their loss.
But what’s highlighted is that the Arabs admired Nazi Germany
Interesting.
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