HITLER’S ARAB AGENT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21994, 20 June 1941, Page 7

HITLER’S ARAB AGENT

German “Lawrence” Mystery Man’s Career Behind the scenes of the war In Iraq, a German agent called Dr Grobba has been playing an active part. Occasionally his name has been mentioned in dispatches, but it has never been disclosed who this man is, what he has done in the past, and what he is still doing, writes Heinz Pol In the "New York Times.” Officially, Dr Grobba is German envoy at the court of Ibn Saud, the ruler of Saudi Arabia. Previously he was for many years German envoy to Iraq. But behind this official mission something altogether different is concealed. In Informed circles in Berlin, London, Oairo, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Mecca, this man is called “the German Lawrence.” It is true that he does not bear the slightest outward resemblance to his famous British predecessor of the World War period, and that his adventures have not been anywhere nearly so militant as those of the colonel; but so far as success is concerned, Grobba is not far behind the prototype. Actually his name is not Grobba, though even in Berlin this fact is known by only a few. This man, who for several years has been quietly staging a revolt in the desert against Britain, is named Arthur Borg. He generally signed himself A. Borg, which when read backward yielded the name Groba, somewhat harsh to German ears. For phonetic reasons he added another b. The idea of changing his name was suggested to him many years ago by General Ludendorff. Grobba owes his career to two entirely accidental causes. On the one hand, this son of a grocer of Altona looks like a native of North Africa or Asia Minor—deep black hair and eyes and a swarthy complexion In school, to his resentment, he was always nicknamed "the Turk.” The nickname took on curious significance when Grobba, having been taken from classroom to the barracks, was assigned to the Turkish Army in Asia Minor in the third year of the World War. He was a sergeant at the time, and his battalion leader said to him laughingly: “You’re the right man for the Turks. You look like one!" Early in 1918—he had meanwhile attained the rank of lieutenant and had been decorated with the Turkish Cross of Valour—he suffered a leg wound and was confined to the base hospital at Smyrna. By the time he was hobbling through the streets of this fabulous city, he had made the acquaintance of a 16-year-old girl from Aleppo. In the late summer of 1918. immediately before the final collapse of the Turkish front in Asia Minor, Grobba was sent to Munich to undergo special treatment for his leg. which threatened to remain stiff. He appeared there accompanied by his Arab girl. To-day he Is fond of saying of this crucial episode of his life that everything proceeded correctly, since he had been ab’e to obtain the necessary papers for the girl too. But once he told a few intimate friends that he had put her into a German Army uniform and smuggled her across the frontiers. Became Mohammedan in 1929 Nor did he, as he usually relates, become a Mohammedan in the Smyrna days in order to be able to marr., the girl. He did not embrace Islam until 1929 in Munich, after the death of the "Rose of Aleppo,” whose lungs could not stand the altitude of Southern Germany. Her death profoundly affected Grobba. He retired from all his friends, establishing contact instead with a few Mohammedans then living in Munich. He would have preferred to run off to Smyrna or Aleppo, but all was still in ferment there and he had almost no money except what his parents sent him. Nothing was left for him but the study of books on the Orient in general and Arabia in particular. He took courses at the University of Munich, went to Goettingen, thence to the Oriental Institute at Berlin and Anally back to Munich, where he passed the examination in Semitic languages with distinction. It was Ludendorff and the German Nationalist publisher Lehmann who successfully tackled the job of interesting the somewhat moody young scholar in those pan-German plans for the Arabs that had been foiled In the war. Grobba began to see the Arabs as a political factor. He learned his lesson so well that in 1928 he was called into the Bavarian Defence Ministry as a specialist. In 1930, through Ludendorff’s Intercession, he entered the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin as adviser on Asia Minor. And as early as 1931, accompanied by another specialist in his field. Captain von Matheslus, he undertook a study trip to Palestine, Syria and the He‘az. From that time on one mission succeeded another. Grobba attended the Mohammedan Congresses in Cairo in 1935, visited Ibn Saud for the first time in Mecca and lived for months as an Arab among Arabs. Organisation of Propaganda In between, he found the time to establish Arab communities in Berlin and other university cities, chiefly among the students; and it was he who persuaded Goebbels to include the announcement of hours in the Arabic language in the radio programmes broadcast from Zeesen. Geobbels was enchanted. Grobba himself delivered the first address In the Arab tongue over the Zeesen station, and a Short time afterward, early in 1936, he, together with Matheslus and a few others, departed for the Empire of Ibn Saud. This time Grobba took along a few official credentials, for on the earlier visit the distrustful Arab ruler had remained aloof. Yet it was not these documents that put Ibn Saud in a friendlier frame of mind, but a luxuriously printed volume of the Koran, bound in priceless materials. Friendship with Ibn Saud was but the first step, taken, of course, With the approval of the Berlin War Ministry and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to prepare the terrain for further conquests in Arabia. Neighbouring Iraq was of greater importance. . „ Armed with letters from Ibn Saud, Grobba appeared in Baghdad in 1937, at first only in the role of an unofficial observer. Here too, he started out with gifts. But the Ghazi was more difficult to Win over than Ibn Saud. Grobba then made a proposal that had already met with success in the case of the Ibn Saud: “You aren’t convinced that Germany to-day is stronger than ever before? Very well, send 50 young men of noble bloodmen whom you trust—to Germany to study and look around. Let them stay as many years as they wish. They will have free access to everything. Then let them report to you and your wisdom shall determine whether the Greater Arabia of the future and the Greater Germany of the future shall walk hand in hand.” The young Arabs—those sent by Ibn Saud as well as those sent by the Ghazi—were received in Germany like princes. Most returned as enthusiastic friends of Germany. The Ghazi had sent a few young officers who had taken part in the German war games and reported many military marvels. And Ibn Saud’s Intimate, young Khalid al Hud who had studied in Germany for two years, founded a German library at the court of his chief, who made him his private secretary. Shortly before the present war this secretary, on a secret mission for the King, was received by Hitler in Berchtesgaden. All this was Grobba’s work. In Iraq his position was at first very difficult, in view of the openly proBritish attitude of the government. He found entry only among the officers. In 1938. through the intermediary of the army, he had 50 Reichswehr officers invited to the Iraq manoeuvres. Most of these failed to depart, some settling as business men or engineers. Next, with Dr Goebbels’s aid, Grobba assembled a series of German research expeditions that went to Iraq. These

expeditions, too, lingered much longer than had originally been planned. In October, 1938, a few Arab bands attacked the main British pipeline from the Iraq oilfields, setting it on fire. After it was established that this was the work of German agents Baghdad got too hot for Grobba. On January 1, 1939, he was transferred to the court of Ibn Saud as envoy. Four months later the Ghazi lost his life in a mysterious automobile accident near Baghdad. Some rumours blamed the British, others the Germans. At any rate, Grobba’s German agents moved to the attack, organising anti-British riots in Mosul. The local British consul was assassinated. The feeling against him did not prevent Grobba, himself, from continuing his mission with greater energy than ever. At Hitler’s express orders he had unlimited funds at his disposal. He had established headquarters as envoy in Mecca, near which the German Government had built a great airport as a present for Ibn Saud. The envoy had three private aeroplanes and travelled all over Arabia. His agents entered French Syria, a region, by the way, where they did not have to go into deep hiding, in spite of the fact that France was at war with Germany. For years there had been a certain rivalry between Britain and France with regard to Arab policy; and to injure the British cause Grobba had always sided with France—a fact remembered in Syria. Up to the Climax But his main attention was centred on Iraq. Iraq is the core of Arabia; it holds the oil fields and pipelines that lead to Palestine by way of Trans-Jor-dania. The millions Grobba has spent in Iraq since the beginning of the war and the gifts that the German munitions and arms factories, headed by Krupps, have presented to the Iraq Army, have now borne fruit. Last January Colonel Malthesius was able to return to Baghdad from Mecca and report to Grobba that the Iraqi officers were for the most part openly antiBritish and pro-German. Another few months of thoroughgoing spadework was required—a few leading Arab personalities, who; it was expected, would take over the new government, had to be won over. Grobba arranged to meet with them in Damascus. The French administration in the Syrian capital, under the jurisdiction of Vichy, supported the plot. And then, this last April, the bombshell burst. The regent was deposed. The new Prime Minister. Raschid All, was Grobba’s creature. The first skirmish in the great battle for Arabia had been won.