http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1423000/1423589.stm
Nazis planned Palestine subversion
By Rick Fountain at the Public Record Office, 07/05/2001
British secret intelligence files have been released in London about a
German wartime plan for subversion in Palestine, when the territory
was administered by Britain.
The plot involved parachute landings, thousands of gold coins and the
Arab Muslim leader, Mohammed Amin el-Hussaini, the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem, who was then living in exile in Berlin.
It also had the approval of Hitler's security chief, Heinrich Himmler.
But the project ended in fiasco.
Hostility
Palestine in 1944 was in a state of ferment, with the British Mandate
authorities struggling to keep the lid on violent hostility between
Arab and Jewish communities.
The Germans, on the other hand, wanted to make things a great deal
worse and planned - with the support of the Grand Mufti - to arm
Palestinian villagers and incite them to rise up against the Jews.
A small commando team of two German officers and three Arabs was
formed in Berlin in early 1944.
Their leader, Colonel Kurt Wieland, an Arabic speaker who knew
Palestine, had several meetings with the Mufti and they agreed a plan:
drop by parachute, establish a base, gather intelligence and radio it
back to Berlin; and recruit and arm Palestinian supporters with Nazi
gold.
Just how it all went wrong is documented in the transcripts of
interrogations by MI5 officers of Colonel Wieland and two of his men
who were captured.
Meddling
Before the team flew out, the Mufti's people meddled in Colonel
Wieland's careful plans, changing his equipment without telling him.
The first flight was abandoned.
Then when they were on their way, in October 1944, the pilot lost his
way and flew too high when they began their jump.
They had planned a landing north of Jericho but instead landed south,
lost their radio equipment and became separated.
Colonel Wieland and his two companions hid in an Arab village, in a
cave and a ruined monastery.
They found no support for any Arab uprising and were captured a week
later.
The other two men were never found.
