D-Day: Muslime in alliierten Armeen

Hunderttausende von Muslimen kämpften in den alliierten Armeen gegen Nazi-Deutschland. 

Zu Recht ist in letzter Zeit häufiger über die Kollaboration panarabischer Politiker und solcher, die der Muslimbruderschaft nahe standen mit den Nazis geschrieben worden.

Es sollte allerdings nicht dabei in Vergessenheit geraten, wie viele Muslime auf alliierter Seite kämpften. Vor zehn Jahren, anlässlich des siebzigsten Jahrestages des D-Days erinnerte Hussein Ibish an sie:

"The majority of the French army in North Africa in 1939 and 1940 were Arabs. In the French defeat of June 1940, about 5,400 Arab soldiers were killed fighting on the Allied side, and an estimated 60,000 Algerians, 18,000 Moroccans, 12,000 Tunisians and 90,000 other Muslims were captured by the Germans. It has been estimated that 233,000 North African Muslims were serving in the Free French Army in 1944, and that about 52 per cent of all its troops killed during the final year of the war were Muslims, mostly from North Africa. Some 40,000 North Africans are estimated to have given their lives in fighting for the liberation of Europe in 1944-45. (...)

The Allied Muslim contingent from South Asia was even larger. At least half a million Indian Muslims enlisted in the British military during the conflict. At least one-third, if not more, of the British “Indian Army” that fought during the war on many fronts were Indian Muslims – a disproportionately high percentage.

Additional untold numbers were recruited from various Arab states, or among Muslims fighting in the Soviet, Chinese and other Allied armies. Exceptionally few took up arms on the Axis side. About 9,000 Palestinians, for example, joined the British Army during the war."