Germany on the Nile

...NASSER AND THE ROCKET MAKERS Germany on the Nile By Phillip Darn CAIRO "The average german wants no more reparations, no more 'blood-guilt' aid to Israel," a German diplomat in Cairo told me the night before Egypt broke relations with Bonn...

...This incident again demonstrates that Egypt will do all in its power to stop any harmful erosion in the ranks of the mercenaries, for the country has entered a period of acute economic crisis: The five-year plan, completed this June, failed to fulfill its industrial goals...

...When the DAR refused-pointing out that Kamil already held over $1 million in advance wages-Kamil ordered 350 aircraft experts to return to Germany...

...Ironically, in this time of a revolutionary Socialist regime in Cairo, Kaiser Wilhelm's dream of establishing a German sphere of influence from the Euphrates to the Nile has come close to fulfillment...

...They live in Maadi, a suburb of Cairo infused with gemutlichkeit...

...By far the largest group of Germans has come solely to make money...

...In February, for example, the secret police arrested Wolfgang Lotz, and several others, as Israeli agents...

...All of these commitments make it most unlikely that Cairo and Bonn will, in reality, sever their connections Israel has naturally been disturbed by Egypt's reliance on German aid and advice, particularly in the military sphere...

...German schools care for their children and German churches for their souls...

...It has done everything possible (including sending bombs through the mail to German scientists in Cairo) to stop the influx of German talent and money, but so far with little success...

...The ex-Nazis live in a tight little group, sheltered from public scrutiny...

...officer serves as Maadi's Protestant minister, entertaining his congregation with trivial sermons about Coptic monasteries...

...Some of the Germans, such as those who guide the secret police and rocket production, have adopted Egyptian citizenship and will, presumably, remain here...

...Occasionally however, the government finds it useful to release them from obscurity...

...For years...

...First, experienced German officers reputedly head the bodyguard which protects Nasser...

...Last month, though, hundreds of West German aircraft experts and their families were caught in the middle of a dispute between the UAR government and its Swiss hiring firm...

...During the recent negotiations for German recognition, Israel's urgent request that Germany end the emigration of scientists to Egypt met with a polite refusal, The German government could, of course, revoke the passports of its citizens who engage in military work for a foreign power, but German leaders claim that they lack the necessary legal authority to take such an action...

...Only 80 German scientists, however, have escaped from Egypt since the beginning of May...

...A third area of German infiltration has been "The Voice of the Arabs...

...Second, ex-Gestapo men head the secret police, an extraordinarily competent organization with a touch of Teutonic efficiency quite foreign to the Egyptian mentality...

...Joachim Daumling, Dr...

...But mark my words: This is not the end...

...Such men sustain themselves with an apocalyptic vision of Israel's destruction...

...More typically, one encounters tired, middle-aged men who have resigned themselves to exile...

...Barred from departure, many of the mercenaries now live like inmates in a luxurious prison...

...In these rare public appearances, one can see some of the latent ferocity which motivates them...

...But militancy of this kind is sporadic in Cairo's German colony...

...nationalization has run its course and new capital can be produced only by drastically cutting consumption...

...One "Colonel Schroder" typifies these exiles whom history has passed over...

...Their attacks on "British imperialism" and "Zionist plots" have an even more vitriolic tone than the native Egyptian mass media, making the political functions of the Germans as indispensable to Nasser as do their purely economic contributions...

...outstanding debts have mounted to $3 billion, with little prospect of repayment...

...those who chose to leave then were allowed to go...

...The United States plays its part primarily by sending surplus food (in particular, about 60 per cent of Egypt's wheat supply...

...Gleim has been sentenced to death in absentia for his crimes as one of the Gestapo chiefs in Warsaw...

...In a way that has become familiar, Colonel Schroder ended his fulminations by bragging, "I saved many a Jew in my time...

...More Germans, especially technicians, skilled mechanics and scientists, augmented the Nazi vanguard in Egypt during the 1950s...

...Colonel Leopold Gleim (now known as Ali el Maher...

...The other 200 packed and prepared to go home, but their plans were upset when Egyptian officials told them they could not depart until replacements were provided...

...Their salaries withheld, about 150 of the workers decided to sign new contracts with the UAR, bypassing Kamil...

...now, oddly, he longs for a teaching post in America...

...Egypt's economic dependence upon Germany prohibits a genuine rupture between the two nations...

...Russia, of course, is contributing financial aid and some 800 technicians to the construction of the Aswan Dam...

...Thirty war criminals, officially described as such by the West German foreign office, guide the conventional armaments plants strung along the Nile near Helwan...

...Heinrich Willerman and Dr...

...When the technicians arrive in Egypt, they are normally assigned to work in aircraft, armaments, or other heavy industries...

...In such a situation, German aid is a necessity for Egyptian survival, and the storms which cloud Arab-German friendliness will soon pass over...

...One Englishman, recently kidnaped by the secret police, was awed not only by their knowledge of his most intimate activities and by their thoroughness (they dismantled and reassembled his car)-but also by the German accent of his interrogators...

...the colonel has found Cairo to be a safe haven...

...There is not a war in history which the Jews didn't start for their profit...

...A former S.S...

...Headed by Hassan Sayed Kamil, an Egyptian-born Swiss citizen, the firm reportedly insisted that the Nasser regime pay it a full year's advance for salaries...

...German propagandists, obviously practiced in their art, direct many of the broadcasts...

...Each, in turn, lambasted Lotz and approved the government's demand for the death sentence (he was later sentenced to life imprisonment...

...Among other feats, they credit themselves with aborting the coup which might have taken Nasser's life in August 1964...

...Yet, German-and to some degree, Nazi-influence permeates every sector of Egyptian political and economic life...

...A German Embassy official predicted that as many as 1,500 technicians, frightened by the Bonn-Cairo division might try to slip across the Gaza or Libyan borders during the coming year...

...They settle in Maadi and join "The Sporting Club," a pleasurable resort where German has become the dominant language...

...And yet, one evening when we touched on the question of Zionism, he exploded: "The Jews are everywhere...

...Attempts on both sides to invoke unrealistic Hallstein Doctrines will not alter the tradition of Arab-German relations- first established during Kaiser Wilhelm II's visit to Jerusalem in 1898...

...Perhaps 400 scientists and technicians are engaged in the most secret work of all: the construction of missiles...

...it has also created an "Egyptian-made" satellite which should go into orbit in the near future...

...German vigilance resulted in the arrest of 30 Egyptian officers, highly placed in the Army...

...Thousands of technicians have been hired by a Swiss company which promises high pay (an average of $550 a month) and other benefits (servants, housing, and sometimes a car...

...All of the men sat with their backs to the camera...

...Currently, 3,000 Germans work for the Egyptian government in one capacity or another...

...PHILLIP DORN, a new contributor, is a free-lance writer specializing in Egyptian affairs who has traveled widely in the Near East...

...Other Germans play important roles as advisors (or sometimes as actual directors) in the Helwan steel factory, the airplane industry, and in chemical plants...

...Only this discontent and an eagerness to make their fortune unites the mercenaries To their dismay, many of the Germans are now finding that repatriation to their homeland may prove difficult...

...officer Zech-Nenntwich from the Branschweig prison to Cairo...

...This assistance has brought rewards: Approximately three per cent of Germany's exports currently go to Egypt and new contracts provide $250 million for German firms undertaking further industrial projects in Egypt during the next five years...

...Sample: "He is a traitor to the highest German ideals Only the scum of the earth would consort with Zionists We must all cooperate in defending the rights of Palestinians and this, finally, entails a military solution The Zionists and their imperialist stooges must die...

...The Egyptian regime can function only by continued reliance upon German assistance...

...The morality of rocket building and of the "Palestine issue" does not concern them...

...We can do without the Arabs, but they cannot do without us...

...The mercenaries live in a restricted enclave, saving for the day of their return to Germany...

...Scientists such as Wolfgang Pilz, Josef Heisig, and Ernst Stung (who held important posts in Nazi Germany) now direct rocket production in Egypt...

...In the late 1940s prominent Nazis, most of them escaping through France, chose Egypt as a safe hiding place...

...Despite these symptoms of economic malaise, the government has announced that a push for heavy industrialization will be the focus of the next five-year plan...

...I have only contempt for the Egyptians,' one engineer told me, "I'd work for the Zionists, if they paid me enough: They grumble about the laziness and inefficiency of Egyptians (particularly about the disturbing Egyptian habit of laying off work during the afternoon...

...In the years ahead, Egypt, as the leader of the Arab nations, will rely not only on the economic services of the mercenaries but, it seems likely, on the seasoned advice of her ex-Nazis about how to keep an increasingly restive population under control...

...They work for the day when a devastating blow against the Jews, launched by German weapons, will repay them for the years of postwar humiliation...

...German technicians have explored the oil and mineral resources of Egypt, and have supervised road and bridge building...

...Their contracts bind them to remain in Egypt and the Egyptian government has been wary of issuing exit permits to those who claim that they are leaving simply for a vacation...

...It seemed that we were back in the 1930s until the Colonel added, at his most fantastic, "The Jews backed Hitler...

...The company, essentially a front for the Egyptian government, does not specify the nature of work nor the exact terms of the contract, which binds the mercenaries to a three-year term of service in Egypt, without leaving any option for an earlier termination...

...Lotz, a wealthy German, publicly confessed his espionage crimes on television, although he denied charges that he tried to assassinate German technicians with booby-trap letters At the end of the program, the government staged a "panel discussion" by German scientists...

...Perhaps representative of the younger generation in Germany, these technicians do not involve themselves in ideological questions...

...In 1956, the British-French-Israeli aggression produced, among other results, an even greater reliance in Egypt upon German personnel and machinery...

...As recently as April 1964, Die Spinne smuggled S.S...

...Finally, the director of the aircraft project, an Austrian engineer, persuaded Cairo that the 150 who preferred to remain would be sufficient to handle the job...

...Erhard's bungling and Nasser's bluffing have brought us to this pass...

...The colonel, who fought in Albania and Italy, now seems as innocuous as his current occupation: a university instructor in Middle Eastern languages...

...This group has not only provided Egypt with rockets aimed at Israel...

...Short, balding, hidden by yellow-tinted glasses, he epitomizes the retiring scholar...

...Their money runs every government...

...All signs since then, too, indicate that his forecast will hold true: Germany's influence in Egypt should prevail for years to come and, in all likelihood, it will increase...

...In fact, two days after the May 15 diplomatic break, the German official was working as usual, although his desk had been moved to the Italian Embassy...

...General Alois Moser, Dr...

...Contrary to exaggerated estimates of Communist influence, Germany is today the most important foreign power operating along the Nile...

...Germans of dubious background also operate in three important segments of the Egyptian polity...

...They were the ones who led Germany to her destruction...

...Hans Eisele, listed as a war criminal for his experiments on human victims, lives in quiet retirement, attempting to erase his memories with heavy doses of morphine...

...They speak of their disappointment about Germany's extension of its statute of limitations...

...Perhaps the most important of these Nazis is S.S...

...There, Dr...

...Portly German housewives, complaining of their difficulties with Egyptian servants, gather in sewing circles to talk of their yearning for the homeland...

...Wilhelm Voss were among the first Nazis to find shelter in Egypt, and Die Spinne (The Spider), a secret underground movement for aiding Nazis, is still active in Egypt...