Afghanistan during WWII

[2RHPZ]

German intelligence service infiltrated Pashtun tribes along the Afghan-Indian borders prior to the WWII and provided then with weapons and fund with intention to organize an insurgency against Brits. Actually, in 1940 they officially asked the Afghan government for help in that matter and offered to Kabul tribal areas around Peshawar, Sindh, Kashmir, Baluchistan and West Punjab. Zahir Shah declined and in 1941, after diplomatic intervention of Moscow and London, expelled everyone with German or Italian passport. I did search on the Net for more info but nothing (relevant) comes up. I will appreciate any contribution. Thanks in advance.

2RHPZ

[Gordon]

http://stonebooks.com/history/afghanistan.shtml

I can't attest to the accuracy as it is simply a result from google, actually the first result you get if you type "afghanistan wwII" into google .. ;).

[2RHPZ]

Sorry, I´ve been tired while posting yesterday and thus not so clear as I intended. I´m looking for an exact info on ´Nazi´ Intelligence operations among Pashtuns in that time period. Maybe someone could suggests some books, I´m not sure if there is something posted online. Thanks for the link anyway, Gordon.

Regards,

2RHPZ

[James]

I don't have a whole lot of knowledge about this, nor any sources, but from what I read a bit ab out it a couple of years ago. IIRC, the Abwehr sent a couple of guys out here to attempt to start an insurgency amongst the Pashtuns, but those two guys never got farther than Kabul, where British efforts and Afghan cussedness caused them to throw up their hands in exasperation and go home.

[Kitsune]

The Abwehr...;-)

[James]

The Abwehr...;-)

Ja, ja... ;)

[James]

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-7438(198211)14%3A4%3C481%3AABTGP1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

Might be a step in the right direction. I have a subscription to www.questia.com - I'll see if I can turn anything up there.

[2RHPZ]

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-7438(198211)14%3A4%3C481%3AABTGP1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

Might be a step in the right direction. I have a subscription to www.questia.com - I'll see if I can turn anything up there.

Thanks a lot, James! That url brings me closer to the result. The book One Man against the Empire: The Faqir of Ipi and the British in Central Asia on the Eve of and during the Second World War (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0094%28198101%2916%3A1%3C183%3AOMATET%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T&size=SMALL&origin=JSTOR-reducePage) by Milan Haune described the matter a bit. At www.khyber.org is an excerpt:


Abwehr officers were despatched to Rome to contact Amanullah, and to Sweden in order to consult the last survey maps of India with Sven Hedin, the famous explorer and authority on central Asia.[65] Meanwhile, in Kabul, preparations for the full-scale uprising on the Frontier (Grossaufstand) were in full swing. The chief Abwehr agent there, Lieutenant Witzel, who under the cover-name 'Pathan' was to be in charge of contact arrangements with the Faqir of Ipi, was full of optimism. He had already started giving sabotage instructions to members of the 'Bose-Organization' in Kabul;[66] it did not occur to him at the time that the main recipient of his sabotage instructions, and indeed of most of the Axis money, was at the same time spying for the Soviets.[67]

Thus, in mid-July, shortly after Anzilotti's successful return, the impatient Germans could wait no longer. Off to Gorwekht they sent their two specially trained agents, accompanied by a dozen tribesmen carrying ammunition and money. They never reached their target, falling into a trap set up by the Afghan authorities in the Logar valley just south of Kabul. In the ensuing exchange of fire with an Afghan patrol waiting in ambush for them, Professor Manfred Oberdörffer was killed and Dr Fred Brandt wounded, the tribesmen arrested and everything confiscated. Oberdörffer was a specialist in tropical medicine and had participated in several expeditions to Africa and Asia, Brandt was a lepidopterist. Both had nonetheless been fully trained agents of the Abwehr with a very definite task to perform. The Abwehr experts in Berlin thought that if the two men posed as 'leprosy experts' and collected insects and butterflies en passant, they would appear entirely harmless and inconspicuous on the Frontier.[68] To save face in the eyes of ever watchful British and Soviet diplomats, and in order to preserve the policy of strict neutrality during the war, the Afghan government ostensibly criticized the conduct of the German Legation for their direct involvement in the Logar incident. But privately the German Minister received an apology from the Afghan Premier, who was quick to reassure him that his government, in the event of German troops approaching, was ready, as Pilger had reported to Berlin, 'to let all of Afghanistan take up arms on our side. . . about 500,000 men including the tribes'. But he begged Pilger repeatedly to abandon all such ventures like the recent incident. Such attempts were all bound to fail given German ignorance about the country and its people and given the vast British spy network.[69]

In spite of the fact that the Logar incident amply demonstrated that German intelligence was incapable of mounting even a small-scale operation in Afghanistan, let alone a major one on the Frontier, Axis activities with the Faqir through intermediaries went on for some time. Axis legations still had some money to spend. Besides, their staff had to be engaged, in the eyes of Berlin and Rome, in some meaningful activities to justify their presence in Kabul. In view of the pending Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran and, possibly, of Afghanistan, Ribbentrop in Berlin readily agreed to spend as quickly as possible the balance left over from the original sum of one million Reichsmarks in hard currency and gold, which had been earmarked for subversive activities in Afghanistan and India. About half-a-million Reichsmarks was still left unspent. This equalled about two-and-a-half million Afghan Rupees. The other half-a-million had already been brought to Kabul during 1941 before the Allied occupation of Iran by five couriers from Germany. Such funds enabled the German Legation in Kabul not only to send regular payments to the Faqir of Ipi but also to finance their schemes in India until the end of the war whereas their poor Italian partners could afford nothing of this sort.[70] However, despite receiving Axis money, the Faqir still failed to launch a 'large-scale' operation against the British which he had been promising for some time. Since 1941 Indian intelligence had been haunted by repeated rumours - which were also partly self-generated as it later transpired - about two German mechanics working with the Faqir of Ipi. They were reported to be spending their time sketching the countryside, presumably in connection with the preparation of a landing-ground for Axis warplanes, and counterfeiting Indian and Afghan banknotes.[71] By February 1943 Indian intelligence estimated that the Faqir must so far have accrued about half-a-million Afghanis paid to him through the Axis legations.[72] During that and the following year, however, the British were able to acquire a fairly accurate picture of the Faqir's strength, his gun factory and other hiding places. They were satisfied to learn that the Faqir had no wireless transmitter nor any receiver, but only a simple radio set. Nor were any Europeans in Gorwekht, nor had there been any let alone those mysterious Germans.[73] As for the notorious Faqir of Ipi, during the dramatic months of 1941 he remained in seclusion at Gorwekht, despite German intentions to induce him into action. He continued to display an intriguing unawareness of the world situation. In one of his letters to mullahs in Southern Waziristan, which came to the knowledge of Indian intelligence, the Faqir stated, while continuing to vilify the British, that no help should be given to the Germans as they were opposed to Islam.[74]

But in the following spring, symptoms of growing tribal unrest became clearly discernible in Waziristan as the Faqir persisted in his attempts to fine Wazirs engaged by the British in defence works and threatened local contractors with religious sanctions. It is important to realize that these seasonal job opportunities were the only ones available to the tribesmen, already suffering from the economic constraints imposed by the war on both sides of the Frontier.[75] In May, the Faqir besieged the fortified outpost at Datta Khel with approximately 500 tribesmen, supplemented by machine-guns and a few primitive pieces of artillery. The British sent in a relief column supported by light tanks and aircraft, but the convoy failed to reach its objective because of road blocks. Two additional infantry brigades had to be sent in and it was not until August that the road to Datta Khel could finally be opened and repaired.[76] What worried the British was not just that the Faqir had recruited a substantial number of Afghan subjects to his ranks but, even more, that the Axis legations had re-established direct contact with him - despite the fact that in the previous autumn over 200 Axis nationals had already been expelled from Afghanistan, leaving behind only a skeleton staff at both legations.[77]

Meanwhile, in August 1942, a major internal upheaval flared up in India. The Congress-inspired rebellion was not only the most important rising to occur within the entire British Empire, but within the entire United Nations coalition during the war. 'The Quit India Movement', wrote Lord Linlithgow to Churchill, was, 'by far the most serious rebellion since that of 1857, the gravity of which we have so far concealed from the world for reasons of military security.'[78] One would have expected the Axis powers, as long as they still possessed strategic initiative, to make a maximum effort to exploit the crisis in India, 'when the British position was never so weak and that of the Axis never so favourable'.[79] Since I have treated the complex reasons for German indecision elsewhere,[80] I shall confine myself to dealing with events directly relevant to our main theme.

During the August Rebellion in India the only noticeable increase in Axis activities was through their radio propaganda. But apart from broadcasting, no concrete assistance was forthcoming from the Axis. Was it conceivable at all to despatch for instance to the North-West Frontier a mixed unit of German and Italian paratroopers, supplemented with a limited number of ex-Indian prisoners-of-war who were willing to fight for the Axis? The Abwehr II had already discussed such plans in August 1941 but decided to postpone action till German troops advanced nearer to India.[81] But in the spring of 1942 there was already some uncoordinated fighting going on in western India, which had tied up British and Indian troops and thus given the Axis planners ample time to initiate some kind of direct military assistance before the August riots. As mentioned earlier, in Northern Waziristan, the Faqir of Ipi besieged Datta Khel and was appealing to the Axis for financial assistance and ammunition which could have been dropped by airplanes.[82] Further south, a fanatical sect of Hurs, dacoits from Sind, stepped up terrorist actions against railway lines, frequently interrupting traffic between Karachi, Hyderabad and Lahore, and in June martial law had to be proclaimed over the area. The atrocities committed by the Hurs during the train-wrecking continued well into the spring of 1943, when their savage leader Pir Pagaro was then finally caught and sentenced to death.[83] In addition, unprecedented landslides, following exceptional floods in Upper Sind and Baluchistan during July 1942, resulted in a further interruption of the important strategic railway lines connecting the port of Karachi, the main American base in India at the time, with the approaches to Afghanistan and the NWFP.[84] Although the train-wrecking by the Hurs had no political motivation, the German Legation in Kabul was led to believe that these actions had been directly instigated by Bose's underground organization in India, and that the Faqir of Ipi had been co-ordinating with Pir Pagaro.[85]

...the rest ... (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:5rjrH1Y349gJ:www.khyber.org/publications/021-025/faqiripi.shtml+Afghanistan+Abwehr+Pashtu+Witzel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=opera)

[2RHPZ]

A friend of mine suggests that another key words are:

- Oberleutnant Dietrich Witzel (the Abwehr attaché at Kabul)
- Operation BAJADERE
- Organization Todt

[Royal]

The Abwehr (& Brandenburg Regiment) certainly worked in Iran and what is now Pakistan. I find it difficult that they didn't cross into Herat/Farah and probably also into the area either side of the Durrand Line.

I'll have a dig through the book collection but there's nothing obvious that springs to mind - but there's a nagging thought about a Brandenburg Op.

[Gordon]

Not to sound like a wanker but I take it you didn't actually read the article I posted?

If you had you would have come to this paragraph:



By then, however, among the Organization Todt personnel in Afghanistan were a number of German operatives. In April 1940 they were joined by Hauptmann Morlock of the Abwehr who brought with him -- as part of two tons of "diplomatic baggage" -- small arms, a 20mm AA gun, and supplies of ammunition. Additional operatives arrived in July and, under cover of a research group studying leprosy, toured the Indian border and began preparations for a campaign of sabotage and insurrection. According to one account, the Abwehr operatives made contact with the Fakir of Ipi (who had waged his campaign of guerilla banditry against India in the 1930's and was during the war receiving payments from the Axis) who provided them with guides. This resulted in a brief series of operations in which a bridge was demolished, a radio station was attacked, and the commandos ventured as far as thirty kilometers inside Indian territory. According to the same source, in July the Abwehr men were trapped by a British patrol and "English paratroopers." Another source claims the Afghan government, having gotten wind of the operation, surrounded the Germans (who seem to have been betrayed by their guides), "mistakenly" shot two of them, and captured the others in an "accidental" skirmish before they reached the border. Yet another source reports the incident as "...two German 'scientists' were shot while attempting to make contact with the Faqir of Ipi on the Indian side of the border." Later, German agents attempted to foment rebellion among tribesmen along the sensitive Soviet frontier.


Which, to me, seems very much to do with Abwehr operations in Afghanistan.

After reading that I thought that Hauptmann Morlock sounded interesting and did a little google on him, which led me to this:

http://www.nexusboard.net/printthread.php?siteid=6365&threadid=297042&showpage=1&nx=3113df32def3ea01c10e9a92c4da3a81

Sure it's in German but you can get google to do a bad translation if need be.

I'm sure others with specific books and better learning on the subject than me can help you out more.

[2RHPZ]

Not to sound like a wanker but I take it you didn't actually read the article I posted?


Yes, I did but perhaps not so properly because I omitted that paragraph from unknown reasons. My fault, thanks for reminding me. Please, keep contribute to this topic if you were interested in. I´m curious if someone would dig out something more on that Op Bajadere.