#Germanhistorylesson
Did you know #Hitler never had any muslim countries as allies under his rule? It has been on my mind for quite some time - of around 195 countries around the world, around 70 are muslim. Hitler conquered most of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

The latter aspects are often forgotten today. But how likely was it that he never encountered a government of a majority-muslim country he could ally with?
With the political situation back then, not all that unlikely. There are around 195 countries in the world today.

But it were far less back then: Algeria was still a part of France and therefore, there was no algerian government Hitler could ally or fight (unless you're trying to be funny and count Vichy France, which was located in Algeria for a while, but had no muslim politicans).

Libya was an italian colony. Morocco was another interesting case - it was influenced by Spain and France, but had a separate government that was on the side of the allies. Syria and the Lebanon were no separate states, either, they were under control of the Vichy-Regime.

Then there were Albania and Yugoslavia. Albania was invaded by Italy in the 30's, and had no government afterwards. Yugoslavia was no muslim-majority country, but it had not had a catholic government previously either. Hitler helped to found one.

Which brings me to the real reason for writing this thread: The National Socialists could not influence what types of governments they found when conquering a country. But they could, and did, decide wether they would ally with it, create a puppet government, enforce direct rule

over the country (as they did in Poland) or even tear the country apart and try to create new governments. In Yugoslavia, whose largest ethnic groups were catholic croats, ortodox serbs and muslim bosniaks, they created a catholic and an orthodox goverment, but no muslim one.

Why? Was this a random decision, some geopolitical coincidence, because the bosniaks were the smallest of those three groups? Or did it have an ideological background? Later, when Italy joined the allies, Germany occupied Albania. Directly. There was never an attempt to create

a majority-muslim puppet goverment there, either. Algeria was factually under Axis rule since 1940, and from this country, too, I never heard of any attempt by the National Socialists to install a separate muslim-majority government there.

Even though this should have been, by some aspects, easy: Most of the people living in Algeria were muslims, and held no citizenship in France, which ruled the country. This explains in part why the algerian war of independence was so brutal. But it also brings up the question:

Why did this war not break out earlier? Why does Hitler not appear to have made any significant attempt to fuel it? The usual explanation is that he wanted to avoid a conflict with the Vichy-government he had created in France, and probably, similar considerations were behind

his decision to not attempt to create a third government with the croation and serbian governments already in conflict with each other in Yugoslavia. But it does not really explain why he founded them, but no muslim-majority country in the first place.

Or why he never tried to create a new government in Albania or to topple the government in Morocco, which was siding with the allies the whole time. It appears that his interest in the Muslim world was really limited, especially compared to the war in Eastern Europe.

This is not to say his influence on the political structure in countries like Lebanon should be underestimated. But it appears to have been more of ideological nature than as direct part of one of Hitler's plans.

The only muslim-majority government I know Hitler voiced support for was actually out of his direct sphere of influence: It was a short-lived government in Iraq, which was a british mandate at that time, and with support of the British, the Iraqis toppled it quickly.

This government had had received support of the Vichy government, which was present in the Middle East since Syria and the Lebanon were french colonies as well. With Italy, another fascist nation played a role in that area of the world as well.

It is unclear why Germany under Hitler appears to have exerted so little influence on muslim countries during the war, even on those Germany had occupied directly.
But it appears to correspond to a general tendency of the National Socialists to talk very little about Islam,

especially when compared to their frequent and extensive statements about Christianity and Judaism. It is not clear why this is the case, but it also appears to not have been debated much.