By Ursula Spuler-Stegemann
The Berlin Islamic Community was founded in Berlin in 1922 for purposes that were essentially the same as today's Islamic organizations. The idea was to promote Islam, carry out religious instruction and build a mosque. In addition, the community oversaw the establishment of a student organization. At the same time, the Ahmadi Muslims -- who are members of a special Islamic movement -- formed their own organization in Germany. From 1923 to 1925, they established a mission and built a large mosque in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf, which have since served as the center of a stable, permanent religious community. Their magazine, Moslemische Revue, or Muslim review, can be downloaded from the Internet.
When Hitler seized power in 1933, the number of Muslims in the country had risen to over 1,000, consisting primarily of students, individuals living in exile and former prisoners of war. Those who came from French and English colonies saw the Nazis as allies in the struggle against the colonial rulers. Prisoners of war and deserters from the Soviet Red Army -- including many Muslims of various nationalities -- signed up to fight as members of the Eastern Legions of the Third Reich in the hope that their home countries could break away from Moscow. As a result, the "Germanic" Waffen-SS evolved into a multinational force that even included Bosnians.
Post-War Germany and the Nazi Roots of Political Islam
Anyone closely examining the emergence of political Islamic movements in post-war Germany will inevitably come across the name of Stefan Meining. The historian and TV journalist working for southern Germany's regional Bayerischer Rundfunk network researched in archives, spoke with the last remaining witnesses and shed light on a virtually unknown chapter of contemporary German and international history. In July 2006, German public TV network ARD broadcast his documentary film, "Between the Crescent and the Swastika," which describes an unholy alliance between Islamists, Cold War hawks and former Nazis.
After the war, thousands of the Third Reich's former Muslim fighters sought refuge in the West, with many ending up in Munich, in the American zone of occupation. Thanks to their language skills and contacts back in the Soviet Union, these Muslims were recognized as a valuable prize by US, West German, Soviet and British intelligence agencies as the world geared up for the Cold War.
Meining carefully traced how this community of ex-Nazis built a mosque in Munich after founding the Mosque Construction Commission in 1960. Today, the Mosque Construction Commission goes by the name of the Islamic Society of Germany (IGD) and has become Germany's most important Muslim organization, with longstanding close links to the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical fundamentalist group based in Egypt. Meining's research has revealed that two former prominent members of the IGD are also associated with al-Qaida. "If you want to understand the structure of political Islam, you have to look at what happened in Munich," Meining told the Wall Street Journal. "Munich is the origin of a network that now reaches around the world."
Guest Workers: The New Face of Islam
The guest workers who flocked to West Germany to help rebuild the country and fuel the economic miracle made Islam a permanent part of the country's cultural landscape. Turks (from 1961), Moroccans (from 1963) and Tunisians (from 1965) were brought in as workers. Neither a stop on recruitment nor limitations on reunifying families have stemmed the influx of Muslim arrivals. More recently, these immigrants have been joined by refugees from war-torn regions like Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Bosnia. According to the German government, more than 3 million Muslims live in Germany today, and roughly 1 million of them are German citizens.
Islamic and Islamistic organizations have been established as interest groups and developed concepts for how devout Muslims can live in a non-Islamic country without neglecting, or even worse, betraying their beliefs. At first, they lobbied for prayer rooms, which were furnished as suitably as possible. Over the past few years, mosques and minarets have appeared in most large cities and in many small towns, clearly underscoring the Islamic presence in Germany. Religious communities have confidently selected names for their houses of worship like Fatih Mosque and Ayasofya Mosque, both of which are designations that recall the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Muslims have achieved a great deal and changed a number of things that many Germans once took for granted. Nowadays, there are women-only swimming days for Muslims with female supervisors, where the pool windows are draped with heavy curtains to prevent outsiders from peering inside. Crosses have been removed from many hospitals and schools, and special Islamic prayer rooms have been introduced to factories and public buildings. And there have been many other changes. Muslim parents now seek to exempt their daughters from overnight school field trips and co-ed sports classes. The question of whether public employees should be allowed to wear Islamic headscarves has been referred to the courts, along with the issue of religious studies in schools. Germany has already begun providing university education for its Muslim religious instruction teachers and imams.
It appears the quiet settling-in period has been replaced by a loud and demanding phase. This raises concerns among many Germans that the minority society may come to dominate the majority society.
After nearly 50 years, Germany's institutions still react rather helplessly to the permanent changes that have taken place in society. Self-proclaimed representatives of Islam -- many of which have been included by the German government in the German Conference on Islam to promote intercultural dialogue, despite their openly Islamistic tendencies -- have accomplished a great deal and are demanding much more. This is a distressing development for a large number of integrated Muslims, many of whom emigrated to Germany to flee precisely this type of fundamentalism. Critics of the government's approach say that it would be better to gauge concessions toward Islam to the needs and interests of these Muslims. They suggest that by bolstering the more moderate elements of Islam, it will be possible to shape a common future with their help.
Ursula Spuler-Stegemann, 68, is a professor for Islamic studies at the University of Marburg in Germany. She has written a number of books that have become standard texts about the Muslim religion in Germany.
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