Drinking Hitler: a bizarre Nazi legacy in Beirut?

Hitler (third from top), a combination of strawberries, mango, pineapple, vanilla ice-cream, almonds, and pistachios, displayed on the Barbar desert menu. Hamra, 05/03/13.

Approaching the counter I leaf through the notes in my pocket. Yes, I have just enough.

“One Hitler, please.”

“Big or Regular,” responds the zalame (guy) behind the counter casually.

As I intimate that today it will just be a regular, a fellow customer turns to me having overheard the order.

“Hitler? I haven’t tried that? Is it good?…”

Up close and personal: Barbar's Hitler.
05/03/13.

At Barbar, the famous Lebanese fast food joint – that has seemingly taken over an entire street in Hamra – it is indeed possible to taste the Fuhrer, or at least a fruity approximation. Composed of strawberry, mango, pineapple, vanilla ice cream, almonds, and pistachios the “Hitler” stands proud on the Barbar dessert menu flanked by all-together more frivolous sounding offerings such as the Aloha, Tahiti, and Miami. Although  “Napoleon”, “Mandela,” and a misspelled “Noreaga” are also on offer (BeirutstateofMind highly recommends the “Mandela”) nothing quite compares to the Hitler.

Initially I believed that the Hitler was a Barbar exclusive however upon further enquiry it was discovered that a number of juiceries around Beirut were formerly purveyors of the dessert. These included “Bliss House”, a local hangout for AUB students located within easy walking distance of the Hamra branch of Barbar. Having gleaned this information from a Barbar employee, I hastily devoured Barbar’s Hitler before heading to Bliss House for round two.

Bliss House's Hitler, available "taht a-tawle" (under the table)
05/03/13.

Upon arrival there was no sign of Hitler on the menu (Churchill was however on offer). Initial enquiries as to whether such a concoction was available were met with blank stares by the young men behind the ice-cream counter.  Unsure whether to feel happy or sad that Hitler was no longer on offer I turned to leave only for my path to be blocked by an older, more grizzled employee.

“You want a Hitler. Tayeb. No problem. We still make it. We just don’t put it on the menu anymore. We had some complaints from university students,” the employee said with a nod to the AUB campus located just across the road. And just like that I had my second Hitler of the day, albeit “taht a-tawle” (under the table). Made with the same set of ingredients as that on offer at Barbar this Hitler proved too much and I was forced to abandon it with a third remaining. I left feeling very full – of evil. I never thought Hitler could induce a sugar coma.

A Kata'eb (Phalange) party memorial in Rmeil, Ashrafiyeh. February 2013.

BeirutStateofMind does not, per se, object to the existence of a syrupy sweet dessert called Hitler, although one is quite intrigued as to how its ingredients were decided upon. In recent years with films such as “Inglorious Bastards” and “Dead Snow” (— in which a group of vacationing friends are attacked by Nazi zombies) the Nazis have increasingly been satirized in popular culture. If one feels so inclined perhaps Barbar’s Hitler can be seen in the same light…

Perhaps not. However the presence of Nazi symbolism or even an admiration for Hitler and the Nazi’s seemingly located in other dimensions of Lebanese society is perhaps more perplexing. But first a bit of historical context...

It is an often referenced fact that Pierre Gemayel, founder of the Kataeb (Phalange) party, was influenced by the Nazis in addition to the Italian Phalange, and Spanish Fascists. Speaking of his experience of the 1936 Berlin Olympics in an interview with Robert Fisk Gemayel famously said:

 “We went to the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin. And I saw then the discipline and order. And I said to myself. Why can't we do the same thing in Lebanon?" So when we came back to Lebanon, we created this youth movement. When I was in Berlin then, Nazism did not have the reputation which it has now...In their system, I saw discipline. And we in the Middle East, we need discipline more than anything else."

Michel Aflaq (left), and Zaki al-Arsuzi (right).
 Founders of the Syrian Baath party.

As a dominant ideology at the time Nazism, and Fascism in general, exacted a considerable influence on Arab nationalist thought in the 1930’s and 40. To pick one example:

Zaki Al-Arsusi and Sami Al-Jundi, founding members of the Baath party acknowledged the influence of Nazism on Baath ideology – a topic covered in some detail by Moshe Maoz in a 2005 paper titled “Arab-Jewish Relations: From Conflict to Resolution?”. Party members read Nazi literature such as “The Foundation of the Nineteenth Century” and planned to translate “Mein Kampf” into Arabic. Whilst Maoz contends that the only copy of “The Myth of the Twentieth Century” in Damascus was owned by Michel Aflaq.

This influence should be understood within the historical and geo-political realities of the era ( – the 1930’s and early 40’s). At the time Arab states were struggling both to release themselves from the shackles of British and French colonial rule and for self-definition in the aftermath of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire; whilst the state of Israel was beginning to take shape at an increasingly alarming pace. Within this context many identified Nazi Germany as a potential ally - as the saying goes, an enemy’s enemy is a friend. For example, following the Nazi defeat of the French army in 1940 banners were reportedly displayed in many Syrian towns that read: "In heaven God is your ruler, on earth Hitler."1

Haj Amin Al-Husseini, former Mufti of Jerusalem pictured in a meeting
with Hitler in Germany in 1941.

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini (who spent a period of time in Lebanon following his forced flight from Jerusalem in 1937), was once referred to by Hitler himself as the "Fuhrer of the Arab World" and frequently sought Nazi support in his opposition to the burgeoning Jewish population in Palestine.

Following his exile al-Husseini played an influential role in the 1941 Pro-Axis coup that saw the rise to power of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani in place of the British backed Hashemite government in Iraq.

Husseini's story is really something fit for Hollywood.

Following his issuing of a fatwa in 1941 calling on all Muslim's to support the new government in Iraq he became a marked man in the eyes of the British. The Churchill administration itself purportedly sponsored a mission led by David Raziel, leader of the rightwing Irgun party (a predecessor of today's Likud) to assassinate the mufti. The mission failed, and the mufti, aware of the threat to his life, apparently fled to Europe and specifically Germany dressed as a woman.

Other notable figures that sought the council of the Third Reich included the Saudi ruler Ibn Saud. Such council took place in spite of the fact that:

(a) Within the Nazi schema of history, Arabs, grouped under the racial category of "Semites", were viewed as racially inferior.

() Hitler had in fact incited European Jews into exile in Palestine under the 1933 Haavara agreement, bypassing British restrictions on Jewish immigration in order to do so.

A Syrian labourer takes a break from work overshadowed by a Swastika. Geitawi, Ashrafiyeh. February, 2013.

A swastika on display in Saida's souq.
February 2013.

Today in Lebanon swastikas can be found tagged on the walls of Kata'eb dominated areas in Ashrafiyeh, but also in Bsharre (home of the Lebanese Forces), and Saida (a mainly Future Movement area). 

During previous World and European cups swastikas have even been photo-shopped into posters expressing support for the German national football team, for example in Bourj Hamoud. It is perhaps most ironic that the majority of these tags are found in the areas of a party that aligned with Israel during the Lebanese Civil War.

 Whilst such imagery can be dismissed as representative of the ideology of a small minority, or even put down to ignorance, Najwa Karam’s bizarre, seeming display of admiration for Hitler, on primetime Lebanese TV last summer was a real humdinger.

Karam, a mutli-platinum, award winning recording artist, and well, until shortly after this episode one of the faces of L’Oreal in the Middle East, appeared on the MTV show “Talk of the Town”.

A swastika on display in Bsharre, February 2013.

 In response to a question in which she was asked to choose characteristics from famous men that would make up her ideal man Karam's first response was that she would choose Hitler for his charisma and speech-making abilities. That no one in the audience seemed particularly bothered by the answer, coupled with the fact that she then proceeded to marry Hitler's charisma with Richard Gere's looks, Al Pacino's "street-smart" and Shakespeare's romanticism merely added to the sheer ludicrousy of the occasion.

Viewing Karam's revelation, coupled with the Hitler cocktail on offer at Barbar as troubling permeations of/or a lack of objection to Nazism in mainstream Lebanese popular culture, that in turn hint at something deeply troubling about Lebanese society is perhaps a little far-fetched.

The swastika tags are perhaps more worrying. What seems clear is that whether combined with Richard Gere and Al Pacino, or in the form of a dessert, the legacy of Hitler and the Nazi's in the Middle East is more complicated than one may first think. 

I'm off to Barbar. Najwa's waiting...