Mission Impossible: Karl Neufeld’s Holy War Propaganda Trip to Medina (1915)

Abstract

This article deals with Karl Neufeld’s trip to Medina, undertaken in the framework of German efforts to incite insurrections with the aim of destabilizing British rule in the Muslim world. His specific task was to spread propaganda in the Hijaz and the Sudan; he made it only to Medina, from where he was expelled by the Ottoman government after a stay of six weeks. Neufeld’s diary on which this article is mainly based is the only source about how Holy War propaganda was actually disseminated. Therefore, it goes beyond the existing literature and adds new insight into the discussion of German expeditions organized to counter British influence in the Middle East during the First World War. In contrast to most of the other enterprises, Neufeld accomplished certain goals, which does not, however, change the overall picture that the “jihād made in Germany” was a failure.Materials used include files from the archive of the German Foreign Office (Politisches Archiv, Auswärtiges Amt: pa-aa), the Sudan Archive Durham (Durham University Library: sad), and narrative sources, as well as the pertinent research literature.