ONLY kismet could have led me to a tiny restaurant-tavern on the bank of the Barada River. The place was native, but the customers were largely non-Arab...Here I struck a friendship with Stefan Meyer, which opened strange new vistas for me. A thin, colorless youth, with watery eyes and hollow cheeks, Stefan was drinking native beer, and complaining to the proprietor in English.

...The oily one [the waiter] brought the beer. "Bring another glass, sadiqi, my friend, and join us in our toast: "To the great German people! To the great Arab people!"

When Stefan had finished his bottle and was in an expansive mood I plied him with questions. By this time I had made sure he "knew" about me: that I had been a member of the German-American Bund, an American Nazi and Jew-hater. "Now tell me about yourself," I said casually.

He had been caught by the English on a submarine off Italy and imprisoned in various camps. Finally, he and another German, a captain in the Wehrmacht, had escaped. They had been fighting with the Arabs since then. He and other Germans had fought in Katamon in Jerusalem (confirming Israeli disclosures that instructions had been found there in German). I noted that Stefan was well-dressed and smoked expensive cigarettes.

"I don't receive money from any Arabs. Someone else gives it when I need it," he said. "You will meet many Germans here. We have headquarters here and in Beirut. There are also many Yugoslav Moslems here. Some of them are living in a mosque. I will introduce you to them. Yugoslavs and Germans are everywhere in the Syrian army. Ach, we had a bloody time. These Arabs think you cn win a war by talking instead of by discipline and sacrifice."

"I've been with them. I know. Have you been hurt fighting?"

"I've just come out of the hospital. My body is still full of shrapnel. Here, feel this." Stefan rolled up his sleeve. His arm was lacerated with healing flesh wounds. "Thirty-two days in the hospital!"

"Tonight let's celebrate," I said. "Let's go to a night-club."...

...I made sure all my Arab credentials were with me before turning around. I could not make out the three men.

"We have met before in Jerusalem. Do you remember?" the voice said.

...I wose and walked over to the table cautiously. When I saw who it was, I broke out in a delighted exclamation: "Fadhil Rashid Bey, my dear brother! What are you doing here?"

It was the former military commander of Jerusalem, whom I had photographed with Moustafa. Fadhil Bey had told me I was the finest photographer in the world. "Sit down with us, please," he said.

He was on his way to Baghdad. I introduced Stefan.

"Ahh, a German. Finest of the Europeans. Let us drink to the Germans."

We raised our glasses of arak...

"Let us drink to the few good Americans like our friend here," Stefan said. "I met him only today, but he's one hundred per cent."

"I know him from Jerusalem. He's two hundred per cent -- one hundred Arab, one hundred German," Fadhil Bey put in, raising his glass.

"We leave Truman out of this toast. He's a Zionist," I said.

"Let's wish him the first place in hell," Fadhil Bey roared. "Ahh, how Hitler was misunderstood in Europe," he resumed, after the arak had scorched its way down our throats. "He was a great man, a very great man. He was an enemy of our enemies, therefore our friend. He died, unrecognized, misunderstood."

"He should have been born Moslem. Then he would have been appreciated," I said.

"Heil Hitler," Stefan burst out, sentimentally.

"A toast to the memory of the great German fuehrer," Fadhil Bey said.

"Heil Hitler!"

"May he come to rule again!"

"Heil Hitler!"

My head reeled. Where was I -- in Berlin? What year was this -- 1938? Was Hitler really dead? I recalled that the Arab with whom I was sitting had taken part in the abortive 1941 Nazi putsch in Iraq. Caught by the British, he had been imprisoned in South Africa, had escaped, and eventually had been made military commander in Jerusalem by the Grand Mufti, with whom he had conspired in Baghdad..."Heil Hitler!"