The day before Stefan and I arrived I interviewed Kamil Mruwi, a short, energetic, impatient man with a clipped and brittle manner. Mruwi was editor of the Lebanese newspaper, El Hayet.

"Now that the Jews have a State," I said, "how do you propose to defeat it?"

"The Jews' problems have just begun. The Arabs are a patient people. We will not always be in a shooting war with the Jews but we will be in a state of war with them forever. The Jews can be destroyed by a boycott of their trade. Who will buy their products? Not America, and not England. The Jews can only survive through trade and export to the Arab countries -- and Arabs will not deal with the Jews. The Jews will starve. War will come. Maybe not for five or ten years, but when it does, the Jews will be swept into the sea like a tidal wave. They will disappear like Sodom and Gomorrah. You will see."

Stefan [Carlson's Nazi companion. -S] arrived itching to spend the money the Mufti had given him.

"How about meeting those Germans you wrote me about?" I said, after greeting him.

"Yallah!"

We took a tram to the German Hospital on rue George Picot...A group of give men got off the tram and walked toward us. We shook hands. All were originally escapees from various British prisoner-of-war camps who had fought with the Arabs. I was interested in their leader, Gunther Elmar von Hardenberg, once a major in the Wehrmacht. We were soon seated together at lunch while Stefan went off with the other Nazis...

..."What is your association?" I asked.

"The Association for Christian German War Refugees. Whenever a new German comes to Beirut I screen him personally, then register him with the Beirut police as a friend of the Arab cause. The police issue an identity card and all is in order."

Von Hardenberg was in his thirties, a tall, lean, handsome man. He showed me a photograph of himself receiving a second Iron Cross. "I was against Hitler, who wanted to attack Russia at the same time as attacking the West," he said. "We militarists knew Russia better than Hitler." Von Hardenberg had succeeded in escaping to Rumania with a group of anti-Hitler Nazis and eventually was captured by the British. Sent to Palestine as a prisoner, he claimed he was given a free hand to travel among the Arab States. "We Germans have to work with somebody," he said. "We cannot work with the Americans and we do not like the Russians or French. It is possible to work with the English..."

I saw von Hardenberg many times. He told me of frequent trips that German officers were making to Beirut, and stated that they were finding positions in various Arab armies. These Germans belonged to a secret group called Deutsches Hilfskomittee for den Nahen Osten, German Aid Committee for the Near East, of which he was chairman, von Hardenberg told me.

"Is it with the Lebanese army that the Germans are finding positions?" I asked.

"No. Lebanon is not militarist."

"Then I would say it was Egypt."

"It is Syria," von Hardenberg answered. "There are already many Germans working with the Syrians as trainers and technicians."