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Fabricated Stories About World War II Still Known by Many

Khalid Elhassan November 15, 2019 35 min

Erwin Rommel in Libya, 1941. Rare Historical Photos

31. How Vital Was the Middle East in WWII?

Another WWII “fact” that gets taken at face value has to do with Hitler’s grand designs on the Middle East. Supposedly, had the Axis won in North Africa and seized Egypt, they would have gone on to seize the rest of the Middle East and its oilfields. More importantly, they would have then gone on to outflank the Soviet Union and attack it from the south.

The concept looks good on a map, but it was unrealistic. Far from having ambitious plans for the Middle East, Hitler only got involved in North Africa in order to bail out Mussolini. In reality, the Germans kept their investment in that theater to a bare minimum, because they had greater objectives elsewhere, that had a higher claim on their resources.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.