Free Arabian Legion

The Free Arabian Legion (German: Legion Freies Arabien; Arabic: جيش بلاد العرب الحرة) was the collective name of several German units formed from Arab volunteers from the Middle East, notably Iraq, and North Africa during World War II.

At the beginning of April 1941, Iraqi politician Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, along with several more Iraqi officers who were part of the nationalist group Golden Square, overthrew the pro-British regime in the Kingdom of Iraq. The new pro-Nazi government sought German and Italian support for an Iraqi revolt against British forces in the country. Contact was established with the Axis powers with the help of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, a Nazi supporter who had been living in Iraq since he had fled imprisonment from Mandatory Palestine shortly before the war.^[1]

In May 1941, the Anglo-Iraqi War began with British forces entering Iraq. Adolf Hitler had agreed to send Luftwaffe squadrons to support Iraq as well as Sonderstab F, a special mission headed by Hellmuth Felmy which was to support the revolt and raise a German-led Arab brigade.
By the end of May, the Iraqi forces had been beaten by the British, and al-Husseini and al-Gaylani fled to Iran and then Germany. After the defeat, a number of Arab sympathisers were shipped out of the Middle East through French Syria and ended up in Cape Sounion, Greece.

Hellmuth Felmy had by June been given command of Army Group Southern Greece and was to continue the raising of the German-Arab units through Sonderstab F, which had now been expanded and "should be the central field office for all issues of the Arab world which affect the Wehrmacht". Consequently, the two units Sonderverband 287 and Sonderverband 288 were created. Sonderverband 288 contained only a small proportion of Arab soldiers.

However, the term Free Arabian Legion was not the name of any specific unit, but an all-encompassing name for all Arabic units in the German Army.