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I'm a bit concerned about the use of a war-time American magazine (Time, 1941) as a source on a Nazi diplomat. It is likely to have a large propaganda component. For example, are we sure Grobba became a Muslim? Zerotalk07:30, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, but if they don't refer to Grobba in that respect they are not applicable. I've been meaning to look at his memoirs but I didn't get around to it yet. Zerotalk07:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a direct descendant of Fritz Grobba, I cannot confirm that he ever converted to islam, nor that he was an ardent anti-Semite. Furthermore, the bit about his name being a sort of alias created by himself is definitely wrong, as the Grobba family had been residents of Gartz/Odra for many generetions before his birth. I'd like to see the French and German sources referred to above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.185.105.9 (talk) 17:09, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, looking into this more, I'm pretty convinced that the "Arthur Borg" story was a war-time propaganda concoction. None of his serious biographers like Francis Nicosia and Wolfgang Schwanitz even bother to mention it. The story first appeared in the NYT (May 18, 1941) and was then repeated in Time and elsewhere. It was clearly intended to cause him personal trouble. For one thing, "Borg" is a common Jewish name (and that by itself should cause suspicion). Then the NYT article says that in 1918 he married a 16 year old Syrian girl who died in 1929, but in fact he married in 1925 and his wife was "a very pleasant-looking German hausfrau from Frankfort". Nor was he dark in complexion or Turkish looking, but rather he looked "like a typical German Gross industrieller, fair, plump of face and shrewd blue eyes". The NYT also got his diplomatic career completely wrong, for example missing his Afghan assignment altogether. Shortly afterwards (May 25) there was a letter in the NYT from British diplomat Archibald McDougall denying large parts of the story. Zerotalk14:12, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
More on this. The "Arthur Borg" story was apparently invented by journalist Heinz Pol, as every mention of it traces back to Pol's article in the 1941 NYT. Pol's story is loaded with gross errors, such as calling him "a son of a grocer of Altona" and major errors regarding his career (as above). Pol places the alleged name change rather vaguely to his military career, which started in 1914; other authors correct the vagueness by dating it to Grobba's military service in Turkey or Palestine (1914 or later). To see that this is simply not true, recall that Grobba earlier obtained a doctorate in law from the University of Greifswald. His dissertation, completed in 1913, has the name Fritz Grobba on it, see this catalogue (p. 69) or the library at his university. Stuff derived from Pol (which includes the Time article soon afterwards that is barely more than a reprint) should be left out as highly unreliable. I have added a reliable source that his father was a nurseryman (Gärtnereibesitzer) called Rudolf Grobba. I also found several mentions of a nurseryman called Rudolf Grobba in Gartz at that that time but we don't need that information. Zerotalk09:09, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Contrarily to the assertions in this article, it doesn't appear that Hitler and especially Himmler had an racist stance vis à vis the Arabs. The fact that Hitler did not capitalize on the arab support of nazism was due to the fact that the german missed tactical support on the ground, as opposed to the French and English ressources in colonial troops.Alexandre Rongellion (talk) 12:40, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
