Arabian fallschirmjäger from the Sonderverband 287 riding a BMW R75 motorcycle, Balkan Peninsula, 1943. The Free Arabian Legion was a Nazi German military unit created in 1941 by Amin al-Husseini and Rashid Ali to volunteer Arabs and subsequently fight the Allies dewing the Middle East and North Africa of World War II. The primary intention, however, was to assist the Pro-Nazi revolt in Iraq, eventually suppressed by the British. The Legion started to lose terrain since the British, Australian, and French troops were gaining ground in the Middle East. In November 1943 the Legion served in Peloponnese -Greece’s main peninsula- during the Axis invasion and occupation of Greece, and later took part in the counter-attack against the Greek anti-fascist rebels.

1943, Helmuth Pirath (Bundesarchiv)