For the first time in its propaganda clashes with Egypt, the Soviet Union has referred to President Anwar Sadat’s pro-Nazi activities during World War II. Tass, the Soviet News Agency, did so in a report Jan. 24 about the opening of a museum to commemorate Field Marshal Erwin von Rommel, commander of Hitler’s Afrika Korps, at Mersa Matruh in Egypt’s western desert.
The Egyptian decision, Tass commented, was “understandable in view of the fact that the top leaders of the country do not even consider it necessary to conceal their sympathies for Hitler and his ideas.” It was also “an insult to the memory of millions of people who died in the struggle against fascism” and “an open challenge to world public opinion,” Tass added.
It was recalled that in 1942, while a junior officer in the Egyptian army, Sadat helped a Nazi spy ring in Cairo to communicate with Rommel’s
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