The Concept of D. Motadel on German policy Towards Muslim Peoples of the North Caucasus, 1942−1945

Russian historiography for the most part tackles the issue of Islamic dimension of Nazi Germany’s policy towards the North Caucasus as a facet of “Caucasian experiment”. Given Cold War ideological confrontation and its consequences, as well as archival data localization, research on occupied North Caucasus grew to a greater extent than one on the issues of collaborationism in the eastern units of Nazi Germany. The reverse state is typical for US, British and German historiography. David Motadel presents an attempt to overcome these obstacles and data imbalance within the framework of universal concept of Nazi Germany Islam-oriented policy. Motadel is not the first historian who defines Islam as an important element of Germany’s policy towards the North Caucasus.
Arguably, his pinpointing Islamocentrism for the conceptualization of political technologies in a wide area from North Africa to the Caucasus is a momentous supplement to present WWII Studies. This paper aims at analyzing the issue of data imbalance between Russian and non-Russian historiography, Islamocentrism in the concept of Motadel, Motadel’s assessment of Nazi policy in the North Caucasus occupied area and eastern formations. We use a thematic analysis to identify the target category of information related to the North Caucasus and Islam.