The Germans drew the line at re-establishing a Muftiat in the Crimea, lest it provided a focus for political demands, but the local ulema helped to raise recruits for the militias attached to Manstein’s 11th Army. At a conference of the Tatar Committee in Simferopol in early 1942 one of the mullahs confirmed that ‘their religion and their faith commands them to take part in this holy battle alongside the Germans’ against Bolshevism. The whole Tatar gathering rose to their feet and prayed for ‘the achievement of a speedy victory . . . as well as for the long life of the Führer, Adolf Hitler’.
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