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AirTalk

The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West

By AirTalk Staff
Published Jun 2, 2010
Exterior view taken on March 17, 2008 shows a mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh, western Germany, which is to be inaugurated on October 26, 2008. The mosque, with a 34-meter-high minaret is supposed to become Germany's biggest.
Exterior view taken on March 17, 2008 shows a mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh, western Germany, which is to be inaugurated on October 26, 2008. The mosque, with a 34-meter-high minaret is supposed to become Germany's biggest.
(
VOLKER HARTMANN/AFP/Getty Images
)
A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West
A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West
(
Houghton Mifflin
)
Listen 11:40
The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West
The 9/11 hijackers were Muslim but all of them had lived in Europe. How could such a radical group sink its roots into Western soil? Reporter Ian Johnson set out to discover the origins of this phenomenon and uncovered the story of a group of ex-Soviet Muslims who had defected to Germany during World War II. As that war ended and the Cold War began, West German and U.S. intelligence agents vied for control of this influential group, and at the center of the covert tug of war was a quiet mosque in Munich, radical Islam's first beachhead in the West. His book A Mosque in Munich reveals the complex history of this key group. How has the Brotherhood influenced the tenor of Western-Islamists relations?

The 9/11 hijackers were Muslim but all of them had lived in Europe. How could such a radical group sink its roots into Western soil? Reporter Ian Johnson set out to discover the origins of this phenomenon and uncovered the story of a group of ex-Soviet Muslims who had defected to Germany during World War II. As that war ended and the Cold War began, West German and U.S. intelligence agents vied for control of this influential group, and at the center of the covert tug of war was a quiet mosque in Munich, radical Islam's first beachhead in the West. His book A Mosque in Munich reveals the complex history of this key group. How has the Brotherhood influenced the tenor of Western-Islamists relations?

Guest:

Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Wall Street Journal and author of A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Houghton Mifflin)