Although initially intending to concede Italy control of the region, after that country had defected to the Allied camp in 1943 Hitler came to regard the Islamic countries and the Pan-Arab movement increasingly more as the natural ally of National Socialist Germany, as opposed to the "treacherous" Italians.[75] On 17 February 1945 in particular he explained to his entourage his regrets that Germany's prior alliance with its southern neighbor had prevented her from pursuing a more revolutionary policy towards the Arab world, which would have also allowed its exit from the British and French spheres of influence in the area:[75]