For nearly three-quarters of his years on the throne, however, he was the country's ruler in little more than name, as two of his uncles--Muhammad Hashim and Shah Mahmud Ghazi--effectively ran the government. The elder of the two, Muhammad Hashim, had been prime minister under King Nadir Shah, and he remained in that post until 1946, when he was succeeded by his younger brother, Shah Mahmud.
In the years immediately following the assassination of Nadir Shah, Hashim, who was described by insiders as a statesman of high personal integrity and impressive administrative ability, focused on two main objectives: building up the nation's army and developing Afghanistan's economy. To accomplish these goals, Hashim needed to attract foreign aid, but he desperately wanted to avoid any political entanglements with either Great Britain or the Soviet Union. Instead he turned to Germany, which had both an interest in the Afghan project and the technical expertise needed to get the job done. Limited amounts of foreign aid were also accepted from Italy and Japan. As a result of Hashim's powers of persuasion, Germany by the beginning of the 1940s had become Afghanistan's principal foreign partner.
As the winds ushering in World War II began to blow across Afghanistan, King Zahir Shah on August 17, 1940, issued a declaration of his country's neutrality in the conflict.
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