Germany–Iran relations are the bilateral relations between Germany and Iran. Official diplomatic relations between Iran and Germany after World War II began in 1952, when Iran opened its first diplomatic mission office in Bonn. Both countries' predecessor states had maintained formal diplomatic relations since the end of the 19th century. Germany has an embassy in Tehran, which was originally established in the court of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar in October 1884 and has been in the present building since 1894.History of the embassy office building and ambassador residence Iran opened its embassy in Berlin in 1885.Background and general status of bilateral relations between Iran and Germany Germany and Iran continued to have political relations well into World War II. In December 2022, Germany said it was "suspending state incentives to promote trade with Iran due to the repression of demonstrators."
History Qajar era Unofficial relations between the German Reich and Iran date to the early 19th century. Goethe's dedication of his West-östlicher Divan (West-Eastern Divan) to Hafez in 1819 is an illustration of how far back such cultural ties go.The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany. Arthur Frank Joseph Remy. 1901. Columbia University Press. MacMillan.
During the Qajar era, with the increasing unpopularity of world powers in Persia such as Russia and United Kingdom, especially after the Treaties of Turkmenchay and Gulistan and the revolt of Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi in the Tobacco movement, many Iranian intellectuals began searching for a "third force", which could be relied upon as a potential ally: Germany, which had largely remained out of the Great Game.
When Iran's first modern university was first established, Amir Kabir preferred the hiring of Austrian and German professors for Darolfonoon.قهرمانان ملی ایران. Vol 3. عبدالرفیع حقیقت (A. Haghighat). 2004. p.77, 81 Even Nasereddin Shah supported the idea of hiring them to serve as Darolfonoon's faculty, despite political pressures towards the contrary.As quoted by J. Polak in: قهرمانان ملی ایران. Vol 3. عبدالرفیع حقیقت (A. Haghighat). 2004. p.84 In that regard, it is even written that Amir Kabir always showed interest in discussing the structural system of Germany's government and society as a model for modernizing his country.قهرمانان ملی ایران. Vol 3. عبدالرفیع حقیقت (A. Haghighat). 2004. p.78
During the Constitutionalist movement of Guilan, German soldiers were actively involved in training the popular army of Mirza Kuchak Khan.Patrick Clawson. Eternal Iran. Palgrave. 2005. Coauthored with Michael Rubin. p.48 Mirza's field commander was a German officer by the name Major Von Pashen who had joined the Jangal movement after being released from a British prison in Rasht: he was Mirza's closest ally. Another famous German agent in Iran (especially during World War I) was Wilhelm Wassmuss, nicknamed the "German Lawrence".
Among commercial treaties, one can mention the June 6th, 1873 treaty signed in Berlin between Prince Bismarck and Mirza Hussein Khan.
First Pahlavi era and Nazi Germany In 1936, the head of Reichbank and the financial mastermind of Nazi Germany travelled to Tehran and many important commercial agreements were signed between the two countries. While some authors have stated the that Iranians were classified as "pure blood Aryans" and thus were excluded from the Nuremberg Laws, and some even have claimed Hitler himself declared Iran to be an "Aryan country", David Motadel has noted this to be false; the Nazis never declared Iranians to be Aryans, although for political reasons avoided discussion concerning it — the claims originate from the author Lenczowski.Hiro, Dilip (1987). Iran Under the Ayatollahs. Routledge & Kegan Paul Inc, p. 296Keddie, Nikki R "Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution", New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006 p. 101 Iranian railways were constructed by German engineers. Railway companies were specifically ordered to avoid employing any person of Jewish descent in any of its subdivisions. Many gentile anti-Semites were preparing for the Johoudkoshan (Massacre of the Jews) and were warning Jews in the streets to leave Iran while they could. Nazi Germany had nightly broadcasts in Persian and was calling many leading Iranian politicians who had anti-German tendencies "crypto-Jews". Bahram Shahrukh, who was employed by German radio, performed fiery anti-Jewish broadcasts every night. In Purim 1941, Shahrukh promoted the idea of revenge for the massacre of the Purim in biblical times and suggested his Iranian followers attack the Jews. Nightly newspapers were distributed in Tehran and swastikas were often painted on Jewish homes and shops.
In order to fight the growing racial antisemitism among the Iranian population, many Jews and Arabs joined the Tudeh party and advocated for communism. Even though Jews comprised less than two percent of the Iranian population, almost fifty percent of the members of the Tudeh party were Jewish. The Tudeh party was the only Iranian political party to accept Jews. Most writers for publications of the party were Jewish. Furthermore, many Iranian Jews viewed communism as a Jewish movement since many leading members of the communist revolution in Russia were Jewish and were looked upon favorably by Persian Jews.
The shelling of Iran's parliament by the Russians and the signing of the 1919 treaty firmly planted the roots of suspicion against Britain and Russia. Many people were aware of Wilhelm II's speech in Damascus in 1898 calling on all Muslims to rely on him as a true friend.Sidelights on Germany. Michael A. Morrison. 1918. p.80 By the early 1930s, Reza Shah or the elder Reza Pahlavi's economic ties with Nazi Germany began worrying the Allied states. Germany's modern state and economy highly impressed the Shah, and there were hundreds of Germans involved in every aspect of the state from setting up factories to building roads, railroads and bridges.The Neglected Garden: The Politics and Ecology of Agriculture in Iran Keith Stanley McLachlan. 1988. p.40
Abdol Hossein Sardari, an Iranian junior diplomat, tried to save many Persian Jews from extermination by convincing many Nazi officials to leave them alone. Sardari was stationed in Paris at the time of the Nazi occupation. His efforts led the Nazis to issue a directive that Iranian Jews should be exempt from wearing the yellow star of David. It is said that Sardari gave out between 500 and 1,000 Iranian passports, without the consent of his superiors. His actions are believed to have saved 2,000 to 3,000 Jewish lives, as passports were issued for entire families.
In 1939, Germany provided Iran with the so-called German Scientific Library. The library contained over 7500 books selected "to convince Iranian readers... of the kinship between the National Socialist Reich and the Aryan culture of Iran".Lenczowski. 1944, p. 161 In various pro-Nazi publications, lectures, speeches, and ceremonies, parallels were drawn between the Shah and Hitler, and praises were given to the charisma and the virtue of the Führerprinzip.Rezun. 1982, p. 29
For many decades, Iran and Germany had cultivated ties, partly as a counter to the imperial ambitions of Britain and Russia (later the Soviet Union). Trading with the Germans appealed to Iran because they did not have a history of imperialism in the region, unlike the British and the Russians.
From 1939 to 1941, Iran's top foreign trade partner (nearly 50% of its total trade) was Germany, which helped Iran in opening modern sea and air communications with the rest of the world.Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. Nikki R. Keddie. Yale University Press. p.101
Demands from the Allies for the expulsion of German residents in Iran, mostly workers and diplomats, were refused by the Shah. A British embassy report in 1940, estimated that there were almost 1,000 German nationals in Iran. According to Iran's Ettelaat newspaper, there were actually 690 German nationals in Iran (out of a total of 4,630 foreigners, including 2,590 British). Jean Beaumont estimates that "probably more than 3,000" Germans actually lived in Iran, but they were believed to have a disproportionate influence because of their employment in strategic government industries and Iran's transport and communications network".
However, the Iranians also began to reduce their trade with the Germans under Allied demands.Kaveh Farrokh, Iran at War: 1500–1988, Osprey Hardcover, released 24 May 2011; . Reza Shah even though in close ties with Axis, sought to appear neutral and to keep the Allies close, which was becoming increasingly difficult with the British and Soviet demands on Iran. Many British forces were already present in Iraq as a result of the Anglo-Iraqi War earlier in 1941. Thus, British troops were stationed on the western border of Iran prior to the invasion.
In 1941, partly because of his sympathies towards Germany, the Allies forced Reza Shah to abdicate the throne to his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His followers, who refused the British occupation of Iran, such as Fazlollah Zahedi and Mohammad Hosein Airom, shared similar fates. The British believed that Zahedi was planning a mass uprising against Allies, in cooperation with Nazi forces. He was arrested and found with German weapons and correspondence from a German agent. He was flown out of the country and interned in Palestine.
Second Pahlavi era After the Second World War and the defeat of the Axis Powers, Iran incurred significant socioeconomic damage in many fields. It came under the inescapable diplomatic shadow of the United States, which reduced the chances of further deepening relations between Tehran and Bonn. Many Nazi generals and soldiers who fled the war, sought refuge in Iran, resulting in the continuation of Nazi ideologies and organizations in Iran. In commercial links, West Germany still remained well ahead of other European countries, even the United States, until 1974.
In 1972, after the visit to Tehran of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Iran and West Germany signed an economic agreement to provide for Iranian exports of oil and natural gas to Germany, with West German exports to and investments in Iran in return. However, given its huge surplus in foreign trade in 1974 and 1975, the Iranian government bought 25% of the shares of Krupp Hüttenwerke (German for smelting plants), the steel subsidiary of the German conglomerate Krupp, in September 1974. That provided the much-needed cash injection to Krupp, it also gave Iran access to German expertise to expand its steel industry. Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant was also designed and partially built by the German Kraftwerk Union of Siemens, meanwhile, an agreement was inked. Along with the agreement, a letter of intent was also signed on November 10 by which the West German firm would construct four new 1,200-megawatt nuclear power stations in Iran over the next ten years. The letter was signed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and a director of Siemens on behalf of Kraftwerk Union. The four new plants were to be built in pairs, two in Isfahan and two in the Markazi Province, probably near Saveh. The target date for the first plant to go on stream was 1984, with another plant expected to become operational in each of the following three years. Kraftwerk Union was already building two similar-sized nuclear power stations near Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, while a French consortium headed by the Creusot-Loire subsidiary Framatome was building two 900-megawatt nuclear plants along the Karun River south of Ahvaz.Iran Economic News, Volume 1
In 1975, West Germany became the second supplier of non-military goods to Iran. Valued at $404 million, West German imports amounted to nearly one-fifth of total Iranian imports.Iran Under the Ayatollahs. Dilip Hiro. 1987. p.310
Since Iranian Revolution