Iran, World War II, and the Jews

Abstract

This article analyzes the German presence in Iran from 1928 until the Allied invasion of the country in August 1941. By 1940–41 the economic relationship between the two countries was at its height, with Germany enjoying the position of Iran's "foremost trade partner." In looking at this peak period of interaction, questions arise as to continuities and ruptures in the relationship between the two states. What was specific to the Nazi economic relationship with Iran? What were the older German-Persian economic foundations upon which Hitler's regime built and expanded? Did ideological connections primarily shape the relationship in the 1930s, or did national economic interests—as exercised by each side—dominate? After providing background on German-Iranian relations, this article argues for the importance of state economic plans as the central factor in the interwar German-Iranian relationship. It explores why Iran became a site of national socialist economic concentration in the mid-1930s and asks how the plans of Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht for the global outreach of the Nazi economy spoke to the desires of Reza Shah's Iran for national modernization. In this coming together of Schacht and Reza Shah, the state economic interests of each country were of primary importance. While not discounting the importance of Nazi ideology—and the effects of this ideology in Iran—the article asks how the ideological visions on both sides were translated into the concrete economic program of the Clearing Payments Agreement of 1935 and its support for Iranian industrialization. While Reza Shah was an admirer of Hitler's Germany he did not wish to be a puppet of the Nazi state, the symbolic effects of which were clearly marked in his interaction with Hjalmar Schacht. Instead, he used Schacht's desire for German involvement in the Iranian economy as a means to distance his state from both Britain and Russia.