Irano-German relations
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| Iran | Germany |
The relations between Germany and Iran have been some of the closest between any western nation and post-1979 Iran.
Yet even before 1979, especially during and before the first Pahlavi era, Iran and Germany had modest, and yet some of the most cordial relations between any European nation and Iran.
Goethe dedication of his West-östlicher Divan (West-Eastern Divan) to Hafez in 1819 is the starting point of Irano-German relations. The ongoing diplomatic relations between the two officially began in 1952 when Iran opened its first mission office in Germany.
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[edit] History of relations
[edit] Before 1979
During the Qajar era, with the growing unpopularity of colonial powers in Iran such as Russia and Great Britain, especially after the treaties of Turkmanchai and Gulistan, and the revolt of Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi in the Tobacco movement of Iran, many Iranian intellectuals began searching for a "third force" that could be relied upon as a potential ally.
Germany came up as a candidate by the end of the 19th century. During the Constitutionalist movement of Guilan, German soldiers were actively involved in training the popular army of Mirza Kuchak Khan. The most famous German agent in Persia (especially during World War I) was Wilhelm Wassmuss, nicknamed the "German Lawrence".[1]
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. By the early 1930s, Reza Pahlavi openly began advocating ties with Nazi Germany [1]. There were hundreds of Germans involved in every aspect of the state, from setting up factories to building roads, railroads and bridges. Relations between Berlin and Tehran were strong from the moment Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, when Reza Shah Pahlavi's nation was still known as Persia.
The Shah became a stalwart admirer of Hitler and the concept of the Aryan master race. He also sought the Nazis' help in reducing British petro-political domination [2].
So intense was the Shah's identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he renamed his ancient country Iran, which in Persian means 'Land of the Aryans' and refers to the Proto-Indo-European lineage that Nazi racial theorists and Persian ethnologists cherished [3]. Although the land has been known as Iran to the native people themselves for many centuries, Westerners came to know the nation as Persia through Ancient Greek accounts.
The idea for the name change was suggested by Iran's ambassador to Germany, who came under the influence of Hitler's trusted banker Hjalmar Schacht (Edwin Black, Banking on Baghdad).
In 1941, the Allies forced Reza Shah to abdicate the throne to his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His pro-Nazi followers in the Iranian government such as Fazlollah Zahedi and Mohammad Hosein Airom shared similar fates.
However, post-WWII Iran came under the inescapable diplomatic shadow of the United States, lessening chances of any further deepening between Tehran and Bonn relations. Relations however did continue, both diplomatically and economically. Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant was in fact first designed and partially built by the German Kraftwerk Union of Siemens.
[edit] After 1979
Hans-Dietrich Genscher was the first Western foreign minister to visit the Middle Eastern nation after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, visiting Iran in 1984. However, after the revolution many Iranians who immigrated to or visited Germany faced prejudice as a result of political events in Iran.
Although West Germany was a key technology supplier to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, especially to Saddam's chemical weapons program, [4][5][6], Germany also kept open relations with Iran in some industrial and civilian technological sectors.
After the war, Germany increasingly became a primary trading partner of Iran, and is still Iran's biggest trading partner, with German goods worth about 3.6 billion euros being imported into Iran in 2004. It is unclear though how long this situation will last considering the current standoff between Iran and the EU/US axis on Iran's nuclear program.[7]
The 1992 Mykonos restaurant assassinations in Berlin severely soured relations.
Relations between Iran and Germany are now likely to head for a serious turnout. In 1999, a German, Helmut Hofer, was arrested in Tehran after having an affair with an Iranian woman. This caused some tremors in the domestic political landscape as well as diplomatic relations of Tehran-Berlin.[8]. This was followed in 2005 when a German angler who was on vacation in the United Arab Emirates was arrested in the Persian Gulf and convicted to a prison sentence of 18 months. Also in 2005, hardline Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad stirred relations once again with comments directed against the Jewish Holocaust.[9]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said February 4, 2006 on the occasion of the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy that the world must act now to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, evoking her nation's own history as a cautionary tale of what can happen when threats to peace remain unchecked.
- "We want, we must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program further," Mrs. Merkel told the audience of top security officials and policy makers during a speech at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy.
Mrs. Merkel, whose speech came on the same day that the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to report Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council, said Germany's own experiences during the 1930's should be a warning over how to deal with Iran.
- "Now we see that there were times when we could have acted differently," she said. "For that reason Germany is obliged to make clear what is permissible and what isn't."
Mrs. Merkel, discarding any diplomatic niceties and raising her voice in a tone of frustration, said Iran had "blatantly crossed the red line" — and not only with regard to respecting its international obligations as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
She said it was also "unacceptable" for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to deny the Holocaust and say that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
- "A president that questions Israel's right to exist, a president that denies the Holocaust, cannot expect to receive any tolerance from Germany," Mrs. Merkel said to applause. "We have learned our history."
In February 2006, relations further soured after a German paper printed a cartoon depicting Iran's national football team strapped with bombs to their jerseys. Iran demanded an apology from Germany for the "immoral act".[10] Student demonstrations followed in protest to the cartoons, chanting "Merkel=Hitler".[11]
[edit] Economic relations
In 2005 Germany had the largest share of Iran's export market with $5.67 billion (14.4%).[12]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Patrick Clawson. Eternal Iran. Palgrave. 2005. Coauthored with Michael Rubin. ISBN 1-4039-6276-6 p.48
- Küntzel, Matthias. Are 500,000 Keys to Paradise Enough?: Germany "Confronts" Ahmadinejad in Transatlantic Intelligencer, 25.12.2005
[edit] External links
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