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German–Iranian relations refer to bilateral relationis between Germany and Iran. Official diplomatic relations between Iran and post war Germany began in 1952 when Iran opened its first mission office in Bonn. However Germany and Persia enjoyed diplomatic relations well back into the 19th century.[1]
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Even before diplomatic ties, unofficial relations had already taken root between the two nations. 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[2] went.
During the Qajar era, with the growing unpopularity of world powers in Persia such as Russia and Great Britain, especially after the treaties of Turkmenchay and Gulistan, and the revolt of Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi in the Tobacco movement of Persia, many Iranian intellectuals began searching for a "third force" that could be relied upon as a potential ally.
Germany, which had largely remained out of The Great Game consequently gradually established itself as such a candidate by the second half of the 19th century. During the establishment of Iran's first modern university, Amir Kabir for example, preferred the hiring of Austrian and German teachers as faculty for Darolfonoon.[3] Even King Nasereddin Shah himself supported the idea of using Germans to serve as Darolfonoon's faculty, despite political pressures to the contrary.[4] In this regard, it is even written that the Chancellor always showed interest in discussing the structural system of Germany's government and society as a model for modernizing his country.[5]
During the Constitutionalist movement of Guilan, German soldiers were actively involved in training the popular army of Mirza Kuchak Khan.[6] Mirza's field commander was a German officer by the name Major Von Pashen who had joined the Jangal movement after being released by them from the British prison in Rasht. He was Mirza's closest ally. Another famous German agent in Persia (especially during World War I) was Wilhelm Wassmuss, nicknamed the "German Lawrence".
Among commercial treaties between Persia and Germany at this time, one can mention the June 6th, 1873 treaty signed in Berlin between Prince Bismarck and Mirza Hussein Khan.
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. This was while 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.[7]
By the early 1930s, Reza Pahlavi's close ties with Nazi Germany began worrying the Allied states.[8] 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.[9]
The Shah went on to ask the international community to use the native name of "Iran" in 1935[10] to address to his country, which in Persian means 'Land of the Aryans' and refers to Airyanem Vaejah, the Avestan name of the original homeland of the Aryans. Although the country 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. Iranians were immune to the racial Nuremberg Laws on the grounds that they were pure blooded Aryans. In 1939, Nazi Germany provided Iran with what they called a Germany 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 of Iran and Hitler, and praise the charisma and virtue of the Fuhrerprinzip (Rezun. 1982, p. 29).
From 1939 to 1941 Iran's top foreign trade partner (nearly 50% of its total trade) was Germany, which helped Iran open modern sea and air communications with the rest of the world.[11]
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 [12] and Mohammad Hosein Airom shared similar fates.
Post-World War II Iran came under the inescapable diplomatic shadow of the United States, lessening chances of any further deepening between Tehran and Bonn relations. In commercial links, West Germany however remained well ahead of other European countries, even the United States, until 1974.
In 1972, following the visit to Tehran of the West German chancellor Willy Brandt, Iran and West Germany signed an economic agreement which provided 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 1974-5, 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. While this provided the much needed cash injection to Krupp, it 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, an agreement which was inked during the same years.
In 1975 West Germany became the 2nd most important supplier of non-military goods to Iran. Valued at $404 million, West German imports amounted to nearly one fifth of total Iranian imports.[13]
As the European country with the largest Iranian expatriate community, the Shah's visits to West Germany became the focus of much protest in the 1970s. As repression in Iran became more intense, these demonstrations became more vigorous. Many of Iran's intellectual ayatollahs, such as Ayatollah Beheshti, in fact spent some years in cities like Hamburg.
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 Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, especially to Saddam's chemical weapons program,[14][15][16] 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.[17]
The 1992 Mykonos restaurant assassinations and Mykonos Trial in Berlin severely soured relations. On September 17, 1992, Iranian-Kurdish insurgent leaders Sadegh Sharafkandi, Fattah Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan and their translator Nouri Dehkordi were assassinated at the Mykonos Greek restaurant in Berlin, Germany. In the Mykonos trial, the courts found Kazem Darabi, an Iranian national who worked as a grocer in Berlin, and Lebanese Abbas Rhayel, guilty of murder and sentenced them to life in prison. Two other Lebanese, Youssef Amin and Mohamed Atris, were convicted of being accessories to murder. In its 10 April 1997 ruling, the court issued an international arrest warrant for Iranian intelligence minister Hojjat al-Islam Ali Fallahian[18] after declaring that the assassination had been ordered by him with knowledge of supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Ayatollah Rafsanjani[19]
In a 2004 letter to Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (the then mayor of Tehran) objected to the commemorative plaque in front of the restaurant, calling it an insult to Iran.[20]
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.[21]/. 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. In 2009 a German lawyer, Andreas Moser, was arrested during the protests against the 2009 elections; he was released after one week.[22] Also in 2005, hardline Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stirred relations with comments directed against the Jewish Holocaust.[23]
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.
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 1930s should be a warning over how to deal with Iran.
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 question the extent of the Holocaust and to say that the Israeli regime should "disappear from the pages of time," in a reference to the dismantling of the Zionist regime.
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".[24] Student demonstrations followed in protest to the cartoons, chanting "Merkel=Hitler".[25]
Recently in an attempt to bring the two nations closer, Germany has issued "Symphonic Diplomacy", Similar to the Ping Pong Diplomacy of the United States with China, by sending a German Orchestra to perform in Tehran. This marks the first time these works have been played since Western Music was banned by Iran's Government.
Around 50 German firms have their own branch offices in Iran and more than 12,000 firms have their own trade representatives in Iran. Several renowned German companies are involved in major Iranian infrastructure projects, especially in the petrochemical sector, like Linde, BASF, Lurgi, Krupp, Siemens, ZF Friedrichshafen, Mercedes, Volkswagen and MAN (2008).[26]
In 2005 Germany had the largest share of Iran's export market with $5.67 billion (14.4%).[27] In 2008, German exports to Iran increased 8.9 percent and comprised 84.7 percent of the total German-Iranian trade volume. The overall bilateral trade volume until the end of September 2008 stood at 3.23 billion euros, compared to 2.98 billion euros the previous year.[26][28] The value of trade between Tehran and Berlin has increased from around 4.3 billion euro in 2009 to nearly 4.7 billion euro in 2010.[29]
The German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) has estimated that economic sanctions against Iran may cost more than 10,000 German jobs and have a negative impact on the economic growth of Germany. Sanctions would especially hurt medium-sized German companies, which depend heavily on trade with Iran.[26] There has been a shift in German business ties with Iran from long-term business to short-term and from large to mid-sized companies which have less business interests in the US and thus are less prone to American political pressure.[30]
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