Denial of Holocaust nothing new in Iran - Ties to Hitler led to plots against British and Jews

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shot to the forefront of Holocaust denial with his rabble-rousing remarks last month. But it's more like self-denial. The president of Iran need only look to his country's Hitler-era past to discover that Iran and Iranians were strongly connected to the Holocaust and the Hitler regime, as was the entire Islamic world under the leadership of the mufti of Jerusalem.

Iran's axis with the Third Reich began during the prewar years, when it welcomed Nazi Gestapo agents and other operatives to Tehran, allowing them to use the city as a base for Middle East agitation against the British and the region's Jews.

Key among these German agents was Fritz Grobba, Berlin's envoy to the Middle East, who was often called "the German Lawrence," because he promised a Pan-Islamic state stretching from Casablanca to Tehran.

Relations between Berlin and Tehran were strong from the moment Hitler came to power in 1933. At that time, Reza Shah Pahlavi's nation was known as Persia. The shah became a stalwart admirer of Hitler, Nazism and the concept of the Aryan master race. He also sought the Reich's help in reducing British petro-political domination.

So intense was the shah's identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he renamed his ancient country "Iran," which in Farsi means Aryan and refers to the Proto-Indo-European lineage that Nazi racial theorists and Persian ethnologists cherished.

The idea for the name change was suggested by the Iranian ambassador to Germany, who came under the influence of Hitler's trusted banker, Hjalmar Schacht. From that point, all Iranians were constantly reminded that their country shared a common bond with the Nazi regime.

This is total BS

An ill researched article appeared in the Jewish Telegraph Agency by Edwin Black:
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=16133&intcategoryid=2#

The article also appeared in the Jewish Times but thankfully it appears it has been withdrawn.
(I hope I am correct in assuming this) Nevertheless the article still appears on the Jewish Telegraph Agency website.

The article carries ignorant statements such as :
"....
So intense was the shah's identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he renamed his ancient country "Iran," which in Farsi means Aryan and refers to the Proto-Indo-European lineage that Nazi racial theorists and Persian ethnologists cherished..."

Perhaps, Edwin Black, who should be writing children's book instead, should have bothered to read some of Iran's rich literature and relaised that Iran has always been called Iran by Iranians. The Book of Kings written by Ferdowsi 1000 years ago, is just one example from thousands, that refers to our country as Iran. Was Ferdowsi, therefore, a Third Reich supporter according to Mr. Black??

I am mostly disappointed with our Iranian Jewish compatriots however who have not pointed out to JTA the errors of their judgement in publishing Edwin Black's badly researched article. Most Iranian Jews I know are some of the most patriotic Iranians I have ever come across.

To anyone who doubts how well our Jewish compatriots were treated by the Pahlavi dynasty, let me quote some relevant extracts from a letter written by Cyrus Kadivar in response to another article :

"During his reign [ Mohammad Reza Shah], school children were taught the story of the liberation of the Jewish people in Babylonia by King Cyrus in 538 B.C. The Jews may have suffered under the Qajar shahs but neither of the Pahlavis (Reza Shah nor his son) can be accused of mistreating them. There were no pogroms and state-sponsored acts of anti-Semitism nor the burnings of synagogues or the banning of Jews from public life.

Even during WWII (shortly before the Allied Invasion of Iran on the false pretext that Reza Shah was pro-German) an Iranian diplomat in Paris was ordered to issue passports to French Jews escaping Vichy persecution. After the Holocaust many Jews were given homes and citizenship in Iran. Like all minorities in Iran, the Jews in Pahlavi Iran were allowed representatives in the Majlis (Lotfollah Hay served in parliament from 1967-1975 and was a leading industrialist) and even served in the armed forces and state ministries.

In fact, their contribution to the arts, wine-making, science, law, medicine, education and music industry in Iran is a well-documented fact in Esther’s Children published in 2002 by The Center For Iranian Jewish Oral History and edited by Houman Sarshar.

Another Jewish Iranian, Manuchehr Bibian established the Appollon Music Company – the country’s most advanced music recording and production studio of its time – and with it revolutionized Iran’s music recording industry.

Jews such as Iraj Lalehzari were members of Iran’s Royal Academy under Empress Farah’s direction. There were Jewish schools, active social and cultural organizations, and some thirty places of worship in Tehran alone. Hebrew classes were taught openly and Israelis were invited to lecture and speak at seminars. Before his fall, the Shah maintained cordial relations with Tel Aviv whilst calling for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yes, under the last Shah, Iranian Jews enjoyed all the social liberties granted to fellow Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians and Bahais.

The Khomeini revolution was a disaster for Iran’s Jews. The Ayatollah accused them of “distorting Islam, mistranslating the Koran, and taking over the Iranian economy”. In smaller cities and towns, Jews were bullied by their Muslim neighbours and anti-Jewish leaflets were distributed in the bazaars to boycott their businesses. In the months following the Shah’s dethronement, the turban-headed mullahs executed a wealthy Jewish industrialist by the name of Habib Elghanian. In 1981 the revolutionary guards (in which Ahmadinejad once served) shot Simon Farzami, a prominent and brilliant Iranian journalist and writer. The reason? He was a Jew!

As a result of the Islamic revolution, half of Iran’s 40,000 Jews fled or emigrated to Israel and the West. Many have remained loyal to the old country (some still hang portraits of Iran’s deposed royal family and the imperial flag in their homes) despite adjusting to life in new lands. Their exodus deprived Iran of centuries of wealth and talent, but more significantly a cultural heritage that had been entwined with the glory that was once Persia. "

Let me also add that Iran was one of the few countries in the Middle East which did not boycott Israel in sporting competitions. I myself remember with much fondness watching many of the exciting Iran v Israel football competitions as a child. I remember with much fondness the Nowrooz (Iranian New Year) visits to our Jewish neighbour and how I looked forward to opening up my delicately wrapped presents from our Jewish neighbour's wife, who would wave the present in front of me and say "what has uncle Nowrooz got for our little Potk?". And I can not forget the joys of stuffing my face with the delicious cakes we always found in their house.

I hope the Iranian Jews who have a 2500 years bond with the Iranian culture and the Iranian land and cherish their Iranian heritage so much, will also make Edwin Black realise how wrong he is!

http://azarmehr.blogspot.com/2005/12/reply-to-jewish-telegraph-agency.html

This would seem to support your contention..

"... The second barrier to Iranian sovereignty stemmed from a recurring phenomenon perhaps best described as the "imperial knee-jerk". Historically, any diminution in the effectiveness of one power to exercise its imperial prerogatives, led not to an increase in Iranian autonomy, but to an increased level of imperial engagement in Iranian affairs by its rival.

In order to escape from these Sisyphisian cycles, Reza Pahlavi sought to establish close economic ties with a third party state which was strong enough economically to act as an effective counterbalance to the inordinate influence Russian (now Soviet) and British interests exerted upon the Iranian economy.

Foreign investment and trade, Reza reasoned, would not only provide his government with a steady source of specie, but with an influx of advisors who--unlike the minions of the imperial powers--would impart their technological expertise to Iranian citizens.
Reza was astute enough to realize that the invitation of a third party into Iran was a calculated risk, but if the third party were strong enough--and the level of its economic and techno-logical exchange with Iran was high enough--the very presence of an actively engaged third party might prompt the British and Russians to offer his government better terms on their pre-existing (and in Iranian eyes, inequitable) contracts and concessions.

Unfortunately for his personal future and the sovereignty of Iran, Reza Shah chose the newly ressuscent Germany of the Third Reich as Iran's third party savior.
Nazi Germany was not Reza Shah's first choice--he would have preferred the United States, whose "detached and distant situation" would have considerably shortened the odds on the calculated risk he was taking with his country's solvency and sovereignty. [explanatory note 14]
The Hoover administration, however--which interpreted thick skein of international intrigue and engagement in Iran as a concrete manifestation of the "frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns" of which Washington had warned--and declined to become engaged in Iran on an official level. [citation 21]

The Nazis, on the other hand, were more than eager to accept Reza Shah's invitation to invest in Iran.
Engagement in Iran provided Germany with the opportunity to deploy engineers, technicians, and military advisors in a country whose unique geo-strategic location and immense oil-deposits made it an object of German desire and designs: the crucial catalytic link in the Eurasian-African empire to which the Reich aspired.
Through the exten- sion of abundant technical aid and extensive economic en-gagement with Iran's indigenous industries, the Reich ingratiated itself with Reza Shah, gaining a firm foothold in a region of immense geo-strategic importance.
Germany--whose limited access to oil was a major source of its acute sense of strategic insecurity--was keenly conscious of the immense level of oil production which the AIOC conducted in its southeastern Iranian concession.
Through economic engagement in Iran, therefore, Germany hoped to gain concessions of its own.
Even should it fail to gain its own concessions, the German presence in Iran would--should a European war erupt--facilitate not only the seizure of the AIOC's Abadan refinery--the largest in the world--but serve as the springboard for a preemptive strike at the oil fields of Soviet Azerbaijan, thus inhibiting the USSR's ability to respond to an overland invasion of its east European border.
To the Third Reich, however, Iran's allure was not merely economic or strategic--the land itself held a central place in Nazi cosmology, for the Persian plateau was believed to have been the original Aryan homeland. Nazi propagandists thus made much of the "natural affinity" of the two nations--an affinity which extended to a common etymology for the words "Aryan" and "Iran". [explanatory note 15]... "

http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/us_iran.html

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This would explain the misconception...
Iran's concern was the constant interference of Russia and Great Britain in Iranian politics due to it's strategic and Oil reserves..
Through most of the 19th and early 20th century, these two nations jockeyed for power and position throughout the area, and Iran became more of a pawn and a victim than anything else..

It is pointed out in the original article I cite here, that the U.S. was much preferred over Germany as the "third party", but the U.S. was not interested for many reasons, among them, perceived interference in what was deemed a British matter of diplomacy etc..

It would seem the myth of this story stems from Nazi propaganda, not any actions on the part of Iran or the Iranian government..

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