Talk:Germany–Iran relations

Inline citations needed
The first two paragraphs of the "first pahlavi era and nazi germany" section are devoid of inline citations. If anyone has the proper sources, please either add them in yourself or mention them here and I will add them. Samuuurai (talk) 04:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Naming
Shouldnt this article be called "Iranian-German relations" or "German-Iranian relations" in order to align with others? I believe in German the most common way to call it would be "German-Persian relations" - even today. How is that? 03.03.06.


 * Well, we have to keep the name Iran though, as it is the official title (even though Persdian is correct too).--Zereshk 11:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

"German-Iranian relations" and "Deutsch-Iranische Beziehungen" 68.237.120.82 02:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Inacurracies
I think there's an anachronism in some facts depicted in that article (speaking about nazi germany in the late 20's ? the nazi state started in 1933) and somethings that aren't verifier. So I applied on some facts needing verification and the  on top of the article. Fabienkhan | talk page 13:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization of Formal Titles
Throughout the article Reza Khan is referred to as "the shah". I propose that he be referred to as "the Shah". This is because it is a formal title, and thus should be capitalized. I will implement this change if no one objects. Agha Nader 21:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)Agha Nader

Done! The Behnam 03:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree.--Carabinieri 22:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

=Expansion=

Can someone add some info concerning the occupation fo Iran during WW2 when the Allies (Britain, Russia) feared relations between Iran & Germany (due to significance of Iran and her geopolitical potential for shipping goods using the railway system set up by the shah) & they took control of Iran, kicking out Reza Shah and sending him off to a South African colony to live for the rest of his life (and conditions weren't exactly favorable). Iran played a very important role in ww2 in so far as it helped with the transfer of goods to Russian and British Ally forces,especially when Russia was invaded and there was a shortage of ammunition and food. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.58.132.158 (talk) 20:48, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Edwin Black's source
I strongly suggest avoiding using Edwin Black as a source. At this link shows, he often contradicts his own articles on Iran.

http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/iran-history-buff/edwin-black-lies-and-distorts-irans-history

POV label
this article is skewed towards controversial events. more reliable sources on relationship would be good. LibStar (talk) 06:42, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
 * This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:52, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

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There is so much propaganda without any credible and peer-reviewed sources
For starters, the name change had nothing to do with Germany, it must be removed entirely from this article since it has nothing to do with the relationship between Germany and Iran. I find it increasingly funny that not a single source was provided for that whole paragraph. I'll be erasing this paragraph, the rest that needs to be removed and cleaned up will have to be done by others.

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 Reza Shah never traveled to Germany, how would he know what type of country Germany is? Turkey was the only country that he traveled to when he was the Shah.

A certain ideologically driven individual with ulterior motives copy-pasted stuff from another article to this article, and that stuff is made-up. All of it needs to be removed from this article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:History_of_the_Jews_in_Iran#%22Reza_Shah_sympathized_with_Nazi_Germany%22?_Where_is_the_evidence_for_this?

Sickofthisbs (talk) 20:41, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Nazis declaring Iranians Aryans/Hitler personally saying so
No they didnt. The original source is a George Lenczowski’s “Russia And The West In Iran” book from the 1940s apparently mistaking the assurances given to the Persian ambassador with an actual declaration. Its been mutated since then where now a source (“Iran under the Ayatollahs”)is claiming that Hitler declared Iranians Aryan (“This meshed well with Adolf Hitler’s declaration of Iran as an Aryan country”) now meshing the supposed Reich statement for Hitlers personal statement, neither of which have any record or primary source beyond to back them up. Ansari’s book goes into actual detail including the Iranians meeting with Walter Gross and no thats not an accurate description of the events of 1936 or any other event. Ansaris “Perceptions of Iran” book is more recent, cites primary sources, and also concludes the Nazis never made such a declaration. (See pages 133-137 of his book) — 76.164.80.158 (talk) 05:51, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I have reviewed the chapter from Ansari's book about this, and nowhere does it invalidate the Lenczowski source or even address it. Therefore, it is not invalid. Furthermore, the Iranian ambassador's meetings with Walter Gross do not contradict or invalidate Hitler's declaration of Iranians as Aryans. Gross' decision not to blanketly declare Iran as Aryan was a simple bureaucratic decision because Germany had never declared any country to be Aryan. It was simply Gross' job to back off from any big formal declarations like that. None of this contradicts the Reich Cabinet's higher-up decision to include Iranians as Aryans, which we know they did based on the Lenczowski source. Therefore, Iranians were considered Aryans under Nazi Germany. Other sources confirm this as well (i.e., Nikki R Keddie's "Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution", Asgharzadeh's book, Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, etc.) So, the conclusion from Ansari's chapter that Iranians weren't classified as Aryans is incorrect. Confluencer (talk) 20:54, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Uh yes it does, it doesn't address the source by name but it does just that; says the conclusion is incorrect and states the opposite is true, I never claimed it addresses Lenczowski specifically, I addressed him myself as to why. Yes, there is such thing as greater precedent among sources. Ansari also cites primary source records. Both Keddie and Asgharzadeh cite Lenczowski as their source, they are not separate secondary sources that give further credence to Lenczowski's claim.


 * Also I found nowhere in Lenczowski any sources cited for these particular claims of a Reich cabinet decree that Iranians are Aryans, which is in fact “officially” calling Iranians Aryans which Ansari specifically said never happened, nor that they were blanketly not included in Nuremberg racial laws beyond books citing page 160 of his book, which is very different then the vague personal assurances made to the Iranian ambassador and is made clear anyways by Ansari, and his book came out around 80 years ago. You probably didnt even check his book (its on internet archive) since he doesnt even claim that Hitler himself called them Aryans at least in that book, thats a statement made by one of the books that otherwise references him, but cites nothing for that statement. I know how to use the captured German documents section at NARA (most available online now) as well as Bundesarchiv search engine (invenio) where literally, and nowhere among them nor any other book other than Lenczowski’s book and the sources using Lenczowski’s book as their sources can I find any evidence either Hitler declared Iranians are Aryan nor that there was a special decree by the Reich cabinet. It’s fictitious, and no it doesnt appear in any of Hitler’s Table Talks or Heiber and Glantz translation of the Fuhrer HQ conferences or any Fuhrerbefehl or anything like that, nor can I find any secondary source reference beyond Lenczowski and the ones citing him. Its fictitious, and we have a source saying that claim is wrong anyways regardless of calling out Lenczowski by name. If you have such evidence please share it for consideration. Im sure you know how to search for secondary sources and here is the Bundesarchiv and here is the Nara link for you to check for yourself (“search within this record group” and use keywords for the nara search itll bring you right to the text of a given document. Just use the tectonics view for invenio). Everything to do with German Foreign Ministry meetings here.


 * Also I like how one of your edits you said “reverted to sourced claims” as a blanket statement, yet in not one of the sources cited or otherwise could I find the statement that Hitler promised to return Iranian territory after the conquest of the Soviet Union, for example, nor reference to the Nazis comparing their conquests to Arab conquests as a kind of precedent for Lebensraum. By the way it was specified in one of the sources that the Nazis only changed the classifications of Turks to Europeans if the Turk in question was not considered “coloured” (AKA darker than Europeans), which is now removed by you. Herf also clarified in his 2009 book that the vague assurances were told to the ambassador partly because “Iranian” as a citizenship wasnt excluded per say but those of alien blood were, since it was based off race, he does not say either the Nazis made and official declaration that Iranians as an ethnicity were declared non-Alien/Aryan. And for that matter I added sources altogether which you removed. Funny. Nor did you actually explain why you reinstated the “Eastern Aryans” sub-section when Turks and Iranians are already covered in another section. Why is the same topic addressed twice? 76.164.80.158 (talk) 13:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * You have just admitted yourself that the Ansari source doesn't address Lenczowski specifically, you assumed yourself that based on the article's own conclusion it is an invalid source. That's not how it works. The Ansari article reached that conclusion through omitting Lenczowski, or at the very least not addressing why the Lenczowski claim isn’t correct. That’s not proper scholarship. You also state that Lenczowki’s claim is unfounded, but just because a primary source cannot be found at the present moment does not invalidate the claim he made in the 1940s (sources can get lost, and not all sources are published or available at a given time). Secondary sources are legitimate in modern scholarship and they don’t automatically become unacceptable based on a lack of primary source. Furthermore, the Ansari chapter reaches the bold and blanket (incorrect) conclusion that Iranians weren’t considered Aryans by the Third Reich, but not a single point made in that article contradicts or invalidates the special decree pushed by the Reich Cabinet in declaring Iranians as Aryans. These are two separate issues and the discussion of the former does not discredit the latter. The onus would be on Ansari to prove Lenczowski’s claim wrong, which he didn’t even talk about.
 * Secondly: yes, you’re right that there is a hierarchy between sources, but the establishment of primary sources in proving facts not directly relevant to a secondary source does not invalidate that secondary source. So, Ansari’s proof via primary sources of the foreign ambassador meetings with Walter Gross does not contradict the Lenczowski secondary source, since that secondary source is talking about the Reich Cabinet special decree, unrelated to the ambassador meetings. In other words, Ansari’s conclusion is based off an omission of Lenczowski. This is why Ansari cannot be used as a valid source for the claim that Iranians weren’t classified as Aryan. There is no source available, primary or secondary, that directly invalidates Lenczowki’s claim. Just because you personally believe that source is unfounded doesn’t mean it is (again, you admitted this yourself—you admitted that Ansari doesn’t address Lenczowski whatsoever, but rather that you're the one stating Lenczowski is illegitimate based on Ansari’s article).
 * This is why citing Ansari as a source for why “the nazi regime never officially declared Iranians as Aryan” is incorrect and unfounded. We have multiple, almost endless sources confirming the exact opposite. You linked me to a bunch of search engines for finding primary sources, and those are great, but again, the history of the foreign ministry meetings does not debunk the Reich Cabinet special decree claim. You stated in your reply “we have a source saying that claim is wrong anyways regardless of calling out Lenczowski by name” but I just showed that’s not the case. Ansari didn’t directly address it and the topics he discusses does not contradict Lenczowski.
 * By repudiating Lenczowski, you are also disputing an entire line of scholarly work that confirms Iranians’ Aryan classification by the Nazis (Nikki R. Keddie, Dilip Hiro, Jennifer Jenkins, Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, Ali Asgharzadeh, and Matthias Kuntzel have ALL discussed and confirmed the Iranian racial classification as Aryans in Nazi Germany within their scholarly works). You have not provided any evidence to debunk their works either by virtue of your failure to discredit Lenczowski.
 * Hitler’s personal declaration of Iran as an “Aryan country” comes from Dilip Hiro’s book “Iran under the Ayatollahs” and Nikki R. Keddie’s book “Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution”. Once again, these are legitimate scholarly sources. You state that Hiro’s claim of Hitler’s personal declaration of Iran as an Aryan country is from Lenczowski, however, nowhere in the book does Hiro cite Lenczowski for that claim. He must have had another source (though even if it was based on Lenczowski it wouldn’t be invalid, but it’s not). So, the Hiro source still stands legitimate.
 * Lastly, I have undone all your edits undoing the sourced content proving Iranians were classified as Aryans and immune to Nuremberg Laws. On Wikipedia, you do not undo claims that are substantively sourced until a definitive consensus is reached as to why the sources are wrong. And it’s unlikely you’re going to reach a consensus here.
 * P.S. I don’t know why you assumed I haven’t read some sources. I have read every single source related to Iranian relations with Nazi Germany and Iranian racial classifications in Nazi Germany that have been published so far. Also, on the “Nazi racial theories” page, Turks and Iranians weren’t covered in another subsection. No idea where you got that from. I reinstated the parts you removed, which were sourced (under the “Eastern Aryans” subsection).
 * On this basis, I am keeping the Wikipedia article the way it looked before, with Iranians correctly classified as Aryans by the Nazi state. Confluencer (talk) 08:20, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia doesn’t seem to like anonymous posters so I created an account to use from here on. I needed to make an in-depth long-winded reply to deal with this: Since I don’t want to be misunderstood or straw-manned further — My fellow interlocutor doesn’t seem to think that Motadel/Ansari clearly contradicting Lenczowski is in-fact evidence, when it clearly is. He also isn’t addressing the other issues brought up. — I will lay out this specific  issue of the claim Iranians were declared as Aryans by Nazi governance in clearer detail and make a request for comment instead of a tail-chasing exercise. I feel like if you say you know these sources, and I have to take you at your word with that, you should know that was a dishonest way to present the situation and further discussion is likely futile, but for the uninformed on this subject…


 * The first thing I take issue with in your argument, and which I feel is very disingenuous if you have in fact read every source about Nazi racial policy concerning Iran as you claim, is that by “repudiating Lenczowski”, I’m also doing that to “an entire line of scholarly work that confirms Iranians’ Aryan classification by the Nazis (Nikki R. Keddie, Dilip Hiro, Jennifer Jenkins, Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, Ali Asgharzadeh, and Matthias Kuntzel have ALL discussed and confirmed the Iranian racial classification as Aryans in Nazi Germany within their scholarly works)”


 * Your verbiage implies they did independent research and reached the same conclusion this way (btw I’m disputing the statement the Nazis declared the Iranians as Aryans, not the entirety of the works where this claim is made as unreliable), so lets look at the sources that my fellow wikipedia editor brings up.


 * About each source — with Author, “Title” (original year of release), page number / “exact sentence of relevance with preceding and proceeding sentence”, *citation/source given by author for it, and [general context and remarks. ]


 * - Nikki R. Keddie, “Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution” (2003) page 101 / “The Germans also advanced militarily and politically. Nazi ideology and agents were prominent, and the Germans declared Iran a pure Aryan country. Reza Shah was not averse to Nazi phrases and methods, which suited his dictatorial and nationalistic inclinations.” *No direct citation is given for this by Keddie, but both of Lenczowski’s books on Iran (“Russia and the West in Iran, 1918-1948” and “Iran under the Pahlavis”) are cited in the bibliography at the end. [Mentioned in passing as part of a more general history of Modern Iran. No in-depth discussion about Nazi racial policies concerning Iranians or on this decleration. I cannot find any reference to Hitler personally declaring Iran as Aryan in here either.]


 * - Nikki R. Keddie, “Roots of revolution : an interpretive history of modern Iran” (1981), page 110 / “Seen as a base against the Soviet Union, Iran was penetrated by the Germans militarily and politically. Nazi ideology and agents were prominent, and the Germans declared Iran a pure Aryan country. Reza Shah was not averse to Nazi phrases and methods, as they suited his dictatorial and nationalistic inclinations.” *No direct citation given for this by Keddie, but again both of Lenczowski’s books are cited in the bibliography. [Mentioned in passing as part of a more general history of Modern Iran. No in-depth discussion about Nazi racial policies concerning Iranians and no expounding on this decleration. Basically the same as Keddie’s later book, which is almost just this book repackaged anyways.]


 * - Dilip Hiro, “Iran under the Ayatollahs” (1985), page 296 / “The next year, at the suggestion of the Iranian legation in Germany - then under Nazi rule - the Shah changed the name of his country from Persia (a derivative of Pars) to Iran, the homeland of the Aryan race. This meshed well with Adolf Hitler’s declaration of Iran as an Aryan country. Helped by Iran’s Monopoly of Foreign Trade Law of 1931, and the presence of German experts at the Bank Melli, Iranian-German trade increased rapidly.” *No citation for this, but he cites Keddie’s 1981 book in the bibliography, who in turn cites Lenczowski in his work for the same remark, so yes the ultimate source is Lenczowski. [No in-depth discussion of Nazi racial policies on Iranians. Even Lenczowski himself made no claim Hitler said this personally, but I think it’s pretty obvious that Hiro meant this in a metonym way (e.g. ‘Hitler Invaded Poland’, ‘Hitler Invaded the Soviet Union’, ‘Saddam Invaded Kuwait’, etc), and not in the way it is quoted in the wikipedia article at all. Too mention an opposite problem, there is confusion in the way “Reich Cabinet” is used by Lenczowski and some of the other authors citing him, when a declaration like that obviously would come from someone who’s position concerned the matter (like Walter Gross, who was responsible for Nazi racial policy.) if it wasn’t reported by the Reichsgesetzblatt like the Nuremberg Laws were.]


 * - Miron Rezun, “The Iranian crisis of 1941 : the actors, Britain, Germany, and the Soviet Union” (1982), page 28 / “The Nazi Weltanschauung was very effectively employed as a weapon of propaganda. To impress the Iranians, a special decree had been issued by the Reich Cabinet as early as 1936 by which the Iranians were exempted from the restrictions of the Nuremberg Racial Laws as ‘pure-blooded Aryans’. German authors strove to arouse the sympathy of leading Iranians by drawing endless parallels among Reza Shah, Hitler, Mussolini and Kemal Atatürk, underlying the role and virtue of Führerprinzip.” *Lenczowski’s book “Russia and the West in Iran, 1918-1948” page 160 is cited for this statement. [No further comment is made about the alleged 1936 “Reich Cabinet decree” in question.]


 * - Ali Asgharzadeh, “Iran and the Challenge of Diversity“ (2007), page /  “The Nazis found a favorable climate amongst the Iranian elite to spread fascistic and racist propaganda. The Nazi propaganda machine advocated the (supposedly) common Aryan ancestry of ‘the two Nations.’ In order to further cultivate racist tendencies, in 1936, the Reich Cabinet issued a special decree exempting Iranians from the restrictions of the Nuremberg Racial Laws on the grounds that they were ‘pure-blooded Aryans’ (Lenczowski, 1944, p. 160). In 1939, the Nazis provided Persians with what they called a German Scientific Library.” *cites page 160 of Lenczowksi’s “Russia and the West in Iran, 1918-1948” as source, although he mistakes the release year as 1944 instead of 1949 (confirmed as the actual book he is quoting from by the fact he cites the exact page number where this information is present in the aforementioned Lenczowski book) [Goes into more detail than some of the other authors on Nazi Aryanist beliefs and Iran, but the decree is only addressed here and he adds nothing beyond repeating Lenczowski to it.]


 * - Evrand Abrahamian, “A History of Modern Iran” (2008), page 86 / “A Government circular explained that whereas ‘Persia’ was associated with Fars and Qajar decadence, “Iran invoked the glories and and birthplace of the ancient Aryans. Hitler, in one of his speeches, had proclaimed that the Aryan race had links to Iran. Moreover, a number of prominent Iranians who had studied in Europe had been influenced by racial theorists such as Count Gobineau who claimed that Iran, because of its ‘racial’ composition,  had greater cultural-psychological affinity with Nordic peoples of northern Europe  than with the rest of the Middle East.” *No source cited for this statement, Lenczowski’s second book “Iran under the Pahlavis” is cited in the bibliography. [This isn’t even a statement that Hitler declared them Iranians, and is the one thing cited that constitutes something else than just a repeat of Lenczowski. Regardless, a speech by Hitler saying there were links between Iran and Aryans, is not at all the same thing as Hitler (or a “Reich Cabinet”) declaring Iranians as Aryans.]


 * In Jennifer Jenkins case, she wrote an article called “Iran in the New Nazi Order” that is behind a rather expensive pay-wall at Jstor.org. I coughed up the cash and despite my fellow wikipedia editor’s claims, she makes no mention whatsoever about the Nazis/Hitler declaring Iranians to be Aryan. Very funny stuff. Finally, although Küntzel in his 2009 book “The Germans and Iran” (the english title) is cited by Ansari/Motadel as inaccurately describing German racial description of Iranians, he actually tells of Alfred Rosenberg telling Gross that Iranians could never expect to be declared officially Aryans at page 51, but at the same time he cites Lenczowski’s 1949 book.


 * Every single source I can find that repeats this claim cites Lenczowski or, in Hiro’s case, cites Keddie who in turn cites Lenczowski. I would say, if Confluencer has read every single published work about this subject as he has claimed, he is hiding circular referencing here to make an inaccurate argument. None of them make an argument for why Lenczowski is correct, or indeed anything beyond repeating him in near-verbatim words (occasionally replacing “Reich Cabinet” with “Hitler”, omitting 1936 as the year, etc nothing else and no added depth). They just repeat him, they don’t reach “that conclusion themselves” in any independent sense and certainly don’t do any further analysis or add further referencing as can be clearly seen from the above. Also, you attempt to bring up Reza Zia-Ebrahimi as an example of someone supporting Lenczowski. Actually, what he says in “The emergence of Iranian nationalism“ is very different from what you claim he supports. At page 160: “There have been claims that in 1936 a special decree of the Reich cabinet exempted Iranians from the restrictions of the Nuremberg Racial Laws as "pure Aryans," but according to David Motadel, all foreigners were exempt from these laws, which were only directed - against German Jews, and, moreover, this legislation never used the term "Aryan."” Not entirely accurate on Reza’s part since elsewhere its been clarified by authors that “alien blood” was included, and this in theory would effect Iranians, but huh, so either you were lying about what he said and hoped I wouldn’t check for myself, or you didn’t know to begin with. Either way, you are demonstrably grasping at straws and being disingenuous. Reza also references Lenczowski later in his work so is perfectly aware of his claim.


 * The original statement from Lenczowski in his book “Russia and the West in Iran, 1918-1948” (1949) is the following: “To remove any causes for misunderstanding under the Nuremberg Racial Laws, a special decree of the Reich cabinet in 1936 exempted the Iranians, as ‘pure Aryans’, from their restrictive provisions.” Lenczowski gives no citation for this, neither primary source nor secondary source nor otherwise. That is a main issue, rather than your imagined claim that the primary source could no longer exist, he doesn’t cite anything for it to begin with. He expounds no further on this supposed decree, does not say “Hitler” personally made it, and he identifies specifically 1936 as the time frame he is talking about. Harf covered the same events in 1936 and made no assertion that the Nazis declared Iranians as Aryans.


 * So how does Ansari’s book prove Lenczowski’s claim false? Firstly I should have been more clear earlier. The book as a whole, “Perceptions of Iran” (2013) is from Ansari, but the chapter in question is actually credited to David Motadel (who also wrote “Islam and Nazi Germany’s war”) who like Ansari is just as much of a respected scholar as the previous authors, and wrote this chapter conducting research at the University of Freiberg.


 * Here is the isolated chapter for all to read. He identifies the events in question (pages 134-135, or 16-17 of the PDF page counter), a controversy about the Nuremberg laws around the time of the Berlin Olympics that could have prevented countries like Iran and Egypt from attending in protest. He notes that Walter Gross, the head of Nazi Racial Policy, in a meeting with the Iranian ambassador who requested clarification, ruled out declaring Iranians as Aryans and sneered at the suggestion by the Iranian ambassador that they were Aryans. The exact statement given by Motadel: “'The envoy can, on no account however, expect that the Iranians, lock, stock and barrel, be declared as Aryans,' he sneered, reminding that the 'term Aryan' (Arierbegriff would be defined in each particular case.” It continues: “Gross was unimpressed when the diplomat explained to him that Iranians were the 'ancestors of the Aryan race', and he evaded definitive statements.” Before concluding “Yet Iranians were never officially classed as 'Aryans' by the Nazi regime. 120”


 * Motadel cites multiple times the Bundesarchiv branch in Berlin for his source. On top of that, I was wrong earlier when I accepted your premise that Ansari/Motadel didnt call out Lenczowski. I originally glanced at his footnotes only to confirm he cited primary sources…but on second inspection, and contrary to your original bold claim that he didn’t, he did specifically say Lenczowski was wrong! Under footnote 120 (page 145), given at the statement that they were never declared Aryans, he states this has been reported in-accurately before including by Lenczowski, Küntzel, and Rezun. And by the way, even if he hadn’t called him out by name, it still could be evidence of the claim made by Lenczowski being un-factual according to wikipedia standards, since the “fact” is in dispute. See here.


 * On top of all this, as Rezun himself noted in “The Iranian crisis of 1941” pages 62-63, and in his book “The Soviet Union in Iran” page 101 (footnote 140), George Lenczowski served the Polish Government-in-exile in WWII and was attached as attache with the British Army Intelligence in Iran during WWII, the same British army which occupied Iran along with the Soviets on the charge of Pro-Nazi actions by the Shah in 1941. He was not a neutral observer, and may not be reliable in this context anyways for political reasons, exaggerating the closeness of Iran and Nazi Germany, see how political bents are addressed in context Reliable sources/Perennial sources. On top of that, on page II of “The Soviet Union and Iran”, Rezun notes that “But where Lenczowski at least attempted to break new ground in this field, regardless of the extensive perlod covered in his work, scholars who afterwards attempted to carry this theme further afield only succeeded in extending the time-span, accepting at face value what Lenczowski has had to offer.” That last part is the same observation I’ve expressed about the authors quoting him. The statements relating to any declaration by the Nazis that Iranians were Aryan in their view, which is irreconcilable with Motadels research and has been specifically called out by him as false among other issues, should be removed.


 * About my removal of “Eastern Aryans” from the Nazi Racial Theories article, uh yes they are dealt with in the very next subsection,see, which I didn’t remove. Come to think of it having the Western Aryans part before British and French is also pointless. If it’s supposed to act as a heading it doesn’t fit either with a paragraph right below it.


 * Also other things need to be clarified. Confluencer, although Motadel agrees that the Nazi’s classified Turks as “European”, it excluded Turks considered “Colored” as clarified in Harf’s book. And by the way Confluencer, since I don’t claim to have read everything on this subject like you have I could have missed it, but I haven’t found in any source the claim made currently in this article: “Hitler personally promised that if he defeated the Soviet Union, he would return all of the Persian land taken by Russians during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” There is no source for this cited in the article. I note you have been warned about adding material without reliable sources before by  Wiki Linuz  . Please provide the citation and page number. Also, concerning this particular article, both LibStar and Sickofthisbs have raised similar reliability issues to my concerns.  In accordance with Czello’s wishes I’ll wait for consensus before further edits. Thanks. Nosam89 (talk) 06:36, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I appreciate you taking the time to write all this out. However, I still don't think you grasp the point I'm making. Essentially what you've done for most of your response is find every secondary source that discusses the classification of Iranians as Aryans by the Nazi state and linked them back to Lenczowski, therefore putting doubt on them. I know they mostly use Lenczowski as a source, that's not the issue.
 * [Also, side note: regarding Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, he has an article titled "Self-Orientalization and Dislocation: The Uses and Abuses of the "Aryan" Discourse in Iran" from July 2011 where he states "Racial affinity was made official in 1936 when a special decree of the Reich cabinet exempted Iranians from the restrictions of the Nuremberg Laws." The article is found here. So yes, he does in fact discuss this. I wasn't lying. Also you even included some other secondary sources which I never brought up in my original response. But thanks for the extra sources.]
 * My main contention is this: Motadel's statement about Walter Gross saying "The envoy can, on no account however, expect that the Iranians, lock, stock and barrel, be declared as Aryans" is not in contradiction with the Reich Cabinet separately passing a special decree declaring them as such and exempting them from restrictions to Nuremberg Laws (for example: Gross could say Iranians cannot be blanketly classified as Aryans, but then later that same year the higher-up Reich Cabinet decree could override that decision). The issue with Motadel is that he makes a definitive conclusion without consideration of Lenczowski and the Reich Cabinet special decree. You said he does, in fact, state that Lenczowski is wrong on his statement, via the footnotes. But what's his basis for it? How come he doesn't address it explicitly within the article and provide an argument debunking it, or considering it? This is VERY important in scholarship. The entire point of scholarship, especially when making a novel point, is that you provide an outline of previous scholarly work on the topic, lay out your contention with them, and then present your own line of thought and evidence overriding it. Motadel does not do this in his article. His article is absolutely written as if it's completely omitting previous scholarly work on Nazi racial classifications of Iranians. For this reason, his single source cannot be deemed to override the mountains of scholarly work written on the topic of Iranians' Aryan classification in Nazi Germany.
 * In the wikipedia page you linked me, titled "When sources are wrong", it states that a fact can be put into dispute when "A secondary source conflicts with a primary source, where there is no way for the former to know better than the latter." Lenczowski's claim—and all the subsequent scholarships—is a secondary source but it does not conflict with the primary sources that Motadel bases his conclusion on (the claim of Gross stating Iranians cannot be uniformly declared as Aryans). I am not contending the ambassador's discussions with Walter Gross. They happened and there is evidence for it. But a bold and absolute conclusion that "Iranians were never officially classed as 'Aryans' by the Nazi regime" does not follow from this. I already explained why in the paragraph above.
 * You have cited Rezun to make the point of Lenczowski being potentially biased due to his role in the Polish Government-in-Exile. If we're going to go down this line of reasoning, I could argue Lenczowski actually had greater access, and more knowledge of, ongoing diplomatic and political events at the time, which is how he was informed of the Reich cabinet special decree in the 1940s. Lenczowski, in those same pages where he discusses the special decree, also takes note of other racially-related measures between the two countries like the "German Scientific Library" and other relations which are considered by scholars today to be true. So I fail to see how his "political bend", linking the closeness of Iran and Germany, affects his book enough to blatantly lie about the Reich cabinet decree (that is the implication here). Also, on the "Reliable sources/Perennial sources" I legitimately couldn't find any place where it discusses "political bents" as a reason to doubt a source. Maybe that's just me. But regardless, even if such a standard exists on Wikipedia, I do not think the evidence is sufficient to discredit Lenczowski on that basis here.
 * Regarding the "Eastern Aryans" subsection on Nazi racial theories page, I see you had just removed the introductory paragraph before it transition to "Iranians". That's a short subsection that just categorizes and introduces the ethnic groups/nationalities classified as Aryans in that section. I see no reason to have removed that. It's not a big deal. You also brought up the subsection on Turks on Nazi racial theories. I have no contention with you there, I never edited or originally added information on that subsection. Lastly, on that same page, you brought up that the statement “Hitler personally promised that if he defeated the Soviet Union, he would return all of the Persian land taken by Russians during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries" is unsourced. You're right, it is unsourced. I wasn't the one who added this into the wikipedia page, I don't know where it comes from, and I have no source for it either. I have consensus with you that it shouldn't be there. You may remove that one sentence.
 * Overall, however, it seems like we cannot reach a consensus on the main issue at hand, related to Iranians being officially classified as Aryans by Nazi Germany. Since I think we've both stretched out all our points, further discussion between us would be mostly repetition. I see you've already created a RFC heading. What we can do is wait for other users to join the discussion. What do you think? Confluencer (talk) 17:39, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Addressing some of this, your quotes in bold.


 * ”"Iranians were never officially classed as 'Aryans' by the Nazi regime” does not follow from this. I already explained why in the paragraph above.” He cites his sources and reaches that conclusion and cites Lenczowski as being wrong, helped by Lenczowski himself identifying the exact time frame of 1936 for the supposed decree in question. It is infact a perfectly definitive statement from Motadel. None of your sources addresses Motadel’s criticism and simply repeat Lenczowski. You also claimed he didn’t address Lenczwoski to begin with when he does. Motadel’s article is cited by other authors too, like Jennifer Jenkins and Reza for example.


 * ”This is VERY important in scholarship. The entire point of scholarship, especially when making a novel point, is that you provide an outline of previous scholarly work on the topic, lay out your contention with them, and then present your own line of thought and evidence overriding it. Motadel does not do this in his article. His article is absolutely written as if it's completely omitting previous scholarly work on Nazi racial classifications of Iranians. For this reason, his single source cannot be deemed to override the mountains of scholarly work written on the topic of Iranians' Aryan classification in Nazi Germany.” He does just that, highlights the statements of the other authors as wrong (gives exact page numbers)at page 145 in conjunction with page 135, states why, and cites not a single but multiple primary sources under those paragraphs for it (note they are all from the Bundesarchiv, but that is just where the primary sources in question are held but do not originally come from, the “sources” are different file groups from different times). Your approach appears to be ignoring that Lenczowski cited no source, and using other sources citing Lenczowski (and who dont expound or source this to anyone but him and someone deriving from him). You’ve created circular referencing in this logic: Lenczowski cant be wrong because other authors cite him, the other authors cant be wrong because they cite Lenczowski (or cite another author who in turn cites Lenczowski). And calling it “mountains of scholarly work” is a bit rich. Nazi racial classifications on Iranians and Nazi relations with Iran is an obscure topic to begin with to say the least, let alone, as Rezun once noted, that the work on the topic scarcely exists beyond repeating Lenczowski at face value.


 * ”Lenczowski, in those same pages where he discusses the special decree, also takes note of other racially-related measures between the two countries like the "German Scientific Library" and other relations which are considered by scholars today to be true” What does that have to do with a Reich decree about Iranians being Aryan? Motadel didnt say what you bring up as wrong, he says that is false.


 * ”Also, on the "Reliable sources/Perennial sources" I legitimately couldn't find any place where it discusses "political bents" as a reason to doubt a source. Maybe that's just me.” Check under the discussions/summary column to see how infact political bias has been factored in decisions before.


 * ”You have cited Rezun to make the point of Lenczowski being potentially biased due to his role in the Polish Government-in-Exile. If we're going to go down this line of reasoning, I could argue Lenczowski actually had greater access, and more knowledge of, ongoing diplomatic and political events at the time, which is how he was informed of the Reich cabinet special decree in the 1940s.” How does that train of logic work? He was in IRAN not Germany. Iranian perceptions and declarations are different from German ones. He didnt have access to primary German records at all during the war unlike Motadel. He didnt bother to cite anything either. I have also cited Rezun as agreeing that none of the authors conducted their own scholarly work “confirming” this decree to be true in his perception at the time, since all they did was cite Lenczowski, and nothing contradicts what he says as far as I can tell, that is in-fact the case even since his time of writing. You cannot use Lenczowski as a source to say Lenczowski was right.


 * ”In the wikipedia page you linked me, titled "When sources are wrong"[9], it states that a fact can be put into dispute when "A secondary source conflicts with a primary source, where there is no way for the former to know better than the latter." Lenczowski's claim—and all the subsequent scholarships—is a secondary source but it does not conflict with the primary sources that Motadel bases his conclusion on.” Motadel says it is wrong and cites primary sources for why, so yes it is in conflict with primary sources although your opinion is otherwise, and as it happens I agree with Motadel. Also see “A non-contemporaneous source conflicts with a contemporaneous source, where there is no way for the former to know better than the latter.” in that same link.


 * Thanks for coming to an agreement on the unsourced statement, I’ll remove it later. Otherwise, I agree we wait for other users.Nosam89 (talk) 18:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Rfc: whether or not the Nazi regime officially decreed Iranians as Aryans
George Lenczowski in “Russia and the West in Iran, 1918-1948” (1949) page 160 says the Nazis declared Iranians as Aryans without citation and has been cited himself by many authors repeating this statement, Motadel and Ansari in “Perceptions of Iran” (2013) pages 135 and 145 say they didn’t, that Lenczowski was incorrect, and cite primary source documents, but have not been widely cited by other authors on this particular subject. Which can be considered correct for use in this article and others? See Talk:Germany–Iran relations for further discussion. Nosam89 (talk) 07:11, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * For any other editors wanting to be involved in this discussion, please read our discussion Talk:Germany–Iran relations in depth and take consideration of both sides. Thanks! Confluencer (talk) 17:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)