IOR/L/PS/12/2004

The file is concerned with proposals for Lufthansa to operate an air service linking Germany with China via Egypt, Iraq, Persia, and Afghanistan (Kabul). The file contains correspondence, extracts from intelligence summaries, memoranda, and notes documenting the efforts of British officials to oppose the establishment of a German airline in Afghanistan, and the operation of an air route through Central Asia between the territories of the Soviet Union and British India. This includes detailed policy discussion between the Air Ministry, the Foreign Office, and the India Office over whether to grant Lufthansa transit rights across India and Burma in order to induce the company to move away from the Central Asian route. Details of experimental flights between Berlin and Kabul are also recorded in the file; a sketch map illustrating the route of a German reconnaissance flight July 1936 between Kabul and Wakhan may be found on folio 612v.

Additional correspondence is largely with William Kerr Fraser-Tytler, HM Minister at Kabul. However, there is also a small amount of correspondence with the Governments of Burma and India, and – largely in the form of circulars – British diplomatic representatives at Athens, Cairo, Baghdad, Tehran, Bangkok, and Peking. The file also includes a few letters between the Air Ministry and Herr Fisch, Germany's Aviation Minister, regarding Lufthansa's application for transit rights across India and Burma.

The file includes a divider which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.