IOR/L/PS/12/3513

Correspondence and other papers relating to the presence of Axis-country nationals in Persia [Iran] and Iraq at the beginning of the Second World War. Subjects covered include: German activities in Iraq, reported by the British Ambassador at Baghdad, Basil Cochrane Newton; Germans in Persia, including the German ‘colony’ in Tehran; reports of the movements of suspected German agents from India to Persia and Afghanistan; the Persian Government’s declaration of neutrality in 1939; the internment of German nationals in Iraq; the arrest of a Persian journalist named Saif Azad [Abdulrahman Saif] suspected of pro-Nazi sympathies; German propaganda in the Middle East; a summary of a memorandum written by Dr Herbert Melzig of the University of Angora [Ankara] on the activities of the German Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda in the Near East (ff 123-125); the translation of a second memorandum written by Melzig entitled The Swastika in the East (ff 126-134); reports of German and Italian vessels and crews in the Gulf, circulated by the Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies Squadron and the Senior Naval Officer in the Persian Gulf; the defence of oil refinery facilities at Abadan; increasing tensions in Iraq and Iran in early 1941, in response to German military successes in Europe and North Africa. The file’s principal correspondents are: HM Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Tehran, Horace James Seymour succeeded by Reader William Bullard; and the Foreign Office.

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.