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In the [[Western world]], Persia was historically the common name for Iran.<ref>[https://www.iranchamber.com/geography/articles/persia_became_iran.php Iran Chamber Society: When "Persia" became "Iran"], Iran Chamber</ref> In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates and the [[League of Nations]] to use the term '''Iran''' ("Land of the [[Aryans]]"). The suggestion for the change of the country’s official name to Iran is said to have come from the Iranian ambassador to [[Third Reich|Germany]], who came under the influence of the [[Nazi]]s. German friends of the ambassador convinced him that the name change would free his country from the past influences of Russia and the [[British Empire]]. It would be a new beginning as an Aryan nation. Many Persian elites and intellectuals nurtured the idea of Aryan superiority.<ref>[https://iranicaonline.org/articles/judeo-persian-vi-the-pahlavi-era-1925-1979 JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES vi. THE PAHLAVI ERA – Encyclopaedia Iranica]</ref> Reza Shah<ref>[https://www.howardblum.com/blog-posts/reza-shah-and-adolf-hitler-irans-history-with-the-third-reich Reza Shah and Adolf Hitler: Iran’s History with the Third Reich], Howard Blum, Feb. 6, 2020</ref>said,
In the [[Western world]], Persia was historically the common name for Iran.<ref>[https://www.iranchamber.com/geography/articles/persia_became_iran.php Iran Chamber Society: When "Persia" became "Iran"], Iran Chamber</ref> In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates and the [[League of Nations]] to use the term '''Iran''' ("Land of the [[Aryans]]"). The suggestion for the change of the country’s official name to Iran is said to have come from the Iranian ambassador to [[Third Reich|Germany]], who came under the influence of the [[Nazi]]s. German friends of the ambassador convinced him that the name change would free his country from the past influences of Russia and the [[British Empire]]. It would be a new beginning as an Aryan nation. Many Persian elites and intellectuals nurtured the idea of Aryan superiority.<ref>[https://iranicaonline.org/articles/judeo-persian-vi-the-pahlavi-era-1925-1979 JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES vi. THE PAHLAVI ERA – Encyclopaedia Iranica]</ref> Reza Shah<ref>[https://www.howardblum.com/blog-posts/reza-shah-and-adolf-hitler-irans-history-with-the-third-reich Reza Shah and Adolf Hitler: Iran’s History with the Third Reich], Howard Blum, Feb. 6, 2020</ref>said,
{{quotebox-float|“Germany was our age-old and natural ally, Love of Germany was synonymous with love for Iran. The sound of German officers’ footsteps was heard on the shores of the Nile. [[Swastika]] flags were flying from the outskirts of Moscow to the peaks of the Caucasus Mts. Iranian patriots eagerly awaited the arrival of their old allies. My friend and I would spin tales about the grandeur of the superior race. We considered Germany the chosen representative of this race in Europe and Iran its representative in Asia. The right to life and role was ours. Others had no choice but submission and slavery. We discarded the old maps and remade Iran into a country larger than what it was in Achaemenian times.”<ref>https://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2015/04/iranian-shah-flirted-with-nazis-in-1930s.html</ref>}}
{{quotebox-float|“Germany was our age-old and natural ally, Love of Germany was synonymous with love for Iran. The sound of German officers’ footsteps was heard on the shores of the Nile. [[Swastika]] flags were flying from the outskirts of Moscow to the peaks of the Caucasus Mts. Iranian patriots eagerly awaited the arrival of their old allies. My friend and I would spin tales about the grandeur of the superior race. We considered Germany the chosen representative of this race in Europe and Iran its representative in Asia. The right to life and role was ours. Others had no choice but submission and slavery. We discarded the old maps and remade Iran into a country larger than what it was in Achaemenian times.”<ref>https://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2015/04/iranian-shah-flirted-with-nazis-in-1930s.html</ref>}}
Noted<ref name=jta-122005/>: [Iran under Reza Shah Pahlavi (reigned 1925–1941) admired Nazi ideology, especially the concept of the “Aryan” race, even renaming Persia to “Iran” in 1935 to emphasize this connection. Iran hosted Gestapo agents and served as a base for Nazi operations in the Middle East.
At the cooperation between [[Nazi]] Germany and the [[Grand of Jerusalem]], Amin al-Husseini, who promoted anti-Jewish policies, opposed Jewish refugees escaping to Palestine, and supported alliances between Arab nationalist movements and the Nazis, Iran is was a refuge --including for the Mufti escaping Iraq, and operational center for Nazi agents and pro-Nazi activities during the war, until Allied forces invaded Iran in 1941 and removed many pro-Nazi officials.
Some Iranians volunteered in the Muslim [[Waffen-SS]] units organized by the mufti in Bosnia. At the same time, it notes that Iran also allowed some Jewish refugees to pass through the country for a fee, benefiting financially from refugee transit during and after the Holocaust.
In fact, Iran and elements of the broader Arab world had significant interactions and cooperation with Nazi Germany, making later Holocaust denial historically contradictory.
Writer concludes<ref name=jta-122005/>:
{{Cquote|Iran and its leaders not only were aware of the Holocaust, they played both sides. The country offered overland escape routes for refugee Jews fleeing Nazi persecution to Israel — and later fleeing postwar Iraqi fascist persecution — but only in exchange for extortionary passage fees. Thousands of Jews made their way to Israel via Iran both during the Holocaust and after the fall of Hitler, when Arab leaders, especially in Iraq, tried to continue Germany’s anti-Jewish program. Iran profited handsomely.
To play all sides of the Holocaust drama — and now to deny that the Holocaust even happened — should be very difficult in a nation named for Hitler’s master race.}}
In October, 1941, the Allies: British, Russians and other Allied forces invaded Iran to break up the Iran-Nazi alliance. Pro-Nazi generals and ministers were arrested and the shah’s Western-leaning son was installed.
Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi legacies evoke consternation and controversy. Both were pro-Western modernizers, promoted science, Western education, women and minority rights, economic development, a judiciary more on a Western model as opposed to shariah and clerical rule. But the [[Carter administration]] viewed the [[Ayatollah Khomeini]] as a paragon of [[human rights]], an expression of the will of the Iranian people for [[self-determination]], and Iran was [[Desecularization#Islamic_desecularization|desecularized]] in 1979. One of the Ayatollah's first acts was to issue a [[fatwa]] promising paradise for children who joined the Iranian military during the Iran-Iraq war. By 1982, with Shi'a clergy in command, the government asked children, age 9 years old and up, to clear minefields so the regular Army could advance against the Iraqi Army. <ref>[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), ''Iraqi Retreats, 1982-84''], Globalsecruity.org, retrieved 20 March 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/ahmadinejads-demons ''Ahmadinejad's Demons: A Child of the Revolution Takes Over''], Matthias Küntzel, The New Republic, 24 April 2006 .</ref> About 100,000 died as ''Basij'' child soldiers building the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi legacies evoke consternation and controversy. Both were pro-Western modernizers, promoted science, Western education, women and minority rights, economic development, a judiciary more on a Western model as opposed to shariah and clerical rule. But the [[Carter administration]] viewed the [[Ayatollah Khomeini]] as a paragon of [[human rights]], an expression of the will of the Iranian people for [[self-determination]], and Iran was [[Desecularization#Islamic_desecularization|desecularized]] in 1979. One of the Ayatollah's first acts was to issue a [[fatwa]] promising paradise for children who joined the Iranian military during the Iran-Iraq war. By 1982, with Shi'a clergy in command, the government asked children, age 9 years old and up, to clear minefields so the regular Army could advance against the Iraqi Army. <ref>[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), ''Iraqi Retreats, 1982-84''], Globalsecruity.org, retrieved 20 March 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/ahmadinejads-demons ''Ahmadinejad's Demons: A Child of the Revolution Takes Over''], Matthias Küntzel, The New Republic, 24 April 2006 .</ref> About 100,000 died as ''Basij'' child soldiers building the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[[File:Iran.jpg|thumb|225px|right|[[Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini]], founder of the Islamic Republic.]]
[[File:Iran.jpg|thumb|225px|right|[[Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini]], founder of the Islamic Republic.]]