Title: GERMAN COVERT INITIATIVES AND BRITISH INTELLIGENCE IN PERSIA (IRAN), 1939-1945
Author: ADRIAN DENIS WARREN O’SULLIVAN
Place of publication: SOUTH AFRICA
Publisher: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA
Release date: 2012

The narrative of German covert initiatives and Allied security-intelligence measures in Persia (Iran) during the Second World War has been neglected by postwar historians mainly because of the unavailability of records and the absence of an authoritative secondary literature. The elimination of this lacuna in the intelligence history of the region is long overdue. By 1941, the espionage activity and subversive potential of the large German expatriate community in Persia had become unacceptable to the British and the Soviets, leading them to invade and occupy the country in August of that year. After the expulsion of the German diaspora, two German intelligence officers continued active espionage and subversion operations as staybehind agents within the British zone. Their efforts were ultimately negated by the defeat of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad and the headlong retreat of Army Group South from the Caucasus. The operational planners in Berlin then changed their focus from subversion of the Persian polity to sabotage against the Lend-Lease supply route across Persia. Of fourteen special operations planned against Persian strategic targets in 1943 the Germans executed only three, all of which failed. The cause of such catastrophic failure was organizational and operational dysfunction at all levels of the two rival German intelligence services—the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). Of equal significance was the robust British response to the Nazi threat, which resulted in the capture of all German operatives on Persian soil and the elimination of any hostile threat to the region. Particularly effective was the liaison between the Security Service (MI5) and the British security-intelligence authorities (CICI) in Tehran. Against all odds, German interest in the region never waned: as final defeat loomed, the destruction of Persian targets became for the ideologically motivated SD synonymous with the obstruction of postwar Soviet interests.[1]