Jeffrey Herf on Günter Grass and Matthias Küntzel: Two Views of Iran

Writing at the Times of Israel website, Jeffrey Herf discusses what Günter Grass refused to see about Iran—and why Matthias Küntzel, in his new book Germany and Iran, gets it right.

Küntzel’s Germany and Iran: From the Aryan Axis to the Nuclear Threshold examines the cultural, political and economic connections between Germany and Iran in the past and present. He is one of those German intellectuals who, like a younger Grass, cast an unwavering gaze at the crimes of the Nazi past but unlike the Grass of 2012, cast that same unwavering gaze at the radical anti-Semitism and ideological drive of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now that the Iranian leaders are declaring that their military bases are off limits for inspections and that sanctions should be lifted immediately if a nuclear deal is signed, it is a particularly good time to take a look at Küntzel’s interpretation of Germany’s stance towards Iran.

Read the full post here. Matthias Küntzel’s Germany and Iran: From the Aryan Axis to the Nuclear Threshold is available for purchase in the Telos Press store.