Iranians Fighting Nazis
Nader Uskowi
Consultant and Advisor, Middle East Security and Geostrategy (Booz Allen); Author, "Temperature Rising: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Wars in the Middle East."
On this day 75 years ago, Nazi Germany capitulated to allied forces. There were anti-Fascist Iranians who volunteered to fight the Nazis in French and British militaries. Amir Afkhami has chronicled the service of two such Iranian freedom fighters in his Twitter account today.
Shapour Bakhtiar who volunteered for the French Army's 30th Artillerie Regiment of Orleans for 18 months and continued to fight in the French Resistance against the Germans while living in Saint-Nicolas-du-Pélem. He would go on to become Iran’s last PM before the victory of the Islamists in 1979. Mr. Afkhami’s own great uncle, Gen. Mansour Afkhami, who fought against Rommel's Afrika Korps as a tank officer in the British 8th Army commanded by Field Marshal Montgomery. He would go on to become a general officer in the Iranian Imperial Army and develop the Army's tank warfare doctrine.
The photo above – courtesy of Afkhami’s Twitter account – shows Iranian soldiers marching in London VE Day – 1945.
https://twitter.com/Psych_Doc/status/1258777419311452161/…/1