Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
This contribution is dedicated to the memory of Fritz Wolff, author of the famous and voluminous Glossary of Ferdawsi's Shāh-nāmeh. This glossary was offered by the National-Socialist government as the official German present to Iran on the occasion of the Ferdawsi Commemoration Festivities in the year 1935. Fritz Wolff, not having been allowed to participate in these festivities, died a few years later in a Nazi concentration camp.
In contrast to the situation in most countries, in German-speaking countries the study of Iran is not concentrated in one academic discipline. As a result, the attempt to “reconstruct” the history of Iranian Studies inevitably involves various disciplines. The individual results of these together form the kaleidoscopic spectrum of studies on Iranian themes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
The only academic discipline in the German language area that includes the name “Iran” is the one called “Iranistics” (German “Iranistik”).