Something similar happened to me in '98. I was flying TG HKG-BKK-FRA connecting to LH FRA-TLV. When I checked in at HKG the agent insisted I had the closest row to the front that was available for the TLV flight. Of course when I boarded it turned out to be the last row of the A300.

Although recently when flying UA codeshare LH flights I was able to select seats online with Orbitz, and I didn't get bad seats at all.

goodo