The Conference and the City: The Local Context of the Tehran 1943 Diplomatic Meeting

Iran held a particular place in the Second World War, a history which has been largely forgotten. However, as was clear at the Tehran 1943 conference, Iran was the only wartime place where the Allied Alliance was fully realized. It was the sole site which the three powers occupied jointly, and where they cooperated locally and in a face-to-face fashion. Given this background, it is not surprising that Tehran and Iran were also the location of the Cold War’s earliest tensions. While the 1943 conference is a celebrated event in international diplomatic history, much about its Iranian context is unknown. As my paper discusses, Tehran was many things in 1943. It was a place where populations, ideas, strategies, and goods intensely mixed. Given its proximity to the battlefield, but also its protection from it (through the Allied occupation), Iran was a place of sanctuary for refugees from the war and the Holocaust. It is often forgotten that Tehran played this role as a “sanctuary city,” and that the country had a place in wartime stories of survival.

My paper explores the Iranian context of the Tehran 1943 conference. I analyze the transnational conditions which led to the Allied invasion of Iran and the wartime diplomacy which cemented the Alliance of the Big Three on Tehran’s terrain. I also unpack the issue of seeing Tehran in wartime as a ‘sanctuary city’ for refugees and outline the connections between Iran and histories of Holocaust survival.