Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference (code named Eureka) was a meeting between U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Tehran, Iran, between 28 November and 1 December 1943. During the Conference, the three leaders coordinated their military strategy against Germany and Japan and made a number of important decisions concerning the post World War II era.
Contents
History
The conference was held in the Soviet Union’s embassy in Tehran, Iran and was the first World War II conference of the “Big Three” Allied leaders (the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom). It closely followed the Cairo Conference which took place on 22 to 26 November 1943, and preceded the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Although the three leaders arrived with differing objectives, the main outcome of the Tehran Conference was the Western Allies’ commitment to open a second front against Germany. The conference also addressed the Allies’ relations with Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia, to assist the murdering partisans under Tito, and against Japan, and the envisaged post-war settlement. A separate protocol signed at the conference pledged the Big Three to recognize Iran’s independence.
Stalin dominated the conference, using the prestige of the Soviet victory at the Battle of Kursk to get his way. Roosevelt attempted to cope with Stalin’s onslaught of demands, but was able to do little except appease him. Churchill argued for the invasion of Italy in 1943, then Operation Overlord in 1944, on the basis that Overlord was physically impossible in 1943 and it would be unthinkable to do anything major until it could be launched. Churchill proposed to Stalin a moving westwards of Poland, which Stalin accepted, giving the Poles industrialized German land to the west and gave up marshlands to the east while providing a territorial buffer to the Soviet Union against invasion.
- The Soviets, who had long been pushing the Allies to open a second front, agreed to launch another major offensive on the Eastern Front that would divert German troops away from the Allied campaign in northern France. Stalin also agreed in principle that the Soviet Union would declare war against Empire of Japan following an Allied victory over Germany. In exchange for a Soviet declaration of war against Japan, Roosevelt conceded to Stalin’s demands for the Kurile Islands and the southern half of Sakhalin, and access to the ice-free ports of Dairen (Dalian) and Port Arthur (Lüshun Port) located on the Liaodong Peninsula in northern China. The exact details concerning this deal were not finalized, however, until the Yalta Conference of 1945. At Tehran, the three Allied leaders also discussed important issues concerning the fate of Eastern Europe and Germany in the postwar period. Stalin pressed for a revision of Poland’s eastern border with the Soviet Union to match the line set by British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon in 1920. In order to compensate Poland for the resulting loss of territory, the three leaders agreed to move the German-Polish border to the Oder and Neisse rivers. This decision was not formally ratified, however, until the Potsdam Conference of 1945. During these negotiations Roosevelt also secured from Stalin his assurance that the Republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia would be reincorporated into the Soviet Union only after the citizens of each republic voted on the question in a referendum. Stalin stressed, however, that the matter would have to be resolved “in accordance with the Soviet constitution,” and that he would not consent to any international control over the elections. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin also broached the question of the possible postwar partition of Germany into Allied zones of occupation and agreed to have the European Advisory Commission “carefully study the question of dismemberment” before any final decision was taken. Broader international cooperation also became a central theme of the negotiations at Tehran. Roosevelt and Stalin privately discussed the composition of the United Nations. During the Moscow Conference of the Foreign Ministers in October and November of 1943, the United States, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union had signed a four-power declaration whose fourth point called for the creation of a “general international organization” designed to promote “international peace and security.” At Tehran, Roosevelt outlined for Stalin his vision of the proposed organization in which the future United Nations would be dominated by “four policemen” (the United States, Britain, China, and Soviet Union) who “would have the power to deal immediately with any threat to the peace and any sudden emergency which requires action.” Finally, the three leaders issued a “Declaration of the Three Powers Regarding Iran.” Within it, they thanked the Iranian Government for its assistance in the war against Germany and promised to provide it with economic assistance both during and after the war. Most importantly, the U.S., British, and Soviet Governments stated that they all shared a “desire for the maintenance of the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Iran.” Roosevelt secured many of his objectives during the Conference. The Soviet Union had committed to joining the war against Japan and expressed support for Roosevelt’s plans for the United Nations. Most importantly, Roosevelt believed that he had won Stalin’s confidence by proving that the United States was willing to negotiate directly with the Soviet Union and, most importantly, by guaranteeing the opening of the second front in France by the spring of 1944. However, Stalin also gained tentative concessions on Eastern Europe that would be confirmed during the later wartime conferences.[1]
During the Tehran Conference, the dismemberment of Germany was first discussed: [2]
- In a brief discussion at Teheran in December 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed that Germany should be dismembered after the war. Minutes of the Teheran Conference are not now available, but it appears from discussion at Yalta, where the Teheran conversations on Germany were reviewed, that President Roosevelt proposed at Teheran the division of Germany into five parts. Churchill, after some hesitation, suggested the division of Germany into two parts—Prussia and southern Germany. Stalin, as he phrased it, “associated himself with the views of the President.” He did not seem to favor a large southern German state.
Declaration and results
The declaration issued by the three leaders on conclusion of the conference on 1 December 1943, recorded the following military conclusions:
- The Yugoslav Partisans should be supported by supplies and equipment and also by commando operations.
- It would be desirable for Turkey to enter war on the side of the Allies before the end of the year.
- The leaders took note of Stalin’s statement that if Turkey found herself at war with Germany and as a result Bulgaria declared war on Turkey or attacked her, the Soviet Union would immediately be at war with Bulgaria. The Conference further noted that this could be mentioned in the forthcoming negotiations to bring Turkey into the war.
- The cross-channel invasion of Normandy (Operation Overlord) would be launched during May 1944 in conjunction with an operation against southern France. The latter operation would be as strong as availability of landing-craft permitted. The Conference further noted Joseph Stalin’s statement that the Soviet forces would launch an offensive at about the same time with the object of preventing the German forces from transferring from the Eastern to the Western Front.
- The leaders agreed that the military staffs of the Three Powers should keep in close touch with each other in regard to the impending operations in Europe. In particular, it was agreed that a cover plan to mislead the enemy about these operations should be concerted between the staffs concerned.
The Yugoslav Partisans were given full Allied support, and Allied support to the Yugoslav Chetniks was halted as they were believed to be cooperating with the occupying Germans rather than fighting them. The Communist Partisans under Tito took power in Yugoslavia as the Germans retreated from the Balkans. Turkey’s president conferred with Roosevelt and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in November 1943 and promised to enter the war when it was fully armed.
By August 1944, Turkey broke off relations with National Socialist Germany. In February 1945, Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan, which may have been a symbolic move that allowed Turkey to join the future United Nations. The invasion of France on 6 June 1944 took place about as planned, and the supporting invasion of southern France also occurred (Operation Dragoon). The Soviets launched a major offensive against the Germans on 22 June 1944 (Operation Bagration).[3]
Dismemberment of Germany
See also
- Morgenthau Plan
- Claimed mass killings of Germans by the WWII Allies
- Tehran Holocaust Conference (2006)
Further reading
- Theodore Newman Kaufman: Germany Must Perish!, 1941
- Franklin D. Roosevelt: Tehran Conference – Tripartite Political Meeting, 1 December 1943 (Archive)
- Frank King: Allied Negotiations and the Dismemberment of Germany, in "Journal of Contemporary History", Volume 16, No. 3, The Second World War: Part 2 (July, 1981), pp. 585–595
- Karl Baßler: The Marshall Plan Hoax – Marshall Plan vs. Robbery, Murder, and Destruction? An Eternal Mockery of the Germans!, 2004
