German So Power in Turkey and the Balkans in the Interwar Era, -
Approvals
“German So Power in Turkey and the Balkans in the Interwar Era, -,” a thesis prepared by Mert Doğukan Perk in partial fulfillment of the require-ments for the degree of Master of Arts from the Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History at Boğaziçi University, has been approved on June by:
T
is thesis examines German so power policies in the Balkans and Turkey in the Interwar Era. How certain German non-state actors such as the Messeamt, the Leipzig Trade Fair, chambers of commerce, etc. took the initiative and re-established German economic presence in certain Balkan countries in the mid-s in the absence of the Weimar government’s support is discussed. How German economic drive in the Balkans gained speed following the proc-lamation of the New Plan in and how the Balkans played a decisive role in realizing Hitler’s rearmament venture by supplying Germany with various raw materials needed by German war industry are also examined. Similarly, how Turkish-German political, economic, military and cultural relations were re-established and developed in the Weimar period and what kind of changes came out in the bilateral relations and Germany’s so power practices with the emergence of the Nazi rule in Germany are also addressed. Certain Ger-man so power practices such as investments, student exchange programs, supporting the employment of German specialists and academicians in Tur-key, arms trade, and using well-established German institutions in Turkey to achieve imperialist aims, etc. are examined in the light of a variety of primary and secondary sources.
, words
vii
İki Savaş Arası Dönem’ de Balkanlar ve Türkiye’deki Alman yumuşak güç politikalarını inceler. Messeamt, Leipzig Ticaret Fuarı, ticaret odaları vb. Alman devlet dışı aktörlerinin inisiyatif alarak Weimar Hükümeti’nin desteği olmaksızın ’li yılların ortalarında Balkanlar’da Alman ekonomik varlığını nasıl yeniden kurduğu ele alınmaktadır. yılında Yeni Plan ‘ın ilanı son-rasında Alman ekonomik hamlesinin Balkanlar’da nasıl hız kazandığı ve Hit-ler’in yeniden silahlanma girişiminde Balkanların Almanya’ya silah sanayinde gerekli çeşitli hammaddeleri sağlayarak nasıl belirleyici bir rol oynadığı da incelenmiştir. Aynı şekilde, Türk-Alman politik, ekonomik, askeri ve kültürel ilişkilerinin Weimar Dönemi’nde nasıl yeniden kurulduğu, geliştiği ve Al-manya’da Nazi yönetiminin ortaya çıkışıyla hem ikili ilişkilerde hem de Al-man yumuşak güç pratiklerinde ne tür değişikliklerin meydana geldiği de ele alınmıştır. Yatırımlar, öğrenci değişim programları, Alman uzman ve akade-misyenlerin Türkiye'de isthidamının desteklenmesi, silah ticareti ve Türki-ye'deki köklü Alman kurumlarının emperyalist amaçlara ulaşmak için kullanılması gibi belirli Alman yumuşak güç uygulamaları çeşitli birincil ve ikincil kaynaklar ışığında incelenmiştir.
Abbreviations and Acronyms xiii
Acknowledgements xv
INTRODUCTION
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
. Looking at the Literature: Wallerstein’s “World-Systems eory” and the Central Relevance of Foreign Trade, the Concept of “Informal Em-pire” and its Place in the Discussions of the Nineteenth Century British Informal Empire in Latin America
. Joseph Nye’s “So Power”, its Application by Stephen Gross to Ger-man-Balkan Countries’ Relations in the Interwar Era and Hirschman’s “the Supply and Influence Effects of Foreign Trade”
GERMAN SOFT POWER POLICIES IN THE BALKANS IN THE INTERWAR ERA, -
. Lying the Foundations of Großwirtschasraum: e Re-establishment of Commercial Relations between Germany and the Balkans and the Role of German Private Organizations, -
. e Emergence of the German “Informal Empire”: Schacht’s New Plan and e Manifestation of German Economic Hegemony, -
TURKISH-GERMAN POLITICAL RELATIONS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD, -
. Turkish-German Political Relations between and
. Turkish-German Political Relations between and
xi
GERMAN SOFT POWER IN TURKEY IN THE CONTEXT OF TURKISH - GERMAN RELATIONS IN THE INTERWAR ERA
. e Manifestation of German So Power in Turkish-German Cultural Relations: e Weimar Period (-)
. e Manifestation of German So Power in Turkish-German Cultural Relations: e NSDAP Period (-)
. e German Army as the Role Model of the Turkish Counterpart and “Civilian” German Officers in the Turkish Army: Turco-German Mili-tary Relations in the Weimar Period, -
. Turkish-German Military Cooperation in the Nazi Period, -
. German So Power in the Turkish Economy and Foreign Trade in the Interwar Years: Turco-German Commercial Relations and Significant German Investments in Turkey, -
. German So Power Reaches its Zenith: Turco-German Economic Re-lations and the Emergence of German Domination in Turkish Foreign Trade, -
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
xii
List of Tables
Table . German Share in the Balkan Countries’ Foreign Trade ()
Table . e Total Value of Turkish-German Foreign Trade (-)
Table . Turkish Exports to Germany (-)
Table . Turkish Imports from Germany (-)
Table . Turkish Exports to the Main Trading Partners (-) (According to Turkish Statistics) ()
Table . Turkish Imports from Major Trading Partners (-) (According to Turkish Statistics) ()
Table . Turco-German Overall Trade (-)
Table . Turkish Exports to Germany (-)
Table . Turkish Imports from Germany (-)
Table . Turkish Exports to Main Trading Partners ()
Table . Turkish Imports from Main Trading Partners ()
Glossary of Non-English Terms
Großwirtschasraum large economic area
Messeamt trade fair office
Reichswehr German Armed Forces (-)
Waffenbrüderscha comradeship in arms
Wehrmacht German Armed Forces (-)
xiii
Abbreviations and Acronyms
ADAP Akten Zur Deutschen Auswaertigen Politik
BDAK Der Bund der Asienkämpfer
DTV Deutsch-Türkische Vereinigung
IMF International Monetary Fund
IMSWf Institut für Mittel-und Südosteuropāische Wirtschasforschang
LoN e League of Nations
Messeamt Central Office of the Leipzig Trade Fair
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
RM Reichsmark
PMRA Republic of Turkey General Directorate of Prime Ministry State Archives Office of Republican Archives
TBMM Grand National Assembly of Turkey
TDV Türkisch-Deutschen Vereinigung
xiv
xv
Anowledgements
First of all, I intend to thank my thesis advisor Aydın Babuna for his constant support and great patience. His suggestions and support played a huge role in the emergence of this thesis. Secondly, I owe a lot to the precious academic cadre of the Boğaziçi University Atatürk Institute. e courses that I had taken from Şevket Pamuk, Cengiz Kırlı, Zafer Toprak, Aydın Babuna and Nadir Özbek opened new horizons in my mind and played a remarkable role in the emergence of this work. By the same token, I also owe Tracy Lord a great deal, who has helped me a lot in enhancing the theoretical framework as well as the rhetoric of the thesis.
I would like to express my gratitude to my family as well. ey have always supported me to pursue a career in the academic world. Without their sup-port, it would have been impossible for me to complete this work.
Finally, I would also like to thank my friends Kristina Soleymanlou and Suat Dinç, who helped me a lot in the editing process of this work.
Introduion
he Balkans have always been a strategically important geographic region in broad political as well as economic plans of mighty European powers. As an extension of this fact, certain German business circles whose survival depended on finding and opening new markets for exports turned to the area especially from the mid- s onwards to cultivate the broken commercial relations again since the Balkan countries were potential markets for German exports goods i.e. all kinds of machinery and finished-goods and reliable source for German raw material and foodstuffs imports. As a result, the com-mercial dealings between the two sides were re-established through the in-tense efforts of a few German non-state organizations and then flourished es-pecially aer the Crisis that had severely reduced overseas trade opportunities and forced countries to form regional trade zones. Hence, the Balkans gradually came to be one of the significant trading partners of Ger-many.
With the NSDAP1’s power seizure in Germany in January , the efforts exerted in the Balkan geography took a new shape as Nazi policymakers con-sidered Balkans the new “Großwirtschasraum”2 of Germany. e German
1 Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.
2 Großwirtschasraum: large economic area.
T
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
share in the foreign trade of several Balkan countries such as Yugoslavia, Ro-mania, Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey grew to a very large extent thanks to the bilateral trade agreements and the clearing system engineered by H. Schacht.3 By , the German share had become the largest in these countries’ foreign trade, which enabled Germany to enjoy a monopoly position. In addition to the aggressive foreign trade drive, German policymakers supplemented the German presence in the economic sphere in the Balkans with further direct investments and armament deliveries to further tie these countries strictly to the German side. Furthermore, certain German non-state organizations strove to attract more students from the Balkans to study in Germany in order to turn them into Germanophiles given that these successful pupils would oc-cupy important positions in their own countries in the future. Hence, turning them into admirers of German culture and technology would create further economic opportunities for German businesses and industrial giants. us, student exchange programs, one of the main tools of expanding one’s so power upon others, were also benefited to complement German economic dominance with extended cultural influence.
Besides, certain German state and non-state actors strove to justify Ger-many’s increasing economic presence in the Balkans as something very bene-ficial for the region’s economic development. ese actors tried to justify the intensified German economic penetration in the area as the only “natural way” of further economic development in the Balkans. All these attempts and tac-tics of enlarging Germany’s so power capacity in the Balkan geography are to be analyzed in the following chapters of this work to demonstrate how Ger-many managed to carve out an “informal empire” in the Balkans without mak-ing use of coercion but instead benefitting from certain so power techniques.
3 e Clearing system basically stands for an exchange of goods without spending foreign cur-rency. Instead, purchases made by both sides are accumulated in offset accounts to be liqui-dated later. (see Dilek Barlas, “Germany's Economic Policy towards the Balkan Countries in the s,” Turkish Review of Balkan Studies, (/): -; Larry Neal, “e Economics and Finance of Bilateral Clearing Agreements: Germany, -,” e Economic History Re-view , no. (August ): -.)
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Several studies concerning the German informal imperialism in the Bal-kans have been made. However, the overwhelming majority of studies that fo-cused on this issue mostly analyzed German involvement in Yugoslavia, Ro-mania, and to a lesser extent Bulgaria and Greece. is interdisciplinary diplomatic history thesis, however, also takes the situation in Turkey into con-sideration to a very large extent. e entire chapter IV is dedicated to the anal-ysis of German so power implementations in Turkey in the Interwar Era, which constitutes the contribution of this work to the literature. By analyzing German so power attempts in the fields of culture, military, and economy in the mentioned period, this study aimed at first demonstrating what kind of so power techniques were deployed by what sort of German actors in Turkey throughout the Interwar Era and then assessing to what extent these attempts achieved their goals.
e thesis consists of five chapters. Following the introduction, the second chapter briefly touches on the general theoretical approaches regarding the role of foreign trade in the division of the world into two different camps that are core and periphery, discussions about the historical examples, validity and further usefulness of the “informal empire” concept, and the definition and application of the term “so power” that constitutes one of the main tools of analysis in this work. Besides, S. Gross’ works’ remarkable contribution to the field is also discussed shortly in this part.
e third chapter examines the so power techniques in the field of cul-ture and economy, which were extensively used by first German non-state ac-tors in the Weimar Period and then continued to be drawn on by the Nazi government aer . How certain non-state organizations like the Leipzig Trade Fair, the Leipzig Messeamt, chambers of commerce, Institut für Mittel-und Südosteuropāische Wirtschasforschang and Mitteleuropa Institut laid the foundations of German so power in the Balkans and in what ways some of these actors continued to serve German cause under the Nazi rule shall be discussed in this section. Besides, how Germany’s economic involvement in these countries’ economies mainly through foreign trade, direct investments, and arms trade played a key role in the emergence of German hegemony in these economies in the s is also addressed here.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
e fourth chapter aims to give an overall landscape of Turkish-German political relations throughout the entire Interwar Period because the bilateral political relations constituted the background in which German so power methods took shape. e entire story of Turkish-German political dealings from the re-foundation of the bilateral political relations to the breakout of the Second World War is told in this chapter to give the audience the overall view of the bilateral political relations between the two countries during the above-mentioned period.
e fih chapter is completely dedicated to demonstrating how certain practices of so power were put into practice by German non-state and state actors in the fields of cultural, military, and economic relations between Tur-key and Germany. First of all, in what ways certain German non-state organi-zations like Asienkämpfers attempted to create transnational encounters be-tween the two peoples to intensify the formal relations on the basis of the memory of former comradeship-in-arms called “Waffenbrüderscha”4 is dis-cussed as well as the lasting effects of the former so power policies of the Wilhelmine Germany are shown by making use of the examples of Muhlis Erkmen and Muammer Tuksavul. Moreover, other types of certain so power techniques involving sending several German academicians and specialists to work at universities and industrial facilities in Turkey, creating and selling pro-German press organs, student exchange programs, and so forth are also dis-cussed.
In the military sphere, the employment of former German military per-sonnel to train the Turkish Army and its subsequent effects on the consolida-tion of the already strong influence of the German School in the Turkish Army are also examined.
Finally, the largest part of the chapter is dedicated to the development of commercial relations between the two sides, which proved to be the chief channel through which Nazi Germany came to occupy a monopolistic posi-tion in Turkish foreign trade in the second half of the s. e development of economic relations was the focal point of bilateral relations between the two
4 Comradeship in arms.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
sides throughout the whole Interwar Period. What kind of economic cooper-ation flourished between the two countries and in what ways Germany under the NSDAP’s rule harnessed the clearing way of trade in the establishment of German monopoly on the overall Turkish foreign trade are profoundly dis-cussed in the light of statistical records and related secondary sources. In ad-dition to foreign trade, how German specialists’ involvement in the construc-tion of several industrial facilities in Turkey and the growing extent of the arms trade between the two countries throughout the s boosted Ger-many’s so power in Turkey are examined in this section as well.
Theoretical Framework
§ . Looking at the Literature: Wallerstein’s “World-Systems eory” and the Central Relevance of Foreign Trade, the Concept of “Informal Empire” and its Place in the Discus-sions of the Nineteenth Century British Informal Empire in Latin America
efore proceeding directly to the detailed analysis of the chief concepts that comprise the backbone of the theoretical aspect of this work, briefly explaining what has been said and put forward in the professional history cir-cles about the concepts of “foreign trade” and “informal empire/informal im-perialism”, very relevant to this work’s theoretical aspect, appears to be of great importance. Foreign trade constitutes an important aspect of Immanuel Wal-lerstein’s “World-Systems Analysis”. In his monumental four-volume work called “e Modern World-System”, he sets out to explain what happened and changed aer the emergence of the single world market economy in the six-teenth century, which changed almost everything on the Earth over time. Wal-lerstein argues that prior to the sixteenth century, there were “world empires” that had incorporated mini-systems that consisted of a single cultural frame-work and primitive agricultural activities. Empires like Roman, Egypt, and Chinese were examples of such world empires that reigned in very large re-gions. ese world empires possessed a very limited trade organization in
B
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
which long-distance trade was restricted only to luxury goods. e main in-come of these states derived from taxes paid by large peasant masses engaged in agriculture. e unchanging feature of the agricultural production in such political entities was subsistence. All peasants involved in agricultural produc-tion solely aimed to produce the amount of grain that was enough to cover their subsistence and tax strain.1
ings changed radically with the emergence of what Wallerstein called “the Triangular Atlantic Economy” in the mid-sixteenth century, which shied the main purpose of agricultural production and the way the division of labor had been. Now, the main purpose of agricultural production became “producing cash crops to be sold in foreign markets” to maximize the ex-pected profit out of agricultural production. Similarly, the conventional divi-sion of labor within the borders of countries slowly gave way to an interna-tional division of labor in which Western Europe provided capital and technological know-how, Africa became the main supplier of slave labor that was needed to run large plantations, and the Americas provided physical cap-ital in the form of large arable lands. In other words, the sole aim of producing for the emerging world market and the global division of labor were the dis-tinctive characteristics of the new phenomenon that is what Wallerstein called “the Capitalist Economy.” As the new “World System” it had first replaced world empires and later gradually incorporated other indigenous economies around the world.2 Since its first appearance in the sixteenth century, this world system has been expanding and incorporating local economic systems at the expense of the latter. e emergence of the Industrial Revolution and improvements made in transportation following the discovery of the steam engine further accelerated the growth and expansion of the capitalist world economy, especially in the nineteenth century.3
1 Andrew Jones, “Systemic inking: Immanuel Wallerstein,” in Globalization: Key inkers, ed. Andrew Jones (Cambridge: Polity Press, ), .
2 Jones, Systemic inking, -; Immanuel Wallerstein, “e Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis,” Comparative Studies in Society and History , no. (September ): –.
3 Wallerstein, “e Rise and Future Demise,” .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
e process through which different countries have been incorporated into the single capitalist world economy was uneven. Some countries in West-ern Europe experienced this process of incorporation into the global world economy as core countries by having retained control on a very large propor-tion of the total cash crop and then industrial production in the world. Pe-ripheral regions in the world such as Latin America, Asia, Africa were mostly great markets for the products of the core countries. In the aermath of the Industrial Revolution, the core countries focused on producing finished prod-ucts such as textiles, glassworks, and other kinds of consumer goods that were in demand in the markets of semi-peripheral and peripheral countries. Simi-larly, the latter now adopted the role of being the main raw material and food-stuffs supplier of core areas around the world, which triggered the commer-cialization of agriculture in the peripheral areas according to which the agricultural production of peripheral areas was restructured around cash crops. Now, peripheral countries focused on cultivating certain types of cash crops and foodstuffs that were in demand in the global market. Such a com-mercial relationship between core and periphery was an unequal one that fur-ther increased the overall inequalities between core and periphery.4
In the light of all the explanations above, Wallerstein’s “World-System eory” appears to be relevant and helpful in building the theoretical aspect of this work because of the fact that he lays a great deal of emphasis on the changing and transformative nature of foreign trade that played a very crucial role in the emergence of the capitalist world system, which almost changed everything from political balances to demography and divided the world into three unequal categories. In other words, even though all aspects of the World System eory cannot be applied to the case that this thesis addresses, it brings a crucial perspective to the theoretical aspect of this work. Because foreign trade and its wise usage as the main means of establishing influence on both Southeast European and Balkan countries’ economies by Germany in the In-terwar Era also benefited from the transformative function of foreign trade, which resulted in the emergence of an unequal exchange between Germany
4 Jones, Systemic inking, -; Wallerstein, “e Rise and Future Demise,” -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
and these regions, which eventually brought negative economic and political repercussions for Southeast Europe and the Balkans.
e terms “informal empire” and “informal imperialism” have been two of the most popular subjects of historical discussions among historians since the early s. e concepts were first introduced into historians’ inventory by an article called “e Imperialism of Free Trade” written by John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson in . ey argued that formal imperialism i.e. annex-ing by the use of coercion and establishing a direct rule on a territory is not the only way of establishing control over another country’s lands.5 ere are subtler, indirect ways, they suggested, of establishing an irrefutable influence on one’s economy, culture, and consequently politics. To exemplify the con-cept, Gallagher and Robinson point out the influential position that the British Empire enjoyed in Latin America in the second half of the nineteenth century, established by the wise British policy of setting up very close and dense com-mercial relations with certain Latin American countries. e establishment of such intensive economic relations with Latin America finally ended up with such a strong British impact on these countries’ economies and politics that some historians called the situation “British Informal Empire in Latin Amer-ica.”6
e main means of the British informal imperialism in Latin America at the time were issuing large loans for infrastructural investments such as rail-way projects, assuming the construction of large railway projects in exchange for commercial concessions, introducing technologically-developed pro-cessing facilities that would facilitate processing raw materials and foodstuffs demanded by the European markets, and making investments in periphery’s banking sector. rough such methods, the British Empire occupied a very influential position in the economies of peripheral zones in Latin America, notably in Argentina and Uruguay.7
5 John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, “e Imperialism of Free Trade,” e Economic History Review , no. (): –.
6 Ibid., p. -.
7 Peter Winn, “British Informal Empire in Uruguay in the Nineteenth Century.” Past & Present, no. (November ): -; Alan Knight, “Rethinking British Informal Empire in Latin
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
In the case of Argentina, Alan Knight shows that the British Empire first tried to establish a military control in Buenos Aires in order to secure the trade routes and roads that led to the inner rich plains of the country. e British military intervention of -, however, failed in the face of strong local re-sistance and logistical difficulties. Besides, other difficulties such as the high cost of transport due to the distance between these two countries, the strength of subsistence economy and Argentine local merchants and artisans’ strikingly powerful resistance against trading with outsiders, and recurrent wars be-tween Argentina and Brazil all prevented the development of significant com-mercial relations between Britain and Argentina in the first half of the nine-teenth century. However, the situation dramatically changed, especially from the s onwards, with the emergence of steam-powered ships that severely reduced the cost of transportation between the two countries. Similarly, the local opposition of indigenous merchants and artisans somehow decreased. e Treaty of Free Navigation had been signed in , which opened Argen-tina to world trade and it was accompanied by the establishment of the Lon-don and River Plate Bank. Finally, the gigantic Great Southern Railway Project was started.8
All these investments of remarkable importance led to a huge increase both in the total volume of foreign trade between Argentina and the British Empire and that of British investments in Argentina. Argentine exports grew significantly and so did the British exports. As the recently built railway line had connected more inner lands to the coastal areas in Argentina, more and more British investments flowed into the country. Knight suggests that in , nearly percent of all British overseas investment directly flowed into Ar-gentina.9 Henry Ferns points out similar statistics regarding the incredible growth of the British investments in Argentina in the second half of the nine-teenth century in his article. Ferns claims that the total value of all British in-
America (Especially Argentina),” in Informal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Commerce and Capital, ed. Matthew Brown (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, ), -.
8 Knight, Rethinking British Informal Empire, -.
9 Ibid., p. .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
vestments in Argentina had reached m pounds by . Besides invest-ments, the commerce between the two countries reached the apex during the same period.10
However, the trade was asymmetrical as a natural consequence of the cen-ter-periphery dichotomy. Despite the increasing volume of foreign trade be-tween the countries, Argentina was occupying just a negligible share in the overall British foreign trade whereas Britain had a very significant share in the total Argentine foreign trade, which made the former’s economy dependent on the latter.11 Argentina was now successfully incorporated into the Atlantic Economy as an important raw material and foodstuffs supplier for developed Western countries. Needless to say, Argentina’s economic dependency and asymmetrical exchange of goods between the two sides brought about the British influence on the Argentine political affairs as it did in the Uruguayan case since in Latin America, the political and economic interests were so in-terconnected that one needed to increase its economic influence to protect political interests and vice versa.12
In the nineteenth century Uruguay, the establishment of strong British economic and consequent political influence through the means of informal imperialism was thoroughly unveiled by Peter Winn in his work “British In-formal Empire in Uruguay in the Nineteenth Century.”13 Winn puts forward that from the s onwards, the British Empire gradually incorporated Uru-guay into her informal empire in Latin America without establishing direct political control. Similar to what happened in the Argentine case, British pol-icymakers used the techniques of informal imperialism such as supporting lo-cal reliable governments and collaborating anglophile Uruguayan elites who could protect the British interests, issuing large loans to be used in further infrastructural works, assuming the construction of railway projects that were
10 Henry S. Ferns, “Britain's Informal Empire in Argentina, -,” Past & Present, no. (November ): –.
11 Knight, Rethinking British Informal Empire, -.
12 Peter Winn, “British Informal Empire in Uruguay in the Nineteenth Century.” Past & Present, no. (November ): .
13 Ibid., p. -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
expected to connect the inner lands to the coastal areas, introducing techno-logically-developed facilities to facilitate the raw material processing, and in-vesting in banking and insurance sectors. For instance, almost all the railway lines in Uruguay had been constructed and owned by British investors, which gave the British Empire a significant influence over the economy and invest-ments in Uruguay. e long railway lines were designed to easily transport all the raw materials that the inner parts of Uruguay offered to the coastal areas to meet the European market’s demand.14
By the same token, Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company was established in in Uruguay to facilitate and shorten raw material processing in order to transport more and more processed meat to the European market. Neither railways nor the more efficient techniques of raw-material processing were in-troduced by the British to increase the living standards of Uruguayan people or create a unified domestic market. On the contrary, the sole aim of British policy was to further incorporate Uruguay, which had rich raw material sources such as cattle, into the world market as a supplier of certain types of raw materials highly demanded by the European markets. Hence, Winn ar-gues, the significant economic impact and presence of Britain in Uruguay in the nineteenth century contributed little to no to the economic development of Uruguay. e nature of the British involvement in the Uruguayan economy was imperialist since the British investments in the country aimed to make the most out of the increasing trade with Uruguay. e British policy in Uruguay seems to have succeeded to a very large extent with the help of the Uruguayan indigenous collaborator merchants and politicians who saw Britain as the sole countermeasure against the possible Argentine and Brazilian political or mil-itary intervention and internal disturbances. In addition, they considered the British influence to be the only guarantee of the wealth that they had been making thanks to the growing commercial relations between Uruguay and the British Empire.15
Not all historians concerned with the British involvement in Latin Amer-ica in the nineteenth century consider the overwhelming British economic
14 Ibid., p. -.
15 Ibid., p. -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
and consequent political influence in Latin America to be the ultimate proof of the British informal empire’s presence, though. For instance, Andrew ompson admits the significant growth that happened in the British-Argen-tine trade and the British impact on the capital formation in Argentina through loans and investments aer the s. All these developments, he be-lieves, show that both sides mutually benefitted from the increasing trade ac-tivities as well as investments made by the British entrepreneurs in Argentina. Hence, ompson believed that the phenomenon of the British informal em-pire in Argentine was a myth.16
Similarly, others show a certain degree of hesitation in defining all the Brit-ish involvement in Latin America, especially in Argentina, as the proof of the British informal empire in the region. For example, despite acknowledging the remarkable British commercial impact and presence in Argentina in the pe-riod, Antony Hopkins remarks that he has hesitations about calling such a British influence as an “informal empire” despite accepting the overwhelming British involvement in the Argentine economic affairs.17 Similarly, David Rock purposefully refrains from using the term “informal empire” in defining the British involvement in Latin America in the nineteenth century. Britain, he argues, enjoyed having the strongest economic influence in the region, notably in Argentina, at the time. However, having the strongest economic influence fell short of establishing the alleged British informal empire since the French and to a lesser extent Italian cultural influence surpassed the British cultural influence in the Argentine case.18
By the same token, defining nineteenth-century Latin America as part of the British informal empire becomes impossible if one defines the concept of “informal empire” in the way Matthew Brown does. In a revisionist approach
16 Andrew ompson, “Informal Empire? An Exploration in the History of Anglo-Argentine Relations, -,” Journal of Latin American Studies , no. (May ): –.
17 Antony G. Hopkins, “Informal Empire in Argentina: An Alternative View,” Journal of Latin American Studies , no. (May ): –.
18 David Rock, “e British in Argentina: From Informal Empire to Postcolonialism,” in Infor-mal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Commerce and Capital, ed. Matthew Brown (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, ), –.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
influenced by post-colonial studies, Brown redefines the pillars of informal empire as capital, commerce, and culture. In the case of the absence of one, the existence of an informal empire becomes impossible. erefore, calling the British commercial and political influence in Latin America at the time as an exact proof of the British informal empire automatically becomes impossible, according to Brown, since many studies have shown that the British cultural penetration in Latin America was limited.19
Discussions on the concept of informal empire do not remain limited to the British involvement in nineteenth-century Latin America. In the nine-teenth century, British policymakers sought to turn the Ottoman Empire, Per-sia, and China into parts of the British Empire through the techniques of in-formal imperialism mentioned in the previous sections of this chapter.20 For instance, in return for political and military aid in the face of growing Mehmet Ali Pasha threat in Egypt and Southern Anatolia, Britain convinced the high-est-ranking Ottoman bureaucrats to sign the “Baltalimanı Agreement” in , which fixed the Ottoman custom duties at a ridiculously low level, abolished internal customs and state monopolies on certain goods. e agreement re-sulted in the occupation of the Ottoman market by British imported goods, especially textile products, in the following decades.21 Meanwhile, Britain tried to obtain further concessions from the Ottoman central administration espe-cially in the railway sector. Upon concessions granted by the central Ottoman administration, British capital, under the strong support of British diplomacy, constructed the famous “İzmir-Aydın Line” in the western Anatolia that con-nected the coastal areas to the inner parts, where fertile valleys and plains on which the cash crop production was taking place were located.
e main aim of such investments was the quick extraction and transpor-tation of the total cash crop production of the inner parts of western Anatolia to the European markets. All these efforts proved fruitful as Britain gradually
19 Matthew Brown, “Introduction,” in Informal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Commerce and Capital, ed. Matthew Brown (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, ), –.
20 David Mclean, “Finance and 'Informal Empire' before the First World War,” e Economic History Review , no. (May ): –.
21 Şevket Pamuk, Uneven Centuries: Economic Development of Turkey since (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
increased her share both in the overall Ottoman foreign trade and in the total foreign investments made in the Ottoman realm especially in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, as David Mclean argues, these efforts were not adequate to turn the Ottoman Empire into a component of the British in-formal empire. Because other great powers such as France and later Germany had also made gigantic railway, banking, and other types of investments in the Ottoman realm, which created different spheres of influence across the Otto-man Empire. us, all these efforts of British policy succeeded only in carving out a British sphere of influence in the empire rather than completely trans-forming it into a British dominion. e same fate was waiting for British ef-forts in Persia and China, where the British financial investments of very con-siderable importance resulted only in the establishment of a British sphere of influence. However, they fell short of bringing these countries into the British informal empire in the face of fierce competition of other great powers.22
One of the most daring rivals of Britain in the race of establishing an in-formal zone of influence in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire was Ger-many. e most remarkable project of German informal imperialism in the lands of Ottomans that was put into practice under the support of German foreign policy and the Deutsche Bank was the famous “Baghdad Railway Pro-ject”.23 Since the first railway concession given to German companies in , German capital had established a few railway lines in the central Anatolia that connected hitherto uncultivated areas of inner Anatolia to the Ottoman capi-tal. As a result, agricultural production in these empty but fertile areas devel-oped. By giving concessions such as kilometric guarantees, Ottoman admin-istrators hoped to open uncultivated, remote areas of inner Anatolia to agricultural production through the construction of new railway lines extend-ing into the depths of Anatolia.24
As German firms successfully constructed a few railway lines in Anatolia and the first signs of economic development in the areas where the lines had
22 Mclean, “Finance and Informal Empire,” -.
23 Stephen Gross, Export Empire: German So Power in Southeastern Europe, - (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, ), .
24 İlber Ortaylı, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Alman Koridoru (Bağdat Demiryolu).” In Os-manlı İmparatorluğu'nda Alman Nüfuzu (İstanbul: Timaş Yayınları, ), –.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
passed through appeared, further concessions for building a larger railway line called “the Baghdad Railway” was granted to Germans. is project envisaged to extend the railway line that had reached Konya all the way to the Persian Gulf. Aside from the line itself, several German companies made agricultural investments in the vicinity of the railway corridor to increase the efficiency of the agricultural production of these territories. Within a short period, the in-troduction of new irrigation techniques, modern seeds, and other improve-ments by German investors showed their worth and certain formerly unculti-vated inner parts of Anatolia became fertile agricultural fields whose agricultural output was now being carried to Istanbul through the new railway system.25
As İlber Ortaylı puts forward in his work, the main purpose of such a gi-gantic endeavor was constructing an immense German corridor in the Otto-man realm to draw on the rich agricultural productive capacity of Anatolia, whose raw material and foodstuffs production could easily meet the increas-ing demand in the German market. To do this, certain German companies introduced modern techniques of agriculture to the lands where the railway had passed through, which appears to have positively influenced the agricul-tural production of these inner areas of Anatolia. For example, the immense tracts of land were opened to cultivation aer the arrival of the Anatolian Rail-way in the early s, which started to contribute largely to the overall grain production of the Ottoman Empire. By increasing the agricultural production of the empire through the introduction of modern irrigation, better seeds, and opening new lands to cultivation, Germany aimed to turn the Ottoman Em-pire into an informal colony and reshape her production according to the Ger-man market’s demands. Furthermore, by extending the German-built railway in Anatolia all the way to the Persian Gulf, Germany aimed at extending her economic and consequent political influence in the Middle East to challenge Britain. is German attempt alarmed British policymakers and British diplo-macy. Hence, they started to put more pressure on its Ottoman counterparts to slow down and even prevent the extension of German influence into the
25 Ortaylı, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Alman Nüfuzu, –.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
depths of Ottoman lands in the Middle East. In short, Germany strove to es-tablish her own informal empire in the Ottoman realm by making use of spe-cific techniques of informal imperialism, whose most striking example was the daring Baghdad Railway Project.26
Despite different views on the terms informal empire and informal impe-rialism, the large literature shows that the terms are still relevant in today’s history-writing. is fact is widely accepted in the professional circles of his-torians since these two terms demonstrate that coercion and other formal ways of establishing control on a different political entity such as occupation, annexation, etc. are not the only ways of doing that. ere are, in fact, subtler and more indirect ways of establishing first an economic and then political control on any political entity, which might even be more cost-efficient and profitable for the side with imperial ambitions. At this point, the relevance of all the discussions about the informal imperialism mentioned above to the subject of this work becomes apparent due to the fact that in the Interwar Era, Weimar Germany, stripped of all the terrifying means of hard power she had once possessed, turned to the techniques of informal imperialism in order to carve out a new area of influence in Southeast Europe and the Balkans and managed to do so. us, the terms informal empire and informal imperialism shall be oen referred to in the later parts of this work that deals with German involvement in the Balkans and Turkey respectively.
§ . Joseph Nye’s “So Power”, its Application by Stephen Gross to German-Balkan Countries’ Relations in the Interwar Era and Hirschman’s “the Supply and Influence Effects of For-eign Trade”
Aer having taken a concise look at what has been said about the related broader terms and discussions, this section shall focus on the concepts that comprise the bulk of the theoretical aspect of this thesis. e first one of the terms that constitute the theoretical basis of this work is “So Power” coined by Joseph Nye in the early s, which first emerged in his book called
26 Ibid., p. -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
“Bound to Lead”. Later in , he published a book completely dedicated to the term designated “So Power: e Means to Success in World Politics.” In this book, Nye elaborated on the definition of so power and exemplified how it basically works. Nye defines so power as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments.”27 ere are three fun-damental ways for any political being to achieve desired goals: coercion, pay-ment, or seduction. Coercion basically means the use of military force whereas payment accounts for offering physical or monetary incentives to get the re-sults one wants. Attraction, on the other hand, something different from the others as it mainly rests on one’s ability to influence other political beings’ decisions thanks to its strong culture and remarkable economic might. Having a strong culture and remarkable economic performance might encourage oth-ers to carry out what the country with a stronger culture and economic per-formance wants them to do. In this case, being affected by the stronger coun-try’s superior-looking political values and impressive economic performance, the rulers of countries with less developed economies and cultures might think that following the stronger one might end up with further development in their own countries. us, Nye says the power of attraction is one of the most fundamental components of one’s so power since “the intangible at-traction that persuades us to go along with others’ purposes without being threatened.”28 Furthermore, convincing others that what you want is actually what they want and beneficial for both sides is much more cost-efficient com-pared to the payment and coercion methods.29
Nye suggests that so power rests on three sources that are culture, politi-cal values, and foreign policy. Having a strong and impressive culture is a pre-requisite for any so power policy to develop and affect others. Similarly, the political values and aims must be somehow legitimate in the eyes of others to be believed and embraced. Lastly, the foreign policy of a country plays a very
27 Joseph S. Nye, So Power, the Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, ), X.
28 Nye, So Power, .
29 Joseph S. Nye, e Powers to Lead (New York: Oxford University Press, ), -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
important role in achieving specific goals by making use of so power tech-niques. e foreign policy departments of states must finance and support in-stitutions and international organizations that aim to increase their credibility and persuasiveness in the international sphere.30 For instance, Nye highly crit-icizes the Clinton government for cutting the budget of cultural diplomacy by thirty percent in .31
Aer explaining what so power is and what the main components of it are, Nye moves on to explain what assets and activities of states can be consid-ered part of so power policies. For instance, commerce is one of the im-portant channels through which countries with a strong economy could de-rive benefits by developing sophisticated bilateral economic relations with countries with less-developed economies.32 Similarly, having a strong econ-omy is an important asset of attractiveness in the eyes of others, as Nye points out.33
Student exchange programs constitute another example of so power pol-icies. Both Nye and Brzezinski have shown that the USA has been spending large amounts of money for decades on such programs because these are very efficient tools of promoting the liberal values of the American culture in the eyes of the non-Americans as well as that of exporting these values abroad.34 Many of the best students around the world have been preferring American universities for their higher education. A large number of such students are expected to occupy very important positions in government, private compa-nies, and other influential business organizations when they return to their own countries. If such individuals become admirers of the United States’ lib-eral values and striking economic performance, which they directly experi-enced during their studentship period in the USA, they are expected to pursue American-friendly policies when they occupy whatever crucial position in the future. Brzezinski directly draws attention to this fact saying that graduates
30 Nye, So Power, -.
31 Ibid., p. .
32 Ibid., p. .
33 Ibid., p. -.
34 Ibid., p. .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
from American universities can be found in almost every cabinet in almost every continent.35
Creating international organizations that arrange and supervise other countries’ economic, military, and political activities to a certain extent is also a very effective way of achieving one’s aims through so power. International organizations such as NATO, IMF, World Bank, etc. have enabled the USA to influence others to rearrange economic and foreign policies in the way she prefers. Such respected and prestigious global institutions had enabled the USA to set the rules of the game according to her liberal values and trade sys-tem, which further increased the ties between the USA and the rest of the world. Without coercion, the USA manages to indirectly influence the policies of other countries through these institutions, which further strengthen the USA’s political position in the world.36
Despite the positive outcomes that so power promises, so power has one serious limitation that is the high dependence on context. Compared to so power, hard power policies rely much less on the contextual situation than the former does. Similarly, certain policies of so power might entail positive and desired results and thus boosts the prestige of a country in the eyes of others in some parts of the world. However, the same practices might also re-duce the legitimacy of the same country in a different part of the world. us, context-dependency is the most significant disadvantage of so power.37
e term so power was successfully applied by Stephen Gross to the re-lations between Germany and the Southeastern European countries in the In-terwar Period. In his work “Export Empire,” Gross shows that following the considerable loss of hard power capability as a consequence of the restrictions imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty, certain German non-state ac-tors adopted so power policies like establishing chambers of commerce, or-ganizing student exchange programs to attract more students from the region, promoting the age-old Leipzig Trade Fair as the nexus of German-Balkan
35 Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Hegemony of A New Type.” In the Grand Chessboard (New York: Basic Books, ), .
36 Ibid., p. .
37 Nye, So Power, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
trade, where merchants and businessmen from all around the region come together to familiarize with recent German products and find a chance to es-tablish face-to-face contacts with potential customers. Such policies enabled Germany to regain her prestigious position in world politics without having to use coercion.38
As Gross pointed out, commerce played a decisive role in Germany’s so power policies. With the cooperation of German minorities living in Yugosla-via and Romania, Germany quickly recaptured her leading position in the for-eign trade of these countries. Similarly, German merchants and economists tried hard to convince the ruling elites of the Balkan countries that the only way for such countries to reach a certain economic development level was to engage in intense commercial relations with Germany. Germany as one of the most industrialized countries in the world could buy and consume all the raw material and foodstuffs exports of the Southeast European and Balkan coun-tries in return for supplying them with industrial and agricultural machinery, desperately needed by such countries to further industrialize. As Gross indi-cates, the attempts of selling an increasing economic cooperation with Ger-many as the only way of economic development in Southeast Europe and the Balkans were very successful, which increased these two regions’ dependence on Germany to a very remarkable extent. In the late s when German so power reached its zenith in Southeast Europe and the Balkans, the German share in many Balkan and Southeastern European countries’ foreign trade was nearly fiy percent on average. What is very striking to see is that the bulk of the achievements of German so power in these regions was achieved by cer-tain German non-state actors that mostly lacked financial and direct support of the German state. Especially in the early s, most organizations and in-dividuals trying to re-establish strong economic and cultural connections be-tween Germany and Southeast Europe and the Balkans were non-state ones that lacked considerable support from German officials. In the absence of of-ficial institutions and direct state support, certain German non-state actors
38 Gross, Export Empire.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
such as chambers of commerce, Leipzig Trade Fair and other civil organiza-tions led the endeavor and laid the foundations of German so power in Southeast Europe and the Balkans with the collaboration of German minori-ties living in the region.39
e first of the last two notions that comprise the backbone of this work’s theoretical approach is A. Hirschman’s “the Supply Effect of Foreign Trade”. In “National Power and the Structure of the Foreign Trade” Hirschman identi-fies two significant side-effects of foreign trade that might help countries to achieve their political and economic goals on others. e first one is what he calls “the supply effect of foreign trade”. By establishing intense commercial relations with countries that can supply raw materials needed by the arms in-dustry, a country might be able to increase her military production thanks to the constant supply of raw materials used in military industries. us, “the foreign trade enhances the potential military force of a country”.40 e only drawback that this effect bears is the risk of the disruption of trade routes. To prevent this, those countries whose industrial production is dependent on raw material imports must either control main overseas routes as the British Em-pire in the th century did or redirect their trade towards neighboring coun-tries in order to prevent the risk of the disruption of trade routes.41
Nonetheless, applying the second option as the chief measure relies on the fact that neighboring countries must possess rich raw material resources. Ger-many in the s and especially s was lucky in this sense. anks to the reorientation of German foreign trade from Western markets to the markets of Southeast Europe and the Balkans, where a very large number of raw ma-terials needed by German industries exist, German industry was able to achieve Hitler’s gigantic rearmament program to a certain extent. rough such a radical change in the commercial sphere, Germany was first able to keep the flow of significant raw materials into Germany going and then guar-anteed the undisrupted flow of raw materials into the heartlands of German industry in times of war. When the war broke out, the British navy quickly laid
39 Ibid., p. -.
40 Albert O. Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (University of Cali-fornia Press, ), .
41 Ibid., p. .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
an extensive blockade on almost every sea trade route that Germany was us-ing. However, the reorientation of foreign trade towards the neighboring re-gions had helped Germany to reach extremely important raw materials and foodstuffs that the country needed in the time of war, which helped German war effort sustain production and further wage the war.42 Had German poli-cymakers not readjusted a considerable part of German foreign trade towards the neighboring regions like the Balkans and Southeast Europe in the early s, the British and later American naval blockade in the Second World War would have entailed far-reaching negative consequences for the German war effort.
e last notion that constitutes the theoretical framework of this work is Hirschman’s “the influence effect of foreign trade”. According to Hirschman, foreign trade is not a mere exchange of goods between two different countries. Rather, it is a very valuable asset for countries with larger economic power to establish relationships of dependence without using coercion. When a country with a larger economy and stronger financial status engages in foreign trade activity with a country with a smaller economy, the relationship between these two always works in favor of the one with bigger economy due to the fact that in such a commercial situation, the share of the former in the total foreign trade of the latter almost always tends to be very high. On the other hand, the share occupied by the smaller country in the total foreign trade of the country with a bigger economy tends to be insignificant. Hence, the larger the volume of the foreign trade between these countries is, the more dependent the coun-try with the smaller economy is on one with the bigger economy.43
e only alternative available to smaller states to prevent falling prey to such a pitfall is readjusting their foreign trade towards different countries whose economic situation is more or less equal. However, such a readjustment is a painful process since finding new potential customers for exports takes a long time. Whenever a smaller country with a smaller or less-developed econ-omy decides to readjust her foreign trade, the difficulty of the readjustment
42 Gross, Export Empire, .
43 Hirschman, National Power, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
period is decided by two factors that are a)the total net gain of the trade de-riving from the current trade with the country with a larger economy and b)the length of the process of finding new markets. If an ongoing foreign trade with a bigger country brings a large amount of foreign currency or needed consumer goods and industrial machinery into the economy of a smaller country owing to the excessively high proportion that bigger country holds in the total foreign trade of the smaller country, reducing the bigger country’s share in the total trade of the smaller one would be a more difficult process for the smaller country since such a move is highly likely to cause a serious loss of income or shortages in the smaller country’s economy. e bigger the vol-ume of the trade between those countries is, the bigger the loss of foreign cur-rency is for the smaller country until the alternative export and import mar-kets are secured. Needless to say, finding alternative markets generally takes serious effort and time depending on smaller countries’ geographic location and their relations with other possible markets.44
On the other hand, for a richer country, replacing the share of smaller trade partners in foreign trade would be much easier since smaller economies tend to occupy insignificant shares in the total foreign trade of the well-devel-oped economies. To exemplify his argument Hirschman makes use of the for-eign trade statistics of Germany in the s. For instance, in the German-Bulgarian trade of , Germany occupies a hegemonic place in the total Bul-garian foreign trade by holding over fiy percent share in both Bulgarian im-ports and exports. Bulgaria, however, only occupies little more than one per-cent in the entire German foreign trade. In such circumstances, changing the direction of her foreign trade would have been quite difficult for Bulgaria since Germany was purchasing half of what was being produced in the country. Similarly, Germany was buying half of the entire Bulgarian export products such as foodstuffs and specific raw materials. On the other hand, German pol-icymakers could have stopped the commercial relations with Bulgaria anytime as one percent means almost nothing. As Hirschman tries to clarify by making
44 Ibid., p. -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
use of the German-Bulgarian special case, foreign trade always works in favor of those countries with more developed economies.45
e techniques employed by developed countries to sustain the monop-oly-like position in the foreign trade of smaller countries are not limited to just establishing commercial ties, though. Such big economies pursue certain policies, Hirschman argues, to strengthen the dependence relations. One of these policies is the threat of stopping trade. For example, whenever a bigger country that occupies a large share in a smaller country’s foreign trade feels her national interests in the smaller country threatened, intimidating the smaller one with cutting off all the commercial ties might be very effective for the former in getting the desired outcomes because the immediate stopping of the bilateral commerce is highly likely to cause serious hardships in the econ-omy of the smaller country.46
Furthermore, the prevention of industrialization in the periphery is an-other common method to sustain smaller countries’ overdependence on more developed ones. Economically well-developed countries, especially in the s, further encouraged countries without remarkable industrial infrastruc-ture to focus solely on agriculture and the production of agricultural goods and raw materials. e prevention of industrialization in the periphery would keep the markets of peripheral areas open to machinery and finished goods of developed countries. Such export markets were as important as they are now for the well-developed industrial countries’ economies at the time.47 Last but not least, countries with larger economies also benefit from certain minorities and powerful groups living within the borders of peripheral countries. By con-vincing such groups through both monetary and non-monetary incentives that collaborating with those countries with more developed economies is something very beneficial for both sides, countries with developed economies try to engender both the situation of their investments in peripheral countries and commercial ties with peripheral countries. Such minorities and certain
45 Ibid., p. -.
46 Ibid., p. -.
47 Ibid., p. .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
powerful groups who have a voice in the decision-making of the small coun-tries can be effective means of sustaining commercial relations.48 For instance, in the process of re-establishing her remarkable commercial position in Southeast Europe and the Balkans, German non-state actors drew highly on the considerable support of the German minorities living in Yugoslavia and Romania, who considered themselves the natural extension of German mer-chants in the region, which facilitated German penetration in the local mar-kets of these countries.49
In addition, countries with bigger economies also attempt to affect the pro-duction process in smaller countries by making direct investments in the re-source-extraction sectors of the latter as well as encouraging smaller countries to cultivate certain types of cash crops such as oilseeds, fiber plants, etc.50 Al-most all these tools mentioned were successfully combined and implemented by Germany during the s and s, whose story shall be told in the fol-lowing chapters.
In this chapter, firstly the broad concepts and arguments concerning the foreign trade and “informal empire/informal imperialism” were briefly dis-cussed. en the fundamental concepts constituting the theoretical approach of this work such as Nye’s “so power”, its adaptation by Stephen Gross to German-Balkan relations in the s and s and Hirschman’s concepts of “the supply and influence effects of foreign trade” were explained briefly.
48 Ibid., p. .
49 Gross, Export Empire, -.
50 Hirschman, National Power, .
German Soft Power Policies in the Balkans in the Inter-war Era, -
mmediately aer the signing of the Versailles Treaty, Germany found her-self in a very stressful situation. e hard power capacity of the state was now lying in ruins, excessive reparation demands imposed by the victors of the First World War was threatening already broken financial balance and po-litical instability was at an alarming level. In order to cover both the annual payments of the excessive reparations and a great number of imports needed to keep German industry producing, Weimar Germany needed to export more and more capital products and finished goods, which necessitated find-ing new markets and re-establishing the old ones that had become closed to German goods. is chapter shall first dwell on how Weimar Germany re-es-tablished the broken commercial relations with the Balkans through certain non-state organizations that helped promote commercial relations between Germany and certain countries in the Balkans such as Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria. Secondly, How the increasing exchange of goods and the suc-cessful implementation of so power policies by German actors with the help of the world’s economic conjuncture in the late s and s enabled Ger-many to found her “Großwirtschasraum” that would later provide the Nazi rule with enough numbers of raw materials and foodstuffs to sustain the re-armament drive shall be examined.
I
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
is chapter consists of two subsections. In the first subsection, the re-establishment of commercial ties and opening of the Southeast European and the Balkan markets to German goods with the help of certain private organi-zations and how the economic conjuncture throughout the s and early s helped Germany to increase her share in the overall foreign trade of these regions shall be evaluated. Besides, certain so power policies, put into practice mostly by certain German non-state organizations such as the Leipzig Trade Fair, the Leipzig Messeamt and chambers of commerce, will be broken down as these non-state actors and their practices laid the foundations of the “Großwirtschasraum” in the second half of the s.
In the second subsection, the emergence of German dominance in the Bal-kan countries’ foreign trade in the s through specific means such as H. Schacht’s “New Plan”, German direct investments, and later arms trade shall be investigated. In addition, how the increased trade and intensified commer-cial relations with the countries located in these two regions made Hitler’s re-armament programme possible by supplying certain strategically important raw materials that were urgently needed in German war industry shall be bro-ken down to show how vital the ongoing trade with the Balkans was to keep German war industry producing. Finally, the continuation of German so power policies in the forms of the promotion of the growing trade with Ger-many, student exchange programs, etc. throughout the s and their contri-bution to the emergence of the German “Großwirtschasraum” in the Balkans will be examined as well.
§ . Lying the Foundations of Großwirtschasraum: e Re-es-tablishment of Commercial Relations between Germany and the Balkans and the Role of German Private Organiza-tions, -
A severe economic crisis hit Weimar Germany very hard in the post-Versailles period. Having been stuck between the overwhelming reparations demands and a severe balance-of-payments crisis, Weimar politicians had resorted to
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
specific inflationary practices such as money-printing, which brought a disas-trous hyperinflation period that led to huge financial losses for middle-classes but a complete catastrophe for wage-earners.1 To service her debts, Germany turned to overseas countries, in particular the USA. Between and , very large loans were taken from the USA to pay the reparations’ annual in-stallments, which formed a huge burden on the already fragile German econ-omy.2 Taking large loans from the USA, however, was the deliberate policy of G. Stresemann, the German Foreign Minister, who thought that a remarkable increase in the total American capital in Germany would eventually result in the elimination of the reparation payments. What made him think so was the fact that Germany could not simultaneously cover both the repayments of the reparations and that of the loans taken from the USA. To protect the American capital in Germany, Stresemann envisaged that sooner or later the American government would intervene and abolish the reparations. Only aer the re-moval of the reparations burden, Germany could pay the annual installments of the loans issued to the Weimar government throughout the s.3
Despite these attempts to temporarily solve Germany’s chronic balance-of-payments crisis, the only way of saving Germany from such a problematic economic situation was first getting rid of the reparations and then increasing her exports to a huge extent as pointed out by H. Schacht.4 One of the most suitable geographical areas for German machinery and finished goods exports was the Balkans with its geographical proximity to Germany. Prior to the out-break of the First World War, Germany was one of the most significant trading
1 Karl Hardach, e Political Economy of Germany in the Twentieth Century (Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press, ), -; Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, Confessions of "the Old Wizard." (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ), -.
2 Hardach, e Political Economy of Germany, -; Schacht, Confessions, .
3 Adam J. Tooze, e Wages of Destruction: e Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (Lon-don: Allen Lane, ), -; Albrecht Ritschl, “Dancing on a Volcano: e Economic Recov-ery and Collapse of Weimar Germany, -,” in e World Economy and National Econo-mies in the Interwar Slump, ed. eo Balderston (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ), .
4 Schacht, Confessions, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
partners of Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece.5 Being composed of agrar-ian economies with rich mineral resources, the Balkans were still looking like a very promising market for German exports at the beginning of the Interwar Era.
Meanwhile, in the Balkans, certain political developments happened that affected the internal economic dynamics of these agrarian countries. e First World War inflicted severe damage in the Balkans in terms of both human and physical capital. Serbia and Romania suffered severe manpower losses and the former’s industrial assets were severely reduced by the destruction brought by the War.6 Besides, the profitable large market of the old Habsburg Empire was now gone, which caused severe economic problems in certain parts of the Bal-kans that used to take part in the Habsburg domestic trade. e absence of a unified domestic market both in Yugoslavia and Romania owing to the recent annexation of new regions from the fragmented Habsburg Empire made mat-ters even worse. In other words, significant border changes that had happened in the Balkans in the aermath of the First World War severely influenced the economic situation in the region. Now, long-standing economic connections between different parts of the vast Habsburg Empire were shattered with the emergence of new national frontiers.7
Not only the changing frontiers but also the long-standing economic char-acteristics of the Balkan states are needed to be mentioned here to better un-derstand the conditions prevailing in the Balkans at the time. First of all, the agrarian nature of the Balkan countries’ economies persisted. In the s and s, over of the entire population of Romania and Yugoslavia remained dependent on agricultural activities for their livelihood.8 Secondly, agricul-tural production remained mostly primitive due to the lack of modern agri-cultural knowledge and equipment. Many peasants did not even possess their own plows and modern agricultural machinery such as tractors. ese were
5 John R. Lampe and Marvin R. Jackson, Balkan Economic History, - (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ), .
6 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, and .
7 Ibid., p. - and -.
8 Ibid., p. -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
the luxuries that only the wealthy owners of large estates could afford. e lack of modern agricultural knowledge and that of equipment resulted in low yield in agricultural production.9 Furthermore, the chronic problem of overpopu-lation in the Balkan countryside also persisted in the s and s.10By the same token, small-holding peasantry prevailed in most of the Balkan coun-tries, which was constantly strengthened by the age-old custom of dividing family plots among sons. In consequence, very large numbers of dwarf hold-ings continued to emerge across the Balkans. For example, in Yugoslavia, two-thirds of all arable lands were under five hectares in .11 In addition, another chronic problem of the Balkan peasantry was indebtedness. In Yugoslavia and Romania, for instance, most peasants with small holdings owed significant amounts of money to individual lenders who were providing short-term loans to peasants at very high-interest rates so that peasants with small holdings could cover their taxes and other expenditures.12 Last but not least, Balkan peasants’ overall standard of living was quite low. Most peasants were under-nourished, whose diet was mostly composed of maize. Villages were poor and vulnerable to contagious diseases.13
Despite German businessmen’s interest in resurrecting commercial rela-tions with the Balkans aer the war, strict political and economic constraints, shown by S.Gross’ recent study, constituted certain obstacles on the way of re-establishing vivid economic relations with the region. First of all, in accord-ance with the Versailles Treaty, all German investments and shares in certain banks and companies in the Balkans were either confiscated by the Balkan nation-states or taken over by the victorious powers of World War I.14
9 Hugh Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars, - (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), -.
10 Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars, -; Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, .
11 Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars (Seattle: University of Washington Press, ), - and -; Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, ; Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars, .
12 Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe, -.
13 Rothschild, East Central Europe, ; Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars, -.
14 Gross, Export Empire, .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Similarly, acquiring information about the demands, tastes, and prices in the Southeast European domestic markets became difficult since the organi-zation of German consulates, which used to be the main information-provider of small to medium-sized German producers, had severely shrunk. e num-ber of personnel working at German embassies was severely reduced in line with the lesser amount of funds allocated to German consulates due to eco-nomic hardships that Germany was facing. erefore, receiving information about recent changes and happenings within the local markets of the region’s countries became more difficult for German producers and traders of smaller size. As a result, trading with these countries became more difficult for Ger-man merchants and companies.15 Moreover, no German chambers of com-merce were set up in the region until the beginning of the s, which also make finding opportunities to meet and negotiate difficult for both sides’ mer-chants and producers.16
irdly, the recent hyperinflation and overall bad performance of the Ger-man economy damaged the prestige and reputation of the German economy in the eyes of others, which also negatively influenced the likelihood of im-proving the exchange of goods between the two sides. Furthermore, new ob-stacles emerged in German-Balkan commercial relations due to the differ-ences in the way that law and bureaucracy were functioning in the Balkans. For example, due to the partially corrupt and underpaid Yugoslavian state bu-reaucracy, most German traders eager to trade with Yugoslavia had to spend extra money on bribes to be allowed to operate and get their judicial problems solved. Similarly, these German traders and businessmen operating in this ge-ography did not enjoy a formal backing by the Weimar government. All in all, under such circumstances, developing trade with Balkan countries looked very difficult. However, the situation was soon to be changed in Germany’s favor by the direct involvement of certain German non-state actors and pri-vate organizations.17
15 Ibid., p. -.
16 Ibid., p. -.
17 Ibid., p. -; Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars (Seattle: University of Washington Press, ), and .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Having known the suitable market opportunities for German exports in the Balkans, those German businessmen based in German territories like Sax-ony, where livelihood depends largely on export opportunities, took the initi-ative to change the overall picture in Germany’s favor. us, the age-old Leip-zig Trade Fair became one of the most significant means for Germany to intensify her commercial relations with the Balkans. To turn the fair into a meeting point for merchants from Germany and all around the Balkans, “the Leipzig Messeamt” (Central Office of the Leipzig Trade Fair) embarked on certain activities to promote the fair as the new nexus of German-Balkan trade and attract more and more visitors from the region.18 In the absence of the direct financial and political support of the Weimar government, the Mes-seamt was exclusively funded by the business circles of Saxony and the Leipzig Chamber of Commerce from on since exports were the chief source of wealth for this region. the Messeamt executives opened an office in Belgrade in to collect information about the Yugoslavian domestic market, inform German producers and merchants of what type of goods was demanded, and help German companies participate in the commercial life of the country. is was necessary because German embassies in the Balkans could no longer af-ford a sufficient number of personnel to collect information about the local markets. Hence, the non-state actor Messeamt, established by the business-men of Saxony, took the initiative. By the same token, the Messeamt’s Belgrade office initiated a considerable advertisement campaign for German goods through posters, radio advertisements, and brochures in order to increase the Yugoslavian people’s overall demand for German export products.19
Besides, the German advertisement efforts in the Balkans also sought to promote the Leipzig Trade Fair as the nexus of the Balkan commerce, where the Yugoslavian businessmen could see the latest German machinery and fin-ished products as well as find the opportunity to come together with German businessmen to sell raw materials and foodstuffs that were being produced in Yugoslavia.20 e Messeamt’s efforts seem to have worked as the number of Yugoslavian attendants in the Leipzig Trade Fairs that took place throughout
18 Gross, Export Empire, -.
19 Ibid., p. -.
20 Ibid., p. -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
the s increased gradually. Such an increase positively reflected on Ger-man-Yugoslavian trade. e total value of German exports to Yugoslavia in-creased more than six times between and and that of German im-ports from the same country also went up significantly.21
Similar developments took place in Romania during the same years as well. A significant number of German minority living in the Transylvanian district, who saw themselves as German merchants’ natural representatives in Romania, eased Germany’s access to the Romanian domestic market. e members of this German community tried to improve German-Romanian trade believing that the agricultural machinery imports from Germany would increase the overall agricultural production of Romania. Besides, they also be-lieved that playing a leading role in this trade would definitely increase their own wealth. us, the German minority in Romania became one of the most crucial means for Germany to intensify commercial relations with Romania.22 In , for example, with the initiative of certain Romanians and Transylva-nian Germans, a German-Romanian chamber of commerce was founded in Bucharest in , which would later be followed by another one in Berlin. In the absence of direct financial and political support of the German state, these chambers of commerce played a very active role in information-collecting about the demands, opportunities, and recent changes in the domestic Roma-nian market. e collected information was being shared with German com-panies and merchants.23
In the same way, the Messeamt, through its agents and networks, also made extensive advertisement campaigns in the forms of brochures, radio ad-vertisements, etc. to draw more and more Romanian merchants and business-men to the Leipzig Fair. By visiting the fair, these merchants and businessmen could see the latest German capital and finished goods and find customers for Romanian export goods. As Gross analyzed in his work, the Messeamt and chambers of commerce’s intense efforts appear to have worked because the
21 Ibid., p. -.
22 Ibid., p. -.
23 Ibid., p. -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
number of Romanian attendants increased and so did the volume of German-Romanian trade.24
In short, in the absence of the financial and political support of the Weimar government, German non-state organizations such as the Leipzig Trade Fair, the Messeamt and chambers of commerce played a significant role, as Gross’ detailed study points out, in laying the foundations of German so power in the Balkans. e Leipzig Trade fair became a meeting point for German, Yu-goslavian and Romanian businessmen and merchants, where they could es-tablish a face-to-face contact to discuss new business opportunities. Further-more, the fair served the German economy by displaying brand-new German industrial and agricultural machinery to visitors, which contributed to Ger-man exports in tough economic times. Furthermore, the Messeamt organiza-tion also played a key role in promoting German exports to the Balkan coun-tries by establishing first an office in Belgrade then a vast network of agents through which the latest changes and developments within the domestic mar-kets of the Balkan countries were carefully observed and conveyed to German firms. Specific advertisement campaigns were also organized, which drew more and more participants from the region to the Leipzig Trade Fair in the s. By the same token, the chambers of commerce in Bucharest and Berlin facilitated German-Romanian trade by constantly providing economic infor-mation regarding the Romanian domestic market and arranging advertising campaigns for the promotion of the Leipzig Trade Fair and German export goods.25
All these private organizations tried to convince the Romanian and Yugo-slavian merchants and businessmen that “what Germany wants is actually what Romanian and Yugoslavian businessmen want.” is can be summarized as the motto of so power as explained by J. Nye.26 By doing so, German in-volvement in the Romanian and Yugoslavian markets was attempted to be jus-tified as something economically beneficial for both sides on the grounds that the Balkan countries also increased their export incomes by exporting very
24 Ibid., p. -.
25 Ibid., p. -.
26 Ibid., p. ; Nye, So Power, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
large numbers of raw materials and foodstuffs to Germany in the second half of the s. As a result of all these endeavors, the German share in both the foreign trade of Yugoslavia and Romania grew significantly. By the beginning of the s, Germany had become the two countries’ main trade partner.27
In the development of German-Balkan trade, the minorities of German origin living in the Balkans seem to have played a considerable role.28 e sig-nificant contribution of the German minorities living in Yugoslavia and Ro-mania to the re-establishment of German-Balkan commercial relations might have stemmed from the fact that the Yugoslavian and Romanian governments had embarked on certain discriminatory implementations aiming at breaking the economic power of minorities living within the borders Romania and Yu-goslavia. e post-war peace agreements’ arrangements resulted in the annex-ation of certain former Habsburg lands to Yugoslavia and Romania. ese ter-ritories were hosting a significant number of minorities including Germans. In post-war Romania, roughly , ethnic Germans were living within the borders of the country in , who mainly concentrated in Transylvania. Sim-ilarly, about , ethnic Germans constituted a minority of remarkable size in Yugoslavia, who concentrated in Bačka, Banat, and to a lesser extent in Croatia.29 To achieve national homogeneity within the recently annexed terri-tories, the Yugoslavian and Romanian governments put certain discrimina-tory policies in practice that aimed to assimilate the minorities.30 First of all, the minorities living within the borders of Romania and Yugoslavia were con-sidered unreliable foreigners by the nationalist ruling elites of Yugoslavia and Romania.31 Such a discriminatory approach manifested itself in certain dis-criminatory implementations that targeted at the minorities. For example, Yu-goslav citizens of German and Hungarian origin were excluded from voting in the November elections.32
27 Gross, Export Empire, -.
28 Ibid., p. -.
29 Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars, -.
30 Ibid., p. -.
31 Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans Vol. . (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), ; Rothschild, East Central Europe, .
32 Jelavich, History of the Balkans, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
In addition, both in Yugoslavia and Romania, the tax burden was unevenly distributed among recently acquired lands where minorities were living and the territories where Serbians and Romanians constituted the majority. e bulk of the tax burden was deliberately placed on the former with a view to breaking the economic strength of these “dangerous minorities” as well as compensating for the financial destruction of the First World War. Enhancing the economic situation of less-developed parts of the country at the expense of the minorities’ prosperity was also aimed.33
One of the most discriminatory applications adopted by the nationalist ruling cadres of Yugoslavia and Romania can be seen in the land reforms put into practice by these countries’ governments aer the end of the First World War. During the land reform process in the recently-annexed territories where non-Serbian and Romanian minorities constituted the majority, the proper-ties of the minorities including Germans were unevenly expropriated and re-distributed among Serbian and Romanian peasants who had been brought into these territories.34 Hence, along with the material gains that stemmed from the intensified trade with Germany, such discriminatory implementa-tions of the ethnic majorities controlling the government circles in Yugoslavia and Romania appear to have played a decisive role in convincing the German minorities living in Romania and Yugoslavia to further promote the commer-cial relations with Germany. By doing so, they might have hoped to both in-crease their wealth and receive Germany’s political support to protect their regional autonomy.
Establishing intense commercial relations and occupying a remarkable place in certain Balkan countries’ foreign trade were not enough to completely dominate the economies of these countries. Since many German business cir-cles genuinely believed that economics and culture are interconnected, estab-lishing the German cultural influence on the peoples of the region was a ne-cessity to further the overall German influence in the Balkans. In other words,
33 Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe, , and .
34 Jelavich, History of the Balkans, ; Rothschild, East Central Europe, ; Seton-Watson, East-ern Europe between the Wars, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
increasing German cultural influence was thought of as an efficient instru-ment in creating more business opportunities.35 Specific German private or-ganizations took the lead in furthering German cultural influence in the Bal-kans by establishing certain non-state organizations in the late s with a view to cultivating the cultural relations as well as publishing regularly about the conditions in the Balkan markets. e first institute was established, not surprisingly, in Leipzig in . e organization was called “Institut für Mit-tel-und Südosteuropāische Wirtschasforschang (IMSWf)”. According to S. Gross’ comprehensive study, the institute published works on Romania, Yu-goslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and other Balkan countries in which the economic characteristics of these Balkan countries such as the rates of investments, eco-nomic growth, employment, etc. were thoroughly assessed to see how Ger-many could benefit from such economies. Knowing how these economies work, what the strong and weak points of them are, what kind of goods or machinery they demand was of utmost importance in determining Germany’s economic approach to these countries. IMSWf’s publications tried to fill in the gap in this sphere.36
IMSWf was soon followed by “Mitteleuropa Institut” in . e articles written by academicians in the Balkan countries regarding the economic situ-ation of the region were regularly translated into German and published in the organization’s media organ i.e. Mitteleuropāische Pressespiegel, which was being distributed to companies, industrial institutions, and the German For-eign Office. Furthermore, the organization’s networks in the Balkans held lec-tures about German culture, technology, and products to influence locals. In addition, the institute also aided German merchants and big companies in their quest for finding reliable agents as well as in advertising campaigns being done with a view to increasing Germany’s exports. One of the most significant aspects of the organization, however, was the significance it bestowed to the “student exchange programs”. Knowing that current students would occupy significant offices in the future, drawing more and more students from the
35 Gross, Export Empire, .
36 Ibid., p. -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Balkans to study in Germany became one of the principal purposes of the in-stitute. Nonetheless, owing to a severe lack of financial support, efforts to bring more foreign students to Germany remained at insignificant levels until the next decade.37
Certain German business circles and policymakers -especially during the Nazi regime- claimed that the only way for the Balkans of reaching a higher level of economic prosperity lies in further cooperation with the German economy since the Balkans and Germany were “complementing” each other economically.38 is attempt of selling Germany as the developer of a back-ward region was just another reflection of one of the most basic techniques of so power that is convincing the other side “to want the outcomes that you want.”39
e emergence of the Great Depression and its long-lasting economic ef-fects played a significant role in the establishment of the German informal empire, which was to emerge in the mid-s. Following the crisis, the USA stopped providing capital to other countries, which meant that the oppor-tunity of taking more loans from the USA came to an end and so did the Stre-semann’s cooperation with the USA.40 Now, German policymakers had to turn their gazes elsewhere as even the champions of free-trade such as the USA and Britain had raised the tariffs and withdrawn behind them, which brought significant falls in the overall German-American and German-British trade.41 In addition to the overwhelming reparation payments and the huge credit debts that Germany owed to the USA, Germany faced a severe decline in her exports as the overall foreign trade across the world had severely shrunk due to the Great Depression. e decline in German exports immediately
37 Ibid., p. -.
38 Ibid., p. .
39 Joseph S. Nye, “Public Diplomacy and So Power,” e Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (March ): –.
40 Hardach, e Political Economy of Germany, -; Balderston, Dancing on a Volcano, .
41 Tooze, e Wages of Destruction, -; Schacht, Confessions, ; Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
brought a decline in raw material imports. Without enough raw material im-ports and the lack of wide markets to sell German goods, the overall industrial production in Germany remarkably regressed. As a consequence, unemploy-ment in Germany skyrocketed and reached . percent in .42
However, even worse happened to the Balkan states. Following the radical price falls in agricultural foodstuffs and raw materials together with the severe decrease in the total volume of foreign trade across the world with the Great Slump,43 already problematic Balkan economies entered a period of crisis. Since agricultural products were their primary export commodities, a severe reduction of export incomes hit these economies very hard. All Balkan coun-tries immediately started to look for new market opportunities for their export goods in order to earn sufficient amounts of foreign currency. ese countries had to earn a certain amount of foreign currency to cover their imports and pay their loans’ installments.44 e Depression also hit already poor Balkan peasantry. e burden of indebtedness and that of taxes increased, standards of living further deteriorated.45 Peasants now needed to produce more to com-pensate for the severe price reductions in agricultural products. Germany, the closest economy to the Balkans that could import the entire agricultural pro-duction surplus of the Balkan countries, would become the biggest customer of these countries’ exports as well as the most important machinery and fin-ished goods supplier of the Balkans. In other words, by shattering the eco-nomic interconnectedness of all countries, the Great Slump created very suit-able conditions for German economic dominance in the Balkans.46
Having seen that no further capital was on the way from the USA and large markets were now being shut down to German export products, Germany turned to the Balkans. Firstly, bilateral treaties were concluded with Hungary
42 Hardach, e Political Economy of Germany, -.
43 Pamuk, Uneven Centuries, -; Schacht, Confessions, -.
44 Gross, Export Empire, -; Barlas, “Germany's Economic Policy,” –.
45 Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars, -.
46 Jelavich, History of the Balkans, ; Barlas, “Germany’s Economic Policy,” -; Mark Mit-nitzky, “Germany's Trade Monopoly in Eastern Europe.” Social Research , no. (February ): ; Hardach, e Political Economy of Germany, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
and Romania in to give the mutual trade a stronger basis.47 Moreover, the Brüning government in Germany attempted to achieve a customs union with Austria since the latter occupies a significant role in the foreign trade of the Balkans. ese early attempts to penetrate more the economic vita of the re-gion failed for certain reasons. Nonetheless, these attempts are important in the sense that Germany was now slowly reorienting her trade towards the Bal-kans in the face of the deteriorating terms of trade with Western markets.48 us, as stated by Lampe and Jackson, the drive to intensify the commercial relations with Southeastern Europe was not initiated by Hitler. Instead, the Brüning government made the first official attempts to reorient German trade to the region on a larger scale.49
§ . e Emergence of the German “Informal Empire”: Schacht’s New Plan and the Manifestation of German Eco-nomic Hegemony, -
Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany in January ushered a new era that was to have severe repercussions for the Balkan economies. Believing that Germany was in a life-and-death fight against the Britain-led world system, Hitler challenged the entire global political order and opened a new era of rearmament of an unprecedented scale to get the German people ready for the ultimate fight.50 However, economic problems were hanging over the German economy like Damocles’ sword. Unemployment was at the height, a severe balance-of-payments crisis was present and more importantly, Germany lacked sufficient foreign currency reserves to cover the number of imports necessary for the armament drive.51 Besides, obtaining more capital from overseas countries was no longer possible and the Western European and Northern American markets were now being protected behind the high tariff
47 Gross, Export Empire, -; Barlas, Germany’s Economic Policy, .
48 Gross, Export Empire, -.
49 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, .
50 Tooze, e Wages of Destruction, XXIV and .
51 Ibid., p. -; Schacht, Confessions, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
walls. Such developments were accompanied by the devaluation of first the British pound in and later that of the American dollar in . ese de-valuations made German export products further uncompetitive in Western markets.52 As a consequence, Germany, under the Reichsbank’s new president Hjalmar Schacht’s guidance, embarked on a new programme that aimed to orient a significant part of her foreign trade to the Balkans. is move was the most significant one that enabled Germany, despite ridiculously low foreign exchange reserves and recurrent financial crises, to sustain the rearmament drive that eventually bestowed Germany the greatest armed force in , which made the quick conquests of Poland and France possible.53
With the Nazi’s power takeover, the entire German economy was quickly transformed into a “regulated war economy” in which the state imposed a to-tal control on the overall imports, exports, and foreign currency exchanges.54 Trusting his abilities, Hitler reappointed German economist H. Schacht first as the head of the Reichsbank in March and then as the minister of eco-nomics in August . Schacht was to play a key role in the intensification of the economic relations with the Balkans as well as the emergence of the Ger-man informal empire in the same region, which would enable Germany to pursue a very aggressive rearmament program. On June , Germany unilaterally declared a moratorium that suspended every international debt payments that Germany was required to make. By doing so, the strained Ger-man economy could now transfer more resources to the armament project. From August onwards, twenty-five supervisory agencies were established to allocate the limited amount of foreign currency that Germany possessed among German companies according to the state’s priorities. e majority of the limited foreign exchange reserves were now being allocated to the German firms that were involved in the rearmament programme since the rearmament
52 Tooze, e Wages of Destruction -.
53 Tooze, e Wages of Destruction, -; Stephen Gross, “Selling Germany in South-Eastern Europe: Economic Uncertainty, Commercial Information and the Leipzig Trade Fair -,” Contemporary European History , no. (February ): –.
54 Arthur Schweitzer, “e Role of Foreign Trade in the Nazi War Economy,” Journal of Political Economy , no. (August ): –; Hardach, e Political Economy of Germany, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
was the top priority of the Nazi regime. Similarly, the allocation of raw mate-rials was directly done by the related state apparatus in which the top priority was bestowed to German arms producers. All in all, the Nazi rule established a strict monopoly on foreign currency reserves, imports, and exports to make sure that the lion’s share of the limited foreign exchange reserves and raw ma-terials was flowing into the rearmament effort.55
In September , Schacht declared his famous “New Plan” that was to reorient a considerable part of German foreign trade towards the Balkans and Latin America. e implementation of the New Plan would entail a serious rupture from Western European and Northern American markets. Owing to the chronic sufferance from a severe balance-of-payments crisis and alarm-ingly low levels of foreign exchange reserves in Germany in , Schacht aimed to increase Germany’s exchange of goods with the Balkans and Latin America on the basis of the clearing system. rough the clearing system that depended on the bilateral trade agreements with Germany’s trade partners, Germany aimed to secure the constant flow of raw materials and foodstuffs that German industry and population needed. e payment of these pur-chases was not to be made in foreign currency, though. Instead, the value of German purchases was to be accumulated in offset accounts at Reichsbank. To liquidate these balances, Germany’s trade partner countries needed to make purchases from German companies.56
e clearing system gave the strained German economy the capacity to sustain the flow of great numbers of raw materials and foodstuffs needed to keep the factories running and the population fed while prevented Germany’s alarmingly low level of foreign exchange reserves from reaching zero. A very large part of German foreign trade came to be done this way in the s. As A. Tooze remarked in his related work, the New Plan and its achievements were remarkable given that Germany managed to sustain her trade and kept the required raw materials flowing in the country with ridiculously low levels
55 Schacht, Confessions, -; Schweitzer, “e Role of Foreign Trade, -”; Tooze, e Wages of Destruction, -.
56 Barlas, “Germany’s Economic Policy,” -; Neal, “e Economics and Finance,” -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
of foreign exchange reserves that were not even sufficient to cover Germany’s one week of imports.57
Germany’s interest in the Balkans for finding new trade partners was wel-comed by many countries in the region for some reason. First of all, Countries like Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and so on found very profitable and necessary to increase the trade with Germany in the s because follow-ing the Great Depression, many Balkan countries faced a severe decline in their exports; consequently, they experienced a huge reduction in their foreign currency incomes. ese countries were in the immediate need of increasing their agricultural raw material exports. Germany, one of the greatest econo-mies of Europe, could easily purchase and consume the entire agricultural sur-plus of the Balkan Peninsula. erefore, Germany was looking like an ideal trade partner for many Balkan countries.58
Secondly, in accordance with Schacht’s New Plan, such countries could import the required agricultural and industrial machinery as well as finished goods from Germany without being required to pay with foreign currency. Instead, the imports would directly be covered by raw material and foodstuffs exports to Germany on the basis of the clearing system. Such a barter trade looked quite profitable for these agrarian countries that lacked adequate for-eign currency reserves.59
Finally, to eliminate any kind of external competition in the Balkans, Ger-many was offering above-market prices for the Balkan countries’ export goods and raw materials, which also made trading with Germany an attractive and profitable business.60 In the end, all these alleged profits and advantages of trading with Germany played a key role in the emergence of the German “Großwirtschasraum” in the Balkans in the s. By buying as much as pos-sible from these countries, German share increased even more and reached as
57 Tooze, e Wages of Destruction, -.
58 Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars,-; Jelavich, History of the Balkans, .
59 Barlas, “Germany’s Economic Policy,” -; Mitnitzky, “Germany's Trade Monopoly in Eastern Europe,” ; Hardach, e Political Economy of Germany, .
60 Barlas, “Germany’s Economic Policy,” ; Allan G. B. Fischer, “e German Trade Drive in Southeastern Europe,” Royal Institute of International Affairs - , no. (): ; Gross, Export Empire, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
high as percent in the foreign trade of some of the main trading partners of Germany in the Balkans in the second half of the s as shown by the table . below. In other words, Germany had managed to obtain a “monopolistic position” in the foreign trades of several Balkan countries by the end of the s. As Gross pointed out, in Romania and Yugoslavia had imported and percent of their machinery, and percent of their vehicles from Germany respectively. Similarly, German chemical products accounted for percent of the total Romanian chemical imports in the same year.61 is was the natural result of what Hirschman formulated as “the influence effect”, ac-cording to which a country with a larger economy tries to increase her share as much as possible in the foreign trade of her trade partners with smaller economies to make them economically dependent.62
Table . German Share in the Balkan Countries’ Foreign Trade ()
Countries
Yugoslavian imports
.
.
.
.
.
.
Yugoslavian exports
.
.
.
.
.
.
Romanian imports
.
.
.
.
.
.
Romanian exports
.
.
.
.
.
.
Bulgarian imports
.
.
.
.
.
.
Bulgarian exports
.
.
.
.
.
.
Turkish imports
.
.
.
.
.
.
Turkish exports
.
.
.
.
.
.
SOURCE Milward, “Reichsmark Bloc”, . (Quoted from Gross, Export Empire, .); Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, - and -.
e Nazi government’s attempts to tie the Balkans tighter to the Nazi economy as part of the Nazi informal empire added new tools to its inventory in the second half of the s. In June , a new and much more comprehensive rearmament plan draed, which envisaged the creation of a gigantic German army to be composed of divisions including several tank divisions and a frightening air force to which Goering hoped to bestow nearly . brand-
61 Gross, Export Empire, -.
62 Hirschman, National Power, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
new warplanes.63 is was too much for the fragile German economy, as Schacht argued, and would put a severe extra burden on the entire economy. Such an incredible plan was accompanied by another high-flying project called the “Four Year Plan.” e Four Year Plan aimed to make Germany a self-sufficient country in certain strategically important raw materials such as oil and rubber. For the establishment of specific facilities that would enable Germany to reach autarky, a very large number of investments were needed, which also put an extra burden on the already fragile economy of the coun-try.64
ese gigantic projects, especially the former to a greater extent, had re-quired a severe increase in the overall flow of raw materials into Germany, which pushed German policymakers to extract more and more raw materials from the Balkans. To do so, in addition to her monopolistic position, Germany increased her direct foreign investments in the Balkans in the second half of the s, notably in the sectors of mining and oil. By gaining a certain degree of control in the resource-extraction process in several Balkan countries through certain implementations such as opening new mines, improving the existing mines with advanced German machinery and knowledge, Germany aimed at increasing the number of raw materials flowing from the Balkans into Germany.65 In Yugoslavia, for example, an agreement was concluded with the Yugoslavian government for the establishment of the m RM worth Zenica Steelworks. e agreement envisaged that Krupp was to deliver the necessary machinery and equipment to run the facility in return for further deliveries of raw materials to Germany. e construction was completed by Krupp between the years of and .66 In addition, Germany’s taking over the remarkable
63 Tooze, e Wages of Destruction, -.
64 Ibid., p. -.
65 György Ránki, “Surmounting the Economic Crisis in South-East Europe in the s,” Acta Historica Adademiae Scientiarum Hungaricae , no. / (): –; Gavriil Preda, “Ger-man Foreign Policy towards the Romanian Oil during -,” International Journal of So-cial Science and Humanity , no. (May ): –.
66 Gross, Export Empire, and ; Rothschild, East Central Europe, ; Lampe and Johnson, Balkan Economic History, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Austrian and Czechoslovakian investments in Yugoslavia -especially in the ce-ment and sugar sectors- following the Anschluss and the annexation of Czech-oslovakia in also played a crucial role in the increase of the overall share of German investments in Yugoslavia.67
Besides, German firms also bought several mining firms to ensure the con-stant flow of iron, copper, and antimony sources into Germany.68 For example, two new mining sites opened in Yugoslavia by a German consortium in the second half of the s. ese sites started to supply Germany with antimony ores, which had previously been imported from remote areas. In consequence, antimony ores started to be imported from Yugoslavia in very large amounts.69 Hence, these investments in Yugoslavia provided Germany with a closer source of strategically important antimony. In the s, Yugoslavia was sup-plying Germany with strategically crucial raw materials such as bauxite, anti-mony, chrome, copper, and timber.70 By the same token, Germany signed a very crucial trade treaty with Romania on March that enabled German firms to get involved in the Romanian oil industry to better exploit the large oil reserves in the country. With the agreement, Germany secured significant control on the Romanian oil reserves, which had a priceless importance to keep the German Army operable.71 As a consequence, by , German capital investments had accounted for , , and . of the entire foreign capital investments in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Bulgaria respectively.72
Aside from tangible direct investments, German policymakers also tried to influence Balkan countries’ production patterns to make them produce raw materials needed by Germany. e most striking example of such a policy was the cultivation of soybeans in Romania and Bulgaria. A firm called “Soja AG” was founded to encourage the cultivation of soybeans in these two countries. From on, it started the process of soybean cultivation in these two coun-tries. Within five years, the amount of soybean cultivation skyrocketed and
67 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, .
68 Ránki, “Surmounting the Economic Crisis,” .
69 Gross, Export Empire, .
70 Rothschild, East Central Europe, .
71 Preda, “German Foreign Policy,” -.
72 Ránki, “Surmounting the Economic Crisis,” .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
almost the entire production was being purchased by Germany. By encourag-ing the Balkan countries to cultivate cash crops needed by the German market, German policy first achieved creating production zones nearby that would feed German industry during a war without the risk of interruption. Second, by introducing such cash crops into certain Balkan countries’ production pat-terns, which were not being demanded in other markets, German policymak-ers further tied these economies to German foreign trade. In case of an inter-ruption of trade with Germany, it would be very difficult to find alternative markets for these crops. Hence, the ruling elites of such countries would have to think twice before considering limiting or breaking off commercial rela-tions with Germany.73
Another means that entered the inventory of Nazi politicians in the second half of the s to strengthen the economic dependence of the Balkans on Germany was arm deliveries as shown by the related studies of György Ránki and Christian Leitz.74 Despite the risk that the weapons and military material that Germany was selling to the Balkan countries could be used against herself due to the obscure political stance of some Balkan countries, German policy-makers accepted the risk and kept making large numbers of weapons and mil-itary material deliveries to certain Balkan states. From onwards, Germany supplied Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Turkey with large de-liveries of military materials and weapons. ese deliveries enabled Germany to balance her trade deficit in the trade with the Balkan countries so that she could purchase even greater numbers of raw materials needed to cover the requirements of the new armament plan.75 Germany even accepted to export her brand-new warplanes to Romania in return for further deliveries of oil despite the obscure political stance of Romania. Because oil was of vital im-
73 Gross, Export Empire, -; Hirschman, National Power, ; Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars, .
74 Ránki, “Surmounting the Economic Crisis,” -; Christian Leitz, “Arms as Levers: Maté-riel and Raw Materials in Germany's Trade with Romania in the s,” e International History Review , no. (May ): –.
75 Leitz, “Arms as Levers,” .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
portance for German war industry and Wehrmacht. In other words, arms de-liveries to Romania were used as a means to obtain strategically-significant oil resource.76 By the same token, large armament deliveries to these countries were considered to be another tool of Germany for establishing a political in-fluence on these countries. As their armies were equipped with German ma-terial, they would remain dependent on Germany in terms of technical exper-tise and obtaining spare parts.77 us, such contracts were acceptable for the German side as they opened new channels through which Germany could ex-ert economic and political influence on these countries.78
Certain private organizations such as the Leipzig Trade Fair, the Mes-seamt, and chambers of commerce, which had previously played a crucial role in the re-establishment of commercial relations between Germany and the Balkans, continued to serve German cause in the s as well. e German-Romanian Chambers of Commerce in Bucharest and Berlin kept serving Ger-many’s financial interests by aiding German firms in finding local partners to sell machinery and finished goods in the Romanian domestic market and keeping German business circles informed about the latest changes in prices, tastes, and conditions in the local Balkan markets. More importantly, the Leip-zig Trade Fair remained in the s as the center of the trade between Ger-many and her Balkan partners. e fair kept drawing more and more busi-nessmen and company representatives from the region and bestowed them the chance of displaying the indigenous export products of their own coun-tries. Similarly, German companies, regardless of their size, were given oppor-tunities to display the latest capital and finished goods to visitors during the fair. is seems to have played a key role in the increase of German machinery and finished goods exports to the Balkan countries. Furthermore, the fair was a face-to-face meeting point for businessmen and commercial representatives
76 Leitz, “Arms as Levers,” ; Preda, “German Foreign Policy,” .
77 Hirscman, National Power, .
78 Leitz, “Arms as Levers,” -; Ránki, “Surmounting the Economic Crisis,” ; Cemil Koçak, Türkiye'de Milli Şef Dönemi (-) Vol. . (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, ), -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
on both sides to create new business opportunities as well as find new custom-ers or suppliers. Moreover, the Messeamt’s advertisement campaigns lasted in the s and its agents continued to operate in certain Balkan markets with a view to supplying German business and industrial circles with the necessary information regarding what was going on in the Balkan markets.79
With the NSDAP’s seizure of power, certain non-state institutes obtained sufficient funds to embark on a new student exchange program that aimed to bring more students from the Balkan countries to Germany. e primary pur-pose of such attempts was to turn these students into Germanophiles and con-vince them that the natural way of economic development in the Balkans lies in a more intensified cooperation with Germany.80 e pioneer organization in these programs throughout the s was “Mitteleuropãische Institut” whose representatives in Romania and Yugoslavia organized lectures about the advanced German technology and its products. More importantly, it orga-nized the most comprehensive student exchange program that took place in those years. Having financially been backed up by the Nazi Party thanks to its certain members’ connections to the NSDAP, the institute enabled a consid-erable number of pupils of economics, engineering, medicine, and agriculture from Romania and Yugoslavia to study and do an internship in Germany.81 From the point of view of the German policy, the purpose of financing and supporting these programs was to convince these students, expected to be the future’s politicians and high-ranking executives in their own countries, that the only way of achieving natural economic development in the region was close cooperation with Germany, as the economies of Germany and the Bal-kans were complementing each other. In other words, such exchange pro-grams were a channel for convincing those students that further economic co-operation with Germany was the only natural way of achieving economic prosperity in the Balkans.82 In addition, a new institute for Southeastern Eu-rope studies was opened within the University of Leipzig in as part of
79 Gross, Export Empire, -.
80 Ibid., p. -.
81 Ibid., p. -.
82 Ibid., p. -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
which summer school programs were initiated to yield the pupils from the Balkan countries the chance of short-term study in Germany.83
is chapter shortly examined how Germany projected her so power in the Balkans throughout the s and s. In the s, despite a very dis-advantageous situation, Germany managed to re-establish her commercial presence in the economic life of the Balkans through the dense efforts of Ger-man non-state actors such as the Messeamt, the Leipzig Trade Fair and cham-bers of commerce, etc. As a consequence, by the end of the s, Germany had become one of the main trade partners of several Balkan countries.
e emergence of a great economic crisis in and the following eco-nomic conjuncture as well as the Nazi Party’s rearmament project’s ever-in-creasing raw material demands steered a considerable part of German foreign trade towards the Balkans. By making use of the clearing system envisaged by Schacht’s New Plan, Germany managed to occupy a monopolistic position in the overall foreign trades of important Balkan countries such as Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey. is monopolistic position helped Germany satisfy the increasing raw material demand in her domestic market despite severe problems such as chronic balance-of-payments crises and low foreign currency reserves throughout the s. is corresponds directly to Hirschman’s “supply effect of foreign trade” since importing very large num-bers of strategically important raw materials such as bauxite, chromium, cop-per, oil, etc. from the Balkans enabled Germany to equip one of the largest armies of the time.84 By the same token, as a result of Germany’s establishment of a monopolistic position in the foreign trades of these smaller Balkan coun-tries, a kind of economic dependence relation between Germany and these countries also emerged, which corresponds to Hirschman’s “the influence ef-fect”.85
From the beginning of the second half of the s, Germany further tight-ened her economic domination in the area by investing in raw material ex-traction and processing sectors and exporting a large number of armaments, which engendered German influence in the Balkans and Southeastern Europe.
83 Ibid., p. .
84 Hirschman, National Power, .
85 Ibid., p. -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Shortly, projecting Germany’s so power in the Balkans was mostly done through foreign trade. However, the non-state actors mentioned above also played a significant role in the emergence of German so power in the region by carrying out certain tasks such as informing German business circles about recent changes and developments in the Balkan markets, organizing detailed and effective advertising campaigns to promote German exports, intermedi-ating between German and the Balkan business circles to solve problems, and creating new business opportunities through organizations like the Leipzig Trade Fair and so on. And with the availability of enough funding, certain German private organizations arranged student exchange programs in the s to justify Germany’s presence in the Balkans as a “peaceful” movement, aiming to develop the region. Similarly, the exchange programs also aimed to turn the pupils who attended these programs into Germanophiles in order to create more cooperation opportunities with the Balkan countries when these students become the future leaders of their own countries.
Turkish-German Political Relations in the Interwar Pe-riod, -
efore proceeding to the implementation of German so power tech-niques in Turkey, this chapter investigates the establishment and devel-opment of bilateral political relations between the two countries to give a pic-ture of the political background of events. Aer shortly touching on the status of Turkish-German relations from the signing of the Armistice of Mudros to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, the entire political relations be-tween the two countries in the Interwar Period shall be examined up to the breakout of the World War II.
§ . Turkish-German Political Relations between and
e Turkish-German alliance had come to an end a few days before the Ar-mistice of Mudros was signed. Having heard that the Ottomans were ready to sign the treaty, the German ambassador in Istanbul le the city. Soon aer his departure, most Germans staying in the Ottoman Empire gradually le the country as well. By the summer of , almost all Germans in the Ottoman realm, whose numbers were estimated at around , in total, had evacu-ated the country in accordance with the ceasefire agreement. Besides, all po-litical relations between the Ottoman Empire and Germany were to be ceased.
B
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
e diplomatic representation of Germany in Istanbul was taken over by the Swedish embassy from November onwards.1
e Versailles Treaty supplemented what the Mudros had initiated. is time, the Entente powers intended to make sure that all the longstanding Ger-man political, cultural, and economic influence in what le of the Ottoman Empire were eliminated. As part of this mindset, German assets in Anatolia were confiscated by the Entente powers and people of German nationality were banned from stepping on the Turkish soil. Similarly, Anatolian ports were closed to German merchant vessels. In her book, Sabine Mangold-Will puts forward that all these precautions were taken to prevent Germany from being as influential in the post-war Ottoman Empire as she had been prior to the First World War.2 ese measures, however, seem to have fallen short of completely ceasing at least the “unofficial” contact between certain Unionists in Germany and their colleagues in Anatolia. e inner circle of Unionists es-caped to Germany and established headquarters in Berlin and Munich to keep in touch with both those Unionist in different European countries and espe-cially those in Anatolia. e latter was staying there with the hope of initiating a resistance against the Greek military occupation in Anatolia.3 Nonetheless, in the field of official relations, Turkish-German political, cultural, military, and economic affairs came to an end thanks highly to the related articles of the Mudros and Versailles treaties in the period of the Turkish War of Inde-pendence. e new Weimar government was completely preoccupied with the internal turmoil and the questions of reparations and territorial integrity at the time while the government in Ankara was fighting for survival. Despite the overall feeling of sympathy in the German public towards the Turkish struggle of independence, the official organs of the German state always re-frained from expressing it in order not to arise suspicions in the Entente.4
e first official undertaking came from the Turkish side in re-establishing formal relations. In , the Ankara government in Anatolia asked Berlin to
1 Sabine Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha: Deutschland und Die Türkei, - (Göttin-gen: Wallstein Verlag, ), -.
2 Ibid., p. -.
3 Ibid., p. -.
4 Ibid., p. .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
allow the foundation of the Turkish official news agency in Munich to easily keep the world informed about the developments occurring in Anatolia. e German side accepted the offer. us, the Ankara government was de facto recognized by Germany as the sole representative of Anatolia, which can be considered an important step on the way of establishing formal relations. e choice of Munich was also important in the sense that Munich was one of the centers where pro-Ankara Turks in Germany concentrated.5
Despite the importance of the establishment of the Turkish official news agency, the most concrete attempt was made by the German side to re-estab-lish the official bilateral relations between the two countries. Towards the end of the Lausanne talks in which Germany had no right to attend officially, the German government sent an undercover representative, Dr.Schmidt-Dumont, to Lausanne in order to meet İnönü and initiate the negotiations on the possibility of founding political relations again. Dr. Schmidt and the Ger-man diplomats with him defended the fact that Germany did not have any imperial ambitions in the East but intended to establish peaceful political and commercial relations with new Turkey on an equal basis, as the two countries could give each other a lot in the fields of culture and economy. Hence, Turkey should re-establish and intensify economic relations with Germany in order to easily prosper in the economic field. İnönü only agreed to re-establish bi-lateral diplomatic relations and remarked that “I hope relations between the two countries will be established soon on an equal basis”.6
With the emergence of new Turkey as an independent state following the signing of the Lausanne Treaty on July , no formal obstacles le to re-initiate Turco-German political relations. On March , the Treaty of Friendship Agreement was signed by both sides. e treaty envisaged the opening of official embassies in both sides’ capitals. is meant the resump-tion of official diplomatic relations between the two countries for the first time since the Mudros Treaty. Besides, the friendship treaty also foresaw the con-clusion of a separate trade treaty to promote commercial relations. In accord-ance with the re-establishment of the diplomatic relations, Rudolf Nadolny
5 Ibid., p. -.
6 Ibid., p. -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
was appointed as the first German ambassador in Turkey. He was to remain at this office till September .7 Soon aer his appointment, Nadolny first trav-eled to Istanbul and had the old German Embassy in Tarabya repaired. Nadolny accepted the Turkish request of moving the German embassy to An-kara, which completely pleased Atatürk and İnönü because Britain and France had previously rejected moving their embassies to Ankara due to its lack of basic infrastructural facilities. Although Nadolny confirms that Ankara in was far from being an ideal place to live especially for diplomats, accept-ing the Turkish offer of moving the embassy to the new capital was a politically important gesture in the eyes of the new Turkish ruling elite.8
Kemalettin Sami, a former soldier and war hero of the Turkish War of In-dependence, was selected as the first Turkish ambassador in Berlin. He re-mained at his office until his death in April . During his service, Ke-malettin always worked for improving Turco-German cooperation, especially in the economic field, believing that the former comradeship in arms called “Waffenbrüderscha” in the First World War had created a strong sense of friendship between the two nations, which should be continued in the form of close cooperation between Turkey and Germany in the economic, cultural, and military spheres.9
To give the recently resurrected Turkish-German trade a formal basis, Turkish-German Trade Agreement was concluded on January in An-kara. e agreement was to remain in force for years unless one of the sides cancels it. e importance of this treaty derives from the fact that German-Turkish trade was now given an official basis.10
7 Ibid., p. -; Cemil Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri (-) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, ), -.
8 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -; Cemil Koçak, “Türkiye'de Yaşamış Asker, Diplomat Ve Bilimadamı Almanların Türkiye'ye İlişkin Düşünceleri ve Yazdıkları Üzerine Bazı Notlar: Anılar Ve Diplomatik Raporlar,” in Geçmiş Ayrıntıda Saklıdır (İstanbul: Timaş, ), –.
9 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
10 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
In spite of the positive developments mentioned above, improving the po-litical relations with Turkey was not one of the primary concerns on the Ger-man Foreign Ministry’s agenda in the s. e recently founded Weimar Republic was trying to solve the question of reparations and territorial integ-rity issues with the Entente and was determined not to make a move that might have alienated the Entente against German demands. e founding fa-ther of this policy was Gustav Stresemann who served as Weimar Germany’s foreign minister until his death in . Having lost almost all the hard power aer the Versailles Treaty, Germany, argued Stresemann, must now pursue a compromising policy towards the Entente powers to get Versailles revised through careful negotiations and diplomacy. As part of this policy, Strese-mann’s Germany avoided making any kind of political commitment to Turkey beyond a friendship agreement as Turkish- Entente relations were severely tense due to the Mosul and Ottoman Debts’ Questions in the first half of the s.11
For Germany, the most important area of bilateral relations with Turkey was the economic one.12 Turkey was not only a promising market for export-dependent German industry but also a vast country that needed a very large amount of foreign capital and technological know-how to establish her infra-structure and industrial base. us, in Stresemann’s vision, Turkey would be a nice economic partner for German businesses and industry, but nothing more than that. Even the friendship treaty was concluded by the German side as a result of German business circles’ constant complaints to Stresemann. ese German business circles expressed that German commercial interests were being harmed in Turkey in the absence of official diplomatic relations between the two countries. Such a politically reluctant approach towards Tur-key persisted in the rest of Stresemann's era. Germany did not go beyond con-cluding a treaty of friendship in her political relations with Turkey throughout the s.13
11 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
12 Ibid., p. -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
13 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
By the same token, Turkey did not attribute any special position to Ger-many in her overall foreign policy neither.14 e young Kemalist cadres, who had become the ruling elite of new Turkey, always interpreted the former Ot-toman-German alliance in the First World War as a grave mistake, which fi-nally led to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.15 is approach even made its way into Turkish school textbooks in which the Turco-German “Waf-fenbrüderscha” was formulated as an exploitation of the Ottoman manpower for protecting specific German interests in the Orient.16 Besides, the Turco-German Friendship Treaty was just part of the overall Turkish policy of estab-lishing friendly and equal relations with other states in the world since the golden rule of Turkish foreign policy till the mid-s, as Atatürk, T. Rüştü Aras and İnönü pointed out, was establishing mutual and peaceful relations with other countries and taking part in collective security pacts and organiza-tions such as the Briand-Kellog Pact, the Balkan Pact and the League of Na-tions.17 In one of his speeches delivered on the occasion of the opening of the Turkish National Assembly, Atatürk himself pointed out that Turkish foreign policy completely depended on the idea of peace and solving any kind of dis-putes with other states through peaceful means is the most suitable way for Turkish interests.18
Like Germany, the Turkish priority in Turco-German relations was the de-velopment of economic cooperation, as Germany was a gigantic market for the foodstuffs and raw materials that Turkey could export.19 Considering that Turkey had constantly experienced budget deficit between and due mostly to the temporary regime of low customs that had been laid down at the Lausanne Conference, exporting more to Germany might have looked a nice
14 Ibid., p. -.
15 Ibid., p. -.
16 Sezen Kılıç, Türk-Alman İlişkileri Ve Türkiye'deki Alman Okulları ('den 'e Kadar) (An-kara: Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi, ), .
17 Tevfik Rüştü Aras, Atatürk'ün Dış Politikası (İstanbul: Kaynak Yayınları, ), and ; İs-met İnönü, İnönü'nün Söylev Ve Demeçleri I. Vol. . (Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, ), and .
18 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: III, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , November , -.
19 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
opportunity to shrink the budget deficit.20 Besides, Germany could provide Turkey with technological know-how, specialists as well as monetary capital in the form of short-term loans for the construction of Turkey’s indigenous industrial facilities and new domestic railway lines.21
Turco-German political relations remained quite stable from the begin-ning to the end of the Weimar Republic in January . In the early s, e German Foreign Office strictly declared that Weimar Germany had no politi-cal ambitions in the Orient. German policymakers, in line with Stresemann’s principles, welcomed Turkey’s participation in the Briand-Kellog Pact in Jan-uary and sympathized with Turkey’s desire to possess a permanent seat in the League of Nations but refrained from showing direct support for the membership of Turkey in order not to harm German-British relations.22
However, Stresemann’s policy of complete cooperation with the former Entente powers and the reluctance of showing direct support to Turkey in the international arena faded away aer Stresemann’s death in . Now, the new German Foreign Minister J. Curtius started to openly support Turkey’s mem-bership to the LoN.23 Well aware of the fact that the LoN was indeed an organ-ization, whose decisions were heavily influenced by Britain and France’s pref-erences, new German policymakers tried to bring more neutral members into the LoN to change the balance of voters against the British-French bloc. If Turkey was accepted into the organization thanks to German support, Turkish politicians would definitely take this into consideration when voting in the LoN’ s assembly.24 Similar support was shown to Turkey when the Briand Plan, which foresaw closer economic cooperation with the former Entente mem-bers, appeared on Europe’s horizon in late . German foreign policy re-
20 “Yıllara Göre Dış Ticaret İstatistikleri.” Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu, n.d. http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreIstatistikTablo.do?istab_id=.
21 Hamburgischer Correspondent, ..; Frankfurter Zeitung, .. (see S. Eriş Ülger, Alman Basınında Atatürk Ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (-) (Ankara: TBMM Basımevi, ), -.)
22 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
23 e League of Nations.
24 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
garded the plan as a French attempt to prevent Germany from getting the Ver-sailles Treaty revised. As a countermeasure, the new German Foreign Minister Curtius openly supported incorporating Turkey and the Soviet Union in this new endeavor.25 is support shown by the German side in both cases was the most visible example of the shi in German foreign policy. As Mangold-Will highlights, Germany, for the first time since the First World War, politically supported Turkey in international politics. Germany’s aim in supporting Tur-key’s involvement both in the LoN and the Briand Plan was to use Turkey’s membership as a counterbalance to the former Entente bloc with which Ger-many was negotiating to solve the problems of reparations and German terri-torial integrity. Turkey was still occupying a minor place in the overall German foreign policy, but using the issue of her membership might have been useful against Britain and France. So, pragmatic concerns in German foreign policy explains why such an alteration happened.26
e same pragmatist approach can also be seen on the Turkish side as ex-emplified by different approaches adopted by the Turkish media in the face of two different incidents. In the Cumhuriyet newspaper’s issue dated .., Abidin Daver interpreted the rumors of Germany’s intention of handing over Greece’s warship order made prior to the First World War. Daver argued in his column that such a delivery could not be made in accordance with the Versailles Agreement since it banned Germany from delivering military ma-terials to different countries. He continued by saying that if such a delivery happens, Turkey would not hesitate to make required attempts to prevent such a delivery. e issue was important for Turkey in the sense that such a delivery could change the balance of naval power in the Aegean Sea in Greece’s favor. As a result, Cumhuriyet newspaper, one of the closest press organs to the sin-gle-party government, adopted a distanced rhetoric against Germany.27
Interestingly enough, a completely opposite approach was present in an-other article published in the same newspaper. In response to the R. Nadolny’ s speech, broadcasted by a German radio in which he praised the new Turkish government and her successful Westernization program, the Cumhuriyet
25 Ibid., p. .
26 Ibid., p. -.
27 Cumhuriyet, ...
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
newspaper’s editor-in-chief Yunus Nadi thanked the German ambassador in his column and expressed that the Turks are always proud of having been al-lied to such a great nation like Germany, whom Nadi considered to be the best example of progress in the world, in the previous world war no matter what the result was. Nadi also expressed his gratefulness to Nadolny for introducing new Turkey to the German people as it was.28
In another column, Nadi had already explained what caused the difference between these two divergent approaches to Germany. Nadi clearly stated that Turkey has no traditional friendship with any country including Germany. e governing political conditions of the time were the only determinant of the friends of the Turkish Republic. Hence, Germany was not enjoying a spe-cial place in the minds of Turkish policymakers at the time. Only Turkish na-tional interests were determining Turkey’s approach to Germany and other countries.29
§ . Turkish-German Political Relations between and
e NSDAP’s seizure of political power in Germany in January entailed severe changes in the overall foreign policy of Germany. Stresemann’s policy of revisioning the Versailles Treaty through diplomatic efforts and mutual ne-gotiations was now completely out of question. Believing only in the problem-solving capability of hard power techniques, Hitler embarked on the pro-gramme of rearming the entire German Army beyond the Versailles’ re-strictions to solve the problem of Versailles by reshaping the borders in Europe in Germany’s favor. To do this, Germany, from onwards, embarked on an aggressive revisionist diplomacy to first get rid of the strict restrictions im-posed by Versailles, and then to retake the possession of lost territories such as Sudetenland, Memel, Western Poland and so forth where a remarkable number of German minorities was living. Finally, when the new German Army was strong enough, Hitler would pursue his version of the nineteenth-
28 Cumhuriyet, ...
29 Cumhuriyet, ...
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
century “Drang nach Osten” policy to carve out a “Lebensraum” for Germany in the East.30
Turkey, on the other hand, kept following a peaceful foreign policy throughout the s and s. Unlike Germany’s revisionist approach, Tur-key remained anti-revisionist and intended to sustain the status quo, estab-lished by Lausanne, aside from her minor demands in the issues of the remil-itarization of the Straits and the Hatay Question.31 Even during the negotiations held to address these demands put forward by Turkey, Turkish policymakers always respected the decisions of the LoN and tried to obtain their demands through mutual negotiations within the limits of international law.32 Unlike Turkey, German foreign policy under Hitler tried to solve dis-putes through fait accompli and coercion if needed.
In the first half of the s, Turkish-German diplomatic and political re-lations can be said to have been unproblematic as there were no significant problems between these two countries. Turkish politicians and media even sympathized with German demands about the revision of the Versailles Treaty since the Turks had already gone through a very similar struggle against the Sevres Treaty.33 For example, Yunus Nadi stated in his column in the Cum-huriyet newspaper dated .. that as the Turks who struggled against the unfair Sevres Treaty, they appreciate Germany’s struggle against the Versailles Treaty’s overwhelming restrictions on Germany.34 By the same token, In an-other column, Nadi remarked on the occasion of Germany’s remilitarization of Ruhr that there is nothing strange about the militarization of one’s own territories, but what is worrisome is that now the German government has been used to get its demands through fait accompli.35 In the same way, the Anschluss event was also interpreted by Y.Nadi as an expected and normal
30 Tooze, e Wages of Destruction, .
31 William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, - (London: Frank Cass, ), -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
32 Aras, Atatürk'ün Dış Politikası, ; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
33 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
34 Cumhuriyet, ...
35 Cumhuriyet, ...
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
development given that Austria was incapable of surviving alone economi-cally. He also emphasized the impossibility of keeping the two peoples sepa-rated, who share the same language, culture, and racial connections.36 Simi-larly, In interpreting the annexation of Sudetenland, Falih Rıı remarked that a big nation like Germany could not remain silent while the German minority in the region were suffering under the Czechoslovakian sovereignty.37
Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean region, Italy became the most significant potential threat to Turkey’s safety concerns. Mussolini’s famous speech deliv-ered on March stressed Asia and Africa as the historical regions of Italian expansion, which raised severe suspicions in Turkey. Although Musso-lini later clarified that he did not imply Turkey as she was considered a Euro-pean country, his speech, Hazal Papuççular claims, marked a rupture point in the Turco-Italian relations.38 e speech was soon followed by the Italian Army’s fortification activities in the Dodecanese Islands from onwards. Turkey became suspicious about a possible Italian onslaught on her Western and Southwestern coasts.39 e beginning of the Italian-Abyssinian war in Oc-tober took Turkey’s suspicions to the next level.40 e war was received plenty of interest from the Turkish media and was generally considered to be the first step of Mussolini’s imperialist policy of making the Mediterranean Sea “Mare Nostrum” again.41 Following the Italian annexation of Abyssinia, the Turkish National Assembly agreed to join the LoN’ s economic sanctions against Italy despite the likelihood of a considerable economic loss owing to the fact that Italy was occupying a remarkable share in the total Turkish for-eign trade.42 As a result of all these developments, the Italian aggression even-
36 Cumhuriyet, ...
37 Ulus, ...
38 Hazal Papuççular, “Turkish-Italian Relations in the Interwar Period,” (Master’s thesis, Boğaziçi University, ), .
39 Ibid., p. .
40 Ibid., p. .
41 Cumhuriyet, ..-..; Tan, ..-...
42 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , November , -; Papuççular, “Turkish-Italian Relations,” .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
tually drove Turkey into Britain’s side to protect the status quo in the Medi-terranean region as argued by Hans Kroll. e Italian aggression in Abyssinia also caused tension in Turco-German relations since Hitler backed up the Ital-ian aggression in the Mediterranean.43
Having been threatened by the potential Italian onslaught, the Turkish Foreign Ministry delivered a note to the countries that had signed the Lau-sanne Treaty demanding that certain amendments must be made concerning the status of the Straits. Following the negotiations, the Montreux Convention was signed on July that enabled Turkey to militarize the Straits region. e considerable British support to Turkish demand for remilitarizing the zone played a decisive role in the conclusion of the convention in Turkey’s favor, which enhanced the bilateral relations between the two countries.44 On the other hand, Italy protested the agreement and the German Foreign Min-ister Konstantin von Neurath remarked that the agreement was an unfriendly move against Germany.45 Nonetheless, the German Foreign Ministry avoided adopting a much more negative stance against Montreux upon Hitler’s order.46 In a report written by Friedrich von Keller, the German ambassador in An-kara, on the consequences of the Montreux Convention, he drew attention to the fact that the Italian aggression in the Mediterranean was driving Turkey to the British side. Now, Turkey could receive military assistance from Britain to secure her position in the region whenever she feels threatened by Italy.47 On
43 Hans Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen Eines Botschaers (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, ), -; İlhan Uzel and Ömer Kürkçüoğlu, “Relations with Britain,” in Turkish Foreign Policy, - Facts and Analyses with Documents, ed. Baskın Oran (Salt Lake City: e University of Utah Press, ), .
44 Dilek Barlas and Seçkin Barış Gülmez, “Turkish–British Relations in the s: from Ambiv-alence to Partnership.” Middle Eastern Studies, May , , ; Papuççular, “Turkish-Italian Relations,” -.
45 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
46 ADAP, Serie C: - Band V, , ( Mai bis . Oktober ), Göttingen, , -. (/ )
47 ADAP, Serie C: - Band V, , ( Mai bis . Oktober ), Göttingen, , -. (/ -)
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
the other hand, e conclusion of the Montreux Convention was very wel-comed by the Turkish press and politicians. e agreement was considered to be a significant accomplishment of Turkish diplomacy that removed one of the most significant concessions given at Lausanne.48 Later on July , in a meeting with N. Menemencioğlu, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs Ribbentrop demanded the signing of a bilateral agreement between Germany and Turkey regarding the Straits, whose content was to be the same as Mon-treux’s. is offer was turned down by Menemencioğlu on the grounds that without getting the permission of the countries that signed the Montreux Convention, Turkey could not conclude any treaty concerning the Straits.49
Following the breakout of the Spanish Civil War, Italian submarines started patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and torpedoing neutral countries’ vessels that were carrying supplies and war materials to the Republican side. To re-establish security in the region, the Nyon Conference came together to discuss the necessary steps to be taken. Turkey also attended the conference and agreed to comply with the conference’s precautions including military as-sistance against such submarine activity. Turkey’s active participation in the measures of the Nyon Conference demonstrates that the Turco-British rap-prochement intensified in the face of the rising Italian threat.50
As has been mentioned, aside from minor disagreements and Germany’s support for the Italian aggression in the Mediterranean region, Turco-German relations remained stable and friendly. However, this situation would soon be changed by three important occurrences that resulted in a complete rupture in the bilateral relations between Turkey and Germany and the entry of Turkey into the British-French bloc. e first event was the annexation of Czechoslo-vakia on March , which raised new question marks in Turkish policy-makers’ minds about German foreign policy. Until that day, Germany legiti-mized her foreign policy by claiming that the ultimate objective of German
48 İnönü, İnönü'nün Söylev Ve Demeçleri, -; Cumhuriyet, .. and ...
49 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
50 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , June , -; TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , June , -; Papuççular, “Turkish-Italian Relations,” -; Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
foreign policy was to unite all Germans under one flag to set up “Großdeutschland”. However, in the aermath of the annexation of Czecho-slovakia, Germany started to redefine her foreign policy with new terms like “Neue Ordnung” and “Lebensraum.” Obviously, these were quite relative terms and their limits were obscure.51 Hence, as H.Kroll pointed out in his memoirs, in a meeting that took place soon aer the annexation of Czecho-slovakia, N. Menemencioğlu, the Secretary-General of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, asked Kroll what Lebensraum means and what the limits of it are. Despite Kroll’s efforts to convince Menemencioğlu that Germany had no im-perial interests, Kroll failed to persuade him since the terms like Lebensraum and Neue Ordnung were themselves far from being justifiable.52
Such a severe act of aggression displayed by Germany also had a broad repercussion in the Turkish press. Y. Nadi from the Cumhuriyet newspaper, for instance, differentiated the annexation of Czechoslovakia from that of Aus-tria. He argued that the annexation of the former demonstrates the German ambitions of territorial expansion and warned the world that a new world war looks inevitable.53 Similarly, Journalist Zekeriya Sertel interpreted the incident as another fait accompli of Hitler’s government and warned other Balkan countries that the next would be Romania in Hitler’s to invade list.54 Similarly, Asım Us interpreted the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Germany as an im-perialist move aiming at reshaping Europe’s borders according to the Axis’ will.55 In short, the annexation of Czechoslovakia was the first of a chain of events that led to the severe deterioration of bilateral political relations be-tween Turkey and Germany.
e second event that further strained political relations between Turkey and Germany was the German-Romanian Trade Agreement, signed aer Ger-many’s ultimatum-like pressure on the Romanian government. Hans Kroll stated that the agreement enabled Germany to exploit Romania’s rich natural
51 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
52 Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, -.
53 Cumhuriyet, .. and ...
54 Tan, .. and ...
55 Vakit, ...
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
resources, the most crucial of which was oil. e agreement was regarded as a “colonization contract” by Turkish officials. During a meeting, N. Menemen-cioğlu even asked Kroll whether Germany had the intention of concluding such a treaty with Turkey too. Kroll explicitly mentions this agreement in his memoirs as the second incident that further strained bilateral relations with Turkey.56 e agreement also drew Turkish Media’s attention. Burhan Belge from the Ulus newspaper interpreted the agreement as an “economic An-schluss” that applies all conditions of the production of the German domestic market to the Romanian one.57
e last and the most decisive political phenomenon that brought a com-plete rupture in Turco-German political relations and decisively drove Turkey into the Allies’ side was the invasion of Albania by Italy in April . Italy had always been a constant source of concern for Turkey, which also contributed to the progressive rapprochement between Turkey and Britain in the face of the common Italian hazard in the Mediterranean region. However, this time Italian imperialism directly stepped on the Turkish security zone by invading Albania. Because İnönü and other highest-ranking Turkish policymakers al-ways considered the Balkans part of the Turkish security zone.58 Now, Italy gained a new and strong bridgehead in the Balkans, which could be used as a stepping-stone for further military operations in the area as Kroll predicted. Despite the invasion’s surprising effect on Germans, Germany implied her ap-proval of the invasion of Albania by signing the Pact of Steel with Italy just a month aer the invasion of Albania had taken place. More importantly, Italy not only annexed Albania but also transformed it into a military stronghold by bringing around divisions and heavy artillery brigades there.59 In the issue of the Cumhuriyet newspaper dated .., why Italy brought close to , soldiers into such a tiny country like Albania was asked and the
56 Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, ; Koçak, Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi, -.
57 Ulus, ...
58 İnönü, İnönü'nün Söylev Ve Demeçleri, .
59 Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, -; Franz von Papen, Memoirs. Translated by Brian Connell. (London: Andre Deutsch, ), -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
newspaper itself replied that the only reasonable explanation for such a high concentration of troops in a small country was due to getting ready for another assault in the region.60 In a sharper way, Ahmet Şükrü Esmer from the Ulus newspaper considered German and Italian claims based on the policy of Le-bensraum to be the brand-new expression of the Axis imperialism, which is indeed an egoism that ignores others’ right to life.61
By the same token, Franz von Papen, sent to Turkey as the new German ambassador in April , remarks in his memoirs that the annexation of Al-bania and the deployment of more Italian troops than necessary there entailed a severe rupture in the Turkish conventional policy of neutrality.62 Similarly, Kroll shares the same view with Papen and claims in his memoirs that the annexation of Albania put an end to Turkey’s neutrality and pushed her onto the British’ side.63 In a telegram sent to Berlin from Ankara dated .., Papen clearly expressed that the annexation of Albania by Italy and stationing a very large number of Italian troops in such a tiny country were fast pushing Turkey into an alliance with Britain.64 As a countermeasure, Papen suggested Ribbentrop put pressure on the Italian Foreign Ministry for reducing the number of Italian troops staying in Albania. Papen also recommended Rib-bentrop to convince Italy of ceding a few strategically unimportant islands in the Dodecanese islands to Turkey as a sign of the Italian state’s goodwill. Yet, Ribbentrop completely ignored such suggestions as the continuation of the German-Italian alliance was a much more important issue.65
To protect the national interests of Turkey, the İnönü government entered negotiations with Britain to form a defensive alliance against a possible Italian or combined Italian-German onslaught. e negotiations resulted in the Joint
60 Cumhuriyet, ...
61 Ulus, ...
62 Papen, Memoirs, -.
63 Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, -.
64 ADAP, Serie D: - Band VI, (März bis August ), Göttingen, , -. (/-)
65 Papen, Memoirs, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Anglo-Turkish Declaration on May by which Britain agreed to aid Tur-key in every possible means in case of aggression directed to Turkey. In return, Turkey guaranteed to provide aid in every possible means to Britain in case of an attack that leads to a war in the Mediterranean region.66 A similar joint declaration was also signed with France on June right aer the Hatay Question had been solved through mutual negotiations. On the occasion of the joint declaration, several deputies in the Grand National Assembly spoke about the necessity of such a security measure. In the session that took place on May , Prime Minister R. Saydam told deputies that the sole purpose of the declaration is the protection of peace. He also highlighted that the ne-gotiations with Britain immediately started following the risk of war had reached the Balkans, which directly implied the recent Italian aggression in the Balkans as the chief reason of the declaration.67 A. Fethi Okyar also made a short speech in the same session stating that the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the commercial treaty that Germany imposed on Romania, and finally the oc-cupation of Albania by Italy set Turkey in motion to undertake such a decla-ration with Britain.68 By the same token, the Turkish media regarded the dec-laration as a necessary step in protecting Turkish national interests. For instance, Nadir Nadi from the Cumhuriyet newspaper stated that Turkey al-ways sympathized with the German intention of correcting the unfair impli-cations of the Versailles Treaty. But that was not enough for German politi-cians who wanted more for Germany. erefore, they started to follow an imperialist policy that completely undermined the legitimacy of German for-eign policy.69 In another column, Nadi expressed that the recent developments in the Balkans forced Turkey to conclude an alliance with Britain.70 e same attitude was visible in Z. Sertel’ s column dated .. in which he empha-sized the fact that Turkey could no longer stay neutral in the face of the grow-ing Italian threat.71
66 Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, ; Uzel and Kürkçüoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy, .
67 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: VI, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: F, May , -.
68 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: VI, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: F, May , .
69 Cumhuriyet, ...
70 Cumhuriyet, ...
71 Tan, ...
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
In the aermath of the declaration of Anglo-Turkish and French-Turkish Joint Declarations, von Papen was instructed by the German Foreign Office to use every means at his disposal to prevent these declarations from turning into an alliance treaty. Papen had a meeting with İnönü even before the promulga-tion of the joint declaration with Britain. Despite von Papen’s efforts in the meeting, İnönü self-confidently stated that the invasion of Albania and sta-tioning so many Italian divisions there were provocative enough. Hence, he said Turkey would remain committed to the policy of staying on Britain’s side.72 Similarly, Kroll also intensified his efforts to convince Turkish highest-ranking officials. In an unofficial meeting with N. Menemencioğlu that took place on May , Kroll tried to convince him of the fact that Germany had no imperial aspirations in Turkey and just intended to see an independent Turkey in the region as the guarantee of peace in the Balkans. Menemencioğlu replied that Turkish policymakers sympathized with Germany’s struggle against Versailles and even did so in the face of the annexation of Sudetenland. However, the adoption of obscure and expansionist ideas like Lebensraum and the occupation of Czechoslovakia as a result, the commercial treaty imposed on Romania, and finally the invasion of Albania forced Turkey to ally with Britain.73
Germany’s attempts to avert a highly likely alliance agreement between Turkey and allies would not remain limited to Papen or Kroll’s efforts, how-ever. Upon the realization of the joint declaration, Hitler and Ribbentrop sus-pended the deliveries of military material to Turkey in May . As a coun-termeasure, the Turkish side threatened Germany with stopping chrome deliveries, which is of utmost importance for the German military industry.74 Von Papen argued that the degree of the suspension of the war material deliv-eries to Turkey should be adjusted appropriately. For example, in his telegrams sent to Berlin on and August , von Papen warned the German For-eign Ministry to deliver the submarine engines to Turkey, where two subma-rines that were purchased by Turkey from Germany were being built by Ger-man engineers. President İnönü was expected to attend the ceremony of these
72 Papen, Memoirs, -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
73 Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, -.
74 Koçak, Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
submarines’ launch. us, the shipment of these engines must be completed before the date of the launching ceremony. Otherwise, severe political damage would be inflicted on Turco-German relations.75 Despite von Papen’s warn-ings, the submarine engines were not delivered and İnönü did not attend the launch ceremony.76
Von Papen and Kroll’s remarkable efforts and the combination of political and economic pressures did not yield the desired result on the German side. e Tripartite Treaty of Alliance between Turkey, Britain, and France was signed on October by which Britain and France guaranteed to aid Tur-key in every sense in case of an attack directed against her. In exchange, Turkey assured to help Britain and France in case of an attack that entails a war in the Mediterranean area. Britain and France also agreed to issue a credit for Turkey so that the military needs of the country could be met.77 e treaty was ratified by the Turkish Grand National Assembly and the Turkish deputy A. Muzaffer Göker remarked that the agreement was not going to harm Turkey’s relations with any other country. He also said that the invasion of Albania by Italy and Germany’s de facto approval for the Italian aggression played a decisive role in the emergence of this alliance.78 e signing of the agreement was regarded by the Turkish press as the right move for the protection of peace in the Med-iterranean region.79
is chapter attempted to draw a larger picture of political relations be-tween Turkey and Germany in the Interwar Period. Within the first subperiod of the Interwar era, both countries emphasized the economic sphere as the most important aspect of bilateral relations. However, the Weimar govern-ment meticulously refrained from making any political commitments to Tur-key as a result of Stresemann’s policy of zero problems with Britain and France. From onwards, political relations between Turkey and Germany
75 ADAP, Serie D: - Band VII, (. August bis September ), Göttingen, , -. (/-); ADAP, Serie D: - Band VII, (. August bis September ), Göt-tingen, , . (/)
76 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
77 Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, ; Uzel and Kürkçüoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy, .
78 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: VI, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , November , -.
79 Cumhuriyet, ..; Tan, .. and ...
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
remained stable and far from problematic at least until the emergence of the Italian threat in the Mediterranean region. Germany’s constant support for the Italian aggression started to be considered a worrying development by Turkish foreign policymakers. e annexation of Czechoslovakia, the trade treaty imposed on Romania by Germany in , and finally the annexation of Albania by the Italians in April played a key role in the radical change of Turkish foreign policy. ese developments completely alienated Turkish-German relations and played a decisive role in Turkey’s joining on the Allies’ side. To avert Turkey from siding with the British bloc, Germany exerted se-vere diplomatic efforts as well as carried out the deterrent strategy of suspend-ing arms deliveries in the summer of . However, these attempts fell short of diverting Turkey from its path. As a result, the ultimate aim of German pol-icy i.e. making Turkey part of the Axis bloc failed.
German Soft Power in Turkey in the Context of Turkish - German Relations in the Interwar Era
ermany and various German business circles’ interests in the Balkans during the Interwar Era were not exclusively limited to Yugoslavia, Ro-mania, and Bulgaria. Turkey was also one of the countries that were at the target of German so power policies. is chapter examines how Turkish-German cultural, military, and economic relations were re-established in the Interwar Period and developed as time went by. Besides, certain so power policies that were put into practice by German non-state and state actors in cultural, military and economic relations with Turkey, shall be thoroughly in-vestigated in the light of archival and non-archival materials from both sides.
Chapter V comprises six subsections. In the first two subsections, Turco-German cultural relations and how Germany used certain so power tech-niques such as the admission of Turkish students to German Universities, sending a wide variety of German specialists to Turkey, attempting to influ-ence the Turkish public opinion through press and other certain organiza-tions, etc. shall be examined. In the third and fourth subsections, how Turk-ish-German military affairs developed and what so power techniques were executed in the field of military relations between Turkey and Germany dur-ing the Interwar Era will be discussed. In the fih and sixth subsections, Turk-ish-German economic relations in the Interwar Period, which formed the
G
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
most important channel by which Germany tried to establish a serious eco-nomic and political influence on Turkey, shall be investigated. Similarly, the execution of specific so power policies by Germany in Turkish-German commercial relations and their consequences shall also be taken into consid-eration in this section. e development of cultural, military, and economic relations and certain so power policies pursued in these spheres are exam-ined on the basis of two subperiods that are between - and between -. e reason why this periodization is made lies in the fact that with the NSDAP’s seizure of power in Germany in , things started to change both in Turkish-German relations and the so power policies of Germany.
§ . e Manifestation of German So Power in Turkish-Ger-man Cultural Relations: e Weimar Period (-)
Following the re-establishment of the official diplomatic relations, Turkish-German cooperation in the cultural sphere started to develop as well. How-ever, Weimar Germany’s new policymakers decided not to be interested in the Orient other than developing economic relations with the region in order not to provoke Britain, which severely undermined the possibility of pursuing a state-sponsored cultural propaganda policy in Turkey in the Weimar Period. Rather, the task of developing Turco-German cultural relations and coopera-tion was le to non-state actors.1 Nonetheless, Weimar Germany had a con-siderable advantage. e advantage that Weimar Germany had was the strong legacy of the “Deutsch-Türkishe Vereinigung” (DTV) organization. Mangold-Will and Mustafa Gencer’ s detailed studies show that having been established in February with the strong financial support of Wilhelm II ’s government as part of the aggressive “Weltpolitik” policy, the organization aimed at ar-ranging large numbers of students and crasmen transfers from Turkey to Germany. e Turkish students were given the chance of receiving their high education at the very prestigious German universities while the Turkish cras-men were given the opportunity to further their occupational knowledge in the most developed workshops in Germany. Unlike the Weimar Period, e
1 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -, - and .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
organization was directly sponsored by the German Foreign Ministry and was entrusted with arranging student transfers from Turkey to Germany in addi-tion to its other activities such as establishing libraries, translating significant German classics into Turkish, providing scholarship opportunities to Turkish students wishing to study in Germany, arranging language courses for Otto-man subjects and financially supporting German educational and medical in-stitutions in the Ottoman territories.2 Because “in order to tie the minds and hearts of Ottoman people to us (Germany), we need to export our cultural assets. Every Ottoman citizen who speaks our language, reads German books, receives treatment in German hospitals will be a friend of the German culture and customer of German goods,” as Ernst Jäckh stated.3 e main aim of stu-dent transfer programs from the Ottoman Empire to Germany was to enable the most successful students in the Ottoman Empire to study in Germany as a result of which these students were expected to turn into Germanophiles. Since the best students of the time were expected to occupy important politi-cal, economic, and civilian positions in the empire in the future, making them Germanophiles through student transfer programs would enable Germany to increase her cooperation with the Ottoman Empire in both economic and po-litical areas as well as derive economic and political benefits.4
To complement the activities of the DTV, another association was estab-lished by the German initiative. On October , the “Turkish-German As-sociation” (Türkisch-Deutschen Vereinigung) was founded upon Ernst Jä-ckh’s suggestion. e official aim of the organization was to successfully supplement the activities of the DTV in the Ottoman lands, as argued by Mus-tafa Gencer.5 e ostensible purpose of the foundation of such an association
2 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -; Mustafa Gencer, Jöntürk Modernizmi ve “Al-man Ruhu.” (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, ), -.
3 Gencer, Jöntürk Modernizmi ve “Alman Ruhu.”, .
4 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, ; Gencer, Jöntürk Modernizmi ve “Alman Ruhu.”, -; Ulrich Trumpener, “Germany and the End of the Ottoman Empire,” in e Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Marian Kent (Taylor & Francis e-Library, ), .
5 Gencer, Jöntürk Modernizmi ve “Alman Ruhu.”, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
was advertised as the preservation of intensive cultural relations and the in-troduction of the two peoples to each other through cultural activities.6 Among the tasks of the TDV, the most striking one was the duty of selecting those Ottoman students and apprentices who would be sent to Germany. To carry out this assignment, a special sub-commission within the body of the TDV was established called “the Student Commission.” It was to be directly responsible for selecting the Ottoman students and apprentices who were to be sent to Germany for higher education and vocational training.7
As part of the DTV’s student transfer programs, the number of young Turkish students and crasmen who received education or done an appren-ticeship in Germany had reached . by August .8 A remarkable number of the Turks who were to occupy very significant positions as soldiers, politi-cians, or civilian servants in the new Turkish Republic had already received higher education in Germany, which further enhanced the possibility of co-operation with Germany in cultural, political, and especially economic fields. e seeds of one of the most significant methods of expanding German so power in Turkey were planted by the DTV, but their fruit would be collected by the Weimar Republic in the Interwar Era. Following the end of the war, the DTV was fell from the new Weimar government’s grace, and the financial sup-port that the organization had been receiving from the German Foreign Office ended. Despite the revival of the organization in , the DTV would no longer receive any financial and political support from the German govern-ment, which would prevent it from implementing student transfer programs and other kinds of cultural activities, needed to increase German cultural in-fluence in Turkey.9 However, despite the DTV’s lack of activity aer the First World War, an important part of the Turkish students, who studied at German universities with the support of the DTV’s student transfer programs before and during the First World War, would occupy very important governmental
6 Ibid., p. .
7 Ibid., p. .
8 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
9 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
and civilian offices in Turkey in the Interwar Era. ose Turks who had re-ceived their higher education in Germany prior to the end of the First World War might have contributed to the development of Turkish-German cultural and commercial relations by turning to Germany as the main technology and scientific knowledge supplier of Turkey.10
e most significant example of such a situation was Muhlis Erkmen, who served as the minister of agriculture in the s in Turkey, and his insistence on benefiting from German specialists in the establishment of the Higher Ag-ricultural Institute in Ankara.11 Modernizing the Turkish agriculture was one of the main concerns of a big significance on Turkish politicians’ agenda in the late s. Its necessity was also approved by a German specialist called Gustav Oldenburg. in his report sent to the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture, he pointed out that an agricultural university was needed to modernize the agricultural techniques in Turkey.12 e Turkish Minister of Agriculture Muhlis Erkmen, who had studied agriculture in Bonn, Germany in the course of the First World War13, got in touch with the famous German professor Frie-drich Falke, the head of the agriculture department at the University of Leipzig at the time, and asked him to assume the task of establishing a modern agri-cultural higher education institute in Ankara. Erkmen was clearly convinced during his studentship days in Germany that Germany was one of, if not the most, the leading countries in the world as far as science is concerned. at is to say, Erkmen was already persuaded about the alleged superiority of Ger-many in the areas of technology and certain branches of science due to the successful German so power policy of bringing successful students of the Ottoman Empire into Germany so that they could further their studies in cer-tain branches, which mostly resulted in the transformation of those students into Germanophiles. A similar transformation appears to have happened in Erkmen, too. Hence, Erkmen’s sympathy for Germany was now affecting his
10 Ibid., p. -.
11 Ibid., p. -.
12 Ibid., p. .
13 Erkmen might have benefited from the DTV’s student transfer programs to study in Germany.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
choice of Falke as the person responsible for the re-establishment of the agri-cultural institute. ere is no doubt that had Erkmen studied somewhere else, he might not have preferred Falke for that position.14
With Erkmen’s support, the Agricultural Institute became the most signif-icant work of German scientists in Turkey in the Interwar Era. is was not the result of a deliberate policy of Weimar Germany or the following National Socialist rule, but that of “…the combination of a targeted modernization pol-icy of Turkey and a personal decision by the responsible minister who was, as Falke wrote, ” a warm friend of Germany,”…” as stated by Mangold-Will.15 “Without the individual commitment of the new Minister of Agriculture (Erk-men), …” Mangold-Will continues, “neither Falke nor any other German ex-perts could have enforced his German plans (regarding the institution), and maybe even a German would not have been involved.“16
With Erkmen’s support, Falke, who had been given wide authorities with respect to the entire institute as stated by Erkmen’s speech in the assembly,17 re-institutionalized the entire institute based on the German model. During the talks in the Grand National Assembly concerning the establishment of the institute, Erkmen clearly stated that the overwhelming majority of the profes-sors were brought from Germany.18 In the period between and , up to German professors and assistant professors worked at the institute.19 e German academic staff working at the institute were allowed to give lectures in German, which further encouraged those Turkish students attending those classes to learn German.20 Shortly, a very basic student transfer program, part of the German Empire’s so power policies implemented during the First World War, appears to have continued to play a significant role in the enlarge-ment of German so power in Turkey during the Interwar Period.
14 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .
15 Ibid., p. .
16 Ibid., p. -.
17 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: IV, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , May , .
18 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: IV, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , June , .
19 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
20 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -; Johannes Glasneck, Türkiye'de Faşist Alman Propagandası. Translated by Arif Gelen. (Ankara: Onur Yayınları, n.d), .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Another example of the persistence of the DTV’s student transfer pro-gram’s longstanding effect in Turkey was Muammer Tuksavul. Having re-ceived his higher education in Germany during the First World War with the aid of the DTV, Muammer decided to stay in Germany aer the war and also studied chemistry there in the early Weimar years. Aer returning to Turkey, Muammer became a famous chemical engineer who was involved in certain significant projects in the Turkish chemical sector. According to him, the gen-uine teachers of the Turks in Europe were Germans in the process of Western-ization.21 As a result of residing in Germany for several years, his views were highly influenced by his experience. In short, the legacy of the student ex-change program implemented by the DTV throughout the First World War seems to have kept giving fruitful results for German so power in Turkey even in the Interwar Era.
With the disappearance of the DTV, a new non-state actor, “Der Bund der Asienkämpfer” (e Association of Asian Fighters “BDAK”), appeared to have assumed the task of promoting Turkish-German relations in the cultural area. e Association was founded in February by former members of the Ger-man “Asian Corps”, composed of former German military personnel who had fought in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans during the First World War. Despite the main aim of bringing together the former members of Asian Corps and providing them opportunities of reunion, the association became the chief non-state actor within the German lands, which intended to sustain close relations with the old Turkish comrades on the basis of the former “Waf-fenbrüderscha” that had allegedly formed an inseparable connection be-tween the two nations.22 Besides former members of the Asian Corps, the or-ganization also had many civilian members from the German upper-middle-class together with members from Reichswehr. e most crucial activity of the association was the regular organization of lectures on Ottoman history and geography, held - times every year. Mangold-Will argues that during these events, former German soldiers who had served in the Ottoman Army came
21 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .
22 Ibid., p. -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
together to discuss common memoirs and recall the Ottoman Empire that had become a second home for most former German soldiers.23
e most striking thing that was mostly missing in BDAK’s occasions was the participation of the Turkish element. e attendance of the Turks was ex-ceptionally low in the events organized by BDAK and its branches, which di-minished the chance of establishing closer and better relations with the former comrades-in-arms.24 To overcome this challenge, BDAK’s managers tried to make use of the sports encounters that occasionally happened in the form of football matches between Turkish and German teams to develop Turco-Ger-man relations on the basis of the former “Waffenbrüderscha”.25
As Mangold-Will’s detailed study points out, the Turkish football team Galatasaray traveled to Germany in to play against the German football clubs Der Bremen Fußballverein “Werder”, Rheingaumeister Köln and Der Hamburger Sport-Verein. BDAK’s local branches took advantage of the situ-ation and organized receptions and dance events before and aer the football matches. Galatasaray’s players, executives, and the BDAK’s members partici-pated in these receptions and events. rough such events, the BDAK pro-vided its members with the chance of establishing face-to-face contacts with the former comrades-in-arms with whom Germans had fought together in the First World War. By the same token, these events were promoted by the BDAK’s executives as the signs of Germany’s so-called intention to establish closer relations with new Turkey. at is to say, BDAK struggled to turn these sports encounters into political ones and tried to politicize the overall atmos-phere of these encounters with the intention of re-forming close relations be-tween Germany and Turkey.26 During the social events before and aer the football games, the BDAK’s members’ speeches focused on the strong com-radeship-in-arms that had manifested itself in history and Germans’ desire to continue this kind of comradeship-in-arms in accordance with new political
23 Ibid., p. -.
24 Ibid., p. and .
25 Ibid., p. .
26 Ibid., p. -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
conditions.27 Similar efforts were also made when another Turkish club came to Germany to play football matches against certain German clubs in .28
e BDAK’s similar efforts seem to have continued even in the early s. In a column in the Cumhuriyet newspaper dated June , an anonymous writer dwells on an incredibly warm and exaggerated welcome to which Ga-latasaray’s players and club authorities were exposed by indigenous Germans when Galatasaray traveled to Frankfurt in June to play against Eintracht Frankfurt football team. e anonymous author surprised to see how hospi-table the locals were, who even cheered for the Turkish team and went crazy when they scored. An exaggerated interest shown by the German side for just an exhibition match and the German audience’s too friendly attitude towards the Turkish team seems to point out that somehow BDAK interfered with this event to turn a simple sports encounter into a manifestation of Turco-German friendship.29 e most important indicator of the likelihood of the BDAK’s involvement, as reported by another reporter, was that before the football match, a feast was organized in honor of Galatasaray. During the feast, inti-mate speeches were delivered on Turco-German friendship and, most im-portantly, “… Turco-German Friendship and comradeship-in-arms in the course of the First World War were passionately recalled”.30 ese statements of the journalists who witnessed the event convinced me that the feast and the exaggerated reactions of the crowd during the football match were deliberately organized by the local branch of the BDAK to politicize otherwise a simple sports encounter.
Such efforts and undertakings fell short of remarkably influencing Turco-German relations in the Interwar Period, though. Mangold-Will claims that the events organized by the local branches of the BDAK almost always lacked the Turks’ participation and were not able to go beyond creating “accidental social encounters” between the two sides.31 Similarly, the attempts to create a closer Turkish-German friendship based on “Waffenbrüderscha” failed since
27 Ibid., p. -.
28 Ibid., p. -.
29 Cumhuriyet, June .
30 Cumhuriyet, June .
31 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
the term meant nothing for Turkish policymakers who had adopted a strict sense of realism in steering young Turkey’s diplomacy. For the Turkish side, the term Waffenbrüderscha was occasionally used especially by Kemaleddin Sami and the Turkish media to demonstrate Turkey’s friendly and non-hostile feelings towards Germany, but it meant nothing more than that.
Aside from the DTV’s student transfer program’s still influential legacy, large numbers of Turkish students were sent to Germany by the Turkish gov-ernment throughout the Interwar Era.32 A remarkable number of Turkish stu-dents sent abroad for educational purposes were sent to Germany to study and specialize in areas such as medicine, forestry, agriculture, law, aircra engi-neering, veterinary, history, and physical education.33 On one occasion, K. Sami stated this fact by saying that for more than half a century Turkish youth has been studying in Germany.34 Along with students, a remarkable number of Turkish civil servants and military officers were also sent to Germany to further their occupational practice through new internship opportunities.35 e bulk of those Turkish students sent abroad for educational purposes were sent to either France or Germany. Because Germany was largely considered to be one of the chief representatives of Western science and technology. ere-fore, the Turkish students during their stay there could learn and practice the latest techniques and developments both in natural and social sciences. is consensus about the privileged position of Germany as the center of science and technology seems to have reflected on the Turkish press as well. For ex-ample, in one of his columns, the Cumhuriyet newspaper’s journalist M. Nermi regards Germany as a significant realm of the Western culture, whose culture and science must be carefully examined. Nermi continues by stating
32 Koçak gives the number of Turkish students receiving education in Germany as in the summer of while Mangold-Will estimates it around by . (see Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, ; Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .)
33 Cumhuriyet, ..; ..; ..; ..; ..; ..; Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .
34 Cumhuriyet, ...
35 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: III, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , December , ; TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: III, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , December , ; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; Cumhuriyet, ...
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
that the European civilization is not exclusively composed of the French cul-ture.36
By the same token, Yunus Nadi remarked in his columns in the Cumhuri-yet newspaper that Germany was a significant country and her achievements could be a role model for others and Turkey. Besides, he also stated that Turkey could genuinely benefit more from German science and technology on the road of progress.37
In the same way, Falih Rıı Atay defined the German nation as superior to other European nations in science and other areas between and .38 ese statements demonstrate why the Turkish government preferred to send students and officials to Germany. ese students were welcomed since their presence gave Germany the chance of convincing these young people of the alleged superiority of German science and technology. As a consequence, they were expected to turn into the admirers of German culture. is would be fruitful in the near future when the students or officials who had studied or done an internship in Germany started to occupy significant offices in Turkey. eir admiration for Germany might have led to the creation of further eco-nomic and political cooperation opportunities between Turkey and Ger-many.39
e most striking non-state Turkish organization that publicly cam-paigned for the intensification of cultural relations with Germany in the Inter-war Era was “e League of Turks who Studied in Germany”. Having been established by those Turks who had received higher education in Germany in the Interwar Era, the organization intended to sustain a constant contact be-tween the former Turkish students who had received education in Germany as well as mediate between the Turkish students wishing to study in Germany and German educational institutions. By doing so, the association hoped to contribute to the cultivation of well-educated and qualified Turkish youths, expected to play a key role in the overall enhancement of Turkey. Mangold-
36 Cumhuriyet, ...
37 Cumhuriyet, .. and ...
38 Ulus, ...
39 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Will argues that this organization attempted to promote German culture, es-pecially by creating a library that was exclusively composed of German books and magazines. e organization and its efforts were warmly welcomed by the German Foreign Office since the association’s efforts might have been benefi-cial for strengthening Germany’s cultural influence in Turkey.40
e foundation of the first German newspaper in Turkey is also worth mentioning here with respect to the efforts of increasing German so power in Turkey. e first German ambassador in Turkey, Rudolf Nadolny, person-ally campaigned for the establishment of a German newspaper. As a conse-quence, “die Türkische Post” was founded and the first issue was published on May . Despite the newspaper’s semi-official status, the German ambas-sador’s main aim concerning the newspaper was to possess an effective tool in order to influence the Turkish public opinion. From the beginning, the news-paper was directly financed by the German embassy in Ankara and the Deutsche Bank. Besides, Nadolny also sent small amounts of monetary incen-tives to certain Turkish newspapers with the intention of persuading them to adopt a more Germany-friendly approach when considering political and eco-nomic issues with Germany.41
Last but not least, German specialists such as lecturers, engineers, and technicians were frequently employed by certain state institutions in Turkey, which shows that German engineering and scientists were highly respected and trusted in Turkey. Several German professors were employed as lecturers at Turkish universities. As mentioned earlier in this work, the most striking example of the concentration of German academic staff in Turkey was the Higher Agricultural Institute in Ankara.42 Similarly, a certain number of Ger-man engineers and technicians found job opportunities at Turkish govern-ment institutes such as the General Directorate of Maps, the Ministry of For-estry, the Ministry of Health, the General Directorate of Military Factories, the
40 Ibid., p. -.
41 Ibid., p. -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
42 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
General Directorate of Post and Telegraph, etc.43 A famous example of Ger-mans who worked for the Turkish Government was German architect Profes-sor Hermann Jansen. Jansen’s plan for Ankara’s reconstruction was adopted by the Ankara government in order to rebuild Ankara as the capital city of the young Turkish Republic. His efforts and works to make Ankara a more mod-ern and attractive city had highly been appreciated by the Turkish press, which contributed to the overall prestige of German science and architecture in Tur-key.44
§ . e Manifestation of German So Power in Turkish-Ger-man Cultural Relations: e NSDAP Period (-)
Contrary to the Weimar Government’s reluctance in following a state-spon-sored cultural policy in Turkey, the German government under the Nazi Party’s domination embarked on a much more aggressive and effective cul-tural policy in Turkey. By doing so, the new NSDAP government expected to increase the overall German so power capacity in Turkey. e new under-standing that had come to power in Germany expected German cultural prop-aganda to further increase German economic influence in Turkey, which would eventually turn into political influence. To make sure that every availa-ble tool of increasing Germany’s cultural influence and thus so power in Tur-key was properly used in realizing Germany’s new revisionist ambitions, the Nazi government started to take over independent German non-state actors in Turkey such as the German High School, die Türkische Post newspaper, Teutonia and so on and gradually attempted to turn these into effective prop-agandists of the Nazi ideology.45
43 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: III, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , May , ; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - - ; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
44 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, ; Cumhuriyet, .. and ...
45 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -; Kılıç, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, and -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
A necessity of pursuing a more active and state-backed cultural policy in Turkey was clearly stated in a very important memorandum called “Popula-tion Zone Policy-Cultural Policy,” written by Dr. Kurt Köhler, Professor Olaf Krükmann, and Dr. Wilhelm Eilers.46 ese scholars argued that those Yugo-slavians, Bulgarians, Turks, and Egyptians who studied at German Universi-ties or at least learned the German language are the cheap propagandists of German culture, books, goods, and schools. ere are certain conventional ways of enhancing German cultural propaganda, these scholars claimed, such as opening new German schools and language courses abroad, helping Ger-man educational institutes and publishing newspapers, etc. However, there are also better ways of increasing the overall German cultural influence in the Bal-kans and Turkey like selling canonical books of German literature below-mar-ket prices, organizing scholarship programs to attract more students to Ger-many and organizing tours for the youths of the Balkan and the Middle Eastern countries through which the young generations of these regions could see Germany. All these exclusive methods suggested for pursuing a better cul-tural policy in Turkey had been ignored by previous Weimar politicians, the writers of the memorandum sorrowfully stressed. e German scientists also drew attention to one of the never-changing justifications of financing expen-sive student exchange programs by expressing that those foreign students who were now studying in Germany would occupy very significant offices in their own countries in the near future. Hence, German universities and the German Foreign Ministry ought to be more interested in these countries and increase their studies related to these areas.47
Almost all these abovementioned suggestions would be put into practice by the German Ministry of Propaganda and its formal associates in Turkey in a more aggressive and determined manner under J. Goebbels’ leadership from January onwards. e entire German cultural policy started to be man-aged by the three centers i.e. Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda, the German Foreign Ministry, and the NSDAP’s “Auslandorganisation.” e latter was the Nazi Party’s abroad organization established with a view to spreading the Nazi
46 Kılıç, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
47 Ibid., p. -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
ideology abroad, notably in the Near East and the Balkans.48 ese three either directly assumed German non-state actors’ role or completely subjugated them to the official cultural policy of the Nazi rule in order to pursue a much more active and unified German cultural policy in Turkey.49
One of the significant means of the new aggressive German cultural policy in Turkey was German printed press organs. According to Glasneck’s com-prehensive study, “Signal” magazine, directly controlled by Goebbels’ Minis-try of Propaganda, was being published and sold in Turkey in four different languages that were German, French, English, and Turkish to reach a wider audience.50 Furthermore, die Türkische Post, the daily German newspaper be-ing published in İstanbul from onwards, was turned into a Nazi propa-gandist with the appointment of a zealous Nazi, Heinz Mundhenke, as the new editorial director.51 Furthermore, German newspapers close to the Nazism ideology such as “Völkischer Beobachter” and “Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” were freely being sold in Istanbul by German bookstores, which drew Tan’s journalist Zekeriya Sertel’s attention. In his column in the Tan newspaper dated .., Sertel considered these foreign bookstores to be the center of foreign propaganda through which foreign propaganda was spreading via foreign newspapers and magazines. erefore, he urged the Turkish government to take severe precautions against such dangerous prop-aganda activities.52
e second tool that was available at Germany’s disposal for pursuing a more effective cultural policy in Turkey was the Germans employed by the Turkish government or companies. e new cultural policy under the NSDAP’s guidance aimed to benefit from the very high reputation of German culture and science in Turkey in achieving the expansionist aspirations of the Nazi regime.53 e first group of Germans employed by Turkish institutions was academicians. German academicians were increasingly employed from
48 Glasneck, Türkiye'de Faşist Alman Propagandası, .
49 Ibid., p. -.
50 Ibid., p. -.
51 Ibid., p. -.
52 Tan, ...
53 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
the early s onwards as the single-party government had initiated a re-markable reform programme in education. e most striking example of the concentration of German academicians in Turkey to an unprecedented extent continued to be the Higher Agricultural Institute in Ankara, established and dominated by German academic personnel from the beginning of to . Between and , a total of German academicians had worked at the Agricultural Institute.54 As a result of such German influence, all the educa-tional materials needed for the classes taught at the university were bought from Germany as shown by the related Turkish archival materials.55 Such a development was a crystal-clear example of how cultural influence could yield economic benefits by creating new export opportunities for a country with a prestigious culture. Besides, a few successful Turkish students, studying at the agricultural institute in Ankara, and at least one Turkish academician were sent to Germany to do short-time examinations at certain German universi-ties.56 More importantly, a significant number of Turkish students who had graduated from the Higher Agricultural İnstitute in Ankara were sent to Ger-many to further their education at the Ph.D. level.57 erefore, German acad-emicians’ domination in the agricultural institute also provided Germany with more opportunities for turning more Turkish students and academicians into Germanophiles.58
Following the restructure of the Istanbul University in , a remarkable number of German professors from onwards were employed here as well.59 German professors were employed in the faculties of law, medicine,
54 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -; Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -.
55 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - - .
56 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - - .
57 Tan, ...
58 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, .
59 Glasneck’s study gives the total number of German scientists working at the Istanbul Univer-sity as in May . (see Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -.); Kılıç, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
economy, archeology, and western literatures at the İstanbul University be-tween and . eir contracts’ length was limited for up to ten years by the Turkish National Assembly’s legislation.60 e issue of the Cumhuriyet newspaper dated .. shares the news of the agreement signed with German and Swiss professors who had accepted to work at the Istanbul Uni-versity. e newspaper states that their numbers were expected to exceed thirty. e most striking part of the news was the statement regarding the na-tionalities of these professors: all these academicians were of either German or Swiss origin, which exemplifies the prevailing status of German academi-cians at the İstanbul University.61 Not surprisingly, a purchase of certain med-ical equipment, needed by the hospitals affiliated with the Istanbul University Medicine Faculty, took place.62 Again, cultural influence created an economic opportunity for German exporters. e Young Turkish Republic also bene-fited a lot from German academicians in the establishment of the medicine faculty within the body of the Ankara University. In May , a total of five German medicine professors agreed to come to Turkey and work at the An-kara University.63
As a result of the employment of German academic personnel in large numbers, many university students studying at Turkish universities decided to learn German as the main foreign language since German lecturers at Turk-ish universities were delivering lectures in German. ese lectures were being simultaneously translated into Turkish by translators during classes so that Turkish students could understand. Given the unpleasant nature of such a sit-uation, understanding why most Turkish students preferred to learn German becomes easier. is development must have pleased Nazi policymakers given that as more Turkish students learn German, the scope of the Nazi propaganda
60 Cumhuriyet, .., .., .., .., ..; TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: IV, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , April , .
61 Cumhuriyet, ...
62 Cumhuriyet, ...
63 Cumhuriyet, ...
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
would reach a larger audience in Turkey. Besides, knowing German would definitely make learning the German culture for the Turks easier.64
e second group of Germans employed by the Turkish government was German specialists and engineers who provided technical assistance in the construction of railways, industrial facilities, power-plants in Turkey, and of-fered various services to certain Turkish ministries according to their special-izations between and .65 Turkish state institutions e.g. the Ministry of Economy and Education, the General Directorate of State Railways, etc. regu-larly employed German specialists with short-term contracts in this period.66 ese German employees seem to have played a significant role in convincing the Turkish side to import more materials and equipment from Germany. For example, the General Directorate of State Railways, in which a few German specialists were working, made a railway material order of m TL worth from the Krupp Consortium.67 Once again, the employment of Germans in Turkey paved the way for increased economic cooperation between Turkey and Ger-many. In the same way, a certain number of German engineers and technical personnel were involved in the establishment of factories, power-plants, and other kinds of industrial and infrastructural projects in Turkey throughout the s, whose economic details shall be discussed in the last part of this chapter. According to a Turkish archival document, the total number of Germans stay-ing in Turkey on the eve of the breakout of the Second World War was . e majority of those Germans staying in Turkey concentrated mostly in Is-tanbul, Ankara, and İzmir.68
e German state’s departments in charge of the execution of German propaganda activities abroad welcomed and sought to increase the employ-ment of German academicians, specialists and engineers in Turkey with the
64 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -.
65 Ibid., p. ; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
66 Cumhuriyet, ..; Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, ; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – .
67 Cumhuriyet, ...
68 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
intention of using Germany’s very good reputation in the scientific and tech-nological matters to intensify Turco-German cultural and thus economic re-lations. By intensifying the cultural and economic relations between the two countries, the German government anticipated to eventually enjoy a certain level of political influence in the Turkish realm.69
Aside from encouraging the employment of German specialists and acad-emicians in Turkey, German cultural policy in Turkey also supported the Turkish state’s desire of sending more students to Germany for educational purposes. Young Turkey attached the utmost importance to dispatching the best students of the country abroad for furthering their education throughout the s and s. At the beginning of the s, Germany became the most preferred destination for those Turkish students studying abroad for a variety of reasons.70 First of all, receiving higher education in Germany was more cost-effective than many other countries, which proved to be a vital determi-nant in the Turkish government’s decision of sending the majority of students to Germany.71 Secondly, Germany was being respected in Turkey as one of the most significant centers of technology and science. In other words, the popu-larity of Germany in the scientific and technological matters appears to have also been decisive in sending large numbers of Turkish students to Germany.72
anks to such advantages, Germany became the leading country in in terms of the total number of Turkish students studying abroad. Now, the majority of Turkish students sent abroad were studying in Germany. e Ger-man lead in this area persisted throughout the s.73 Certain governmental institutions including the Turkish Armed Forces, the General Directorate of Maps, the General Directorate of State Railways, the Ministries of Education, Forestry, Economy and Culture, etc. kept sending several successful Turkish
69 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -.
70 In , of the Turkish students receiving education abroad was studying in Germany. (see Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, .)
71 Ulus, .. and ...
72 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, , and . (examples of Muhlis Erkmen and Muammer Tuksavul.); Cumhuriyet, .., .. and ..; Ulus, ...
73 Ulus, ...
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
students to Germany so that these students could further their education at undergraduate or higher levels in a wide variety of branches such as forestry, mechanical, civil, electrical and marine engineering, law, archeology, aviation, architecture, cartography, and so on.74 According to an estimation of the Tü-rkische Post newspaper, the total number of Turkish students studying in Ger-many was as of March .75 In , eighty percent of the entire Turkish students receiving education abroad was studying at German Universities.76 e reason why the official German cultural policy supported drawing more and more Turkish students into Germany was obvious: by giving the chance of furthering their studies in Germany, the official German policy aimed to turn these students into German sympathizers during their stay in the coun-try. So, German policymakers hoped to benefit politically and economically when these students become the holders of significant positions in Turkey given that those who had studied in Germany were expected to sustain the cooperation with the country, where they had received a high-quality educa-tion and experienced positive things.77
Besides, a significant number of Turkish crasmen, engineers, workers, judges, and prosecutors were also sent to Germany to further their occupa-tional knowledge there throughout the s with the financial backing up of Turkish state institutions such as the General Directorate of Military Factories and State Railways, the Ministry of Justice, and Denizbank.78
e National Socialist propaganda not only intended to have an impact on Turkish students but also on Turkish teachers who automatically enjoys an important degree of authority on students. For example, the German Teach-ers’ Association in Germany invited Turkish teachers to Germany for a trip in
74 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: IV, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , June , ; TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , January , -; TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: VI, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: F, May , ; TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , May , ; Cumhuriyet, .., .., .., ..; Tan, ..; Ulus, .., ..; Kurun, .., ...
75 Cumhuriyet, ...
76 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, .
77 Ibid., p. ; Kılıç, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
78 Ulus, .., .., .., .. and ...
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
the summer of . e important cultural and industrial areas of Germany would be visited during the trip. e offer was pleasantly accepted by the Turk-ish side and Turkish teachers le Turkey for the trip and reached Germany on July .79 During the trip, the Turkish teachers’ group encountered a very warm welcome shown by the German side on every occasion. For in-stance, on one occasion, Germans stressed how happy they were to finally meet “Atatürk’s children”.80 During the official reception ceremony held in the Frankfurt Municipality, the Mayor of Frankfurt praised the “Waffenbrüder-scha” and Atatürk’s revolution.81 All these hints seem to point out that the event is highly likely to have been organized by the German Ministry of Prop-aganda to convince the Turkish teachers that new Turkey was being appreci-ated and the Turks were being considered a friendly nation in Germany. Be-sides, the members of the German Teachers’ Association also took their Turkish counterparts to museums, factories, and other monumental works throughout the trip, which can also be read as the intention of turning these Turkish teachers into the fans of German art, culture, and scientific advance-ment. if the Turkish teachers, who took part in the trip, could be convinced of the alleged superiority of the German race in scientific and technological sub-jects, they were expected to automatically turn into the propagandists of Ger-man might, which would also influence their students’ attitude towards Ger-many.
e final instrument to which German cultural propaganda resorted in pursuing a more effective cultural policy in Turkey was German institutions and associations in Turkey. German associations in İstanbul such as “Teu-tonia”, “Alemannia” and “Deutscher Ausflugsverein” were started to be con-trolled by the individuals close to the NSDAP. As a result, the autonomous structure of Teutonia, a rooted association whose establishment goes back to the Ottoman times, came to an end. Teutonia became a center of Nazi meet-ings and organizations in Istanbul during which the Nazi symbols and uni-forms were worn although the usage of such symbols of foreign ideologies was
79 Tan, .., .., .. and ...
80 Tan, ...
81 Tan, ...
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
forbidden in Turkey at the time. e practice of holding such meetings and ceremonies were later stopped to avert the closure of the Teutonia Associa-tion.82
A similar fate was waiting for the German High School in İstanbul, which was re-opened by R. Nadolny in . Following the NSDAP’s takeover of the political power in Germany, the school’s managerial board and academic staff were filled with Nazis. Glasneck states that out of the twenty German teachers working at the school, eighteen of them were the members of the Nazi Party. Given that throughout the s and s a remarkable number of Turkish students were studying there, the German High School in İstanbul looked like a promising tool for introducing the National Socialist ideology to the Turkish upper-middle-class’ youth.83 However, certain juridical limitations would prove this expectation wrong. Following the Lausanne Treaty and certain amendments in the Turkish education system, all foreign schools were now subjected to the Turkish regulations that required the use of Turkish as the main language of education in certain courses such as Turkish, literature, ge-ography, and sociology. Moreover, foreign schools were forbidden to cam-paign for any kind of religious or political ideology. Such restrictions on for-eign schools severely limited the chance of using the German High School as an instrument of German National Socialist propaganda. Hence, most of the time the Nazi propaganda in the German school in Istanbul remained limited to the conferences organized by the members of the Nazi Party during semes-ter holidays.84
82 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
83 Kılıç, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
84 Ibid., p. -; Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
§ . e German Army as the Role Model of the Turkish Coun-terpart and “Civilian” German Officers in the Turkish Army: Turco-German Military Relations in the Weimar Pe-riod, -
Germans and the German Army enjoyed incredibly strong influence on the Ottoman Army prior to the end of the First World War. Several German mil-itary missions sent by Kaiser’s Germany to the Ottoman Empire at the end of the th century and especially in the s created very strong German in-fluence on the entire organization of the Ottoman Army. Especially the mili-tary mission sent to the Ottoman Empire under the command of Colmar von der Goltz between and played a decisive role in the establishment of the Prussian military tradition as the prevailing military culture in the Otto-man Army. anks largely to Goltz’s efforts, the Prussian military culture be-came a dominant one in the Ottoman Army. Besides, large military orders were made by the Ottoman Army from the foremost German companies such as Krupp, Loewe, and Mauser. German influence in the Turkish Army was taken to the next level with the arrival of the official German military mission under Liman von Sanders in December . is time, the German officers and generals who were part of the military mission were given very large pow-ers in the Ottoman Army. Most importantly, they were bestowed the right of commanding Ottoman troops. Consequently, many Ottoman corps were commanded by German officers throughout the First World War, which irri-tated the young, nationalist officer cadres of the Empire.85
Following the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the Turkish chief-of-staff intended to employ foreign military specialists to modernize and reor-ganize the Turkish Army in line with the latest developments in military sci-ence. Meanwhile in Germany, a large number of officers who used to be part of the Kaiser’s immense army lost their jobs in line with the restrictions im-posed by Versailles, which reduced the entire German Army to a much smaller
85 Kılıç, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -; Ortaylı, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Alman Nüfuzu, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
one. us, those who had lost their works in the German Army started to look elsewhere for employment opportunities.86 Turkish executives took advantage of the situation and the three former German officers named Wilhelm von Klewitz, von Mossow, and von Massenbach were employed at the War Acad-emy in İstanbul in .87 Upon Klewitz’s death in , General Robert Bühr-mann came to Istanbul and assumed his position at the Turkish War Acad-emy.88
ese former officers were “civilians” in the Turkish soil, who were bearing no military ranks and having no formal connection to Reichswehr. ey were teaching certain types of courses at the War Academy, infantry, and artillery schools in İstanbul.89 Another group of retired German officers also arrived in İstanbul, which made the number of retired German officers working in the Turkish Army in five in total.90 Klewitz and others were not alone, though. Four French officers were also working at the Turkish War Academy at that time, which shows Turkish top-ranking military officers’ desire to balance German influence in the Turkish Army by employing military specialists from other countries.91 In addition, former German officers were also employed at the Turkish Naval Academy, which delighted Nadolny because even in the Ot-toman times, Ottoman naval personnel were exclusively being trained by Brit-ish specialists. Now, German personnel also took the lead in this branch, which positively contributed to German influence on the Turkish military ca-dres.92
However, compared to the previous German missions in the Ottoman times, these German officers only had limited influence on the entire Turkish Army for some reason. First of all, these were “civilian personnel” bearing no military titles and having no official affiliation with an official German military
86 Gerhard Grüßhaber, e "German Spirit" in the Ottoman and Turkish Army, - (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, ), -.
87 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
88 Grüßhaber, e German Spirit, .
89 Grüßhaber, e German Spirit, -; Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
90 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
91 Ibid., p. ; Grüßhaber, e German Spirit, .
92 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
mission, unlike their counterparts back in the Ottoman times.93 Secondly, to minimize such foreign personnel’s influence on the army in the long run, the Turkish government laid down that the employed foreign staff’s contracts could not be longer than three years.94 Furthermore, all the employed foreign military personnel were just advisors who retained no administrative author-ity on the Turkish Army. All the employed foreign staff was subject to Turkish superiors who had the right of supervising the activities of the former. Such precautions were meticulously taken by the Turkish chief-of-staff in order to prevent the foreign military specialists from enjoying a high degree of control on Turkish forces.95
Aside from the employment of certain former German officers at Turkish military schools, a few Turkish officers and Turkish students were sent to Ger-many for further military training and internship in the German Army. For instance, seven Turkish students were sent, by the attempt of the Turkish Min-istry of Defense, to Germany for receiving further technical education in the summer of .96 Two more Turkish officers seem to have been sent to Ger-many for military training in .97 Later in the spring of , another five Turkish officers were sent to Germany for receiving education upon the Turk-ish government’s request.98
e admiration for the Prussian military tradition and the German Army seems to have continued in the ranks of the Turkish Army in the Interwar Period, as B. Grüßhaber’s study suggests. e majority of the officer genera-tions within the Turkish Army continued to respect Germans who had trained them and fought with them during the First World War.99 As a result, the Ger-man Military School and the German Army remained to be the main role model of the Turkish Army during the Interwar Era.100 us, the promotion
93 Grüßhaber, e German Spirit, and ; Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
94 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: F, October , ; Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
95 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
96 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
97 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: III, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , December , .
98 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – .
99 Grüßhaber, e German Spirit, .
100 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
of the “Waffenbrüderscha” seems to have created the intended impact only on Turkish officer cadres who considered the former comradeship-in-arms something valuable and binding for the two nations. A nice example of that might be K. Sami Pasha who took courses from German lecturers at the war academy in the Ottoman times and fought under a German commander in the First World War. As a zealous believer of the exclusive nature of the former Waffenbrüderscha, Sami stated that Turkish soldiers had learned a lot from their German teachers and made good use of it during the Turkish War of Independence.101 By the same token, even İsmet İnönü, who considered the alliance with Germany in the First World War to be a grave mistake that brought the end of the empire, admitted the influence of German military tra-dition on the Turkish Army by saying that “we learned the military profession from our German teachers at the war academy. But we learned it so well that we came to the same level as them.”102
In short, the Prussian tradition and German Army remained as the main role model for the Turkish Army throughout the s, s, and even s. e Turkish Army benefitted from retired German officers as “civil” advisors and lecturers. As Mangold-Will argues, such former German military staff’s involvement in the training of the Turkish Army contributed to the sustain-ment of German influence on the Turkish Army. It also contributed to boost-ing the prestige of the German Armed Forces in the world.103 is was the reason why the employment of such former military personnel in Turkey was welcomed by Weimar politicians as long as these ex-officers refrained from showing up in political incidents.104
101 Ibid., p. -.
102 İsmet İnönü, İsmet İnönü Hatıralar. Vol. . (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, ), .
103 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .
104 Ibid., p. .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
§ . Turkish-German Military Cooperation in the Nazi Period, -
e military cooperation between Turkey and Germany continued in this pe-riod as well. New German officers such as the retired German general Hilmar Ritter von Mittelberger continued to have been employed. Von Mittelberger started working at the War Academy in Istanbul in February and re-mained there till the breakout of the Second World War. During his stay, von Mittelberger wrote several textbooks on the military issues, which were trans-lated into Turkish and used extensively in the training of the Turkish Army even aer his departure.105
Besides, the use of the direct translations of German books being used at German war academies could be observed in this period. e most striking example of the use of German military literature in the Turkish War Academy was the “Wrong!/Right!” military manuals. e manuals show soldiers what to do and what not to do on the battlefield with visual illustrations. As Grüßhaber’s study demonstrates, even the speech balloons in the illustrations in the military manuals were not changed in its Turkish translation, only the explanations under the pictures were translated into Turkish so that cadets could understand the content of the manuals.106 In the whole Interwar Period, former German officers in total taught at the Turkish War Academy.107 De-spite such developments, the employment of non-German foreign military specialists along with Germans was deliberately sustained in order to counter-balance the existence of German specialists at the War Academy.108
e dispatch of Turkish cadets to Germany for educational purposes con-tinued in this period at an increasing pace. More Turkish cadets sent to Ger-many to either receive further education in certain branches such as engineer-ing and medicine or to do an internship in the German Army. For instance, a
105 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; Grüßhaber, e German Spirit, -.
106 Grüßhaber, e German Spirit, -.
107 Ibid., p. .
108 Ibid., p. .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Turkish Grand Assembly record demonstrates that an allowance of . TL was put into the budget of the financial year for covering the expenditures of students to be sent to Germany by the Turkish Ministry of Defense for studying engineering.109 Besides, a certain number of Turkish officers were also receiving military training within the German Army. According to the German ambassador von Keller’s report dated May , Turkish executives asked their German counterparts for permission in order to increase the num-ber of Turkish officers receiving military training in the German Army. How-ever, such a demand was not considered acceptable by the top-ranking officials in the German Army at the time. Keller suggested that the offer must be ac-cepted owing to the fact that Turkish military circles were highly respecting the German Army and its military achievements. us, this request must be taken into consideration not only from the military point of view but also from the political point of view. Keller mentioned that Hans Rohde, the German military attaché in Ankara, also suggested adopting a more positive approach to the Turks’ request.110 Keller and Rohde’s recommendations seem to have changed German policymakers’ minds since Wehrmacht finally accepted the Turkish side’s application for sending more soldiers to receive training in the German Army.111
§ . German So Power in the Turkish Economy and Foreign Trade in the Interwar Years: Turco-German Commercial Relations and Significant German Investments in Turkey, -
e most significant area of cooperation between the two countries was the economic one for both sides as demonstrated by Nadolny and Kemaleddin
109 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , March , -.
110 ADAP, Serie D: - Band V, (Juni – März ), Göttingen, , -. (/-)
111 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -; Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Sami’s statements on different occasions.112 Even before the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence in Anatolia, certain organs of the German printed press considered that Anatolia might be an important supplier of cer-tain types of raw materials needed by German industry in the future. In its issue dated April , the “Das Junge Europa” newspaper pointed out that if the necessary steps are taken to increase the efficiency of cotton production in Anatolia, the region might become the main raw cotton supplier of German textile industry in the near future. e newspaper concluded the analysis by stating: “we need Turkey, and she needs us, maybe more than we do.”113
A similar evaluation was also made by another German newspaper called Vossische Zeitung. e newspaper suggested that if Turkey could be a reliable supplier of agricultural raw materials, strong mutual economic relations would be established between the two sides. Turkey could export large num-bers of foodstuffs and agricultural raw materials to Germany. In return, Ger-many could dispatch a great number of finished products to Turkey.114 Similar assessments followed when the Turkish Republic was established aer the Turkish national struggle. is time, the German press started to dwell on the fact that the new Kemalist ruling cadres of the country had no intention of granting economic privileges or signing any kind of commercial treaty that might hurt the economic independence of Turkey. Hence, the entire German economic policy in Turkey must be redesigned according to new prevailing conditions. is disadvantage, however, was balanced by a few advantages that Germans enjoyed: the Turks were highly likely to apply to German firms for cooperation in the construction of new railways that were needed to unify the country’s vast territories. Similarly, German firms had large numbers of spe-cialists and employees that were familiar with the conditions in Turkey since most German firms had undertaken large-scale railway construction projects back in the Ottoman times.115
112 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, ; Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -; Cumhuriyet, ...
113 Ülger, Alman Basınında, -.
114 Ibid., p. . (Vossische Zeitung, January .)
115 Ülger, Alman Basınında, -. (Berliner Tageblatt, ..; Hamburgischer Correspond-ent, ..; Frankfurter Zeitung, ..)
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
e intensified economic cooperation between Turkey and Germany in the first part of the Interwar Period (-) crystallized notably in the two spheres of activity that were German investments in Turkey and Germany’s existence in Turkish foreign trade as one of the main trade partners. A con-siderable amount of German capital flowed into Turkey during this period in the form of medium to large-scale investments. Certain Turkish joint-stock companies operating in the sectors of cement production, electricity and coal gas generation, mining, construction, and commerce possessed German cap-ital.116 Besides, other types of investments were also made in Turkey by certain German firms. For instance, Malatya Hydroelectric Power Plant was con-structed by Siemens through the establishment of “Siemens Electric Turkish Limited Company” in . Aside from this facility, the generators that had been produced by German companies such as Siemens, AEG, and Bergmann were widely used in the power plants constructed in Anatolia in years between and . us, Y. Şekerci and T. Örmecioğlu argue that certain German companies like Siemens, whose generators were widely being used in many power plants in Turkey, played a key role in the electrification of Turkey.117 Likewise, a few German investors also founded a small number of Turkish limited companies by using a hundred percent German capital.118
e most significant German investments on Turkish soil at the time were large-scale railway projects. One of the most significant matters in the Kema-list ruling elite cadres’ agenda throughout the s and s was the estab-lishment of large-scale railway lines across the country in order to unite the remote parts of Turkey as well as establish a consolidated domestic market for the further economic development of the country.119 Since recently founded
116 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
117 Hilal Tuğba Örmecioğlu and Yaren Şekerci, “Siemens Elektrik Türk Şirketi Tarafından Erken Cumhuriyet Dönemi’nde Kurulan Bir Fabrika: Malatya Hidroelektrik Santrali,” in Türk-Al-man İlişkilerine Farklı Disiplinlerden Bakış, ed. Mehmet Altunkaya and Kemal Demir (Konya: Palet Yayınları, ), –.
118 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
119 İnönü, Hatıralarım, ; Tezel, Yahya S. Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi (-) (İs-tanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, ), -; Pamuk, Uneven Centuries, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Turkey lacked the necessary specialists and technological know-how to com-plete such daring railway projects, Turkish politicians turned abroad seeking for cooperation with foreign companies. Not surprisingly, one of the first countries that they turned to was Germany. In the first part of the Interwar Period, German capital assumed two crucial railway projects in Turkey. e first one was the km long “Kayseri-Ulukışla Railway Line.” It was accom-panied by a second line designated “Kütahya-Balıkesir Railway Line”. e lat-ter was planned to be built in order to facilitate the dispatch of chromium ores extracted in Kütahya mines. e construction work of both projects was taken up by the German firm “Julius Berger Tieau”.120 In return, a m Reichs-mark worth loan agreement was concluded on June th, between Turkey and the Deutsche Bank. e Weimar government financially gave the guaran-tee for which the Deutsche Bank had asked as the prerequisite of issuing the loan.121
Alongside the first loan agreement concluded between Turkey and Ger-many with respect to the railway projects mentioned, the second loan of m Reichsmark worth was issued to Turkey in exchange for Turkey’s railway-re-lated purchases from German companies. ese orders comprised railway materials such as locomotives, cars, workshops, etc. e loan agreement was signed by both sides on August .122 Both the abovementioned railway investments and credit agreements were considered by German authorities to be great economic accomplishments since the two together made Germany the main railway-related material supplier of Turkey.123 Needless to say, the tense political relations between Turkey and the British-French bloc prevented German investments in Turkey from facing a severe external challenge. e absence of British and French capital-holders’ desire to make further eco-nomic investments in Turkey due to the tense political relations can be said to have given German capital a considerable advantage in Turkey. In the absence
120 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
121 Ibid., p. -.
122 Ibid., p. -.
123 Ibid., p. -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
of British and French competition, German capital in Turkey enjoyed the ad-vantage of comfortably investing in the Turkish economy without being sub-jected to a severe external competition throughout the s.124
One of the most striking examples of the large-scale German investments in Turkey during this period was Kayseri Aircra Factory Project. Having foreseen the fact that aerial technologies would be of vital significance in the near future, the single-party government decided to set up an indigenous air-cra industry. An agreement was concluded on August between the prestigious German firm “Junkers” and the Turkish government on the estab-lishment of the Kayseri Aircra Factory. According to the schedule laid down in the agreement, facilities such as hangars, depots, housings, electricity plants, workshops, etc. were to be built. e factory was supposed to be capa-ble of providing repair services by the autumn of . e construction works of the project were awarded to another German Company that is “Philipp Holzmann und Co.” However, the construction of the entire complex soon ran into severe financial difficulties, as Junkers was having serious financial hardships. Due to these economic difficulties, Junkers was on the eve of bank-ruptcy.125 Concerning the ongoing situation, V. Moltke, an undersecretary working at the German Embassy in Ankara, wrote a report in which he stated that the possible bankruptcy on the Junker’s side and the consequent inter-ruption of the Kayseri Aircra Factory’s construction would lead to severe negative repercussions on the entire Turco-German economic relationships as well as damage the international economic and political reputation of both German firms and Germany. erefore, the prevention of Junkers’ bankruptcy would be a very good move to make if possible.126
124 Ibid., p. .
125 Ibid., p. -.
126 ADAP, Serie B: - Band III, (Dezember bis Dezember ), Göttingen, , . (K/K -.)
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
A similar report was also sent to the German Foreign Ministry by Nadolny who also suggested the prevention of Junkers’ bankruptcy and the continua-tion of the project.127 To protect the interests of German investors and the eco-nomic prestige of Germany in Turkey, the German Foreign Office had inter-vened and made the Deutsche Orient Bank issue a m Reichsmark credit that enabled Junkers to complete the construction of the aircra factory.128 Conse-quently, the factory was opened with a splendid ceremony in which the Turk-ish Minister of Defense and other high-ranking Turkish officers partici-pated.129
e direct intervention of the German government in the two abovemen-tioned cases demonstrates the striking fact that the Weimar government gave German investments in Turkey a considerable significance. Because Strese-mann believed that such investments and achievements of German companies were, in the end, contributing to the overall prestige of Germany. Besides, the Turkish market is a promising one for German companies in terms of future investments and sales opportunities. at’s why the Weimar government, which had always remained loyal to the policy of non-involvement in Turkish political matters in order not to provoke the British-French bloc, directly in-tervened and bestowed an official guarantee for the credit agreement signed between Turkey and the Deutsche Bank and provided a loan for Jun-kers in the second case.130
As mentioned before, the second area where an increasing Turkish-Ger-man economic cooperation is observed was foreign trade. Turkey was poten-tially a big market for almost all German consumer goods and machinery that German companies were offering. In return, Turkey could provide Germany with certain types of raw materials and foodstuffs that had high demand in the German market and industry.131
127 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
128 Ibid., p. ; Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .
129 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
130 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, - and -; (for further information regard-ing Stresemann’s interesting policy, see Tooze, e Wages of Destruction, -.)
131 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Following the re-establishment of political relations in , the trade be-tween Turkey and Germany now started to take place officially. In order to put the trade going on between the two states on a stronger base, a new trade agreement was made on March , which was the first trade treaty be-tween the two countries. Later, a new and more extensive trade agreement was signed in Ankara on January . e agreement would remain in effect for two years; however, unless none of the sides cancel, it would remain in force aer the initial years period was over. Cemil Koçak argues that these two trade agreements were a necessity to organize and conduct the bilateral foreign trade on a regular and safe basis and to attract more investors from Germany. Turkish press praised the latest agreement and emphasized the fact that the treaty was signed between equal sides.132 Having witnessed the diffi-culties deriving from the semi-colonial status of the Ottoman Empire, both the Turkish government and people were quite meticulous about the diplo-matic and economic independence of the country. Hence, the Turkish press’ emphasis on the equality of both sides ought to be interpreted accordingly.
e Turkish side was satisfied with the last agreement and decided to uni-laterally extend it to the date of February . In December , the au-thorized representatives of the two countries gathered and negotiations started for a new and more extensive trade agreement. e negotiations lasted longer than expected, but a new trade agreement was finally signed on May , according to which the agreement would last years and stay in force unless none of the sides abolish. Both countries possessed the right of cancel-ing the agreement at any time.133
In addition to the establishment of an official basis for mutual commercial relations through the abovementioned formal agreements, a Turkish non-state actor, the Turkish Chamber of Commerce in Berlin, also positively contrib-uted to the intensification of the mutual trade between the two countries. It was founded right aer the conclusion of the Turco-German Trade Agreement in . e Turkish ambassador in Berlin, K. Sami, pioneered the establish-
132 Ibid., p. -.
133 Ibid., p. .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
ment of the organization with a view to increasing the volume of Turkish ex-ports to Germany. To achieve this, the embassy was offering a variety of ser-vices. For example, it was publishing a monthly magazine named “Türkische Wirtscha” to inform German importers about the latest Turkish export goods as well as provide information for German merchants and industrialists about the latest developments in the Turkish economy.134 Similarly, as reflected on the Turkish printed press, the Turkish Chamber of Commerce in Berlin was also helping those German traders interested in the Turkish market by providing commercial instructions.135 In addition, the chamber was attending many German economic fairs on behalf of Turkey in the s. During these occasions, the Turkish Chamber of Commerce in Berlin prepared the official Turkish booth at which the main Turkish export products were being dis-played.136 According to a column in the Kurun newspaper dated .., these efforts of introducing Turkish export products in fairs organized in Ger-many seem to have positively affected Turco-German trade.137
Following giving the overall view of how the basis of Turco-German com-mercial relations was established, the rest of this part shall directly deal with the statistical data of Turco-German foreign trade in order to draw a more elaborated picture of the phenomenon. First of all, there is a big pitfall waiting for current as well as prospective researchers interested in Turkish-German relations, that is the discrepancy between the official trade statistics of German and Turkish archives. Both archives tell completely different stories about Turco-German foreign trade that occurred between and . In order to make a healthy and trustworthy comparison, both sides’ statistics shall be ad-dressed comparatively.138
According to the German statistics, the average value of the Turco-Ger-man trade between and was around m RM other than the excep-tional years of and . According to the Turkish statistics, however, the
134 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, .
135 Cumhuriyet, ...
136 Ulus, ..; Kurun, .., ..; Cumhuriyet, ...
137 Kurun, ...
138 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
total value of the trade between the two countries in the same period fluctu-ated between m and m RM. German statistics demonstrate that the for-eign trade between the two sides followed a regular pattern whereas deducing the same idea was almost impossible according to the data that Turkish official sources offer, which shows that the overall value of the total trade severely fluctuated. What both statistical records show in common is that the total trade volume shrank between and as a result of the worldwide neg-ative effects of the Great Depression.139
Table . e Total Value of Turkish-German Foreign Trade (-)
Years
According to German Statistics (Million RM)
According to Turkish Statistics (Million RM)
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
As far as the total value of exports and imports is concerned, the discrepancy between the two different sources persists. According to the German official records, the total value of Turkey’s exports to Germany between and fluctuated slightly, but it always showed an increasing tendency except for . On the other hand, Turkish statistics indicate that in the same period, the total value of Turkish exports to Germany severely fluctuated. Nonethe-less, both sides’ statistics show the same trend of a remarkable decrease in the value of total Turkish exports to Germany from onwards due to the Great Depression’s negative impacts on world trade.140 When it comes to the total
139 Ibid., p. .
140 Ibid., p. .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
value of Turkish imports from Germany, the statistics of both sides demon-strate different figures. However, the same trend of a stable increase in the total value of goods imported from Germany to Turkey continued to persist. Simi-larly, this stable increase stopped in and from onwards severely dropped to a level as low as m RM.141
Table . Turkish Exports to Germany (-)
Years
According to German Statistics
(Million RM)
According to Turkish Statistics
(Million RM)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
Table . Turkish Imports from Germany (-)
Years
According to German Statistics
(Million RM)
According to Turkish Statistics
(Million RM)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
141 Ibid., p. .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Compared with the shares that other major trading partners of Turkey occu-pied in the total Turkish foreign trade, the German share was modest until . roughout the s, Germany was among the main trading partners of Turkey but never occupied the first rank among other countries trading with Turkey. Most of the time, Germany occupied the second rank in the total Turkish exports by percentage.142 When the effects of the Great Depression started to be felt, the German share in the total Turkish exports immediately went down but quickly recovered in . Nonetheless, in the total Turkish imports, Germany drew a more successful picture and held a substantial amount of market share and even managed to increase her share during the stressful years between and . e German share in the total Turkish imports always increased from onwards and reached , percent in . However, the comparison between the share of Germany and that of others in Turkish foreign trade throughout the abovementioned period indicates that the shares held by the main trading partners of Turkey in Turkish foreign trade were not too different from each other. us, calling the German share domi-nant is impossible. e differences between the percentages held by the major trading partners of Turkey were not too big. So, at least until , calling the share that Germany had occupied in Turkish foreign trade hegemonic or dom-inant would be a fatal mistake. Germany was just one of the major trading partners of the young Turkish Republic, whose share in Turkish foreign trade was slightly bigger or lower than other main trading partners.143
142 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
143 See Table . and ..
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
Table . Turkish Exports to the Main Trading Partners (-) (According to Turkish Statistics) ()
Countries
Germany
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
France
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
İtaly
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
the UK
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Austria
.
-
.
.
.
.
.
-
-
-
the USSR
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Czechoslovakia
-
.
.
.
.
.
.
-
-
-
the USA
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
Table . Turkish Imports from Major Trading Partners (-) (According to Turkish Statistics) ()
Countries
Germany
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
.
.
France
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
.
.
İtaly
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
.
.
the UK
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
.
.
Austria
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
-
-
-
the USSR
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
.
.
Czechoslovakia
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
-
-
-
the USA
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
.
.
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
Another interesting fact the statistics tell us is that the share of Turkey in the total foreign trade of Germany was completely negligible. Neither in German imports nor exports, Turkey occupied a crucial percentage in the total Ger-man foreign trade,144 which gave Germany a big advantage over Turkey since whenever two countries engage in bilateral trade, the one with a bigger econ-omy gains advantage and more freedom of movement. Because it always tends to occupy a disproportionately bigger share in the foreign trade of the one with
144 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
a smaller economy. On the other hand, the country with a smaller economy tends to hold a very insignificant share in the foreign trade of the country with a larger economy. As a result, Germany could easily have given up trading with Turkey and reoriented her trade towards a different country whereas doing the same would have been way harder for Turkey. Since Germany was occu-pying a remarkable share in the total Turkish foreign trade, finding alternative markets for non-standardized and mostly below-average quality raw materials and foodstuffs that Turkey was producing would definitely take a long time. e longer the quest for alternative markets was, the more it would hurt the economy.145
§ . German So Power Reaches its Zenith: Turco-German Eco-nomic Relations and the Emergence of German Domination in Turkish Foreign Trade, -
e unexpected Great Depression hit Turkey very hard. As a result of the se-vere loss of value that reached as high as in the prices of various agricul-tural products, Turkey’s main source of foreign currency was deeply shaken.146 Besides, due to the emergence of such a global crisis, the overall foreign trade in the world declined to a large extent, which also hit Turkish exports.147
e single-party government immediately took precautions. First of all, on the occasion of the expiration of the transitionary period in August , which had previously been laid down in the Treaty of Lausanne and guaran-teed the temporary continuation of low custom duties in Turkey for a short period, a new protective customs tariff was started to be implemented through
145 See Hirschman, National Power, -.
146 Pamuk, Uneven Centuries, -; Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, .
147 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: IV, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: F, May , ; TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: IV, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: F, July , -; TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: IV, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , November , -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
which those consumer goods that could be produced domestically were sub-jected to very high customs in order to reduce the amount of foreign currency leaving the Country.148
Secondly, the single-party government put certain physical restrictions on foreign trade in the form of quotas from November onwards. rough the implementation of quotas in Turkish foreign trade, the number of other countries’ exports to Turkey was re-arranged according to the number of Turkish export goods that those countries were buying.149 e more those countries import from Turkey, the more they would be allowed to export to Turkey in order to reduce the foreign trade deficit that Turkey had been expe-riencing since . is approach was formulated by İ. İnönü and Celal Bayar’s speeches during the first half of the s. İnönü clearly assured the public that the value of Turkish imports would not exceed that of exports.150 Similarly, C. Bayar stated that: ” as I mentioned previously, our foreign trade policy is buying goods of those countries that are buying our goods”. Besides, importing certain consumer goods like foodstuffs, alcohol, perfume, and tex-tiles was completely forbidden.151
Last but not least, the overall Turkish foreign trade was reshaped on the basis of bilateral trade agreements and the clearing system. Due to the alarm-ingly low level of foreign exchange reserves in Turkey, Turkish politicians adopted the clearing system that basically provided the exchange of goods be-tween two sides without using any kind of foreign currency.152 C. Bayar justi-fied the clearing system by remarking that during these very tough times, the execution of quotas and clearing system enabled needed goods to enter the country in larger numbers, which replenished stocks, eventually lowered the consumer goods’ prices in the domestic market as well as resurrected the credit of foreign trade in Turkey.153
148 Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, -; Pamuk, Uneven Centuries, .
149 Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, -; Pamuk, Uneven Centuries, .
150 İnönü, İnönü'nün Söylev Ve Demeçleri, -.
151 Bayar, Celal. Celal Bayar Diyor Ki (-) (İstanbul: İstanbul Tan Matbaası, ), -.
152 Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, .
153 Bayar, Celal Bayar Diyor Ki, .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Despite these precautions, the only way of saving Turkey from the difficult situation created by the Great Depression was increasing her overall produc-tion capacity. Making Turkey an industrialized country had long been one of the biggest ambitions of the Kemalist cadres, whose necessity was once shown by the negative effects of the Great Slump.154 e only way out was being able to domestically produce at least certain imported popular consumer goods such as sugar, textiles, etc. for which a very large amount of foreign currency was being spent. erefore, like other periphery countries around the world that had been incorporated into the world trade as raw material suppliers back in the th century, the single-party government embarked on a remarkable program of import-substituting industrialization that aimed at the establish-ment of several consumer goods’ industries such as sugar, textile, glassworks as well as mining, cement, iron and steel industries. Owing to the inability of the private sector whose entire accumulation fell short of embarking on such a daring enterprise, the state itself assumed the role of entrepreneurship. First Sümerbank in and a year later Etibank were founded. Sümerbank was entrusted with founding and running factories and facilities in the abovemen-tioned sectors on the Turkish government’s behalf while Etibank’s task was doing the same in the mining sector.155
e biggest problem lying ahead of Turkish policymakers with respect to achieving the dream of making Turkey an industrialized country was how to cover all the extensive and very expensive industrial machinery imports, needed to establish well-equipped factories, with the extremely limited foreign currency reserves that Turkey had. At this point, the offer of new Germany under the Nazi party’s rule seemed very profitable. Germany was now show-ing her intention of purchasing Turkish raw materials and foodstuffs in very large numbers and in exchange offered Turkey delivering industrial and agri-cultural machinery and finished goods that would enable Turkey to equip her factories.156 Besides, the German side was ready to pay above-market prices
154 Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, -.
155 Pamuk, Uneven Centuries, -; Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, -; Boratav, Türkiye İktisat Tarihi, -.
156 Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, - and .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
for Turkish export products.157 e commerce between the two sides would be conducted on a bilateral basis through the clearing system, which required no exchange of foreign currency. Acquiring industrial machinery and finished goods without using any kind of foreign currency looked very profitable for Turkey given that the foreign exchange reserves in Turkey had almost always been low since the establishment of the country.158 Hence, the bilateral trade between the two sides flourished to an unprecedented extent throughout the s as shall be broken down below.
Official trade statistics of both sides continue to contradict each other in the s as well.159 But the pattern of a stable increase in the total trade value between Germany and Turkey can easily be seen in the two separate data sets offered by the Turkish and German sides. Despite different values, both sides’ statistics show a stable increase in the total value of the trade between Ger-many and Turkey in the s. By the same token, both the German and Turk-ish official statistics demonstrate that Turkish exports to Germany had an in-creasing trend throughout the s even though the values that both sides give are different from each other. Similarly, Turkish imports from Germany continuously rose in the same period according to both sides’ official statis-tics.160
157 Ibid., p. ; Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, .
158 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -; Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, -; Cemil Koçak, “Almanya’nın Yayılmacı Dış Politikasının Bir Parçası Olarak Türk-Alman İk-tisadi İlişkileri (-),” in Geçmişiniz İtinayla Temizlenir (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, ), -; Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, .
159 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
160 Ibid., p. -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Table . Turco-German Overall Trade (-)
Years
According to German Statistics
(Million RM)
According to Turkish Statistics
(Million RM)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
Table . Turkish Exports to Germany (-)
Years
According to German Statistics
(Million RM)
According to Turkish Statistics
(Million RM)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
-
.
-
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
Table . Turkish Imports from Germany (-)
Years
According to German Statistics
(Million RM)
According to Turkish Statistics
(Million RM)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
-
.
-
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
ings get more interesting and self-explanatory when one looks at the com-parison between the share of Germany and that of other major trading part-ners in the total Turkish imports and exports throughout the s. In the total Turkish exports, Germany was always the leading country among the main trading partners of Turkey. Especially from onwards, the share that Ger-many held in the total Turkish exports was incomparably higher than that of the other countries trading with Turkey.161 At the lowest point, Germany was purchasing of the entire Turkish exports. In , Germany was purchas-ing slightly more than half of the entire Turkish exports. Following the Turco-British rapprochement and alliance in the late s, the German share slightly dropped but always remained over even in when the Turco-British alliance officially came into being. Shortly, the average percentage that Ger-many held in the total Turkish exports between and was roughly percent, which is incredibly high.162
Table . Turkish Exports to Main Trading Partners ()
Countries
Germany
France
İtaly
the UK
the USSR
the USA
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
When it comes to the German share in the total Turkish imports, the situation is the same and similarly striking. From to , Germany kept her first rank in the total Turkish imports and her share never dropped below per-cent. From onwards, however, the average German share reached per-cent and fluctuated between and percent in the following three years.
161 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -.
162 See Table ..
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Eventually, it reached a record level of percent in . e closest compet-itor to Germany in the total Turkish imports was the USA, whose share mostly remained around percent. German share was again incomparably higher than the closest competitor.163
Table . Turkish Imports from Main Trading Partners ()
Countries
Germany
France
Italy
the UK
the USSR
the USA
SOURCE Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
e establishment of such incredibly high proportions in the entire Turkish foreign trade was part of German so power policy regarding the Balkans. As part of H. Schacht’s “New Plan”, intensifying commercial relations with Tur-key became an important tool in finally exerting political influence on the country. In other words, the German economic dominance in Turkey was es-tablished to first incorporate her into Germany’s informal empire in the Bal-kans and then finally make her part of the Axis bloc.164 us, foreign trade was used by Germans as an instrument of so power to eventually exert a consid-erable political influence on Turkey.165 roughout the s, Germany was buying as many raw materials and foodstuffs that Turkey was offering as pos-sible to hold as the highest share in Turkish foreign trade as possible.166 As a result, Turkey had to buy a wide variety of capital and consumer goods in large
163 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, -. (See Table .)
164 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, - and -.
165 In his memoirs, Kroll honestly remarks that the British-German economic rivalry in Turkey was, in its essence, a political struggle. erefore, the eventual aim of Germany’s remarkable involvement in Turkish foreign trade throughout the s was turning her economic influ-ence on Turkey into a political one. (see Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, -; Koçak, Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi, -.)
166 Cumhuriyet, ..; Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
numbers from Germany to collect Turkish holdings that had accumulated at the Reichsbank clearing accounts. e bigger Germany’s share in the whole Turkish imports and exports was, the less likely Turkey would be able to find alternative markets to decrease the German hegemony in Turkish foreign trade. Similarly, paying above-market prices for Turkish export agricultural goods and foodstuffs was a smoke-screen to bind Turkish foreign trade to Ger-many to a larger extent. By paying above-market prices for Turkish export raw materials and goods, German policy entailed the overvaluation of Turkish ex-port materials, which severely damaged the likelihood of finding alternative markets for these materials. erefore, German hegemony on Turkish exports strengthened. Non-standardized, below-average-quality and overvalued Turkish export items could not be competitive enough in the world market.167
us, the trade between Turkey and Germany based on the clearing sys-tem can easily be said to have served German political interests in Turkey by binding large parts of Turkish foreign trade to Germany. e prevailing Ger-man existence in Turkish foreign trade during the s was considered by Turkish economic historians like Y. Tezel and K. Boratav to be an “economic hegemony.” According to Tezel, such an overdependence on a single country in foreign trade did not even occur during Ottoman times.168
e risk of overdependence on Germany in foreign trade did not go un-noticed, however. Some individuals both in the Turkish assembly and media raised their concerns about the possible negative consequences of such an overdependence, especially in the political sphere. For instance, the Turkish deputy Hüsnü Kitapçı criticized Turkish-German trade’s excessive growth and stated that Turkey was also paying above-market prices for imported Ger-man goods.169 More significantly, in another session of the Great Assembly dated .., the Turkish deputy Halil Menteşe asked whether getting rid of the clearing system and basing foreign trade on foreign currency exchange again was possible in Turkish foreign trade at least in foreign trade with coun-tries other than Germany.170 at is to say, the desire of switching to a free-
167 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, ; Cumhuriyet, ..; Tan, ...
168 Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, -; Boratav, Türkiye İktisat Tarihi, -.
169 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , May , .
170 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , May , .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
trade regime started to be felt among Turkish deputies as opposed to the clear-ing system that had brought about the overdependence on Germany. As a re-sponse to Menteşe’s question, the Turkish Minister of Economy, Şakir Kesebir, took the floor and delivered a comprehensive speech. Kesebir drew attention to the fact that the application of the clearing system in Turkish foreign trade was born out of the foreign currency crisis that had taken place in the World’s economic conjuncture. As part of the world economy, Turkey had to adopt the clearing system as the main method of foreign trade from the beginning of the s onwards. Kesebir believed that during the very stressful years in the af-termath of the Great Slump, the clearing system enabled Turkey to import vital materials needed for the development of the country. Besides, Kesebir said that the yearly increase in the number of Turkish goods exported to those countries with which Turkish foreign trade was being done on the clearing basis was a nice example of how beneficial the sustainment of the clearing sys-tem was for the development of Turkish exports. e Turkish Minister of Economy finished his words by saying: “We are currently not in a position to consider switching to a free-trade regime”.171
A very similar occurrence took place when the Turkish Deputy Halil Menteşe raised his concerns again. He told other deputies that in line with the changing stance of Turkish foreign policy, switching to a free-trade regime in Turkish foreign trade now became a necessity.172 As a response, the Turkish Trade Minister Cezmi Erçin explained that the ideal way of trading for Turkey was, of course, a normal trade in which goods and services are paid by foreign currency. However, Erçin continued, as far as the current situation of the world’s economic conjuncture was concerned, switching to a normal trade re-gime in the overall Turkish foreign trade was impossible. Despite the existence of normal commercial relations with certain countries the foremost of which was the USA, Erçin told the deputies that the continuation of the clearing sys-tem in the bilateral trade relations with certain countries like Germany was a necessity given that the world economic conjuncture was still requiring this.173
171 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: V, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: , May , .
172 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: VI, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: F, May , .
173 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Devre: VI, Cilt: , İçtima Senesi: F, May , -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
e increase in Turkish exports that Kesebir mentioned and the sustain-ment of the clearing system was more beneficial for German so power’s in-terests in Turkey than the economic development of Turkey. However, the on-going industrialization and railway projects in Turkey together with the significantly rising expenditures of the Turkish Army in the face of a war threat in Europe were already taking a large chunk of Turkey’s already limited finan-cial capacity. erefore, Turkey continued to implement the clearing system in her foreign trade to sustain the flow of imports that those projects required. Had Turkey switched to a normal trade regime, Turco-German foreign trade would most probably have ceased as the German side had no intention of us-ing foreign currency in the trade with Turkey. Such an occurrence would have caused severe difficulties or even a complete halt in the abovementioned at-tempts in the Turkish infrastructure, industry, and Army.174
e greatest opposition to Germany’s hegemony in Turkish foreign trade came from Tan’s attention-taking journalist Zekeriya Sertel at the end of the s. In , Sertel wrote several columns in the Tan newspaper about the imperialist aspirations of Germany in Southeast Europe and the Balkans. Sertel accurately stated that by making use of effective cultural and political propaganda alongside with holding exceptionally high shares in the foreign trade of the Balkan countries, notably Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Romania, Ger-many was trying to carve out an informal empire in Southeastern Europe and the Balkans, which would provide German industry with a variety of raw ma-terials of vital importance.175 Southeast Europe and the Balkans were remark-ably important in the sense that even in case of a war, the uninterrupted flow of raw materials into Germany could be sustained thanks to the geographical proximity between these regions and Germany.176 In one of his columns, Sertel
174 Without clearing system, Turkey would have definitely had a very hard time covering all the required imports of capital goods and materials required by the ongoing railway and indus-trialization projects given that the trade deficit was already getting bigger due to the increasing expenditures in the army. (see Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi, -.)
175 Tan, ...
176 Tan, ...
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
pointed out the fact that the reason why Germany was so interested in expand-ing the German share in Turkish foreign trade was Germany’s intention of establishing a German monopoly on Turkish foreign trade. Such a monopoly would definitely bind Turkey to Germany first economically and then politi-cally.177 Sertel continued to write similar columns in Tan throughout to warn the Turkish public.178 Reminding the Turkish public of the dangerous German aspirations in the Balkans, Sertel urged Turkish politicians to change the “metropolis-satellite-like” trade relations going on between Turkey and Germany and put it on a more equal basis.179 Sertel’s repetitive warnings and right assessments regarding Germany’s real targets in the Balkans exemplify that Germany’s efforts to include Turkey into the Großwirtschasraum did not go unnoticed.
Like Sertel, another Turkish journalist Ahmet Emin Yalman drew atten-tion to the problematic sides of Turkish-German commercial relations in his columns written in January in the Tan newspaper. Yalman stated that the German policy of paying above-market prices for Turkish export goods caused the loss of alternative export markets for Turkey, which gradually made Turkish exports dependent on German purchases. Besides, Turkey was also paying above-market prices for German goods that were entering the country through the clearing system. More importantly, Yalman argued that Germany was selling Turkish export products that were being imported from Turkey through the clearing system to other countries in return for foreign currency. us, the amount of foreign currency that was supposed to make its way into the Turkish treasury was going to Germany.180
In addition to Yalman, Asım Us from the Kurun newspaper also claimed that certain German companies in Germany were selling Turkish export goods, notably tobacco, that had been imported from Turkey through the clearing system to the USA in exchange for foreign currency. us, Turkey was losing both the American market for her export goods and the possible foreign
177 Tan, .. and ...
178 Tan, .., .., .., ...
179 Tan, ...
180 Tan, .. and ...
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
currency income. e foreign currency that would have gone to the Turkish Treasury was going to the German Treasury. at is why Us highlighted that being highly dependent on a single country in any export item in foreign trade is disadvantageous.181
Aside from the attempts to establish a monopolistic position in Turkish foreign trade, the involvement of German capital goods together with the in-volvement of German specialists in the establishment of certain industrial fa-cilities in Turkey in the s formed Germany’s second main method of en-hancing German so power in Turkey. As mentioned above, Germany became Turkey’s one of the foremost industrial-machinery suppliers throughout the s thanks to the remarkable development of bilateral trade between the two countries. In bilateral trade between Germany and Turkey, Germany was providing industrial and agricultural machinery in return for Turkish raw ma-terials, the most important of which was by far chromium ore.182 Alongside chromium and other raw materials, Germany was also buying a variety of cash crops and foodstuffs such as tobacco, grape, fig, cotton, mohair, wheat, and so on from Turkey.183 Since Germany was one of the main industrial machinery suppliers of Turkey, a remarkable number of industrial facilities established in Turkey between and possessed German machinery. In the construc-tions of Zonguldak Coal Factory, İstanbul, Trakya, and Sivas Sugar Factories, İzmit Paper and Chlorine Factories, Nazilli Fabric, Sivas Cement and Malatya Cotton Factories, German industrial machinery was extensively used as shown by Turkish archival records and the newspapers of the time.184 In addi-tion, the construction work of the Gölcük Naval Base was awarded to a Ger-man Consortium. e construction cost of the project was estimated to be
181 Kurun, .. and ...
182 Murat Önsoy, “e World War Two Allied Economic Warfare: e Case of Turkish Chrome Sales,” (PhD diss., Friedrich–Alexander University Erlangen–Nürnberg, ), -; Ulus, ...
183 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, ; Tan, .., .., .., .., .., .., ..; Cumhuriyet, .., .., ..; Ulus, ..; Kurun, .. and ...
184 Cumhuriyet, .., .., .., ..; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; Kurun, ..; Ulus, .., .. and ...
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
about m RM.185 Similarly, in the construction processes of a certain number of these industrial ventures, German engineers and technical personnel were also involved.186
In addition to contributing to the establishment of certain industrial facil-ities in Turkey, Germany continued to be the foremost railway-related mate-rial supplier of Turkey in this period as stated by one of the executives working at the Turkish Chamber of Commerce in Berlin.187 For example, an agreement was signed with the Krupp consortium on May for the delivery of m RM worth Railway materials involving locomotives, cars, and construction components to be used in the Sivas-Erzurum Railway line.188 ese compo-nents, cars, and locomotives were excluded from the quota restrictions.189 e total value of Railway-related materials and locomotives that Germany ex-ported to Turkey went up from .. RM in to .. RM in .190
In the same way, the overwhelming majority of the new Turkish commer-cial fleet consisted of the German-made ships that had been bought by the Turkish government. A total of thirteen vessels was ordered by the Turkish government from Krupp in . Later, the number was increased to seventeen vessels.191 e Turkish government seems to have had talks with some British firms as well to make purchases; however, the British companies demanded payments in foreign currency. Instead, Germany enabled Turkey to cover the cost of the ships ordered from Krupp by using the accumulated Turkish credit at the Reichsbank. Once again, the clearing agreement between Turkey and Germany enabled German firms to prevail in one more sector in Turkey.192
185 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
186 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; Cumhuriyet, .., ...
187 Cumhuriyet, ...
188 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
189 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – .
190 Koçak, Türk-Alman İlişkileri, .
191 Cumhuriyet, .. and ...
192 Cumhuriyet, ..; Tan, ...
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
All of these were pleasant developments for German foreign policymakers. Such developments were the signs of German so power’s increasing effec-tiveness in Turkey. Because Turkey, where a certain proportion of industrial facilities and railways built in the s and s were established with Ger-man industrial materials and German expertise, would have to depend more on Germany in terms of obtaining spare parts and technical support.193
e last instrument by which Germany attempted to increase the effec-tiveness of German so power in the Turkish economy was the large-scale arms trade between the two especially in the last years of the s. As the overall tension in international politics reached very high levels, the Turkish government accelerated the efforts of strengthening the Turkish Army just in case. erefore, the orders of military materials from the prestigious German armament producers, notably from Krupp, escalated.194 For example, in , Turkey ordered eight Heinkel-He medium bombers, several spare parts for Turkish warplanes, and eighteen mm anti-tank guns, whose costs would be covered by the clearing balance of Turkey at the Reichsbank.195 More im-portantly, Turkey bought four submarines from Krupp, two of which were to be built at Krupp’s dockyard in Germany while the other two were to be con-structed by German specialists in Istanbul.196 In addition to these orders, Tur-key also purchased several other kinds of arms from Germany including sixty Messerschmidt bf- fighter planes, twelve torpedoes, twelve cm guns, etc.197 e German Foreign Office wholeheartedly upheld the increase in Tur-key’s armament purchases from German firms. Because, as Glasneck states, German policymakers were well aware of the fact that the Turkish Army, being trained by former German Officers at the War Academy in İstanbul and equipped by German armament producers, would be more dependent on
193 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, .
194 ADAP, Serie D: - Band V, (Juni – März ), Göttingen, , -. (/-)
195 PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – ; PMRA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, --- / - – .
196 Cumhuriyet, ...
197 Koçak, Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi, -; Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -.
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Germany.198 Upon the Joint Anglo-Turkish Declaration in May , arms de-liveries from Germany to Turkey was suspended as a tool of intimidation em-ployed by Germany to prevent Turkey from joining the Allies. In other words, Germany used the arms trade as a tool of intimidation to exert influence on the political decisions of Turkish policymakers.199
Chapter V tried to explain the manifestation and development of German so power techniques in the context of Turkish-German cultural, military, and economic relations. In the cultural sphere, the living legacy of the DTV’s student transfer programs kept giving fruitful results in Germany’s favor in the Interwar Era. Similarly, non-state organizations like Asienkämpfers at-tempted to re-establish closer political relations with Turkey on the basis of the past Waffenbrüderscha. Nonetheless, these efforts fell short of their high-flying aims and just created accidental social encounters between the two sides.200 Moreover, Germany in the s became one of the most popular des-tinations of those Turkish students sent abroad by the Turkish state. Besides, several German academicians and specialists continued to serve in Turkey in this period, which kept boosting Germany’s high reputation in scientific and technological matters in the eyes of the Turks. With the emergence of the Nazi government, German cultural propaganda in Turkey gained a new spirit. Pro-Nazi journals and newspapers started to be sold in Turkey. In addition, the NSDAP directly supported the employment of more and more German acad-emicians and specialists in Turkey with the intention of benefiting from Ger-many’s high reputation in scientific and technological matters in realizing the expansionist ambitions of Nazi Germany. Large numbers of German profes-sors were employed in the highest educational institutions of Turkey such as the Higher Agricultural Institute in Ankara, Istanbul and to a lesser extent Ankara Universities. e employment of these German academicians in Tur-key opened new export opportunities for German firms as well as promoted German language as the most popular foreign language among university stu-
198 Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, -; Koçak, Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi, -.
199 Koçak, Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi, .
200 Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundscha, -.
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
dents in Turkey. By the same token, Germany became the most popular des-tination of Turkish students studying abroad in the s. e Nazi govern-ment in Germany continuously supported drawing more and more students from Turkey to Germany. e aim of such support shown by Nazi policymak-ers was to turn many of these Turkish students into Germanophiles, which would eventually increase German influence in Turkey when these students become the holders of significant civilian, military and political offices in the future. Lastly, non-state German organizations such as Teutonia, German High School in Istanbul, etc. were brought under the direct control of the Nazi Regime and were tried to be turned into the National Socialist ideology’s propagandists. However, their efforts to spread the National Socialist propa-ganda in Turkey remained limited due to certain constraints.
In the sphere of military relations, several former German officers who had lost their jobs in Germany were employed in the Turkish Army as teachers and gave courses at the War and Naval Academies, infantry, and artillery schools in Istanbul. ese former officers’ powers were strictly limited by Turkish authorities to prevent the Germans from enjoying a high degree of influence on the Turkish Army. Furthermore, some Turkish cadets and officers were sent to Germany to further receive training or technical education within the German Army in the Interwar Era.
e most important channel through which Germany exerted serious in-fluence in Turkey was the economic one. In the first subperiod in the Interwar Era (-), the large-scale German investments in Turkey concentrated in the railway and to a lesser extent aviation sectors as discussed in this chap-ter. Despite Stresemann’s strict commitment to keeping the bilateral relations with Turkey depoliticized, the German government politically intervened whenever the crucial German investments in Turkey faced economic difficul-ties in order to protect the reputation of Germany and that of gigantic German firms. Such an intervention was necessary to keep the Turkish market open for further German investments. With the NSDAP’s coming to power, the en-tire political structure in Germany had changed, and a new aggressive trade policy was started to be pursued to make Turkey part of the German informal empire in the Balkans, called Großwirtschasraum. With the help of the world’s economic conjuncture following the Great Slump, Germany had come
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
to occupy a hegemonic share in the overall Turkish foreign trade through the clearing system, which enabled Germany to incorporate Turkey into her Großwirtschasraum in the mid-s.
is hegemony did not go unnoticed, however. Certain Turkish deputies and journalists questioned such an overdependence and warned the govern-ment to take precautions against it. Moreover, the Nazi government also fur-ther encouraged the employment of German technical experts and specialists in Turkey. Besides, the use of German capital goods in the establishment of a variety of installations in Turkey was also supported by German policymakers. is support derived from the fact that the involvement of German expertise and capital goods in the foundation of a certain number of Turkish facilities would guarantee further Turkish dependence on Germany in terms of spare parts and technical expertise. Last but not least, Germany had become one of the biggest military material suppliers of Turkey by the end of the s, which also created an important channel for exerting an influence on Turkey’s one of the vital institutions i.e. the Turkish Army.
Conclusion
y , most of the Balkans including Turkey had become part of Ger-many’s “Großwirtschasraum” and was supplying Germany with gigan-tic numbers of raw materials required by Hitler’s armament efforts. e seeds of German so power in the Balkans planted by certain German non-state organizations in the mid-s. However, German so power reached its ma-turity under the NSDAP’s rule thanks mostly to the H. Schacht’s “New Plan” that had enabled Germany to occupy very large shares in the foreign trade of the Balkan countries. Germany’s increasing presence in the Balkan foreign trade was tried to be justified by propagating the intensive economic cooper-ation with Germany as the natural way of economic prosperity in the Balkans. Similarly, the economic conjuncture aer the crisis also facilitated Ger-many’s economic penetration in the Balkan geography. Certain German non-state organizations discussed in the related chapters of this work mostly con-tinued to contribute to the purpose of strengthening German so power in the region through means such as student transfer programs, large advertise-ment campaigns, information-collection services, and so on throughout the s. anks to the gradual transformation of the Balkans into a German economic zone, Nazi policymakers managed to sustain the flow of very large numbers of raw materials into Germany throughout the mid and late-s,
B
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
which significantly contributed to the establishment of Wehrmacht as one of the mightiest armies of Europe.1
anks largely to the monopoly-like position of Germany in Turkish for-eign trade in the s and to a lesser extent complementary methods em-ployed in the cultural and military areas by first German non-state actors and later Nazi policymakers, German so power became significantly prevailing in Turkey during the mid to late-s, which resulted in the incorporation of Turkey into the German Großwirtscasraum. However, despite all the at-tempts examined above, the ultimate aim of German so power policies in Turkey i.e. making Turkey part of the Axis alliance failed since Turkish poli-cymakers and diplomats had recognized the danger of being overly dependent on Germany in economic terms. In addition, the rising Italian and German aggression alienated the Turkish side and finally pushed her onto the British side. Turkish politicians finally allied with Britain and France by signing the Treaty of Tripartite Alliance in October . us, the ultimate purpose of bringing Turkey into Germany’s political orbit failed. In other words, the po-litical influence that Germans had gained by was counterbalanced by the successful political maneuver made by Turkish politicians, which ended up with an alliance with the British-French bloc.
Being unable to draw Turkey into her side decisively did not mean that all the German ventures in Turkey were a complete failure, however. anks to specific so power policies aimed at increasing Germany’s influence in Tur-key’s culture, military, and economy, the German side benefited a lot in differ-ent terms. First, the incorporation of Turkey into the German large economic zone called “Großwirtschasraum” enabled Germany to import significant raw materials required by Hitler’s armament program. e most important resource Germany imported from Turkey was chromium that is one of the most crucial minerals used in the war industry. Given that Turkey met the fiy-two and sixty percent of Germany’s entire chromium imports in and respectively, how beneficial it was for the German side in terms of the rearmament programme becomes obvious.2 is is exactly what Hirschman
1 Gross, Selling Germany in South-Eastern Europe, -; Gross, Export Empire, and .
2 Koçak, Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi, .
GERMAN S OFT POWER I N TURKEY AND THE BALKANS , -
conceptualizes as “the supply effect of foreign trade” according to which Ger-many managed to obtain one of the most-required natural sources needed to increase her military capacity through foreign trade.3
Second, the efforts of enlarging Germany’s so power in Turkey enabled many German non-state actors to get financial rewards. roughout the s and s, for example, those state or non-state Turkish institutes in which German specialists or academicians were working opened new economic op-portunities for German exporters. Certain Turkish universities that employed German academicians purchased course materials from Germany. By the same token, Turkish state institutions that employed German specialists made related purchases from German firms. In other words, these German acade-micians and specialists created new economic opportunities in Turkey for German firms. Similarly, German academicians in Turkey exerted serious ef-forts to make the German School the role model of higher education in Turkey and they appear to have succeeded to a remarkable extent.
ird, the overdependence on Germany in foreign trade throughout the s entailed severe economic inconsistencies between Turkey and Britain when the alliance between the two was formed. Since Germany was still hold-ing a very high share in the overall Turkish foreign trade, enhancing commer-cial relations between Turkey and Britain in order to give the alliance an eco-nomic basis would be a very difficult process. As Kroll argues in his memoirs, the economies of Turkey and Britain were incompatible. Britain was import-ing high-quality raw materials from her colonies at cheap prices and had no interest in purchasing Turkish raw materials and foodstuffs that were expen-sive, mostly non-standardized and lower-quality.4 Besides, as explained in the related chapter, Germany’s paying above-market prices for Turkish raw mate-rials through the clearing system caused the overvaluation of Turkish raw ma-terials and foodstuffs, which was now making the intention of establishing closer economic relations between Turkey and Britain even harder. Because the British side did not want to pay above-market prices for these Turkish goods.
3 Hirscman, National Power, .
4 Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, .
MERT DOĞUKAN PERK
Finally, the considerable amount of German involvement in the construc-tion of railways and industrial facilities in Turkey in the s and s forced Turkey to keep in contact with Germany aer despite her alliance with the archenemy of Germany i.e. Britain. Because Turkey continued to be de-pendent on specific German companies for obtaining technical support and spare parts regarding the railway and industrial installations in which Ger-man-made materials and machinery had been used. Germany sustained her leadership in providing Turkey with the required railway-related materials as well as supplied Turkey with large numbers of capital goods that were used in a certain number of Turkish factories throughout the s and s. Hence, the sustainment of the bilateral relations with Germany became a necessity for Turkey despite the alliance concluded with Britain.5
5 As Glasneck argues, the continuation of the Turkish economic dependency on Germany played a decisive role in the prevention of the Turco-British alliance from working as in-tended. (see Glasneck, Türkiye’de Faşist Alman Propagandası, .)
Bibliography
PRIMARY SOURCES
■ Akten Zur Deutschen Auswaertigen Politik -
■ ADAP, Serie B: - Band III, (Dezember bis Dezember ), (Deutschlands Beziehungen Zu Süd- Und Südosteuropa,Skandinavien, Den Niederlanden Und Zu Den AusserEuropäischen Staaten), Göttingen, .
■ ADAP, Serie C: - Band V, , ( Mai bis . Oktober ), (Das Dritte Reich, Die Ersten Jahre), Göttingen, .
■ ADAP, Serie D: - Band V, (Juni – März ), (Polen, Südos-teuropa, Lateinamerika, Klein Und Mittelstaaten), Göttingen, .
■ ADAP, Serie D: - Band VI, (März bis August ), (Die Letzten Monate Vor Kriegsausbruch), Göttingen, .
■ ADAP, Serie D: - Band VII, (. August bis September ), (Die Letzten Monate Vor Kriegsausbruch), Göttingen, .
■ PMRA: Republic of Turkey General Directorate of Prime Ministry State Ar-chives Office of Republican Archives (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü Cumhuriyet Arşivleri Daire Başkanlığı)
General Directorate of Decisions (Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı): --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – , --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – ; --- / - – .
■ TBMM Zabıt Cerideleri, Devre: III, IV, V, VI.
NEWSPAPERS
Cumhuriyet (-)
Tan (-)
Akşam (-)
Kurun (-)
Vakit ()
SECONDARY SOURCES
Aras, Tevfik Rüştü. Atatürk'ün Dış Politikası. İstanbul: Kaynak Yayınları, .
Barlas, Dilek, and Seçkin Barış Gülmez. “Turkish–British Relations in the s: from Ambivalence to Partnership.” Middle Eastern Studies, (May , ), –. https://doi.org/./..
Barlas, Dilek. “Germany's Economic Policy towards the Balkan Countries in the s.” Turkish Review of Balkan Studies, (/), –.
Bayar, Celal. Celal Bayar Diyor Ki (-). İstanbul: İstanbul Tan Matbaası, .
Boratav, Korkut. Türkiye İktisat Tarihi -. Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, .
Brown, Matthew. “Introduction.” In Informal Empire in Latin America: Cul-ture, Commerce and Capital, edited by Matthew Brown, –. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, .
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. “Hegemony of A New Type.” In e Grand Chessboard, -. New York: Basic Books, .
Ferns, Henry S. “Britain's Informal Empire in Argentina, -.” Past & Present, no. (November ), –.
Fischer, Allan G. B. “e German Trade Drive in Southeastern Europe.” Royal Institute of International Affairs - , no. (), -.
Gallagher, John, and Ronald Robinson. “e Imperialism of Free Trade.” e Economic History Review , no. (), –.
Gencer, Mustafa. Jöntürk Modernizmi ve "Alman Ruhu". İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, .
Glasneck, Johannes. Türkiye'de Faşist Alman Propagandası. Translated by Arif Gelen. Ankara: Onur Yayınları, n.d.
Gross, Stephen. “Selling Germany in South-Eastern Europe: Economic Un-certainty, Commercial Information and the Leipzig Trade Fair -.” Contemporary European History , no. (February ), –.
. Export Empire: German So Power in Southeastern Europe, -. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .
Grüßhaber, Gerhard. e "German Spirit" in the Ottoman and Turkish Army, -. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, .
Hale, William. Turkish Foreign Policy, -. London: Frank Cass, .
Hardach, Karl. e Political Economy of Germany in the Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, .
Hirschman, Albert O. National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. Uni-versity of California Press, .
Hopkins, Antony G. “Informal Empire in Argentina: An Alternative View.” Journal of Latin American Studies , no. (May ), –.
İnönü, İsmet. İnönü'nün Söylev Ve Demeçleri I. Vol. . Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, .
. İsmet İnönü Hatıralar. Vol. . Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, .
Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans. Vol. . New York: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, .
Jones, Andrew. “Systemic inking: Immanuel Wallerstein.” In Globalization: Key inkers, edited by Andrew Jones, –. Cambridge: Polity Press, .
Kılıç, Sezen. Türk-Alman İlişkileri Ve Türkiye'deki Alman Okulları ('den 'e Kadar). Ankara: Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi, .
Knight, Alan. “Rethinking British Informal Empire in Latin America (Espe-cially Argentina).” In Informal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Com-merce and Capital, edited by Matthew Brown, –. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, .
Koçak, Cemil. “Almanya’nın Yayılmacı Dış Politikasının Bir Parçası Olarak Türk-Alman İktisadi İlişkileri (-).” In Geçmişiniz İtinayla Temizlenir, –. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, .
. “Türkiye'de Yaşamış Asker, Diplomat Ve Bilimadamı Almanların Türkiye'ye İlişkin Düşünceleri Ve Yazdıkları Üzerine Bazı Notlar: Anılar ve Diplomatik Raporlar.” In Geçmiş Ayrıntıda Saklıdır, –. İstanbul: Timaş, .
. Türk-Alman İlişkileri (-). Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, .
. Türkiye'de Milli Şef Dönemi (-). Vol. . İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, .
Kroll, Hans. Lebenserinnerungen Eines Botschaers. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, .
Lampe, John R., and Marvin R. Jackson. Balkan Economic History, -. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, .
Leitz, Christian. “Arms as Levers: Matériel and Raw Materials in Germany's Trade with Romania in the s.” e International History Review , no. (May ), –.
Mangold-Will, Sabine. Begrenzte Freundscha: Deutschland Und Die Türkei, -. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, .
Mclean, David. “Finance and 'Informal Empire' before the First World War.” e Economic History Review , no. (May ), –.
Mitnitzky, Mark. “Germany's Trade Monopoly in Eastern Europe.” Social Re-search , no. (February ), –. https://www.jstor.org/sta-ble/.
Neal, Larry. “e Economics and Finance of Bilateral Clearing Agreements: Germany, -.” e Economic History Review , no. (August ), –.
Nye, Joseph S. “Public Diplomacy and So Power.” e Annals of the Ameri-can Academy of Political and Social Science (March ), –.
. So Power, the Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs, .
. e Powers to Lead. New York: Oxford University Press, .
Önsoy, Murat. “e World War Two Allied Economic Warfare: e Case of Turkish Chrome Sales.” PhD diss., Friedrich–Alexander University Erlan-gen–Nürnberg, .
Örmecioğlu, Hilal Tuğba, and Yaren Şekerci. “Siemens Elektrik Türk Şirketi Tarafından Erken Cumhuriyet Dönemi’Nde Kurulan Bir Fabrika: Malatya Hidroelektrik Santrali.” In Türk-Alman İlişkilerine Farklı Disiplinlerden Bakış, edited by Mehmet Altunkaya and Kemal Demir, –. Konya: Palet Yayınları, .
Ortaylı, İlber. “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Alman Koridoru (Bağdat Demiryolu).” In Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Alman Nüfuzu, –. İstan-bul: Timaş Yayınları, .
Pamuk, Şevket. Uneven Centuries: Economic Development of Turkey since . Princeton: Princeton University Press, .
Papen, Franz von. Memoirs. Translated by Brian Connell. London: Andre Deutsch, .
Papuççular, Hazal. “Turkish-Italian Relations in the Interwar Period.” Mas-ter’s thesis, Boğaziçi University, .
Preda, Gavriil. “German Foreign Policy towards the Romanian Oil during -.” International Journal of Social Science and Humanity , no. (May ), –.
Ránki, György. “Surmounting the Economic Crisis in South-East Europe in the s.” Acta Historica Adademiae Scientiarum Hungaricae , no. / (), –.
Ritschl, Albrecht. “'Dancing on a Volcano: e Economic Recovery and Col-lapse of Weimar Germany, -.” In the World Economy and National Economies in the Interwar Slump, edited by eo Balderston, -. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, .
Rock, David. “e British in Argentina: From Informal Empire to Postcoloni-alism.” In Informal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Commerce and Cap-ital, edited by Matthew Brown, –. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, .
Rothschild, Joseph. East Central Europe between the Two World Wars. Seattle: University of Washington Press, .
Schacht, Hjalmar Horace Greeley. Confessions of "the Old Wizard." Boston: Houghton Mifflin., .
Schweitzer, Arthur. “e Role of Foreign Trade in the Nazi War Econ-omy.” Journal of Political Economy , no. (August ), –.
Seton-Watson, Hugh. Eastern Europe between the Wars, -. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .
Tezel, Yahya S. Cumhuriyet Döneminin İktisadi Tarihi (-). İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, .
ompson, Andrew. “Informal Empire? An Exploration in the History of An-glo-Argentine Relations, -.” Journal of Latin American Studies , no. (May ), –.
Tooze, Adam J. e Wages of Destruction: e Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. London: Allen Lane, .
Trumpener, Ulrich. “Germany and the End of the Ottoman Empire.” In the Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Marian Kent, –. Taylor & Francis e-Library, .
Ülger, S. Eriş. Alman Basınında Atatürk Ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (-). Ankara: TBMM Basımevi, .
Uzel, İlhan, and Ömer Kürkçüoğlu. “Relations with Britain.” In Turkish For-eign Policy, - Facts and Analyses with Documents, edited by Baskın Oran, –. Salt Lake City: e University of Utah Press, .
Wallerstein, Immanuel. “e Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis.” Comparative Studies in So-ciety and History , no. (September ): –.
Winn, Peter. “British Informal Empire in Uruguay in the Nineteenth Cen-tury.” Past & Present, no. (November ), –.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder