German-Turkish Association

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The German-Turkish Association ( DTV ) was founded on April 15, 1914 in Berlin and, for global strategic reasons, served to promote German cultural and economic interests in the Ottoman Empire . After the outbreak of the First World War , mutual contacts were intensified. The association's activities were severely restricted by the outcome of the war; however, it does not appear to have dissolved until 1930.

After the Deutsche Levante-Zeitung had been a temporary organ of the DTV, it published the reports from spring 1918 to 1929 in which the activities of the association were reported; the circulation of the first edition was 7,000 copies according to our own account.

Members

The office was located in Berlin W 35, Schöneberger Ufer 36a at least until the end of 1918. From 1916 to at least the end of 1918, the chairmen were the director of Deutsche Bank Arthur von Gwinner , the director of the Dresdner Bank , Hjalmar Schacht , Kurt Wiedenfeld ( Halle ), the journalist Ernst Jäckh , the director of the seminar for oriental languages , the secret councilor Eduard Sachau , as well as the director of HAPAG , Albert Ballin .

Honorary chairmen until the end of 1918 were among others the Turkish Minister of War and Deputy Generalissimo Enver Pascha , Marshal Liman von Sanders Pascha , Field Marshal Colmar von der Goltz Pascha, Grand Vizier a. D. İbrahim Hakkı Pasha and General Mahmud Muhtar Pasha .

Members were natural as well as legal persons , for example the capital and residence city of Oldenburg from 1916 to 1920 .

Local groups and regional associations

In the spring of 1918 there were local groups and regional associations in Barmen , Bremen , Breslau , Chemnitz , Dresden , Elberfeld , Halle an der Saale , Hanover , Leipzig and Düsseldorf . As of December 31, 1917, DTV had 5,310 members. Since 1915 there was a branch of the Berlin office in Constantinople .

Financial conditions

The annual minimum membership fee was 20, the maximum 5,000 marks. According to its own information, in the spring of 1918 DTV had assets of half a million marks, annual income of 300,000 marks and bank capital of two million marks for the House of Friendship ( Dostluk Yurdu ) project in Constantinople.

activities

The German School in Adana

The German School in Adana opened on March 1, 1914 and was later funded by the DTV. The students were taught the subjects of German , Turkish , French , the Muslim religion ( Islam ), arithmetic , history , geography , astronomy , gymnastics , singing and “handicrafts” (works); there was also a scout department . The students should then be trained in Germany to become engineers , technicians , farmers , teachers , lawyers , doctors and bank officials. In 1917 the school had 190 students, of whom 70 were Muslims , 37 were Armenians , 22 were Greeks and ten were Jews . They were taught by five teachers.

The House of Friendship (Dostluk Yurdu) in Constantinople

The most important project was the House of Friendship ( Dostluk Yurdu ), which was to be built in Constantinople on an area of ​​6,000 square meters. The foundation stone was laid on April 27, 1917 in the presence of all Turkish ministers with the exception of Talaat Pascha , who was visiting Kaiser Wilhelm II in the main headquarters . The founder of the house, the manufacturer Robert Bosch, was also present at the ceremony .

State-of-the-art technical facilities were planned for teaching or cultural events, such as a concert hall and a room for slide shows. The designs for the house came from the German architect Hans Poelzig .

The Turkish student home (Talebe Yurdu) in Berlin-Grunewald

In 1917 the Turkish student home in Berlin-Grunewald was set up at Herthastrasse 6; apparently it was a former villa. Gerhard Ryll was the director of the home. Most of the Turkish apprentices housed there worked at AEG . The house had 50 beds and running water for performing ritual ablutions.

Further activities and dissolution

In the course of the war, the DTV also placed workers in Germany; apparently preferably apprentices for the craft , but also for industry and mining . Furthermore, pupils were placed in high schools . For the host parents of the pupils, the DTV developed a guideline in which it was particularly pointed out not to influence the pupils religiously. In 1916, the city of Oldenburg, in the person of Mayor Karl Tappenbeck, agreed to accept Turkish students at the grammar school (today Altes Gymnasium Oldenburg ) and at the Realgymnasium (today Herbartgymnasium Oldenburg ), and joined the DTV. The students were housed in Oldenburg families, but apparently returned to Turkey no later than the end of the war. The city resigned from the DTV in 1920 due to newly introduced imperial taxes, which would put a heavy burden on the city budget.

The association held together with the Turkish-German Chamber of Commerce, and later the Vienna representation of the German Chamber of Commerce in Istanbul that since 1926 published newsletter Turkish Post , which during the time of National Socialism by Max Amann in the European publishing was incorporated and set 1944th

It is unclear when the DTV dissolved. In 1929 the notices were apparently converted to The Middle East. Monthly for politics, economy and culture , but this magazine was already discontinued at the end of 1930.

literature

  • German-Turkish Association. In: Ulrich Steindorff (Ed.): War pocket book. An encyclopedia about the world war. Leipzig / Berlin 1916, p. 63.
  • Mustafa Gencer: Education Policy, Modernization and Cultural Interaction. German-Turkish relations (1908-1918). LIT-Verlag, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6370-0 .
  • Communications from DTV, nos. 1-4, Berlin 1918.
  • Cut files for Turkish students. The German-Turkish Association (duration 1916–1920), Lower Saxony State Archives Oldenburg , signature Nds. StAO 262 - 1 A 4035 (contains various correspondence between the Magistrate of the City of Oldenburg and the DTV as well as the city's DTV membership card).
  • Sabine Böhme: German cultural mission during the First World War at Divan Yolu: the German-Turkish house of friendship, in: Matthias von Kummer (ed.): German presence on the Bosporus. 130 years of the Imperial Embassy Palace - 120 years of the historical summer residence of the German ambassador in Tarabya ( Boğaziçi'ndeki Almanya. Alman İmparatorluğu Sefaret Köşkü'nün 130 yılı, Alman Sefareti Tarabya Yazlık Rezidansı'nın 120 yılınat 2009 ), the Federal Republic of Germany 271-284. ISBN 978-975-807235-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Compare the information from the Commerzbibliothek of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce according to the Common Union Catalog (GVK)