German Consulate General in Istanbul

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German Embassy in Constantinople

The German Consulate General Istanbul (Turkish Alman Başkonsolosluğu İstanbul ) is the consular representation of Germany in Istanbul , which is located in the Beyoğlu district directly on Taksim Square . Until 1928 the building of the current home to the Consulate General of the Embassy of the German Empire .

history

After the German Empire was founded in 1871 , the German government decided to establish an embassy in what was then Constantinople , the capital of the Ottoman Empire . The Hohe Pforte offered several plots of land for the construction of a diplomatic mission, including part of a former cemetery site outside the city center on Taksim Square. On May 15, 1874 the acquisition of the approximately 10,000 m² property (was later enlarged) for 95,015 thalers was completed. The sultan's condition was to preserve and look after the grave of Saint Silahtar Ali Ağa, which has been adhered to to this day.

Albert Kortüm took over construction management on December 4, 1874 after his predecessor Hubert Göbbels had died. The embassy palace (the first of the German Empire) was built in the classical style. The embassy was given six floors (two of which were basement), which led to a certain blockiness and resemblance to palazzo buildings. Stone eagles were placed on the roof, which, contrary to the original plans to incorporate the coats of arms of the German federal states, gave the building a clearly Prussian character. The eagles were dismantled in the turmoil of the First World War and have been missing since then. There was also a stable and a carriage shed on the embassy site. The interior was in the neo-renaissance style and was characterized by red wallpaper and stucco decorations. The first ambassador, Prince Heinrich VII zu Reuss , furnished the rooms according to his own choice, but due to the limited funds some rooms remained empty.

Historical view

On December 1, 1877, the German ambassador Prince Reuss inaugurated the first embassy of the empire. The building had a floor area of ​​almost 10,000 m² and a total volume of 55,000 m³, around 80 people worked in the embassy. But the public viewed the new building quite critically: The building was "a mass without structure and architectural beauty," they said. This impression was created by the location of the imposing magnificent building in a residential area that was otherwise characterized by lighter wooden houses.

In the following three decades the relationship with the Ottoman Empire improved considerably, not least due to the German military mission in the Ottoman Empire , the construction of the Baghdad Railway and the Ambassador Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein . From 1908 to 1918 the German-language newspaper " Osmanischer Lloyd " was also published at the request of the embassy . Kaiser Wilhelm II was particularly concerned about the German-Turkish relationship and paid his first visit to Constantinople as early as 1889, one year after he took office. Bismarck was very critical of the emperor's interest in the Orient , as he did not want to make Great Britain , France and Russia suspicious. The visit took place more or less at short notice, which is why Sultan Abdülhamit II. Quickly enlarged the accommodation of the imperial couple, Şale Köşkü, originally a Swiss wooden chalet, by adding a few wooden doors to the Çirağan Palace.

As part of Wilhelm II's famous trip to the Orient in 1898, the guest house was considerably enlarged. A fleet parade was organized on the Bosporus , which the emperor watched first from his boat SMY Hohenzollern and later from the embassy terrace.

The emperor's third and final trip to Istanbul took place in 1917 to support the allies of the empire in the First World War.

A year earlier, a painting of Emperor Wilhelm in the Ottoman uniform of a pasha had been made, which was intended as a gift from Wilhelm II to Sultan Mehmet V , but is still in the Consulate General today due to the turmoil of the war and decorates the ballroom there.

The Entente caused the German-Turkish relationship to be broken off in the Mudros ceasefire agreement. The Swedish Embassy took over responsibility for the building as a protecting power representative. When Istanbul was liberated by General Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on August 23, 1923 , relations with the German Reich, which had meanwhile become a republic, were also resumed. On October 29, Ataturk proclaimed the Turkish Republic. In Ataturk's view, the desired reforms could not be implemented in Istanbul, the previous residence of the Sultan . Therefore Ankara was declared the capital and all embassies were moved there ( see German Embassy Ankara ). The move of the German embassy was delayed until 1928 and it was not until June 4, 1931 that the German diplomatic mission in Istanbul was able to resume work as the consulate general .

At the end of the Second World War , in 1944, at the end of the Second World War , relations were broken off again at the endeavors of the Allies . This time Switzerland took on the role of protecting power representation.

After the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949 , the Consulate General was reopened on October 24, 1950 as one of the first missions abroad in the post-war period . Rented rooms were used in Üsküdar until 1953 , before the financial president of Istanbul returned the embassy building to the German state.

In 1954 Konrad Adenauer visited the consulate general on his trip to Turkey.

A comprehensive renovation took place from 1983 to 1989, the facade, the windows and doors, as well as the stucco ceilings were restored true to the original. The parquet floors in the Kaisersaal and in the salons have been renewed.

On September 10, 2001, a supporter of the banned underground organization DHKP-C carried out a suicide attack in front of the German consulate general in Istanbul. Two Turkish police officers died and 20 people were injured.

In addition to the German Consulate General and the living quarters of the Consul General, the building houses the Istanbul Department of the Archaeological Institute .

Summer residence Tarabya

Summer residence Tarabya

In Tarabya , 15 km north of the city center of Istanbul , where many wealthy Ottomans had their Bosporus summer house ( yalı ) in the 19th century , there is the historic summer residence of the imperial ambassador, built in the style of the Bosphorus wooden architecture ( coordinates ).

In 1880, Abdülhamid II gave the German embassy a piece of land in the noble villa district on the Bosporus, where a summer residence was to be built. On February 4, 1885, the Reichstag approved the plans and ordered that financing be made possible through the sale of the former Prussian embassy at the Hohe Pforte .

The French architect Alphonse Cingria had already created the first drafts in 1882, which were revised and significantly changed by Wilhelm Dörpfeld . Dörpfeld planned a building in Bosphorus wood construction, just like the surrounding villas (Yalı or Köşk) were designed.

The summer residence was built from 1885 to 1887 under the direction of Armin Wegner .

Main building around 1885

In 1915, a military cemetery (initially as the "Ehrenfriedhof der Marine") was created in the 18 hectare park, where Ambassador Freiherr von Wangenheim (1915) and General Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz (1916) were buried. From 1917, the artistic design of the cemetery was in the hands of the sculptor Georg Kolbe, who also created the sculpture of the memorial.

In addition to the summer residence, which is now used by the Consulate General as a place for German-Turkish dialogue and for cultural and political events, there are several other buildings on the large area, including an ecumenical chapel and the former sailor house of the crew of the SMY Hohenzollern in which is now a memorial for the fallen of both world wars.

List of ambassadors in Istanbul

Consul General Michael Reiffenstuel in front of the gate of the former German Embassy in Constantinople

From 1928 the building served as the consulate general of the embassy that was moved to Ankara. Michael Reiffenstuel has been the German Consul General in Istanbul since 2018.

literature

sorted alphabetically by author

  • Martin Bachmann: Tarabya: History and development of the historical summer residence of the German ambassador on the Bosporus . German Archaeological Institute Istanbul, 2003. ISBN 975-8070-65-7
  • Felix O. Gaerte: The German Imperial Palace in Istanbul. in: Istanbuler Mitteilungen 35, 1985, 323 ff.
  • Axel Klausmeier, Andreas Pahl: On the history of the park of the former summer residence of the German embassy in Tarabaya on the Bosporus . In: Die Gartenkunst  19 (1/2007), pp. 109–126.
  • C. Meyer-Schlichtmann: From the Prussian legation to the Doğan-Apartmanı. 130 years of history of a property and house in Beyoğlu-İstanbul. Istanbul 1992. ISBN 975-7687-09-X .
  • Hartmut Niederwöhrmeier (Ed.): The German Embassy Buildings 1871-1945. Technical University of Darmstadt 1977.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Repeatedly the target of assassins ( memento of the original from July 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Österreichischer Rundfunk , accessed on July 9, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / orf.at
  2. ↑ Istanbul-Tarabya (German War Cemetery), Turkey . Online project Fallen Memorials. Retrieved February 19, 2019.

Coordinates: 41 ° 2 ′ 7 ″  N , 28 ° 59 ′ 21 ″  E