Topal Osman
Topal Osman or Osman Ağa (* 1883 in Giresun , † April 2, 1923 in Ankara ) was an Ottoman officer and combatant. He was also a "central figure" in deportations and massacres of Christian minorities during the persecution of Greece in the Ottoman Empire in 1914–1923 and the genocide of the Armenians . Because of his services in the Turkish War of Independence , he is revered as a folk hero. He was the commander of Ataturk's presidential guard.
Life
Gazi Osman Ağa was born in Giresun as the son of a presumably Circassian family. He fought as a volunteer in the Balkan War . He was wounded in the leg and was nicknamed "Osman the Limping" (Topal Osman). During the First World War he gathered former prisoners around him and terrorized the people of Giresun, especially Greeks and Armenians, but also Turks who dared to oppose him.
As a member of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa, Topal Osman was one of the main participants in the genocide of the Armenians in the Black Sea region.
In 1920 Topal Osman was involved in the suppression of the Koçgiri uprising . On October 29, Osman's irregular force was recruited as a guard from Mustafa Kemal's residence. Topal Osman was their commander. On March 27, 1923, Osman abducted and murdered MP Ali Şükrü Bey . Osman had invited Ali Şükrü to his house and had him strangled on the way. Şükrü was buried on the slopes of Çankaya near Osman's country house called Papaz Bağı. Mustafa Kemal instructed the commander of the National Assembly Guard İsmail Hakkı to seize Osman. Osman Ağa barricaded himself with his troops in his country house. One soldier was shot dead during the siege. The guard stormed the house, killing numerous members of Osman's force and fatally injuring Osman. His body was hung in front of the parliament building, later transferred to Giresun and buried there.
Butcher or national hero
- On the Turkish nationalist side, Osman Ağa is revered as a national hero. The well-known columnist Emin Çölaşan wrote in the daily Hürriyet (August 25, 1995): “ You know, the first to open war on events in the Pontus Mountains were the hero from Giresun, Topal Osman, and his men. The Pontus Greeks were cleaned up after a long struggle [!] And he was appointed to Mustafa Kemal Pasha's guard in Ankara. "
- Taner Akçam, however, describes him in the taz (July 13, 2001) as the " butcher of Armenians and Pontic Greeks ". The radical İki (23 January 2006) writes that Osman had enriched themselves during World War II at the expense of the Christian population and causes 900 people suffocated around Samsun miserably in a cave. Hasan İzettin Dinamo quotes in the second volume of his book Kutsal Isyan (The Holy Uprising) Osman Ağa with the words addressed to Ataturk: “ Do not worry, my Pasha, I will smoke these Pontus Greeks in such a way that they are like hornets in their caves suffocate. "
- Andrew Mango describes the name Topal Osman in his Ataturk biography (London 1999, p. 213) as the epitome ( byword ) of brutality.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Taner Akcam: A Shameful Act. The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility . Macmillan 2007, p. 342
- ^ Tessa Hofmann : Persecution, expulsion and extermination of Christians in the Ottoman Empire 1912-1922. Lit-Verlag, 2007, p. 75.
- ↑ Andrew Mango: Ataturk. London 1999, p. 213
literature
- Hasan Izettin Dinamo: Kutsal Isyan Vol. II , Istanbul 1990.
- Arif Cemil: 1. Dünya Savaşında Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa , Istanbul 2006.
- Cemal Şener: Topal Osman Olayı , İstanbul 1992.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Topal Osman |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Osman Ağa; Topal Osman Ağa |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Turkish controversial actor of the First World War and the War of Independence |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1883 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Giresun |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 2, 1923 |
| Place of death | Ankara |