Notes on Germany in Turkey: A 'role model' debate?

- Mass labor migration from Turkey to Germany began with an agreement signed 2.5 months after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. In other words, a labor shortage was about to emerge immediately. It was likely initiated to compensate for this. Was an attempt being made to ensure the 'harmless' integration of 'Muslim laborers' into Federal Germany via political Islam, 'without falling for the temptation of communism'? What were the consequences of this easy sedative (or rather, narcotic)?

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - I do not think this is directly related to the construction of the Berlin Wall. Millions of young Germans lost their lives during the Second World War. A serious labor shortage emerged in West Germany in the 1950s, when the German industry was getting back on its feet. They met this from Southern European countries such as Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Spain. However, it was not enough. Turkey was one of the last countries from which workers were imported. There were those in West Germany who opposed workers coming from Turkey. One of them was the social democratic politician Helmut Schmidt. He thought that Turks could not be culturally integrated into German society because they were Muslim. In an interview he gave towards the end of his life, he claimed that he was right in this insistence.

Blue-collar workers coming from Turkey were sent to heavy working conditions such as mines. Those who came from East Germany until 1961 were white-collar workers like doctors and engineers. After studying at East German universities, they moved to West Germany to work for higher wages. Compared to these, there were fewer blue-collar East German workers who moved to the West because their social rights were in good condition. In fact, the main reason for the construction of the Berlin Wall was that East Germany did not want to lose its skilled human resources. With the construction of the wall, there was a serious leap in the East German economy, which kept its skilled human resources in the country. Those coming from Turkey are different from them in terms of class. However, an unexpected development occurred in the 1960s. As the TKP (Communist Party of Turkey) went to East Germany and started radio broadcasts from there, workers from Turkey began to be influenced by this. This set off alarm bells in both Ankara and Bonn. As a solution to this, it was aimed to save Turkish workers from the influence of the left through Islamization.

GERMAN RECENT HISTORY AS A TABOO

- Leaving aside the rulers of Ankara: Why do you think the Turkish left ignored the fact that West Germany was the promoter of political Islam in Turkey? What could have dazzled them? German democracy?

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - That could be it. But I think there is a more important dynamic here: the inability of German academia to look critically at the policies of their own state. There are very few studies published in German on this subject. Post-1945 recent history of Germany is a taboo. The legacy of the Nazi era in West Germany is not studied. This subject is closed. These people, who lived under the Nazi administration with their bureaucracy and industry in 1945, did not evaporate in one day. Since no one came from space, tens of thousands of people who held important positions under the Nazi regime continued their lives with their new shirts after 1945.

However, if you want to study the continuities between the West German political and economic system and the Nazi era, they put obstacles in your way, they do not give research funds, you cannot publish, you cannot find a job. I have also had interesting experiences in this regard. I sent an article I wanted to publish about this period to the journal German Politics, which publishes on German politics. The referee comments on the article were shockingly strange, to say the least. German referees made unscientific comments to prevent the publication of the article in which I wrote about how West Germany supported the Turkish far-right during the Cold War. If you get into these issues, you will have trouble in Germany. They want to cover up the issue of how former Nazis continued their lives and held important positions in the West German system.

- Was the Federal Republic of Germany able to create an industrialization model for Turkey with its economy? Didn't democrats and leftists in Turkey pursue the same thing with a dream of democracy? In other words, weren't those who appeared on the political scene in the name of the left in Turkey taking Germany as a model in both economy and political life?

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - I don't think Germany was taken as a model for Turkey. There are similarities between the Turkish left and German social democracy. The SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) was actually a working-class-based party until the late 1950s. It advocates a non-aligned foreign policy. But when it realizes that it cannot be brought to power if it stays on this line, it turns to a people's party line. A similar parallel can actually be drawn with the CHP. But Germany's influence on Turkey did not develop through taking it as a model. We see that the German industry has made serious investments in Turkey since the 1950s. They saw Turkey as a market for German industrial products. However, a structural problem emerged here. Within the Western alliance, Turkey was positioned as an agricultural economy. However, when Turkey's agricultural exports did not meet its industrial imports, serious crises occurred in the economy due to the foreign trade deficit. Germany provided serious first aid to these crises. Between 1950 and 1985, Turkey was the country that received the most debt and credit from West Germany after India.

- Federal Germany was also the biggest and most effective supporter of the September 12 coup. Therefore, there is a lot of German involvement in the efforts spent to bury the classic secular Kemalist worldview. Did the Bonn Republic think that the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis was a way out for West Germany? In other words, does Germany think that while it has been pursuing a harsh anti-Islamic policy internally in recent decades, it can withstand American pressure with a move in the opposite direction in 'Islamic' foreign markets and such a synthesis? Why might this be argued?

NATO'S TWO FRONTLINE COUNTRIES

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - I do not think that Germany is pursuing a harsh anti-Islamic policy internally. Germany has always had an Islamic policy since the end of the 19th century. Since the 1960s, Islamic structures have always been supported to cut off the relations of workers coming from Turkey with leftist organizations. It is no coincidence that all Islamic actors in the spectrum ranging from Milli Görüş to the Naqshbandi communities and Cemalettin Kaplan are very powerful in Germany. However, what is interesting is that academic studies in Turkey have remained indifferent to this issue for a long time. In our country, it was emphasized that the US was the dominant actor in the re-Islamization of Turkey through the green belt theory. I think Germany is no less inferior to the US. When Turkey was in an economic crisis before September 12, Bonn was appointed as the actor responsible for Ankara at the 1979 Guadeloupe Summit. An initiative led by Germany began to save the Turkish economy from the crisis and to prevent undesirable developments similar to Iran.

Actually, Germany's preference was an AP-CHP coalition. They thought that this grand coalition would bring political stability and emerge from the economic crisis with the foreign debt provided. But they realized that this was not possible in a short time. Even before the September 12 coup, the German ambassador was in contact with Evren and Haydar Saltık. I am not saying this in the sense that Germany planned the coup. But the Germans were always in close contact with the upper echelons of the army. Let's not forget that Turkey's military needs were also met by Germany due to the American arms embargo applied after the 1974 Cyprus Operation. The necessary weapons and technological equipment for the police and MİT also came from Germany. In other words, the biggest supporter of the Turkish security system was the Germans. They did this both to protect German investments and to protect Turkey from Soviet influence. Both West Germany and Turkey were frontline countries of NATO. There is a relatively new approach in international relations that we call ontological security. Communism was a source of concern for the existence of these two countries. For both countries, communism was not a physical or military threat. It was an ontological concern. It is impossible for countries to cope with concern. Since it has no equivalent in real life, no matter what you do, you cannot overcome the concern. I am talking about concern, not threat. To cope with this, while West Germany supported the Turkish far-right against communism despite its Nazi past, the established order in Turkey gave the green light to re-Islamization, which undermined the secular republic.

- Does the countering of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis with the Kurdish-Islamic Synthesis, and its transformation into such a symbiotic relationship, look like a Bonn scenario? Is it?

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - I don't have much information about this. However, I must say that I personally avoid using concepts like scenarios for recent history. The history of countries like ours is much more complex than the playing out of scenarios written abroad. West Germany has been closely following the Kurdish issue since the early 1960s. What is striking here is that East Germany has always kept its distance from the PKK. In our country, official history claims that the PKK was supported by the USSR. I have not seen any document in the East German archives that supports this claim. On the contrary, both the East Germans and the Soviets have always looked at the PKK with suspicion.

- You say "Legacy of the Cold War", which is not wrong, but... Is there really a tension of serious proportions between the rulers of Turkey and Germany? It doesn't seem like there is much for decades, leaving aside some baseless and fruitless clamors... Can't we see this as a need of today rather than a Cold War legacy? We can ask the same question in another way: Do you think there is a serious struggle between Ankara and Berlin within the framework of Islam today? If so, what kind of struggle is this, what might the parties not be able to share? If there is no significant tension or struggle, why is there no such thing?

STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF RADICAL ISLAM

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - In my opinion, there is a serious competition and struggle. Over who will control Islamic actors and organizations... After the 1980 coup, after the Islamic organizations in Germany went out of control, Bonn asked for help from the Turkish generals. With the Iranian Islamic revolution, the conflict starting from Afghanistan and jihad, and the uprising started by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic actors of Turkish origin are radicalizing in Germany. DİTİB was established to control this. Bonn directly supports the DİTİB initiative.

However, Germany's approach began to change after the AKP. The government, which has been ruling Turkey for 23 years and has turned into a party-state, wants to use DİTİB within the framework of its own interests. The AKP held political rallies in Germany. Germany sees this as interference in its internal affairs. The competition is over this. Otherwise, Germany has no problem with the collapse of secularism or democracy in Turkey.

- Economic relations between Turkey and Federal Germany accelerated from the 1950s onwards. In the 1970s, the theses of a CIA reporter, George Harris, that Turkey's responsibility within NATO would remain under the responsibility of Federal Germany are known. It was not just infrastructure, technology, etc. that went from Germany to Turkey. The 1980 Bonn Ambassador and Özal's Foreign Minister Vahit Halefoğlu also admitted in an interview we conducted with him at the Bonn Embassy in 1994 that Bonn had assumed responsibility for Turkey within the world system, "but in Europe". In addition, intense anti-communism was being pumped at the management level and at many layers. Was Turkey really under Germany's responsibility now?

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - Germany's weight on the Turkish economy increased from the 1950s onwards. Even at that time, Germany was Turkey's largest trading partner. There are also close relations between the MAH and the BND. Fuat Doğu is a name who had [Reinhard] Gehlen's writings read for intelligence training. They have an admiration for Gehlen. In the 1970s, these relations deepened due to anti-communism. In economic terms, the 1979 Guadeloupe Summit is a turning point. US President Carter tells Schmidt there, "You will take responsibility for Turkey." There are elections in the US in 1980. Carter tells Schmidt, "If I help Turkey, I will lose the votes of the Greeks and Armenians." The tender is left to Germany. Although Schmidt is not very happy with this situation, they roll up their sleeves when this is the decision of the Western alliance. The most important supporter of the January 24 decisions is West Germany. The first Western foreign minister to visit Turkey during the coup period was [Hans-Dietrich] Genscher. Bonn was pleased with the political stability established by the soldiers at bayonet point so that the debt and credit given to Turkey could be repaid. They made lukewarm statements about human rights and torture, but they did not impose serious sanctions. Was the Halefoğlu you asked about effective in his appointment to the foreign ministry during the Özal period while he was the ambassador in Bonn? I haven't found a document about this. But I think it's possible.

- A conclusion we can draw from one of your articles: Political Islam came to power alone in Ankara with the effective intervention of Bonn-Berlin in a historical process, that is, with investments over the years. How do you think this anti-communist hysteria followed a path in taking the reins in the two frontline countries against the USSR? Especially, how should the covert support of German social democracy for political Islam be interpreted?

POLITICAL ISLAM AND EXTERNAL DYNAMICS

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - External dynamics are not the only reason why political Islam came to power in Turkey. History does not flow in a way that someone presses a button and things change here. Islamism has been an influential ideology for 150 years and Islamists are important political actors. Their ability to come to power alone was possible with the coming together of many different factors. One of these is the active use of religion in the fight against communism during the Cold War. We see the legacy of this in the US today as well. That place is also shifting to the far right. Today, there are anti-Islamic political parties in the West. However, the same political actors saw Islamists as usable allies against the left in the recent past. I reached the records of the meetings held by Interior Minister Oğuzhan Asiltürk with German authorities during his visit to West Germany during the Nationalist Front government period in Turkey in the 1970s. Asiltürk says, we need to fight together against communism as Christians and Muslims. They shake hands. Germany is showering the Turkish police and intelligence with equipment against the left. The army in Turkey was also one of the dominant actors of the economic-political system as an increasingly conservative institution, especially after 1960. There was not a peep from the army about the Ministry of Interior and Justice being in the MSP in the 1970s.

- We can argue that Germany has a special place and weight (in terms of personnel, technology, understanding, etc.) in the modernization of intelligence and even the modernization of the media in Turkey. What can we see when we compare the EU's aid to Ankara in these areas with Germany?

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - There are close relations between German intelligence officers and Turkish intelligence. Even in the establishment of the MAH in the 1920s, the Germans were influential. During the Second World War, Nazi Germany carried out intelligence operations behind the lines of the USSR through Turkey. However, Soviet intelligence followed all of these with the infiltrations it made in Turkey. This close relationship between Germany and Turkey continued during the Cold War period. There is no other country in Europe outside of Germany that is so close to Turkey in terms of intelligence. There is also a closeness similar to a brother-brother relationship between Gehlen and Fuat Doğu. These two play a role in Enver Altaylı's going to West Germany for training in the late 1960s. We see a similar situation in Murat Bayrak. He fought in the Nazi Hançar units in the Second World War and played a role in the armed training of the idealist movement from the 1960s onwards. He went to Germany after the 1980 coup. He intervenes in Cemalettin Kaplan's ability to stay there.

All of these actors, including CIA officer Ruzi Nazar, have been in West Germany since the 1970s. This network was dispersed with Ağca's assassination attempt on the Pope. Did they have any connection to the Ağca assassination? Even if they did, would documents related to this be shared? It's a complete black box.

- In your studies, you state that the relationship between Turkey and Federal Germany with political Islam changes every 10 years. In the 50s, Ankara (DP) is in a suspicious attitude, against the US using political Islam, and even officially complains about American policies. We can think that May 27 was not a coincidence. In the 1960s, Bonn and Ankara are not against the use of Islam as a weapon against communism at all. On the contrary... Why do you think?

Dr. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN - The reason for this is very clear. Germany is investing in the Turkish economy. They are against the development of the trade union movement in Turkey. Because they prefer this place to remain as cheap labor. I read tons of documents in German archives about the development of Turkish trade unionism. They see Islamism and nationalism-based far-right as an antidote against the development of the left, student movements, and unions. The projection of this is also experienced in Turkish workers in West Germany. These people were under the influence of the leftist worldview as blue-collar workers in the 1960s. They are integrating into German society. But things change when they start to strike in the factories where they work. The strike that Turks made at the Ford factory at that time makes a lot of noise. It is in these very years that Germany supports the opening of mosques and Quran courses. Bonn is behind the re-Islamization of Turkish workers at full speed. There is a march of Turkish Islamists against leftists in Berlin in the late 1960s. Islamists openly describe in their own memoirs how the German police supported them. Bonn sees the effectiveness of the East Germany-based TKP among Turkish workers as a threat to its own interests. Today, the AKP's vote rate among Turks in Germany reaches 70 percent. Twice that of Turkey. This means that re-Islamization in Germany has been implemented much more successfully than in Turkey.

WHO IS DR. BEHLÜL ÖZKAN?

Behlül Özkan holds a PhD (2009) and a master's degree (2005) in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He received his bachelor's degree (1998) from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University. He has academic articles on Turkish politics, Cold War era security and intelligence, geopolitics, and Political Islam. His book, which was published by Yale University Press in 2012, was published in Turkish by Kırmızı Kedi Publishing House under the title "The Construction of the National Homeland in Turkey". He is the editor of the book titled "Turkey's Cold War Order" (together with Tolga Gürakar, Tekin Publishing House, 2020).