LONDON/NEW YORK — Bloomsbury Press in June released the new book by Stefan Ihrig, Germans and Turks: A Forgotten History of Europe.
German–Turkish relations form an essential backdrop to many of today’s most pressing political issues, from the integration of refugees from the Middle East into Europe and debates over the place of Islam in Western societies to the geopolitics of Europe and Western Asia. Yet the history of this remarkable relationship — spanning more than 800 years and shaping events far beyond the two countries themselves — has never been fully told.
In this book, Ihrig presents the first comprehensive history of the relationship between German- and Turkish-speaking peoples, tracing their interactions from the Middle Ages to the present day. Over the centuries, the two societies have moved from bitter adversaries during the Ottoman–Habsburg conflicts to close allies in the late nineteenth century and during the First World War. Their relationship has repeatedly influenced the course of world history, often with devastating consequences. Ihrig argues that Germany’s response to the Armenian Genocide and the ethno-nationalist “Turkification” policies of Mustafa Kemal’s republic left a lasting imprint on Nazi ideology and practice. At the same time, he challenges simplistic narratives by revealing a long history of mutual curiosity and fascination, setting German–Turkish encounters apart from the more overtly colonial relationships that Britain, France, and the United States developed with the Middle East and North Africa.
The story culminates in the presence of nearly four million people of Turkish descent in Germany today. As Turkey assumes an increasingly prominent role in regional and global affairs, and Germany remains the European Union’s leading political and economic power, understanding the long and complex history of their relationship has never been more important.
According to Ihrig, the book surveys nearly a thousand years of shared German-Turkish history. It argues that, until the aftermath of World War II, this relationship largely defied Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism. Despite centuries of conflict, Germans and Turks repeatedly overcame periods of enmity, developing forms of interaction that differed markedly from those of France and Britain in their relationships with the Muslim world. These dynamics culminated in an unequal but close partnership during the decades leading up to and including World War I.
The book further argues that German support for the Ottoman Empire’s anti-Armenian policies in the 1890s served as a precursor to the Armenian Genocide. In the decades that followed, German-Turkish relations oscillated between aspirations for closeness and tendencies toward distance. A second major turning point came with the immigration of so-called guest workers, followed by subsequent waves of migrants from Turkey to Germany.
