Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination

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For me, reading this book was like climbing a tremendous mountain peak advertised as never climbed before only to find a picnic basket at the top of the peak. Based on a few offhand comments I had read in other texts, including several first hand reports that in 1919, Hitler regularly cited Kemal Pasha (in 1934, he would become “Ataturk,” when Turks were required by law to adopt family names) in his speeches, I had been formulating the idea that Turkish nationalism and post WW I history was far more important to Hitler and the Nazis than is recognized by the conventional wisdom.

Turkey's function as a role model for Hitler makes sense. Turkey and Germany were allies during World War I. Germany had extensive ties with Turkey, particularly with respect to its military. The peace that the victorious Entente proposed to impose on Turkey was like that imposed on Germany, intended to carve up the country and reduce its power to second-tier status (or below that in the case of Turkey.) From a position of weakness, Turkey amazingly preserved its national integrity through military action and an ideology of national will and determination.

The author cites chapter and verse in German newspapers and Hitler's speeches that call Ataturk a model for Germany, particularly vis a vis nationalism and national will. My problem was that I couldn't conceptualize that Germany would be interested in Turkey as a model (based on current postures of these countries.)

Nothing succeeds like success. Turkey was successful. It preserved itself as a nation. It preserved is borders. It came out of its “war of independence” more united in that it eliminated Christian Greek and Christian Armenian ethnic communities that had lived in the country since prior to the birth of Christ. While moderns may claim that “our diversity is our strength” far more often diversity is a source of weakness in that it can promote fractures between those communities that can lead to strife and civil war.

Turkey overcame diversity by the tried and true practice of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The Greek population was traded for Muslims, while Armenians were slaughtered and sent into their diaspora.

The Germans knew about the Armenian Genocide. There were German military advisors in regions near to the Genocide who were informed about the Genocide. Some of these advisors were important in the German military. They did not express any qualms about the Genocide. In fact, it seems that they approved of the Genocide. (This kind of cold-blooded approach to resolving military-political problems was reflected in the German massacre of civilians in Belgian. See Rehearsals.)

Interestingly, Hitler and the Nazis viewed Armenians as worse than Jews in terms of their mercantilism. Nazis ranked Turks as a master race akin to the Germans, whereas the Indo-European Armenians were considered akin to the Jews as “parasites.” The Nazis approved of Turkey's ethnic cleansing.

What that means to me is that while deportation was the first option they had in mind - modeled on the exchange of Greeks for Turks - mass murder was in the cards from the beginning.

On the other hand, the famous statement ascribed to Hitler about “who today remembers the Armenians?” seems to be more controversial than I thought:

“There is still an ongoing debate about the Armenian Genocide as well as about Hitler's alleged exclamation, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”14 There is no point debating here whether an Armenian Genocide actually took place, but it is interesting to note that the Hitler quote is used in this context both to either affirm or deny that there had been a genocide.15 There is another quote from Hitler, referring to the “extermination of the Armenians,” yet both Hitler quotes stem from highly disputed sources.16 The provenance of these quotes has often been an obstruction to understanding the paramount influence this genocide must have exerted upon the Nazis. But in any case, one does not need either of them to show that the Nazis were influenced by the Armenian Genocide. Indeed, to ask whether the Nazis knew about the Armenian Genocide is altogether the wrong way to tackle this topic; there is no reason to assume that they did not know about it, much less that the Germans had forgotten about it by 1933 or 1939.17 Because as much as the Nazis grew up with Turkey and the Turkish War of Independence, they also grew up with the Armenian Genocide.”

Author Stefan Ihrig backs up all of his points in detail. He demonstrates that Turkey, its “war of independence” and the strategies it was employing were of interest to many Germans, particularly those on the Volkisch Right.

Ihrig offers a key insight into the strategy of the Beerhall Putsch. I had always assumed that the idea was to take power in Munich and then march to Berlin in the manner of Mussolini's March on Rome. Ihrig explains that the debate prior to the attempted coup focused on the “Ankara Strategy.” This strategy referred to Ataturk's movement of the capitol from Constantinople to Ankara as a way of relocating and re-establishing a national power base. Similarly, according to Ihrig, the Volkisch Right's idea was to turn Munich into Germany's Ankara, moving the center of power out of Berlin. This, frankly, makes more sense of the putsch than the alternative.

All in all, this was a captivating, well-documented book on a topic of surprising interest.

After reading this book, I was put in mind of the effort by Turks at the close of the 20th Century to have Ataturk named the “Man of the Century.” I thought that was silly at the time. Now, with a certain amount of tongue in cheek, I'm not so sure.