Germans and Turks

German-Turkish relations form an integral backdrop to many of today’s most pressing political concerns, including the absorption of refugees from the Middle East in Europe, debates about coexistence with Muslims in Western societies, and European geopolitics in Western Asia. Yet the story of this relationship, its 800-year history and often fateful consequences, has never been fully told.

In this book, Stefan Ihrig presents the first combined history of the two peoples, from the Middle Ages until today. It is a relationship that has had many twists and turns, from adversaries in the early modern conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Central Europe to allies at the end of the nineteenth century and during WWI. It is also a relationship that has shaped world history, often to disastrous effect: Ihrig shows how the Armenian Genocide of the early twentieth century and Mustafa Kemal’s ethno-nationalist ‘Turkification’ project influenced Nazi Germany’s murderous policies. And, as Ihrig shows, it’s a relationship that surprises and confounds simplistic narratives. Far from one sided, the encounter between German and Turkish-speaking people over the centuries reveals a mutual fascination that stands in contrast to British, French or American interactions with the Middle East and North Africa.

The coda to this story is the now up to four million people of Turkish descent living in Germany. With modern Turkey taking an increasingly prominent role on the global stage and the German state the most powerful in the European Union, understanding the history of this complicated and dynamic relationship is more important than ever.

Introduction 
Prologue: Of men and monsters 

Crusaders, conquerors, and contacts
1. The Turks are Coming 
2. Killing in the Name of… 
3. Fortifying the East 
4. The Mongol Storm 
5. The Ottoman Avalanche 
6. In Front of Vienna 
7. The Grand Stand Off (111-) 
8. The Reformation and the Turks 
9. Reconquista and Re-Evaluation 
10. All things Turkish 
11. Captured Turks and Diplomats 

Questions of empire and nation
12. Bismarck’s Bones 
13. Tripping the Life Fantastic I 
14. Tripping the Life Fantastic II 
15. Wilhelm’s Dreams 
16. German Ottomans 
17. World War I (1): Wishful thinking 
18. World War I (2): All the plans 
19. World War I (3): Harsh realities 
20. The Armenian Genocide debated 
21. Hitler’s Star in the Darkness 
22. The Third Reich and Turkey 
23. Colony B 

From ‘Guestworkers’ to Turkish Germans 
24. New Beginnings 
25. Guests and Workers 
26. Immigrants 
27. Problems 
28. Violence and Citizenship 
29. Debates, Debates, and More Debates 

Epilogue: Of neighbors and citizens

Stefan Ihrig is a historian specializing in German and Turkish history as well as transnational themes spanning the 20th century. He is the author of Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination (2014), which was translated into five languages, and Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler (2016), which received the 2017 Sonia Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies.