Turkish-German relations have reached a low point. War in the Middle East is the chief cause, given the countries’ divergent views on the war between Israel and Hamas. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has resorted to harsh rhetoric criticizing Israel and defending Hamas, which Turkey’s Western allies like Germany consider a terrorist organization.
For 75 years, Israel has been trying to “establish a state on land that was stolen from the Palestinian people,” Erdogan said recently in Ankara. Israel’s legitimacy is being called into question by its “own fascism,” he added.
At a news conference in Berlin on Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Erdogan’s comments “absurd,” stressing that Israel is a democracy.
Josef Schuster, the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the official but by no means only representative of Germany’s Jews, also attacked Erdogan. He accused him of “fueling the protests on German streets and the psychological terror against Jews in Germany with his propaganda.”
Gaza conflict could end fragile Israel-Turkey rapprochement
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Germany and Turkey: dependent on each other
While some officials suggested canceling the visit due the controversy, the German government wanted to push ahead. The opposition center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) agreed. Their leader, Friedrich Merz, said Turkey is too important for Germany. The two sides could not afford to stop talking to each other.
Germany is home to about 1.5 million people with Turkish citizenship. Two-thirds of them voted for Erdogan in elections earlier this year, in a vote that international observers called free but unfair.
Turkey, which is struggling economically, benefits from good business ties with Germany and the European Union. In the inverse, Turkey is an important partner in efforts to stymie the flow of refugees heading towards the EU.
Seven years ago, Erdogan reached an agreement with the EU to stop smugglers and take back migrants whose asylum applications were rejected in neighboring Greece. In return, Ankara received billions of euros to accommodate the people in the country. The EU is hoping for a revival of this refugee pact.
Turkey can also serve as a crisis mediator, which it has been between Ukraine and Russia. New violence between Israel and Hamas raises Turkey’s profile even more in this regard.
“It’s important that the war there does not spread, and of course, Turkey also plays a role in this,” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who chairs the parliamentary defense committee, told DW. “In this respect, we have to talk to each other. The question is, how direct we can be.”
‘We are from here’: Turkish-German life in 1990 in pictures
Istanbul photographer Ergun Cagatay documented in 1990 the life of the Turks who stayed in Germany following the 1961 recruitment agreement. The photos are showcased in an exhibition.
In 1990, Istanbul-based photographer Ergun Cagatay took thousands of photos of people of Turkish origin in Hamburg, Cologne, Werl, Berlin and Duisburg. They are on display from July 8, 2022 to February 7 at Berlin’s Museum Europäischer Kulturen, as part of a traveling exhibition, “We are from here: Turkish-German life in 1990.” Here he’s seen in a self-portrait in pit clothes at a Duisburg mine.
Two miners shortly before the end of their shift in an old-style passenger car at Walsum Mine, Duisburg. Due to a rapid economic upturn in the ’50s, Germany faced a shortage of trained workers, especially in agriculture and mining. Following the 1961 recruitment agreement between Bonn and Ankara, more than 1 million “guest workers” from Turkey came to Germany until recruitment was stopped in 1973.
Shown here is the upholstery production at the Ford automobile plant in Cologne-Niehl. “Workers have been called, and people are coming,” commented Swiss writer Max Frisch back then. Today, the Turkish community, with some immigrants’ families now in their fourth generation, forms the largest ethnic minority group in Germany, with 2.5 million people.
During his three-month photo expedition through Germany, Cagatay experienced a country in transition. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, Germany was in the process of becoming a multicultural society. Here, demonstrators march at a rally against the draft of the new Aliens Act, in Hamburg on March 31, 1990.
The photos provide an insight into the diversity of Turkish-German life. Seen here is the eight-member family of Hasan Hüseyin Gül in Hamburg. The exhibition is the most comprehensive coverage on Turkish immigration of the first and second generation of “guest workers.”
Today, foodstuff like olives and sheep’s cheese can be easily found in Germany. Previously, the guest workers loaded their cars with food from home during their trips back. Slowly, they set up their culinary infrastructure here in Germany, to the delight of all gourmets. Here we see the owners of the Mevsim fruit and vegetable store in Weidengasse, Cologne-Eigelstein.
Children with balloons at the Sudermanplatz in Cologne’s Agnes neighborhood. On the wall in the background is a mural of a tree with an excerpt of a poem by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet: “To live! Like a tree alone and free. Like a forest in brotherhood. This yearning is ours.” Hikmet himself lived in exile in Russia, where he died in 1963.
At the Quran school of the Fatih mosque in Werl, children learn Arabic characters to be able to read the Quran. It was the first newly built mosque with a minaret in Germany that was opened at that time. People no longer had to go to the backyard to pray.
Photographer Cagatay mingles with guests at a wedding at Oranienplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. In the Burcu event hall, guests pin money on the newlyweds, often with the wish “may you grow old with one pillow”; newlyweds traditionally share a single long pillow on the marital bed.
Traditions are maintained in the new homeland too. Here at a circumcision party in Berlin, “Mashallah” in written on the boy’s sash. It means “praise be” or “what God has willed.” The traveling exhibition is sponsored by the German Foreign Office, among others. In addition to Essen, Hamburg and Berlin, it is also being held in cooperation with the Goethe Institute in Izmir, Istanbul and Ankara.
Erdogan will arrive in Berlin on Friday afternoon, according to the released agenda, received first by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He will then dine with Scholz at the chancellery.
Observers say the German government hopes to limit Erdogan’s public exposure. On a three-day visit in 2018, he held rallies, lashed out at Kurdish activists and drew street protests criticizing Turkey’s human rights record on his watch. More famously, he held a rally in 2010 that 15,000 people attended in the western city of Cologne, which is home to a large Turkish community.
He told the crowd that Turkish immigrants should integrate and learn German, but that “nobody can expect you to assimilate.”
Initially, Erdogan was scheduled to attend the men’s international soccer match between Germany and Turkey at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on Saturday. But this has been canceled.
People in Berlin can expect enhanced security in the city during Erdogan’s visit, especially around the government area. Protocols are likely to extend into Saturday, as thousands of Kurds intend to protest Erdogan’s policies and express support for the PKK workers’ party, which has been banned in Germany for decades.
This article was originally written in German.
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