Adnan Menderes Obituary
“I am not offended by anyone.”
How does a road lead from the prime minister to the gallows?
It has been nearly sixty years since one of Turkey’s most controversial figures was executed at the age of 62.
Ali Adnan Menderes was born in 1899 in Aydın as the son of a wealthy farmer.
Young Menderes suffered from loneliness after he had lost his parents and sister at his childhood.
Menderes started his education life in Izmir where his grandmother took him. He went to İttihat and Terakki Primary School and continued at Izmir American College. The young man was educated as a reserve officer. At that time, the Ottoman Empire, the ancestors of the Turkish Republic, was in the middle of World War One. He couldn’t serve during the war because of his malaria illness.
During his youth, Menderes made money by farming in the fields that inherited from his father. He was also interested in playing football. Karşıyaka Club was his first stop until he was hooted in a match by fans after missing to score. Then, he tried his chance at Altay but this time as a goalkeeper. However, his football adventure never turned to a professional career.
In 1928, he got married to Fatma Berin, whose family had a strong relationship with politics. With his in-law’s support, after the Independence War, led by the Republic of Turkey’s founder M. Kemal Atatürk, he took part in several political movements. When he became a CHP (Republican People Party) deputy from his hometown in 1931, Menderes had no idea what he would encounter in his political life. The fresh deputy also started to study at the Faculty of Law in Turkey’s capital Ankara.
Following days were tough for not only him but also the new founded Turkey. People had scarce and unfruitful livelihoods on the eve of World War Two. The government was trying to install several development programmes. Menderes and a few deputies were strongly opposed to these programmes- claiming the government’s attempts were an invasion of privacy. He was in ascendant during fiery meetings at the Parliament.
Menderes was dismissed from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 1945 due to internal opposition. He founded a new party with Celal Bayar, Fuad Köprülü and Refik Koraltan who were dismissed from CHP as he was. They always believed that the will of the public was above everything else and they had to set up their party’s programme on this basis. That’s why they named the party as ‘Democrat’. It was the image of an alternative for the public but the most important thing that people thought about the Democrat Party (DP) was hope for their children, their beliefs, the country’s future. And Menderes was the centre of this movement.
The Democrat Party was able to receive only 15% of the votes because of the election system in 1946. It was open voting but secret counting- made voters fainthearted to reflect their real will on the ballot. Menderes was elected as DP deputy from Kutahya, an Anatolian city. However, he had to wait for four years to become the Prime Minister of Turkey.
In 1950 parliamentary elections, The Democrat Party won 408 seats of the 487 after receiving 53% of the votes. This historic victory was recorded as the first democratic elections of Turkey, and Adnan Menderes sat in prime minister chair. His master, Celal Bayar became the President of Turkey.
Now, they had the power to apply their programmes effectively. First of all, adhan (call to Muslim prayer) was changed to its original language. Then, the open market economy started to spread across the country. During his first term, Menderes built strong relations with the United States of America. After he ordered to send military troops to Korea in 1950, Turkey secured its place at NATO.
Death was always behind him. In 1959, Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, accompanied was on his way to the British capital to sign the London Agreement on the Cyprus issue with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Greek Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis. But his plane crashed near Gatwick Airport. 16 passengers died. Menderes was the among the ten survivors. He had only light scratches to his face. When he returned to the home, thousands of people met him at Ankara train station.
However, the real political atmosphere in the country was entirely different. The Democrat Party’s and Menderes’ pragmatic but inconsistent policies were criticised sharply by the opposition group.
He used to be a man whose politics had been formed and burnished by the hardships of the society in which he was raised. But with his second term, Menderes’ liberal attitude had weakened day by day, insomuch that he punished the Anatolian city, Kırşehir, by changing its statue from province to town after his party didn’t achieve in getting the majority of the votes.
Menderes was a reformer, but like German philosopher, Hannah Arendt said: “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.”
It is obvious that this wasn’t the only reason that brought his end. ‘Events of September’ that outbroke after a newspaper headline telling Greeks bombed Ataturk’s home and two-day riot against Greek minority in İstanbul, his affair with a Turkish singer, the chaotic atmosphere in the universities, and the economic situation led the country to a military coup in 1960.
President Bayar, Prime Minister Menderes, ministers of the cabinet, and many The Democrat Party members were arrested. High Court sentenced Menderes, Bayar, Deputy PM Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, and Minister of Finance Hasan Polatkan to death.
Menderes was executed by hanging in a small island, İmralı on 17th September of 1961. He always is seen as a ‘martyr of democracy’ for most of the people in Turkey.
