Turkey and the German Reich?
At first sight Turkey and the Nazi Germany have nothing in common, no similarities. If you dig a bit though you will realize that they act in a very similar way.
3 min readNov 13, 2020
In 1933 the NSDAP won the popular vote and Adolf Hitler became chancellor of the country. He slowly started to override the Treaty of Versailles.
Even though Turkey did not institute a dictatorship it has been contradicting the Treaty of Lausanne for decades now. A good example is the “Istanbul pogrom” which took place in the city in September 1955, when the Greek population of the city was targeted by the Turks, against the treaty of Lausanne.
Other than that, the aggressive behavior that Turkey is showing in the last couple of years can be also seen in the 3–4 years before the breakout of World War 2. The participation on the Libyan civil war, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the violation of Cypru’s EEZ and Greece’s continental shelf, the intervention on the Syrian civil war, directly helping terrorists.
All of those actions could be translated with events such as: The Anschluss, or the annexation of Austria by Germany, the Munich agreement and the annexation of Czechia, Germany taking the port of Memel from Lithuania. Also the “war” with the Kurds is very similar to the Kristallnacht when the SA attacked Jewish shops all-over Germany, marking the beginning of a genocide.
But the biggest similarity, at least until recently, between those two very different nations in very different eras, is one simple word: Appeasement
For many reasons Europe and especially Germany is benefiting from good relations with Turkey. So until recently the majority of Europe wouldn’t dare stand against them, they would just try to negotiate. Since March though, when Turkey attempted to “flood” Europe with migrants and Greece halted them, Europe started waking up. The majority of the EU member-states send some sort of assistance to Greece.
Later France and Emmanuel Macron started seeing how aggressive Turkey is. Russia saw it when Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war a few weeks ago. In other words, Erdogan might think he’s powerful but he is slowly isolating himself.
There wasn’t the same reaction in the 1930s. Europe is beginning to potentially learn from its mistakes. When Germany was doing what they wanted until 1939, Turkey isn’t.
The biggest difference though is one. Germany actually succeeded when being aggressive. They managed to take Austria or Czechoslovakia. In comparison, they pretty much lost both on Syria, where Assad has almost won the civil war and in Libya where the government of al-Sarraj, who is being supported by Turkey, has collapsed.
Even though im no politician scientist or expert analyst and i am indeed very young, i prefer to express my opinion. Turkey’s position, between Iran, Syria, Russia and Europe makes them a must have ally for NATO. Since they both know it, Erdogan is taking advantage of that fact, pushing his nationalist and expansionalist agenda. NATO can’t afford losing them. It’s a very strong military force and gives NATO the upper hand. It acts as the US Cuba, a country in the back yard of Russia. But since the interest is slowly shifting towards China, Turkey’s position is going to matter a bit less in the following years, but will be of great importance non the less.
When Biden takes office though, things might change. The location of Turkey might be positive but their behavior isn’t. Biden has said plenty of times that they must be stopped. The chances of him doing it do exist and it is very possible to soon see serious concequenses by the Oval office. At the end only time will tell.
Don’t take all of that for granted though, its just an opinion
