Bosporus Germans

Bosporus Germans are those ethnic Germans living and settled in Istanbul. There is already a third generation, which is living scattered around Istanbul.

The first generation came with the political arrival of Kaiser Wilhelm (1859-1941) at the Bosporus. Most of these were craftsmen, such as watchmakers, soldiers or industrials. Liman von Sanders (1855-1929), who was briefly commander of the Ottoman army, may be the most famous of them. Some of the most beautiful villas, such as the Krupp and Huber Villa, are still a relict of the German influence in the late Ottoman Empire.

There were also many Germans in Istanbul who supported the Young Turk movement and nurtured its relationship with the SPD as well as the German Liberals around Friedrich Naumann. From the circle around Naumann came Ernest Jäckh (1875-1959), purveyor of Young Turk propaganda (and later professor at Columbia University). Jäckh however did not live in Constantinople can cannot be considered a "Bosporus German". Another visitor to Constantinople during the war was Theodor Heuss, a friend of Naumann and Jäckh, who designed the German Cultural Centre in Constantinople and later became the first Federal President of Germany from 1949 until 1959. Active Social Democrats in Constantinople included Alexander Parvus (1867-1924) (in the city from 1910-1914), and Dr. Friedrich Schrader (1865-1922) ("İştiraki" {translation: Socialist}, active 1891-1918).

The second generation came as refugees fleeing the Third Reich. The former Mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter (1889-1953) and also the president of Daimler-Chrysler Dieter Zetsche (1953- ) may be some of the best known. Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister (1886-1983) was also effectively in exile there. Among them were also many poorer families which lived in poverty and Anatolian despair. They called themselves "Haymatloz" (in German: "Heimatlos" for homelandless), according to a stamp the Turkish authorities printed in their passports.

Currently there is a "third generation" of various expatriots, supporting Turkish textile and other industries, simply enjoying the west coast of Turkey, or married to Turks. One of the most famous is the football trainer Christoph Daum (1953- ). The Deutsche Schule Istanbul and St. Georgs-Kolleg are well-attended German-language schools in the city.

Istanbulites with West European roots are in general called Levantines (originally a term used for describing the Genoese, Venetian and French traders operating -and settled- in the East Mediterranean, i.e. the "Levant"), apart from the Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Ottoman Empire from the Iberian peninsula following the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 and eventually became Turkish citizens, and the local Greeks (the most influential of whom were known as the Phanariots) whose numbers have dwindled due to the often tense political disputes between Turkey and Greece, and in part because of economic hardships. There is also a small number of Polish families organized in Polonezköy (or "Adampol" as it is alternatively called), a village on the Asian side of the Bosporus which is famous for its lush green nature and dairy products.