Germans in Turkey

Currently, over 50,000 German in Turkey ( Turkish Türkiyeli Almanlar ), mainly with Turkish spouses married German, professionals, retirees and long-term tourists that property along the Turkish coastline bought and spend most of the year in the country. However, a " local " group of Germans form the Bosphorus Germans in Constantinople Opel, some of which had been living since the late Middle Ages in the Ottoman Empire and were counted among the Franks. Furthermore, also German exiles who fled the 1933-1945 Nazi regime in Turkey and among them many academics and scientists are live.

In addition, of Turkish descent in Germany, returning from the Federal Republic of Germany to Turkey and settle again. Many of them have only partly German citizenship and not Turkish.

History

The officials and the artisans, who were sent during the close relationship with the Ottoman Empire at the time of Kaiser Wilhelm II, formed the so-called time Bosphorus Germans. Some German this group converted to Islam in the 1920s and formed a small community to Berlin, where they played an important role in the spread of Islam in Germany.

In 1933, the dawn of the Nazis led to a second wave of immigration from Nazi Germany to Turkey. German emigrants - including many academics - were offered professorships at the universities in Turkey. The number of " exiled Germans", which concentrated mainly in Istanbul and Ankara, rose to an estimated 800.