Abstract

This article deals with the Turkish statesmen (especially bureaucrats and diplomats) in the early republican era (1925-1935) and with their ties to the Germany in the light of German Foreign Office archives. In order to give a better understanding of this issue it will be firstly explained how Germans recruted Turkish bureaucrats and politicians in the Ottoman time. Secondly, it will be examined to what extend Germans evaluated Turkish statesmen in the early republican era. Within this context this article draws attention to that how Germans have deeply analysed the Turkish statesmen playing an important role at the given time in Turkish politics such as Rıza Nur, Kâzım Dirik and Ali Fethi Okyar. Moreover, the members of the Turkish diplomatic corps as well as the Turkish Embassy in Moscow has been analysed as well.

The aim of this article is to explain how the Turkish statesmen were evaluated in the German archives in an objective manner and to stress the necessity of being carefullness of Turkish statesmen by developing of their bilateral ties to foreign countries. Methodically this study based on the content analysis of the primary sources, namely German archive materials. Because of absence of any studies on this specific issue in the existing literature this article aims to contribute to the Turkish-German relations.