Did Turkey plan to attack the USSR during World War II

TURKEY IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

June 22, 1941 Germany attacked the USSR. Four days before, Turkey, at Hitler's suggestion, signed a "non-aggression pact" with Germany. In connection with the German attack on the USSR, Turkey declared neutrality. At the same time, on the proposal of the Turkish government, the parliament allowed to call for real military service persons over 60 years of age, reserve officers over 65 years of age, as well as to announce mobilization in the eastern vilayets to fill the gap left by the movement of 40,000 troops to the district of Thrace. These actions greatly alarmed the USSR.

German propaganda claimed that the USSR intended to capture the Straits. In turn, on June 27, 1941, the TASS refutation resolutely noted "provocatively false statements in Hitler's declaration about the USSR's alleged claims to the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles and about the USSR's alleged intentions to occupy Bulgaria."

On August 10, 1941, the USSR and England made a joint statement that they would respect the regime of the Straits and the territorial integrity of Turkey. In the same place, Turkey was given assurances of assistance if it becomes a victim of aggression. In order to weaken the effectiveness of German propaganda, the Soviet government reaffirmed its loyalty to the Montreux Convention and assured the Turkish government that it had no aggressive intentions or claims regarding the Straits. The Soviet side emphasized that it understands Turkey's desire to remain neutral, and therefore will provide her with assistance and assistance if she becomes a victim of an attack by any European power.

Back in May 1941, the British sent troops into Iraq and Syria. Now the British troops, deployed from Egypt to Burma, had a gap only in Iran.

In August 1941, Soviet and British troops occupied Iran.

The appearance of the Red Army in Iranian Azerbaijan caused serious concern of the Turkish government. The Turks began plotting to take over northern Iran. The German ambassador von Papen reported to Ribbentrop: "A well-informed confidant informs: in view of the successes of the Germans in Russia, Turkish government circles are increasingly beginning to deal with the fate ... of the Azerbaijani Turks."

The Turks pulled significant forces to the Soviet border - 16 infantry and 8 cavalry divisions. Moscow had to concentrate 25 divisions in Transcaucasia, which were tasked with preventing the invasion of Turkish or German troops. Turkish troops.

From March 13, 1942, staff exercises were held in Transcaucasia, in which Turkey acted as a potential enemy. The actions of the Red Army began with an attack on North-Eastern Turkey and ended with the capture of Oltu, Sarykamysh, Trobzon and Erzerum. The document entitled “Considerations for planning the operation of the Transcaucasian Front” provided for the defeat of the Turkish army on an area of ​​​​210 km in the direction of the Black Sea and 300 km in the direction of Erzerum along the Trobzon, Bayburt, Erzerum line, which was part of the main strategic task of the Transcaucasian military district.

The preparatory stage of the offensive included the destruction of outposts, reconnaissance of the front line of defense and the occupation of the starting position for the offensive. The first stage of the offensive included the encirclement and defeat of the enemy's Kars grouping with the front's troops reaching the Pazar-Artvin-Merdenik-Kars-Kagyzman line. The second stage of the offensive provided for the defeat of the Olta-Sarykamyshev grouping of the enemy with access to the Yegdem-Oltu-Kars-Kurt line and the capture by mobile detachments of track junctions in the areas of Ispir, Tortum, and Chiftlik station. At the third stage, the occupation of Erzurum was planned. Chronologically, 10 days were allotted for the first stage, the second stage will be completed on the 16th day, and the third stage - on the 31st day of the operation.

On April 25, to discuss the situation in the Transcaucasian Military District, Stalin received General of the Army V. I. Tyulenev. The conversation lasted from 19:50 to 19:50. up to 22 h. 05 min. Also present were GKO members L. Beria, G. Malenkov, A. Mikoyan, Chief of the General Staff B. Shaposhnikov, his deputy P. Brodin and others. It was decided to strengthen the Transcaucasian Military District with weapons and military equipment in accordance with the directive of the General Staff, signed on April 26. The following were sent to ZakVO: one rifle and one cavalry division, one tank corps, six air regiments, six artillery regiments, six armored trains, one hundred trucks.

Additional forces were deployed along the Turkish border, and on May 1 the Transcaucasian Front was formed. And on May 5, the commanders of the 45th and 46th armies received a directive to be ready to enter Turkish territory.

In the summer of 1942, several skirmishes between Turkish and Soviet border guards took place on the Soviet-Turkish and Iranian-Turkish borders, there were casualties. However, before the war, things never came.

There were many more incidents at sea. So, on September 23, 1941, the Soviet tugboat "Ackerman" with a crew of 13 people and 25 passengers on board went without a compass to the stars and ended up in Turkish waters. After lengthy negotiations, all passengers and six crew members, together with the tugboat, returned to the Soviet Union.

November 11, 1941 the ship "Red Aquarius" (displacement 665 tons, speed 8 knots) left Sevastopol to the shores of the Caucasus, but its captain Zadorozhny took the ship to Sinop.

5th of December general secretary During the conversation, the Turkish Foreign Ministry N. Menemengioglu explained to the Soviet Ambassador S. Vinogradov that the crew did not want to return to the USSR. At the beginning of 1942, by agreement between S. Saracoglu and S. Vinogradov, the ship was returned to the Soviet Union, but the crew requested in writing that they be left in Turkey until the end of the war. In the process of further negotiations and persuasion, three agreed to return to their homeland, while Turkey refused to extradite the remaining 15 people, referring to the fact that the USSR's demand was contrary to international standards.

Much more interesting was the story of the Soviet passenger liner Svaneti.

Before the war, "Svaneti" (displacement 5050 tons, 244 cabin places), served the passenger line Odessa - the Middle East. The war found the liner at the entrance to the Dardanelles, but, as follows from our official sources, the Turks allegedly detained it in Istanbul and did not release it until the end of February 1942. This is wild nonsense. The Turks could not detain a passenger liner, contrary to all international conventions, it would be a “casus belli” for both the USSR and England.

According to the memoirs of our diplomats, the Svaneti in Istanbul was used as a floating hotel for Soviet diplomats who left Germany, and in February 1942 the liner brought the “last group of diplomats” to Poti. And this version looks unconvincing. In fact, the last group of employees of Soviet embassies and consulates was transported to the USSR through Kars in early August 1941, and Ambassador Dekanozov and the diplomatic beau monde boarded the Istanbul-Ankara railway express even earlier, and then flew to the USSR by plane.

In fact, the Svaneti became a floating branch of the Lubyanka in Istanbul. In the very first days of their stay there, several dozen sailors were decommissioned from the ship and sent to the Union. Needless to say, they quickly found a worthy replacement. "Svaneti" was the base for espionage and terrorist operations, and the headquarters was the Soviet consulate in Constantinople.

At the end of the summer of 1941, our entire spy-diplomatic team was thrown into preparations for an assassination attempt on the German ambassador in Turkey. Generally speaking, it was not customary to kill ambassadors, even during the course of the war, but this was a special case. The German ambassador Franz von Papen belonged to an ancient aristocratic family whose origins are lost in the centuries. In any case, at the end of the 15th century, his ancestor Wilhelm von Papen was the owner of large estates.

In the fall of 1913, the 34-year-old officer of the General Staff von Papen, on the personal instructions of the Kaiser, was appointed military attache to the United States. In 1915 he was expelled from America for espionage. During the First World War, he becomes a close friend of Captain Canaris, the future admiral and head of the Abwehr. In the early 30s. von Papen receives the post of Vice-Chancellor of the Reich, then travels as ambassador to Austria. He played not the last violin in the coming to power of Hitler and in the Anschluss (the peaceful annexation of Austria to Germany).

In April 1939, Hitler appointed von Papen as ambassador to Turkey. With the outbreak of World War II, the new ambassador, at the direction of the Führer, establishes ties with British and American diplomats. The purpose of these contacts is the conclusion of a separate peace.

British analysts already in 1939-1941 were well aware that in the event of the complete defeat of Germany, the USSR would dominate Europe. The only alternative to this is a separate peace. But Hitler is a very odious figure as a negotiating partner. And here at hand is the former vice-chancellor (the second person in the state, his own among the Abwehr, the diplomatic corps and the Wehrmacht generals in opposition to the Fuhrer).

As a result, Papen had to play a triple game in Ankara - the ambassador, the secret envoy of Hitler and the representative of the opposition. The main partners in the game were the American and British ambassadors and the nuncio of the Vatican. I note that Pope Pius XII, like the Fuhrer, sent to Turkey not a simple priest, but a talented diplomat and "apparatchik" Giuseppe Roncali. After the war, Roncali will succeed Pius XII and become Pope John XXIII.

The Vatican played a key role in the secession negotiations throughout the war. Once, at a meeting with Stalin, Churchill mentioned the number of divisions of England and the United States. Stalin quite seriously asked: "And how many divisions does the Vatican have?", alluding to the exorbitant political influence and ambitions of the "throne of St. Peter."

And in Moscow they decided to remove the potential head of the Third Reich.

Soon ordinary Soviet people appeared in Istanbul - Vice-Consul Pavlov and international journalist Leonid Naumov. "In the world" they were famous terrorists Georgy Ivanovich Mordvinov and Naum Isaakovich Eitingon. The latter recently returned from Mexico, where he organized the assassination of Leon Trotsky.

Initially, the assassination attempt on von Papen was scheduled to take place in the theater. He was supposed to be shot by the "athlete, Komsomol member and simply beautiful" Muza Malinovskaya. However, journalist Naumov fell in love with Muse and, apparently, therefore failed the operation. In the end, they decided to use a 26-year-old Bulgarian as a terrorist, whose name is still hidden. It is only known that he studied at Istanbul University under the name of the Macedonian Omer.

According to the Soviet version, the Bulgarian shot perfectly with a pistol, which was checked by the consulate staff, but for some reason they decided to use a shellless bomb made by an experienced NKVD explosives expert Timashkov for the assassination attempt. Immediately after the bomb exploded, a motorcyclist was supposed to drive up to the murder site, take Omer and rush off at full speed.

On the evening of February 20, 1942, the fast train Istanbul - Ankara takes vice-consul Pavlov and student Omer to the Turkish capital. Coincidentally, the next day, the Svaneti weighs anchor in the Bosphorus and, together with the "Soviet diplomats", sets off for their homeland. The liner carefully presses against the Turkish coast and only at 12:10 pm. On February 23, she moored in the port of Poti, where a cavalcade of black "emoks" was waiting for her.

After 22 hours, von Papen and his wife were walking along Atatürk Boulevard, heading to the German embassy. He was extremely punctual and showed up on the boulevard at the same time. According to our special services, the Bulgarian went up to the Papenov couple, took out a bomb and a pistol, set the fuse in action, but never threw it away.

The bomb, as already mentioned, was shellless and did not give fragments, but only shreds of meat and a shoe on a tree remained from the Bulgarian. The blast wave knocked the Papenov couple off their feet, but the couple escaped with only a slight concussion. A passing motorcyclist stopped. At this moment, Papin, who was lying on the ground, raised his hand, and the motorcyclist began to help him.

In my opinion, the version of our special services is more than unsuccessful. If the motorcyclist was a Soviet agent, then he could shoot, stab or even stab Papen in the throat with the edge of his hand, fortunately, he was 62 years old, and rush off on a motorcycle. The guy began to provide first aid and waited for the arrival of the police. Later, during the investigation, he was brought only as a witness. Finally, why is it not called now real name and why did he not receive Soviet awards?

The Turkish police and von Papen himself give a different version of the assassination attempt in their memoirs. The Bulgarian was to shoot the ambassador with a pistol and then set off the fuse of the device, which he was told was not a bomb, but a smoke bomb, which would help him escape. The guy decided to play it safe and almost simultaneously pulled the trigger of the pistol and the fuse of the bomb. If he had fired half a second earlier, the ambassador would have been killed. But, in any case, the terrorist would ascend to heaven. The motorcyclist happened to be on Ataturk Boulevard by accident. The dead don't need motorcycles.

In 1941–1944 Turkey sent Germany an extremely important strategic raw material - chromium. Thus, according to the trade agreement, only from January 7 to March 31, 1943, Turkey undertook to supply the Germans with 41,000 tons of chromium ore. Only on April 20, 1944, under strong pressure from the USSR, England and the USA, Turkey stopped deliveries of chromium. In addition, the Turks supplied the Germans and Romanians with other types of raw materials, food, tobacco and other products.

The biggest service the Turks did to Hitler was the virtually free passage of Axis ships through the Straits. Clearly, we are not talking about battleships or even destroyers. The ships of these classes were not required by the Germans in the Black Sea. But the Germans built hundreds of small, up to 500 tons displacement, high-speed transports, which, if necessary, could become patrol ships, anti-aircraft defense, air defense ships, be used as minelayers, etc. A typical example of a German high-speed transport - type F (MF P) with a displacement of about 300 tons, armed with guns of 7.5, 37 and 20 mm caliber various options. In the minzag version, these ships carried 52 mines. Such transports were built throughout occupied Europe - in Germany, Belgium, Poland and even in Nikolaev. Often, transports built in Varna fought in the Mediterranean Sea, and those built in Genoa fought in the Black Sea.

In addition to these transports, hundreds if not thousands of conventional transports and axle tankers passed through the Straits every year. During their stay in the strait zone, part of the artillery on them was hidden in the holds or disguised.

The most curious thing is that our military historians have not yet bothered to determine at least approximately the volume of freight traffic along this route and along the intra-Black Sea route Constanta - Odessa - Sevastopol - Anapa. The reason is obvious: if you publish these top-secret data, it turns out that the Black Sea Fleet, which many times outnumbered the naval forces of the Germans, Turks, Romanians and Bulgarians, acted, to put it mildly, very inefficiently.

Did the passage of German ships through the Straits comply with the Montreux Convention? Obvious gross violations absent, but nevertheless there was something to complain about. In 1941, 1942 and 1943 The Soviet embassy in Ankara repeatedly drew the attention of the Turkish Foreign Ministry to the violation of the Montreux Convention, to the inadmissibility of the passage through the Straits of German and other ships flying the flags of the merchant fleet, but, according to the data available to the embassy, ​​"for military purposes."

The memorandum of the Soviet Ambassador Vinogradov, handed over to Foreign Minister Sarcoglu on June 17, 1944, spoke of a number of cases of German military and military auxiliary ships passing through the Straits under the guise of merchant ships. The note noted that only for the passage of the Straits "weapons were temporarily and partially removed from them."

One of the decisions taken by Roosevelt and Churchill at a conference in Quebec in 1943 was aimed at banning the passage of German ships of military importance through the Straits. The Allies noted the frequent passage of ships from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The British claimed that these ships were warships in disguise and were detrimental to British Navy operations in the Mediterranean.

The Turks saw the light only in June 1944, when, after the passage of a group of German ships, the allies threatened Ankara, and only then did the Turkish services, which examined the ships, find weapons, radar installations and military uniforms from another detachment of German ships. The sailors themselves in the Straits wore civilian clothes. Therefore, for the first time, German ships were not allowed into the Bosphorus and returned to the Black Sea.

On this occasion, the British ambassador in Moscow wrote to Molotov on June 25, 1944: “For several last days the situation has changed significantly, since the issue of the passage of German ships through the Straits is officially and publicly settled, to the satisfaction of the Allies. The Minister of Foreign Affairs resigned, and the Prime Minister gave assurances regarding Turkey's desire for sincere cooperation."

I note that Turkey, which patronized the military transportation of Germans and Italians in the Straits, decisively prevented the Western allies from transporting weapons, strategic materials, and even food to the USSR. And they had to do it in a difficult and dangerous way through Murmansk, Iran and the Far East.

A strange situation developed: in 1941-1944. british navy reigned supreme in the central part of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Soviet - in the Black Sea. Why shouldn’t the Allied merchant ships under the escort of British ships and planes reach the Dardanelles, force the strait zone, and ships and planes would meet them at the edge of the Turkish waters near the Bosphorus Black Sea Fleet? Yes, theoretically there could be losses, but much less than those of the northern convoys: remember tragic fate convoy PQ-17 in 1942

The only obstacle to the passage of merchant ships Western allies the pro-German position of the Turkish government served in the Black Sea.

True, there was a case when four Soviet unarmed ships - the Mikoyan icebreaker, the Sakhalin, Tuapse and Varlaam Avanesov tankers - passed from the Black Sea to the Aegean. On November 30, 1941, our ships, accompanied by the leader "Tashkent", the destroyers "Able" and "Savvy" approached the Bosphorus. Here, the warships wished the tankers and the icebreaker a "happy voyage" and turned back. In Constantinople, tankers delivered oil to the Turks. Apparently, this was a payment for passage through the Straits. All four ships managed to safely enter the Aegean Sea. However, the tanker "Varlaam Avanesov" was sunk on December 19, 1941 by the German submarine U-652 near Cape Baba, about 70 km from the Dardanelles.

On June 22, 1941, several foreign ships were caught in the war in the ports of the Black Sea. According to established international practice, the USSR could requisition them and use them for military purposes. So did England in 1914 and 1939, and Russia in 1914 (in the Baltic and the Black Sea). However, the Moscow admirals decided otherwise - too many transports ended up on the Black Sea, and they were also sent to the Mediterranean Sea. The Oilshipner tanker sailed through the Bosporus under the Panamanian flag, but was damaged by an enemy aircraft behind the Dardanelles and had to be interned in Turkey. The small Greek steamer "Aghios Georios" managed to reach Cyprus.

Alas, this episode cannot serve as an example of Turkey's benevolent or even neutral attitude towards the USSR. The fact is that the withdrawal of the largest transport ships from the Black Sea was extremely beneficial ... to the Kriegsmarine.

No, unfortunately I'm not kidding. From March 23, 1942 until the fall of Sevastopol, the Germans sank six of our transports (Chapaev, Svaneti, Gromov, Abkhazia, Georgia, Belostok) with a total displacement of 21,773 tons. And our lampas historians consider this a catastrophe and a reason for stopping the campaigns of transports to Sevastopol. But the withdrawal by Moscow admirals from the Black Sea theater of military operations of six transport ships with a total displacement of 42,574 tons, that is, twice the tonnage, our historians did not even notice. Yes, God's dew...

A few words should also be said about the attacks by Soviet submarines on Turkish ships. Since July 1941, Turkey has been the only neutral Black Sea state. Romania was officially at war with the USSR, Bulgaria did not formally declare war on the Soviet Union, but actually waged fighting against the Black Sea Fleet. On March 1, 1941, Bulgaria joined the Tripartite Pact of the Fascist States, and the next day units of the Wehrmacht entered the country. Finally, on December 13 of the same year, Bulgaria declared war on the United States and Great Britain.

Needless to say, any Turkish ship not sailing due east along the Anatolian coast of Turkey was carrying cargo to countries that were actually at war with Soviet Russia. I note that at the end of 1941, both British and American submarines mercilessly sank all ships (regardless of the flag) heading for the ports of Germany, Japan and their allies.

Soviet submarines in 1941–1944 had patrol areas exclusively to the west and north of the Bosphorus and almost never searched for ships off the Anatolian coast. Often submarines received categorical orders from their superiors to avoid attacks by Turkish ships. Nevertheless, there were several episodes of the sinking of Turkish schooners and steamers. So, in 1941, the submarine sank the Kainakdere schooner and the Yenidzhe transport. Another schooner was sunk on the morning of January 1, 1942.

On June 20, 1942, the Shch-205 submarine, pursuing the Turkish transport Duatepe, entered Turkish territorial waters near the city of Igneada, 12 km from the Bulgarian border, and sank the Duatepe and the schooner Kainardzhi with artillery fire. Three days later, the Shch-205 submarine sank the camouflaged Shafak transport with a torpedo. I note that all three Turkish ships sunk by Shch-205 were chartered by the Germans and transported German cargo, including chromium ore.

In the same year, 1942, the Shch-213 submarine sank the small Turkish steamship Chankaya. Later, Black Sea submarines sank the Turkish ships Kociboglu, Hyudai-Bahri, Gurpinar and Dervish.

A rather strange episode occurred on August 5, 1944, when the Shch-215 submarine sank the Turkish schooner Mefkure (with a capacity of 53 brt) with artillery fire. The schooner was carrying two crew members and 301 Jewish refugees. The boat fired ninety 45mm shells, one hundred 12.7mm DShK rounds and 650 7.62mm rounds. One can understand the use of artillery shells to sink a schooner, but why shoot refugees with machine guns? Alas, this is another mystery of the Great Patriotic War.

As you can see, all Turkish ships sunk by our submarines had a small displacement. As for the large ships, the boat commanders usually recognized them as Turkish and refused to attack. Several times our submarines found Turkish merchant ships guarding Turkish warships. There was at least one (unsuccessful) case of a pike attack on a Turkish convoy.

How much military and other cargo was transported in 1941-1944. Turkish ships for the Germans and their allies are still a secret with seven seals. Although the author is sure that these materials are in the archives of the Russian Federation, they are kept under the heading “secret” or “top secret”.

Irina Lagunina: And at the end of this hour - again about the history of the Second World War. Turkey formally tried to remain neutral. But even on the territory of this state, a battle was unfolding, however, invisible to the eyes of outsiders. Tells our correspondent in Istanbul Elena Solntseva.

Elena Solntseva: Somewhere far away there was a war, but in serene Istanbul everything was as usual - from the "bells" installed on the poles, the song of the rising pop star Musien Senar sounded. On the Bosphorus pier, the fishermen laid out their morning catch: small sweet horse mackerels. The boys dived from the pier in search of mussels, the dukkans opened their shops and, leaving them in the care of underage assistants, went from early morning to a nearby tea house to spend the whole day in political discussions. Military reports were published daily on the pages of newspapers. Everyone was worried about whether Turkey would enter the Second World War, and if this happens, on whose side. Allied relations with Soviet Russia were out of the question - they were more afraid of communism than Nazism. In the face of danger from the East, just three days before the start of the war, the Turks signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler. The entry of the country into the war on the side of Germany seemed inevitable. The then President of Turkey, Ismet İnönü, argued that Turkey would remain neutral - participation in the war for Turkey could be deadly. After all, the country has not yet recovered from the First World War. Former politician, representative of the Republican People's Party in the country's parliament, Yusuf Ozturk.

Yusuf Ozturk: Not so long ago, a scandal erupted due to the fact that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared the country's second president, Ismet Inenu, with Adolf Hitler. He called him an incompetent politician, but this is far from being the case. Ismet Pasha was a real artist. "Inenu's mustache is always full of a second meaning," they said then among the people. He maneuvered as best he could to prevent Turkey from being drawn into the cycle of hostilities. He, like a real artist and diplomat, skillfully negotiated with opponents. He assured the Germans of his eternal friendship and at the same time met with representatives of the allied powers, whom he promised to think about their proposals to join the coalition. He firmly knew that Turkey could perish and be dismembered by the allies.

Elena Solntseva: The Turks acted on the principle of "both ours and yours." On the one hand, they secretly helped Jews who were transported from the occupied territories to Turkey, and then - legally or illegally - to Palestine. Turkish diplomat Necdet Kent during the Second World War stopped a train with Jews who were sent to the death camp from Marseilles, where Kent was consul. He stated that 80 people on the train were Turkish citizens. This was not the only time he intervened in the situation. In total, about 100 thousand Jews from Europe passed through Turkey to Palestine, fleeing the Holocaust. Three-quarters of them were rescued by Turkish diplomats.
On the other hand, the Turks in every possible way gratified the Germans, who were met as the dearest guests and rode on yachts along the Bosphorus. “I especially remember a walk on a large yacht along the Sea of ​​​​Marmara,” writes German intelligence chief Walter Schellenberg in his memoirs. “When we slowly returned to Istanbul, the sky shone with stars full moon. A great banquet was held at night in a beautiful hotel on the seashore; How surprised I was when the Turkish orchestra suddenly started playing German student songs. Many of the Turks present at the banquet had studied at German universities and brought Rhine songs with them. It was strange to hear a song about Roland's bow on a beautiful eastern night near the Golden Horn Bay." Yusuf Ozturk, former representative of the People's Republican Party in Parliament.

Yusuf Ozturk: Social events in those years were held in the Dolma Bakhce Palace, where there was a garden and everything was buried in greenery and flowers. The international "light" gathered there. Enemies met at receptions: representatives of German, British, American intelligence. They smiled at each other, bowed, but did not shake hands.

Elena Solntseva: The city was filled with foreign spies. In the back streets, narrow cobbled streets of Istanbul, a fierce war of foreign intelligence services, invisible at first glance, was unfolding. English agents were hiding under the black veil of a Muslim woman hurrying to the market, disguised Soviet spies under the code names "Delen", "Dogu", "Balyk", "Dammar", "Dervish" moved around the country in costumes of dervishes. True, there were punctures. Ismail Akhmedov, an experienced liquidator of the NKVD, unexpectedly turned to the Turkish government with a request - to obtain political asylum. "The Tatar decided to go to his own," this is how the Turkish press regarded this step. After the war, he was allowed to leave for the United States, where he decided to stay forever and wrote his memoirs "Escape of a Tatar from the intelligence of the Red Army."
The Germans usually acted under the brand of commercial representatives of firms. Here is what Walter Schelenberg, the head of German intelligence, wrote in his memoirs:

"It was a carpet shop located in the bazaar of Istanbul and outwardly looked like a small, modest shop. But in the back room, which served as a warehouse for goods, when two large piles of carpets were suddenly pushed aside, I saw in front of me a well-equipped room with equipment for transmitting and receiving radio signals. After talking about official business, drinking a lot of thick black coffee, my interlocutors began to receive messages from the radio station. Watching these people at work, I first noticed how eagerly they were engaged in espionage. Outwardly, this organization looked like a trading company that dealt in carpets, old silver and gold.Behind this facade, over time, a wide intelligence network was developed, covering the Middle East, the leaders of which twice or thrice a month contacted the station in Berlin-Lichterfeld by radio.

Elena Solntseva: In 1941, a citizen of the USSR Leonid Naumov arrived in Turkey as an employee of the Soviet trade mission, along with his wife. It was the NKVD agent Naum Isaakovich Eitingon, punishing the sword of Stalin, one of the organizers of the assassination of Trotsky. His fictitious wife was Muza Malinovskaya, a record holder, parachuting instructor, who was compared much later in Turkish sources with the first Turkish pilot, parachutist, Sabiha Gokcen. Muse made dozens of parachute jumps, was popular in the USSR, her photo was published in Soviet newspapers. Malinovskaya successfully played her role: she took French lessons, attended social events in Beyoglu. Her husband collected information about the military intentions of the Turkish government, the actions of Turkish troops near the borders Soviet Union and about the activity of the Abwehr and the SD in the country, about the connections and contacts of the intelligence agencies of the United States and Great Britain with representatives of the Ankara special services and agents of Berlin. Soviet intelligence agents spread misinformation that Soviet command flipped over from Far East to the Caucasus about fifty divisions, which are just waiting for the order to enter Istanbul and nail their shield to the gates of the city. The main task was to convince the Turks that the war on the side of Germany would have ended in tragedy for them. In 1942, intelligence officers organized an assassination attempt on the German ambassador to Turkey, von Papen. Ahmet Korkak, a history teacher at one of the Istanbul schools.

Ahmet Korkak: Franz von Papen, German ambassador to Turkey, representative of an old aristocratic family, one of the most famous spies of the Third Reich. In the past, the German chancellor, he treated Hitler well, helped him come to power. Von Papen actively persuaded the Turks to enter the war on the side of Hitler. According to some reports, von Papen could lead the German government if Hitler was removed from power by Wehrmacht generals. He was extremely dangerous for the Russians.

Elena Solntseva: Here is what the central newspaper Milliet reported about the assassination attempt on the German ambassador: “February 24, 1942. In the early morning, a bomb exploded on Ataturk Boulevard in Ankara, which tore apart a man holding some kind of bundle. It is believed that this object was a bomb " which worked. The German ambassador and his wife were more than ten meters away from the place where the explosion occurred. From the impact of the blast wave, they fell to the ground, then rose unharmed and reached the embassy building. An investigation into the circumstances of the explosion has been launched." Ahmet Korkak continues.

Ahmet Korkak: Turkish police carried out mass arrests. It turned out that the assassin of the ambassador was a Bulgarian named Omer, who was supposed to shoot the ambassador with a pistol and then detonate the device, which, he was told, was not a bomb, but a smoke bomb, which would help him escape. He was nervous, decided to play it safe and at the same time pulled the trigger of the pistol and the fuse of the bomb. Behind him were the Soviet secret services. Two Soviet diplomats were arrested and accused of organizing the failed assassination attempt.

Elena Solntseva: The Turks gave the Soviet embassy an ultimatum to extradite two employees. Soviet officials initially rejected this demand, but then were forced to agree. At trial, the scouts denied their guilt. The court found them guilty of the crime. The prosecutor demanded death penalty by hanging, but sentenced to 20 years in prison.
An intelligence agent could be a driver, a laundress, a music teacher, a reporter, even an ordinary servant. A large amount - more than 300,000 pounds sterling - was paid in those years in Istanbul to the valet of the British ambassador, whom she recruited German intelligence. It was Elyas Bazny, one of the employees of the British embassy, ​​who delivered photocopies of secret documents to the Germans. For each batch of pictures he received about 15,000 pounds. English Ambassador in Turkey, Sir Netubull Hughessen was afraid of losing the keys to the safe with secret documents, so he left the safe open. The valet received the code name "Cicero", perhaps because he did not even have a secondary education. Elyas pretended to be a stupid servant, every evening, under the pretext of putting things in order in Sir Hughessen's office, he opened the safe and took out a camera from a bucket, covered with a floor cloth. At the end of December 1943, the agent handed over the minutes of the Tehran Conference with the decision of the Allies to open a second front in Europe in May-June 1944. However, the Germans did not take advantage of Cicero's reports, they were afraid of disinformation, they did not believe that an ordinary servant could get such information. And the British diplomats did not learn anything about the disclosure of secret secrets. After the end of the war, Elyas Bazna freely resigned from the staff of the embassy. He was rewarded for his long and impeccable service. Journalist of the political Internet site Aishe Keman

Aishe Keman: It's funny, but all the hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling received in Istanbul turned out to be counterfeit. The spy was deceived himself. After the war, he sent a request to the government of the Federal Republic of Germany to reimburse the due amount with new marks. He was advised to file a lawsuit against the government of Adolf Hitler. He sued the new government for a long time. For some time he was the owner of the hotel, then, according to rumors, he lost everything and worked as a museum curator in a quiet American town.

Elena Solntseva: During the war, secret Muslim sects became more active, which declared their goal to restore the Islamic caliphate in Turkey. Their representatives made contact with German intelligence, offering informational material. In return for him, the Turks asked for material support for a coup d'état. On behalf of Schellenberg. an Arab information service operated in Istanbul, which cost the Abwehr $5,000 a month. The Germans spread rumors that Hitler had secretly converted to Islam and began to call himself "Haydar". The Fuhrer, they say, preferred Islam, because the whole world was caught in the net of Judaism. German intelligence carried out a brilliant operation to remove the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Al Husseini, an ardent enemy of England, who managed to escape to Turkey after an unsuccessful coup in Iraq. The operation was carefully concealed from the Turkish police. The Grand Mufti, with his head tied with bandages, was carried in front of the eyes of Turkish border guards and numerous foreign intelligence agents into a plane standing at the ready, like a seriously wounded employee of the German embassy, ​​and sent to Berlin. An employee of the Istanbul mosque Abdurahman Altinkek.

Abdurakhman Altinkek: In the religious environment, Hitler was called the new prophet Muhammad, who came to destroy all religions that were objectionable to Allah. Hitler responded by calling for special trust in Muslims. Cooperation with the politicians of the Arab world allowed the German leadership to get deeply acquainted with the alignment of forces in the Middle East. The Germans obtained valuable information about the movement of ships along the Suez Canal. However, they never managed to realize their dream: to achieve a passage for German submarines through the Bosphorus. On August 2, 1944, Turkey officially severed diplomatic relations with Germany

Elena Solntseva: Not so long ago, sunken German submarines from the Second World War were discovered off the coast of Turkey. According to the Turkish media, these six submarines were sunk in 1944 on the orders of the Nazi command. Turkish researchers managed to find submarine hulls at a distance of 3-5 km from the coast north of Istanbul, they are perfectly preserved boats. In connection with the ban on the passage of German ships through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, these boats entered the Black Sea by land. They were first delivered to Romania in parts, from where, already assembled along the Danube River, they entered the Black Sea. After Romania left the Nazi coalition, the submarines were blocked at sea. The captains were ordered to sink the ships, and the crews were ordered to return to Germany by land. All this story was described by the journalist Aishe Keman.

Aishe Keman: The Germans could not move their submarines from the Mediterranean through the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Turkey remained neutral during World War II. Germany was forced to transfer them across Europe. The operation was very labor intensive. The boats were transported on giant platforms. To reduce weight, they removed engines, torpedoes, and other large-sized equipment during shipment, and then put them back.

Elena Solntseva: But for most modern Turks, World War II is still a BLANK spot in history. Only a few pages are devoted to military operations in university textbooks, and even fewer in school books. Many Turks can hardly answer the question of who fought with whom and when, and even more difficult to say how many people died.

In the mid 30s. Kemalist transformations began to bear fruit: the political and economic position of the state was strengthened, Turkey's authority in neighboring countries increased. This situation allowed Turkish diplomacy to undertake a number of foreign policy actions that were supposed to increase the prestige of the Ankara government on the world stage. The most successful of them should be considered the holding of an international conference in the Swiss city of Montreux, dedicated to the revision of the regime of the Black Sea straits. The convention developed by its participants took into account the main proposals of the Turkish government on security measures in the straits and gave Ankara the right to remilitarize them.

In the last years of Atatürk's life and after his death (1938), the strength of the one-party regime began to weaken. However, his successors, given the aggravation of the international situation on the eve of World War II, preferred to keep this system. The need to ensure the country's defense capability made it possible to apply the principles of etatism in the widest possible way and use the most severe forms of authoritarian rule to suppress any manifestations of discontent. With the outbreak of hostilities, Turkey declared its neutrality. Throughout the years of the war, Ankara, in an effort to maintain the inviolability of its borders, flirted either with the "Axis powers", or with the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. Only after being convinced of the inevitability of the imminent defeat of Nazi Germany, the Turkish government at the end of February 1945 decided to declare war on Germany and Japan. This purely symbolic act allowed Turkey to be among the founding countries of the UN. However, its prestige in the international arena has noticeably declined, and its relations with the Soviet Union have especially deteriorated. ruling circles countries had to radically change their foreign and domestic policies.

27. Iran during World War II

Obvious pro-fascist sentiments in Iran under the conditions of Germany's attack on the USSR caused great concern among the countries of the Anti-Hitler coalition. At the suggestion of W. Churchill, Britain and the Soviet Union carried out a joint military occupation of Iran. In 1941, British troops were introduced into southern Iran, and Soviet troops into the northern part, after repeated warnings and on the basis of an article of the Soviet-Iranian treaty of 1921, the Foruga government promised to remove German diplomatic representatives and agents from Iran. However, Reza Shah did not take measures to implement the obligations assumed. This policy caused discontent and protest demonstrations in Iran. Reza Shah was forced to renounce the throne in favor of his son Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Fascist agents in Iran were eliminated.

On January 29, 1942, an alliance agreement was signed in Tehran between the USSR, Great Britain and Iran, which provided for respect by the allies of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Iran in defense of it from aggression from Germany and other powers, for which the USSR and England received the right maintain their armed forces in Iran until six months after the end of the war. On the basis of this agreement, military equipment and materials were transported through Iran to the USSR.

In 1943, Iran formally declared war on Germany, but Iranian troops did not participate in hostilities. All these events had a great impact on the socio-political life of Iran. The Shah's military dictatorship was abolished. The democratic movement intensified, former political prisoners were released from prisons, a tendency was outlined in society to limit the power of the monarch and increase the role of the Majlis. In 1941, the People's Party of Iran was founded, which soon became the largest political party in the country. She advocated strengthening the national sovereignty of Iran, improving the living conditions of workers, and fighting internal reaction.

At the same time, old politicians are returning to the political arena. Ahmed Qavam (Qavam al-Saltane) tried to create a "Democratic Party", whose main task was to unite all the bourgeois elements of Iranian society. While serving as prime minister in 1942-1943, he contributed to Milspo's second mission. During this period, the Americans, taking advantage of the expulsion of the Germans and the weakening of the position of England, strengthened their positions in Iran. At the end of 1942, under the pretext of the need to ensure the transit of military cargo, the United States sent its troops to Iran. Ghavam invited American economic advisers, as well as advisers for the Iranian army, gendarmerie, police, health ministry, who proposed a number of measures to stabilize prices and increase production. The Iranian Majlis granted Milspo emergency powers, including control over foreign and domestic trade, storage and distribution of industrial and food products, transport, wages, etc. However, Milspo's mission only aggravated the already difficult situation of Iran's finances and economy. His activity caused general indignation and protests. Milspaugh's mission failed.

England, which had old connections with the ruling circles in Iran, tried not to concede the right of primacy to the United States and also contributed to the consolidation of pro-British groups. In 1943, the British occupation authorities helped the return of Seyid Zia ad-Din from Palestine, who created his own faction in the Majlis.

At the same time, liberal-nationalist parties appear, which include, first of all, the "Iran" party, and Islamic organizations are created, including the clerical-nationalist terrorist organization Fedayane Islam (Proponents of Islam), which aimed to combat the opponents of Islam and foreign influence. . A little later, the Fighters for Islam party arose, whose task was to strengthen the influence of Islam in the socio-political life of the country.

Thus, by the end of World War II, all the political currents that determined the life of the country in the subsequent period were present in Iran.

Nail SHAYAKHMETOV, Boris MALORODOV

Back in 1987, the European Parliament adopted a document stating that “what happened to the Armenians on the territory Ottoman Empire in 1915-1917 the episodes are genocide.” Until now, the Turkish authorities stubbornly do not recognize this fact.

Recently, France adopted a law actually condemning the Turkish genocide against the Armenian people at the beginning of the last century, which will have Negative consequences in the global political arena for Ankara. Committee on foreign affairs The US Congress for the first time back in October 2007 also condemned the mentioned events and called them genocide. Similar solutions in Lately accepted by other states.

A reasonable solution to this centuries-old conflict with the help of international organizations, primarily the UN and the OSCE, is urgent in the 21st century, and France has become a pioneer in this matter, which is very, very commendable. This unpleasant question still creates significant problems in relations between Armenia and Turkey. However, the solution of the "Armenian issue" by Ankara is vital, and the sooner this happens, the better for all interested parties.

The current President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is an active supporter of the settlement of this contentious issue. The great French singer Charles Aznavour, who is of Armenian origin, has also made great efforts to make progress in improving the Armenian-Turkish relations. In this regard, one involuntarily recalls the attitude of the Turkish government towards the USSR during the Second World War. The behavior of our southern neighbor in those years can be described, to put it mildly, as "strange neutrality."

After the formation of the first bourgeois republic in the Near and Middle East, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a prominent statesman and military leader, who advocated national independence and the development of friendly and good neighborly relations with the USSR, became its president. On March 16, 1921, an agreement was signed between the Soviet Union and Turkey " On Friendship and Brotherhood”, December 17, 1925 - an agreement on friendship and neutrality, in 1929 - an additional protocol to the 1925 agreement.

However, after the death of Ataturk in 1938, the political course of the Turkish authorities changed dramatically from pro-Soviet to pro-Hitler. On June 18, 1941, Turkey signed a treaty of friendship, mutual assistance and non-aggression with Germany. According to the above agreements, Turkey in the event of an armed conflict was obliged to remain neutral both to the USSR and to Germany. In reality, it turned out quite differently.

After the German attack on the USSR in Turkey, with the connivance of official authorities a campaign was widely launched to propagate the ideas of pan-Turkism and the creation of " Great Turan". Under the auspices of Turkey, a new empire was to be created, which would include the Turkic peoples of the USSR living in the Caucasus, Crimea, Central Asia, the Volga region, including Bashkiria and Tataria; even some regions of Siberia. Published in various print media geographic Maps new public education - « Greater Turkey". The government allowed the activities of various pan-Turkic organizations such as " Bozkurt», « Chinaraltyu", openly calling for war with the USSR. Turkish newspapers wrote that "the border of present-day Turkey runs far beyond the mountains of the Caucasus and beyond the Caspian Sea," and "the Volga is a river in which our ancestors watered their horses for centuries." Such fabrications were printed from issue to issue, to which neither censorship nor the government paid attention, but, on the contrary, encouraged them in every possible way.

For their part, the leaders of the Third Reich made a lot of efforts to involve Turkey in World War II and send Turkish troops to the Eastern Front. By invitation Supreme High Command Wehrmacht, in agreement with the Fuhrer of the German people, in the autumn of 1941 on Eastern Front An authoritative military delegation from Ankara headed by the head of the military academy, General Ali Faud Erden, visited the city. Upon returning to the country, the Turkish press enthusiastically began to propagate the Wehrmacht's temporary successes, believing that the days of the Soviet Union were numbered, while simultaneously calling for an early attack on the USSR.

In the second half of 1942, a general military mobilization was carried out in the country, and its armed forces reached a strength of one million people. As a result of the inaction of the relevant official structures, more than 40 titles of fascist newspapers and magazines were sold in Istanbul newsstands alone in 1942. Almost all Turkish newspapers (113 items) and magazines (227 items) supported the German aggression against the USSR and conducted purposeful anti-Soviet propaganda. They often called for declaring war on the Soviet Union. The statements of the Turkish leaders did not remain empty words. They were filled with business content. They directly stated: "We are friends with Germany," and the Turkish economy worked in every possible way for the Nazi war machine to defeat the Red Army.

Grossly violating the norms of international law and the above-mentioned existing Soviet-Turkish treaties, the Turkish authorities from the first days of the war began to support the Third Reich. In the autumn of 1942, Ankara officially agreed to supply an extremely scarce strategic material - chromium - for the Nazi war industry. It was used to obtain alloy steels, so necessary for the construction of tanks, aircraft, submarines, engines, as well as chrome plating of steel parts. military equipment in necessary cases.

The anti-Soviet policy of Turkey went so far that the Turkish General Staff prepared a crazy plan to attack the USSR through the Iranian plateau in the direction of Baku, the vital region of our country, where most of the Soviet oil was produced, which forced the anti-Hitler coalition to send Anglo-Soviet troops to Iran. By the summer of 1942, there was a twofold increase in Turkish troops on the border with the USSR - up to 26 divisions. Even the approximate date of the attack on the Soviet Union was set - November 1942, after the fall of Stalingrad.

Didn't wait! At one time, Turkish Prime Minister Saracoglu sincerely and with conviction repeatedly told the German Ambassador to Turkey von Papen that he “…as a Turk passionately desires the destruction of Russia. The destruction of Russia is a feat of the Fuhrer, the equal of which can be accomplished once in a century. It is also the eternal dream of the Turkish people.” Further, with the cunning of a Jesuit, he lectured the ambassador: "The Russian problem can be solved only if at least half of all Russians living in Russia are killed." At the end of August 1942, the German ambassador von Papen talked with the country's foreign minister, N. Menemenjoglu, who also spoke in a similar bloodthirsty spirit: "Turkey, as before, is now most decisively interested in the most complete defeat of Russia."

A diplomat from the Italian embassy in Ankara reported to Rome in 1942: “ According to Turkish leaders, Russia is their No. 1 enemy and Germany is their No. 2 fear.»; « The Turkish ideal would be if the last German soldier fell dead on the last Russian corpse". The cynicism and impudence of what has been said are boundless, given the fact that the Red Army fought to destroy fascism, which really threatened Turkey with aggression too.

Turkish intelligence actively worked against the USSR, supplying the Third Reich with available information. Former British Navy intelligence officer D. MacLachlan said: “ One of the best sources of intelligence information about Russia at the time was Turkey.". Due to the unfriendly position of the Turkish authorities, dozens of Soviet divisions were in Iran and on the border with Turkey, and at that time there was an acute shortage of personnel on the Soviet-German front.

On the other hand, the Germans, with the help of Italian troops, themselves planned to capture Turkey - to enslave the entire economy of the country, use human potential and further advance to India. To fulfill these goals, they developed a special operation "Gertrude". But due to the stubborn resistance of the Red Army, its beginning was constantly postponed, and Hitler made the final decision to attack Turkey only after the defeat of the USSR. Thus, the heroic actions of the Soviet troops on the Eastern Front actually saved Turkey from occupation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

In 1943, the Third Reich gave Turkey a loan of 100 million Reichsmarks for the purchase of military materials supplied from Germany. In the same year, a trade agreement was concluded between them for 62 million Turkish liras. Turkey continued to supply the Nazis a large number of acutely scarce chromium, copper, cotton, wool, tobacco and other strategic military raw materials.

After destruction Soviet troops The 8th Italian, 3rd and 4th Romanian, 2nd Hungarian armies, as well as the 4th tank and 6th field armies of the Wehrmacht near Stalingrad in Italy, Romania and Hungary began to expand social movement for the withdrawal of countries from the war. Turkish officials, at the behest of the Nazi diplomats, began to actively exert political pressure on these countries in order to continue and even intensify the armed struggle against the Soviet Union. Often, Turkish generals and journalists traveled to the Third Reich as guests of the Fuhrer, after which Turkish newspapers and magazines were full of materials praising Nazism and even the “new order” implanted by the Nazis in occupied Europe. Such propaganda in the official Turkish media was inspired by the leaders of the country.

In the summer of 1943, at the invitation of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht, the Turkish military mission again visited the USSR, at the sites of the upcoming battles on the Kursk Bulge. However, as you know, the Nazi troops suffered a major defeat there from the valiant Red Army. Victory vaunted Panzerwaffe in the course Battle of Kursk not won, but was brutally defeated. This was the last trip of the Turkish military to the Eastern Front. On the other hand, destruction German troops in the winter of 1941-42 near Moscow, the encirclement and liquidation of German, Romanian, Italian and Hungarian troops near Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-43, the defeat of the Wehrmacht near Kursk in the summer of 1943, the defeat by the British of the German-Italian troops in North Africa near El Alamein at the end 1942, the landing of the Anglo-American troops in July 1943 on the island of Sicily and the subsequent capitulation, the exit from the war of fascist Italy in September 1943 had a sobering effect on the military-political circles of Turkey, the aggressive frenzy gradually began to give way to uncertainty about its post-war future. Pro-Hitler and pro-fascist sentiments among Turkish politicians and statesmen began to gradually reorient themselves to the United States and England.

Considering the Soviet-Turkish relations during the war years, it is necessary to note the efforts of Great Britain to involve Turkey in hostilities on the side anti-Hitler coalition- The USSR, England, the USA, although by and large she did not succeed in doing this. The pressure on the Turkish authorities from Winston Churchill, the British Foreign Office, British marshals and generals was constant and significant. The British Prime Minister made great personal efforts to improve Soviet-Turkish relations, but the Turks were in no hurry to take an anti-Hitler position. Turkey was simply playing its own game. She flirted with the British, made friends with the Germans. But she pursued an internal and external anti-Soviet policy all the time while the Red Army was retreating.

The cornerstone of the Turkish anti-Soviet policy was the generally accepted pre-war horror story - the indispensable attack of the USSR on Turkey, which was far from true, but was a convenient propaganda screen for certain Turkish political circles. Sir Winston Churchill in his letter to Franklin Roosevelt at the beginning of 1942 noted: “Turkey must be offered Russian-American-English guarantees of its territorial integrity and status quo. The Russians have already expressed their consent to us on this issue... after which a representative Anglo-American mission will need to be sent to Turkey.”

Various diplomatic, military and mixed Anglo-American delegations repeatedly visited Ankara, but its position regarding the USSR and the Third Reich remained unchanged until August 1944. Only as a result of the defeats of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, the major successes of the Anglo-American troops in Western Europe Turkey was forced on August 2, 1944 to break off diplomatic relations with the Third Reich, and in February 1945 to declare war on Germany, while not taking part in hostilities against its former ally. The adoption of such decisions was also prompted by the fact that British diplomats made it clear to the Turkish authorities about the possibility of their country being occupied by the anti-Hitler coalition troops during the war or immediately after it ended.

Subsequently, Ankara became an active participant cold war and continued almost the same course. In 1952, she became a member of NATO, in 1955 - CENTO, and in 1959 she entered into an agreement with the United States on military cooperation, which gave the Americans the right to have 26 military bases with nuclear missiles on Turkish territory, the targets of which were large industrial cities of the USSR. Membership in military-political blocs and the presence of foreign troops in Turkey had a pronounced anti-socialist and anti-Soviet orientation.

However, in the last two decades, in connection with the withdrawal of American nuclear bases from Turkey, Russian-Turkish relations have noticeably warmed up, and mutual interest in strengthening economic relations in various fields has begun to be seen. Russian tourists have become frequent guests of the sunny beaches of Antalya and Alanya. Turkish businessmen willingly invest their capital in Russian industry and construction, which is economically beneficial for both countries.

After 17 years of separation, Natalya first came to the grave of a childhood friend and brought their symbol of friendship.
04/23/2019 All Ufa Photo: people-archive.ru UFA, April 23, 2019. /Bashinform News Agency, Leyla Aralbaeva/.
23.04.2019 Bashinform On April 25, at 11.00, the news agency "Bashinform" will host a press conference of the Minister of Forestry of Bashkortostan Marat Sharafutdinov.
22.04.2019 Ministry of Forestry

Ministry economic development Republic of Bashkortostan, as part of the regulatory impact assessment, public discussions of the draft law “On Amendments to Article 6.
22.04.2019 Ministry of Economic Development

Officially, in World War II, Turkey fought against Nazi Germany. But in reality it was a little different.

If anyone showed an example of skillful maneuvering and subtle diplomacy in World War II, it was Turkey. As you know, in 1941, Turkey declared its neutrality and strictly observed it throughout the war, although it experienced tremendous pressure from both the Axis countries and the anti-Hitler coalition. In any case, Turkish historians say so. However this is just the official version, which is strongly at odds with reality.

MG 08 machine guns on the Ai-Sofia minaret in Istanbul, September 1941. Photo from en.wikipedia.org

But the reality was quite different.- during 1941-1944. Turkey actually took the side of Hitler, although the Turkish soldiers did not fire a single shot towards the Soviet soldiers. Rather, they did, and not one, but all this was classified as “border incidents”, which looked like mere small things against the background of the bloody battles of the Soviet-German front. In any case, both sides - the Soviet and Turkish - did not react to the border incidents in any way and they did not cause far-reaching consequences.

Although for the period 1942-1944. skirmishes on the border were not so uncommon and often ended in the death of Soviet border guards. But Stalin preferred not to aggravate relations, since he was well aware that if Turkey entered the war on the side of the Axis countries, then the position of the USSR could instantly turn from unenviable into hopeless. This was especially true in 1941-1942.

Turkey did not force events either, remembering well How did she end up in World War I? on the side of Germany. The Turks were in no hurry to rush headlong into the next world massacre, preferring to watch the fight from afar and, of course, extract the maximum benefit for themselves.

Relations between the USSR and Turkey before the war, they were quite even and stable, in 1935 the treaty of friendship and cooperation was extended for another ten-year period, and Turkey signed a non-aggression pact with Germany on June 18, 1941. Two months later, after the start of World War II, the USSR announced that it would continue to comply with the provisions of the Montreux Convention, which regulates the rules of navigation in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. It also has no aggressive plans towards Turkey and welcomes its neutrality.

All this allowed Turkey, on completely legal grounds, to refuse to participate in the world war. But this was not possible for two reasons. Firstly, Turkey owned the Strait Zone, which was strategically important for the warring parties, and secondly, the Turkish government was going to remain neutral only up to a certain point. What it, in fact, did not hide, at the end of 1941, having approved draft law older conscripts, which is usually done on the eve of a big war.

In the fall of 1941, Turkey transferred 24 divisions to the border with the USSR, which forced Stalin to reinforce the Transcaucasian Military District with 25 divisions. Which were clearly not superfluous on the Soviet-German front, given the state of affairs at that time.

With the beginning of 1942, the intentions of Turkey were no longer in doubt among the Soviet leadership, and in April of the same year a tank corps, six air regiments, two divisions were transferred to Transcaucasia, and on May 1 the Transcaucasian Front was officially approved.

In fact, the war against Turkey was to begin any day, since on May 5, 1942, the troops received a directive on their readiness to launch a preemptive offensive on Turkish territory. However, things did not come to hostilities, although the withdrawal of significant forces of the Red Army by Turkey significantly helped the Wehrmacht. After all, if the 45th and 46th armies were not in Transcaucasia, but participated in battles with the 6th army of Paulus, then it remains to be seen what “successes” the Germans would have achieved in the summer campaign of 1942.

But Turkey's cooperation with Hitler did much more damage to the USSR. in the economic sphere, especially the actual opening of the Strait Zone to Axis ships. Formally, the Germans and Italians kept up appearances: naval sailors changed into civilian clothes when passing through the straits, the weapons were removed from the ships or disguised, and there seemed to be nothing to complain about. Formally, the Montreux Convention was respected, but at the same time, not only German and Italian merchant ships, but also combat ships sailed freely through the straits.

And soon it came to the point that the Turkish navy began to escort transports with cargo for the Axis countries in the Black Sea. In practice, partnership with Germany allowed Turkey to make good money on the supply of Hitler not only products, tobacco, cotton, iron, copper, etc., but also strategic raw materials. For example, chrome. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles became the most important communication line for the Axis countries fighting against the USSR, who felt themselves in the Strait Zone, if not at home, then certainly as visiting close friends.

And here rare ships of the Soviet fleet went through the Straits in fact, as if to be shot. Which, however, was not far from the truth. In November 1941, it was decided to transfer four Soviet ships - an icebreaker and three tankers - from the Black Sea to Pacific Ocean due to their uselessness and so that they do not become victims of German dive bombers. All four ships were civilian ships and were unarmed.

The Turks let them through without hindrance, but as soon as the ships left the Dardanelles, the Varlaam Avanesov tanker received a torpedo from the German submarine U652 on board, which is a coincidence! - turned out to be exactly on the route of the Soviet ships.

Either the German intelligence worked quickly, or the "neutral" Turks shared information with their partners, but the fact remains - "Varlaam Avanesov" to this day lies at the bottom of the Aegean Sea, 14 kilometers from the island of Lesvos. Icebreaker "Anastas Mikoyan" was more fortunate, and he was able to get away from the pursuit of Italian boats near the island of Rhodes. The icebreaker was saved only by the fact that the boats were armed with small-caliber anti-aircraft guns, with which it was quite problematic to sink the icebreaker.

If German and Italian ships roamed through the Straits, as if through their passage yard, carrying any cargo, then the ships of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition could not smuggle into the Black Sea, not only weapons or raw materials, but even products. Then the Turks immediately turned into evil Cerberus and, referring to their neutrality, forbade the Allied ships to go to the Black Sea ports of the USSR. So it was necessary to carry goods to the USSR not through the Straits, but through distant Iran.

The pendulum has swung in reverse side spring 1944 when it became clear that Germany was losing the war. At first, the Turks reluctantly, but still yielded to British pressure and stopped supplying the German industry with chromium, and then began to more carefully control the passage of German ships through the Straits.

And then the incredible happened: in June 1944, the Turks suddenly “discovered” that not unarmed German ships, but military ones, were trying to pass through the Bosphorus. The search revealed weapons and ammunition hidden in the holds. And a miracle happened - the Turks of the Germans corny "wrapped" back to Varna. It is not known what phrases Hitler used to address Turkish President Ismet İnönü, but for sure they were all clearly not parliamentary.

After the Belgrade offensive, when it became clear that the German presence in the Balkans was over, Turkey behaved like a typical scavenger who sensed that yesterday's friend and partner would soon expire. President Inönü severed all relations with Germany, and on February 23, 1945, the warlike spirit of Sultans Mehmet II and Suleiman the Magnificent clearly descended on him - Inönü suddenly took and declared war on Germany. And along the way - why be trifles, to fight like that to fight! - War was declared on Japan.

Of course, not a single Turkish soldier took part in it until the end of the war, and the declaration of war on Germany and Japan was an empty formality that allowed Hitler's partner, Turkey, to perform a cheating trick and cling to the victorious countries. Avoiding serious problems along the way.

There can be no doubt that after Stalin had dealt with Germany, he would have a good reason to ask the Turks a number of serious questions, which could end, for example, in Istanbul offensive operation and Soviet landing on both banks of the Dardanelles.

Against the backdrop of the victorious, having colossal combat experience of the Red Army, the Turkish army did not even look like a whipping boy, but like a harmless boxing bag. Therefore, it would be finished in a matter of days. But after February 23, Stalin could no longer take and declare war on his "ally" in the anti-Hitler coalition. Although if he had done this a couple of months earlier, neither England nor the United States would have strongly protested, especially since Churchill, at the Tehran Conference, did not object to the transfer of the Strait Zone to the USSR.

One can only guess how many ships - both commercial and military - of the Axis countries passed through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles in 1944-1944, how much raw materials Turkey supplied to Germany and how much it extended the existence of the Third Reich. Also never know what price did the Red Army pay for the Turkish-German partnership, but the fact that soviet soldiers paid for it with their lives, there is no doubt.

For almost the entire war, Turkey was a non-belligerent ally of Hitler, regularly fulfilling all his wishes and supplying him with everything possible. And if, for example, Sweden can also be reproached for supplying iron ore to Germany, then Turkey can be reproached not only for trade cooperation with the Nazis, but for providing them with the Strait Zone - the most important world communication. Which in wartime has always acquired and will continue to acquire strategic importance.

World War II and Turkish "neutrality" once again proved what was well known since Byzantine times: without the possession of the Strait Zone, not a single country of the Black Sea-Mediterranean region can claim the title of great.

This fully applies to Russia, which collapsed in 1917, largely due to the fact that the Russian tsars did not take control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles in the 19th century, and in the First World War, very badly - if you can call it that - was planned landing operation to the Bosphorus.

In our time, the problem of the Strait Zone has not become less urgent, and it is possible that Russia will face this problem more than once. One can only hope that this will not have such fatal consequences as in 1917.