VIRTUOUS PRAETORIANS: MILITARY CULTURE AND THE DEFENSE PRESS IN GERMANY AND TURKEY, 1929-1939 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Emre Sencer, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2008 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Alan D. Beyerchen, Adviser Professor Stephen Kern Professor John F. Guilmartin ____________________ Adviser Graduate Program in History ABSTRACT The aim of this dissertation is to take a comparative and transnational approach to the formation of the military officer mentality and worldviews in interwar Europe by taking Germany and Turkey as case studies. It focuses on the years roughly from the Great Depression to the outbreak of the Second World War. The characteristics of military culture are examined through the publications of the defense press. Germany and Turkey were allies in the First World War and shared a similar fate as losers of that war. Both went through rapid territorial and political change; both positioned themselves as the opposite of the winning powers, Britain and France. Yet they had different attitudes toward the international system that was formed following the war: Germany was a revisionist power, whereas Turkey was an example of interwar countries that rejected irredentism. While they had different political systems (Weimar Republic until 1933, followed by Nazi dictatorship in Germany; single-party state until 1946 in Turkey), the impact of total war and the technological and socioeconomic changes of the post-1918 era engendered similar responses in the officer corps of these countries toward politics, international relations, and technological development. These responses led to three major themes: fear of defenselessness in the age of total war; the role of the military in nation-building; and the urge to discover and fight the “internal enemies” of the nation. A picture of self-conscious uncertainty emerged in the interwar ii military press, which betrayed signs of old institutions trying to adapt to a new world and fighting hard not to accept the changes. The German and Turkish officer cadres of the interwar era made the transition to the tactics and strategy of total war in the twentieth century, but most of their views on parliaments, democracy, and republicanism remained hostile and anchored in a previous era. These attitudes have influenced civil-military relations in both countries and had further implications for the future development of democratization. iii Dedicated to my mother and the memory of my aunt iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Every dissertation project is a result of a long series of worries, doubts, and discoveries. It is all the more important, therefore, that everybody who offered advice, solace, and sanity during the process should be remembered by the person undertaking it. While it has become customary to mention one’s adviser at the top of such a list, there is nothing ordinary about the support, guidance, and friendship I have received from Professor Alan Beyerchen in the last eight years. It has been an incredible learning process. I feel, as I’m sure all of his advisees do, very grateful and fortunate to have been a part of his group of graduate students. I can only hope to display a modicum of his mentorship during my future career in academia. Professor Stephen Kern forced me to think about writing as something more than a tool for presenting research findings. I would like to thank him for his support and encouragement. I am also grateful to him for bringing me back in touch with my former training as a literature major through his course on modernism. Professor John F. Guilmartin provided very useful comments in the final stage and drew my attention to connections from the military history angle. I would also like to thank Professor Jane Hathaway for her support in the final stages of this process as well during the job search. Professor Robert Davis has been a source of encouragement throughout my stay at v OSU and advised me on the survival skills in academia. Late Professor Wilhelm Deist of Freiburg offered useful advice in the early stages of research. Professor Michael Geyer of Chicago has shared his expertise in German civil-military relations and the intricacies of transnational history with me. He and Professor Mete Tunçay of Bilgi University in Istanbul provided crucial support for my application for the Presidential Fellowship at OSU. In an era when research and funding priorities are determined by what is “trendy” in academia, I am thankful to the Department of History, the Graduate School, the College of Humanities, and the Mershon Center of the Ohio State University for providing me with crucial financial support that made this dissertation possible. I would like to thank the staff of the Department of History, especially Dr. Richard Ugland and Joby Abernathy, for their support and help during this process. I would also like to thank Professor Anthony Mughan and the staff of the Department of International Studies for keeping me employed in the final stages of my graduate studies. The research for this dissertation was conducted in Germany and Turkey in two separate stages. I am grateful to the staff of various libraries and institutions in these two countries. In Germany these are, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, and the library of Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (MGFA) Potsdam. I should also like to thank Professor Arnd Bauerkämper for allowing me to follow the presentations at the Berliner Kolleg für Vergleichende Geschichte Europas (BKVGE) of the Freie Universität Berlin. In Turkey I would like to thank the staff of the Basbakanlık Cumhuriyet Arsivi (Prime Ministry Republican Archives), Milli Kütüphane (National Library), the library of Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt Ba!kanlı"ı (Directorate of vi Military History and Strategic Studies-ATASE), and the library of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara; and the library of the Harp Akademileri (War Academy) and Atatürk Library in Istanbul. For their support of the ATASE application, I would like to thank Col. Orhan Koyuncu (Ret.) and Col. Ahmet Meydanlı (Ret.). In two international seminars in Germany I have had the opportunity to present various parts of this project and to benefit from the comments of both the participants and the organizers. The first was the Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar in German History in Freiburg in April 2006, organized by the German Historical Institute (Washington, D.C.) and the Center for German and European Studies (Georgetown University); I would like to thank Professors Richard Wetzell and Roger Chickering for inviting me, and to them and Professors Peter Caldwell and Ulrich Herbert for their comments. The second was the Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute for German Studies in Berlin in July-August 2006, organized by the Center for German and European Studies (University of Minnesota) and Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (Potsdam); I am grateful to Professors Eric D. Weitz and Gregor Thum for their advice and comments. I would like to thank Aziz Seven and the Ünsal family for their hospitality during my stay in Ankara. I am grateful to Dr. Schanett Riller and Christina Robert for their friendship and hospitality in Berlin and Freiburg, respectively. I should also mention Ayla Karamete for her generosity during the dissertation process and the Öner family for all sorts of help in Istanbul. I have relied on the support of an extensive network of friends in America and Turkey during the last decade. Former graduate student colleagues (now all of them professors) Safa Saraçoglu, Febe Armanios, and Bogac Ergene have been a constant vii source of support and advice throughout this process. Several friends in Columbus were always there in the last few years either individually or with their families to provide company or to help when needed. They are (in no particular order), Müfit and (Professor) Lisa Balabanlılar, Rajiv Khanna, Sedat Kahvecioglu, Dr. Binnaz Leblebicioglu, and Bülent Bekçioglu. A special thanks is due to Dr. Arif Çetintas for his insistent calls to make sure that I was writing. Roberto Padilla listened to many different versions of research findings and also paid for more meals than could be expected from a fellow grad student. Çagatay Ergün bravely and generously shouldered responsibility for student loans that were crucial for research trips and more. Koray Koyuncu and Bengi Yıldız Koyuncu offered their friendship and support, as well as advice, whenever possible. Yücel Inan sat patiently through many rants on history, politics, and life in general, either in person or on Skype. He also proved to be a benefactor of Dickensian proportions. Natascha Reilly continued to supply her long-distance advice on the phone. My former roommate Dr. Atabey Kaygun showed how much he enjoyed pain by returning for the last year of my dissertation, and proved to be a friend of inexhaustible patience and unshakable calm. I owe a special thanks to Yigit and Zülal Akın. They have been a part of my life for the last three and a half years, proving wrong the old belief that true and lasting friendships can only be formed in teenage years. I would also like to thank Margarita Lazarova. I am especially grateful to her for her support during the difficult months of March-August 2007. viii Duygu Ucar just arrived in time for the last couple of weeks of this process, but her presence made a great difference. I am thankful to her for being there. And finally, without the personal sacrifices and constant encouragement of two wonderful women, my mother Ilhan Sanlı and my late aunt Ayhan Ballısarı, none of this would have been possible. To them is this work dedicated. ix VITA December 15, 1970............................Born-Istanbul, Turkey 1996...................................................B.A.