This is from anannotation I read in a bbook about the Cold War. In 1964 the West German foreign office informed the leadership of the Bundeswehr,that there was the possibility to get 2 turkish division stationed in Germany, to strengthen the Forward Defense as part of the german NATO-corps. The generals rejected the ideas. They said the Turks were cultural and religiose to different from the Germans, it would never work out. In the following years the Turks became the largest immigrant group in Germany. Lot of young Turks were born there, but stayed turkish citizen. As such they still were part of the turkish draft. For the turkish army that was problematic.They couldn´t treat the young "Alemanys" like regular turkish recruts.. So the "Alemanys" served for rather symbolic 6 month in Turkey and spendthis time mostly planting trees. But what if the Bundeswehr had accepted the offer? What if the "Alemanys" could stayfor there military service inGermany? What would bbe the impact of "foreign" troops mostly recruted from the local population? And where would the turkish divisions most helpfullfor NATO.
WI Turkish NATO divisions stationed in West Germany?
The Germans also refused a similar idea in the 1950's, of a US-led Volunteer Freedom Corps (VFC), that was to be formed with eastern european exiles (polish, white russians, yugoslavian, etc), due to the same principes: cultural and religiose differences
Deleted member 2186
Would be strange, Turkey is a full NATO member and instead of other counties like Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States who have front line troops, the Turkish get a soft job instead of also providing front line troops.
Aren't the Turkish divisions kind of needed in Turkey to guard NATOs southern flank?
How well equipped and trained was the Turkish army at the time. Did they have specific divisions in mind.
How well equipped and trained was the Turkish army at the time. Did they have specific divisions in mind.
Deleted member 2186
True but one 1 division would be a nice way to say we back you and you back us.
Sure why not, but if in turn NATO ends up having to send reinforcements to Turkey then having Turkey deploying forces to West Germany (along with setting up and sustaining the necessary logistical network to support them) seems a bit inefficient. IMHO the ACE mobile force and similar formations likely provided enough opportunity for the various NATO nations to be seen to be jointly co operating on various defense issues.
IMHO this type of long distance deployment is something that wealthy nations without a serious threat to their own land borders could entertain. (ie. the US, UK and Canada seem the prime NATO examples.) IMHO most of the other deployments to West Germany likely made a great deal of sense from a national defense perspective for the nations involved (ie. It probably would have been a bit silly for Belgium for example to only deploy their army within Belgium during the cold war.
All that being said I suspect if there had been a political need and desire for such a deployment then Turkey and West Germany could have made the needed arrangements.
Like I said, it was just a short annotation, without much background, but if such an offer really existed,I have some theories for the reasons behind it.
First of all, for the Turkish Army were less the numbers of divisions (I think they had ca. 24) the problem, but to keep them equiped with modern weapons. I assume it was expected, that the Germans would equipe the 2 division in the same way like the Bundeswehr. And when the bundeswehr would modernize,the 2 divisionswould get new material too andwould sent their old material to Turkey.
Just a theory.
There's also that Turkey didn't have that many "heavy" (ie, highly mechanized with tank and APC) formations in the Cold War, and those are the only ones viable for a West German Fuldapocalypse (as opposed to local conflicts and opposing second-line Soviet forces in rough terrain). So you'd either need to bulk them up (which is possible to varying degrees with surplus, but then you have a second-rate formation), or strip Turkey's heaviest and most capable formations from its own defense.
errorofmyself
Banned
Unless something like this happens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015–16_New_Year's_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany or this
Einführung: Graue Wölfe und türkischer Ultranationalismus in Deutschland
Die rechtsextreme türkische Bewegung der "Grauen Wölfe" hat in den letzten Jahren laut Kemal Bozay auch in Deutschland mehr Zulauf erfahren: Die Wölfe propagieren Rassismus im Gewand eines ethnischen Nationalismus und tragen Konflikte aus der Türkei
everything should go smooth beyond the language barrier. Having met both many good and bad apples from Turkey they can be a wild card as a people because of culture and religion.
Would all the above not be open political issues in Germany as basically accepting that the "guest workers" were actually permanent emigrants, once they had served in W German army would they not basically be almost certainly permanent W German for all intent and purpose?
The 1960th would be actually a good time to beef up forces with surplus weapons. Because of some aggrements,Germanywasforced to buya lot of american weapons,actually a lot more then the Bundeswehr could use. Like I said,ifsuch a turkish offer existed,it would be propably to get accesss of free delivery of modern weapons.
Two thoughts come to mind. First since there was no war it wouldn't have mattered. Second if there had been a war the Turkish divisions would've been low rated units with little combat, or deterrent value, so they would've made little difference ether way. It was better to keep them in Turkey, rather then Germany, where they would've been more of a logistical burden, and not added much to the fight.