Today is the anniversary of the anti Greek-Christian pogroms that took place in Constantinople in 1955. The Turkish government conducted a terror campaign against the 100,000 or so Christian Greeks that were still living in Constantinople and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos. The motivations for the pogroms emanated from Turkey’s expansionist claims to Cyprus.
In April of 1955, the Greeks of Cyprus revolted against British rule and sought to achieve “enosis” with Greece. The struggle in Cyprus was against the British, not the Turks. The British encouraged Turkey to put fourth claims on Cyprus in order to undermine Greece.
The British also encouraged demonstrations in Turkey to express Turkish feelings for Cyprus. These demonstrations were to lead to the vicious pogroms against Orthodox Greeks in Constantinople. The Turkish government of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes brought in criminal elements from Anatolia and encouraged them to target the Greeks.
Greek homes, Churches, and businesses had crosses painted on them so the thugs would know their targets. The pretext for the terror campaign was the bombing of Mustafa Kemal’s home in Thessaloniki. In reality, the Turks bombed Kemal’s home (which is ajar to the Turkish consulate) and had earlier doctored photographs of the bombing to be carried out so as to be able to quickly incite angry mobs to violence.
The Turkish police were ordered to stand down. The mobs murdered, raped, and tortured. A ninety year old priest named Chrysanthos Mannas was doused with gasoline and burned alive. An elderly Greek woman went insane after being raped. All the property of the Greeks was destroyed in a single night.
At Smyrna, Greek Army officers serving NATO were beaten and neither NATO nor any members of NATO condemned the assaults on their colleagues. In the aftermath of the pogroms, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles wrote an offensive letter to Greek Prime Minister Alexander Papagos asking Greece to drop the matter in favor of NATO solidarity. No condemnation of Turkey or threats for Turkey to improve its human rights record.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate lost much of its remaining flock in the days following the pogroms. Now it must be said that the State Department refused to condemn the devastation agains the flock of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at this time. That should bring the present collaboration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the State Department in a common anti Russian campaign into greater focus.
In 1955, NATO and the west valued Turkey as a counter to the Soviet Union. Today, Turkey collaborates with ISIS and Al Quada, and NATO refuses to support Greece against the encroachments of its territory by Turkey.
What exactly has changed since 1955?
2 replies on “Remembering the Turkish Krystaalnacht”
What has changed since 1955? Not enough, certainly. Tayyip Erdogan has managed to alienate Turkey from the USA to some extent, but even today there are apologists among the foreign policy elites at the CFR and TC who make excuses for Turkey and propose we need to look past Erdogan to renew our relationship with Turkey. The foreign policy elites in this country never seem to learn from their past failures, they continue on as if nothing has gone wrong. In the middle east the NEOCONS and their compatriots in Democrat Administrations have never been held accountable for the disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan-they got us in there with no strategy for getting out. With respect to Turkey they always overestimate the value of that nation to US interests and tarnish the US legacy by making America an enabler after the fact to Turkish crimes against humanity. I wish I could be more encouraged by Turkey’s recent fall from grace with America, but it’s probably just another bump in the road. US foreign policy since WW1 had been predictably ethically challenged, the people we have crafting it are either evil or power-mad, Machiavellian personalities.
I am not sure what it will take for the US and NATO to dump Turkey. It looks to me like the anti Russian hysteria and the revival of the cold war is emphasizing Turkey’s importance once more.