Bridge Builder Vorndran: Johann Vorndran (1877-1955) Bridge Builder in Turkey

By Hans-Jürgen Vorndran

I got to know my grandfather Johann Vorndran in 1945 in the Hochtief barracks in Walldorf/Hesse when want and misery reigned everywhere in Germany. He didn’t tell much about his life in Turkey. Only occasionally did he speak Turkish with his wife Minna when he did not want us children to understand them. It was only later that I became interested in his life and that of our family. That so many documents had been preserved was a stroke of fortune. During my research, I benefited from the fact that I myself went to school in Istanbul for four years and later remained connected to Turkey both professionally and privately. The country and language are very familiar to me.

Our grandfather and his family had twice left for Turkey to seek their fortune. When he “screwed” the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn for the first time in 1911, he got to know Ottoman Constantinople. On his second move there in the autumn of 1924, he experienced the up-and-coming metropolis of Istanbul under Atatürk. During the construction of bridges in remote regions of Anatolia, he got to know the old Turkish culture. The world wars twice ended his stays in Turkey, which had become his home. When he returned to Germany, he was a German foreigner in his native country.

As the work on the “Bridge Builder” progressed, I realized that the fates of his sons Hans and Willy, who were born in Constantinople, grew up there and spent substantial parts of their professional lives in Turkey, had to be included. And because life in Turkey had such a strong influence on us siblings in the third generation, a family history became inevitable. I have tried to place the life and circumstances of the family as described into a historical context in order to make them understandable for those of us who live today. It was important for me to recall the suffering and misery that National Socialism brought to countless people through its dictatorship and the criminal wars it conducted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728338071

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Published by AuthorHouse 05/08/2020

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Bridge Builder Vorndran

Bridge Builder

Vorndran

Johann Vorndran (1877-1955)

Bridge Builder in Turkey

A Family History

Mörfelden-Walldorf - May 2017

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The original caption of the title photo reads:¹

"Kıymetli Bir Hatıra. Türk Demiryolculuğunun Büyük Kurucusu İSMET İNÖNÜ Ankara – Erzurum Hattı Üzerinde İlk Açılış Töreninde."

Translation: A precious memory. The great founder of the Turkish railway, Ismet Inönü, at the opening ceremony for the first bridge on the Ankara – Erzurum route.

That was in 1925 on the first section from Ankara to Yerköy! Ismet Inönü was Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey at that time. The origin of the photo is unknown to me.

An active life, indeed, a family history, of a man who twice went out to make his fortune in Turkey, portrayed on the basis of documents, stories told within the family as well as contemporary reports from his grandson Hans-Jürgen Vorndran.

Birth in Franconian Burgkun(d)stadt

Our grandfather Johann Vorndran was born on March 26, 1877 at eight o’clock in the evening in house no. 162 in Burgkundstadt in Bavaria, or to be more precise, in beautiful Franconia.² His parents were the apprentice road caretaker³ Erhard Vorndran (born Jan. 30, 1847 in Burgebrach) and his wife Margareta, née Held (born Aug. 8, 1848 in Bischberg). Both parents were Catholic.

Did our grandfather have siblings? According to information available at the civil registry office in Burgkunstadt, only the birth of Margaretha Vorndran on Sep. 9, 1881 is attested. Her parents were Katharina Vorndran née Metzner and Johann Vorndran. She was possibly a collateral relation,⁴ but not a sibling. His son Hans, however, reports visits to the Vorndrans in Burgkunstadt and papa’s sister in Bamberg on Christmas 1936.

When we went looking for clues during a family gathering in Burgkunstadt in August 2009, we noticed that the name of our grandfather’s birthplace had changed slightly. The d in front of stadt was gone. Why? On Wikipedia, I found that a renaming of the city to Burgkunstadt was made by city council decision on May 26, 1924. Information received from the city archives in February 2015 indicated that the place name derived from a family of knights named Kunstadt that once resided there. The spelling was changed several times over the centuries. The Bayerische Staatsarchiv (Bavarian State Archive) in Bamberg, May 12, 1924, approved the change of spelling. In support of its decision, it noted among other things, that pronouncing the transition from n to st, did not automatically demand a dental sound in between. Especially if the preceding u is pronounced short, the spelling with d would perhaps not have occurred; indeed, it probably would never have appeared at all. Thus, the city council, encouraged by the district office in Lichtenfels, decided to delete the so-called euphonious-d and restore the old, real name again.

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Bad Staffelstein 2009

From left: Claudia, Barbara, born 1950; Rainer, born 1941; Gisela, born 1943; Christine, Hans-Jürgen (the author), born 1940

We found no more evidence of our family when we visited the Burgkunstadt cemetery. This may of course be due to the time limits that were imposed on graves in the past.⁵ Nevertheless, the name Vorndran in this region, as research on the Internet shows, can still be found in significant numbers.

In August 2016, I again visited Burgkunstadt to show my children, Hans Joachim Hannes (born 1972) and Julia (born 1977) and my granddaughter Angelina Cayman Conforte (born 2001) my grandfather’s birthplace.

We drove up to the hill and parked our cars in the market square opposite the church. We then strolled past beautiful half-timbered houses, especially the city hall, in the direction of the Old Bailiwick (1500). This building has been renovated and modernized by the Friedrich Baur Foundation. It is now a cultural and meeting center. The beautiful sculptures in the garden are striking - my wife Christine was spontaneously reminded of the billy goat.⁶ From the garden you get a great view of the entire city with its approximately 7,000 inhabitants. On the way back, we took a look at the German Shoemaker Museum on the market square. In addition to the tanneries and shoemakers established there since the end of the 15th century, there is the first ever mechanical shoe factory. It was founded by Jewish citizen Joseph Weiermann and dates from 1888. As this was the economic center of the region, more shoe factories were founded there, employing up to 2,300 employees. This also led to the founding of the mail-order shoe company Baur. Unfortunately, the last shoe

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Search for clues: no Vorndrans found

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Market square with a view of the city hall. To the right with the city flag is the German Shoemaker Museum.

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From left: Abraham Santana, daughter Julia with Coco, Angelina, Hans-Jürgen (the author) and Christine. Behind her, her son Hannes

factory there stopped production in 1990. The Baur company still exists today as a successful online retailer and a member of the Otto Group with approximately 4,000 employees.

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Part of the sculpture garden

From the Pages of the Bavarian State Association for Family History of 1929,⁷ I gather that, in addition to the Catholic line of the family Vorndran – mostly present in Lower Franconia - there was also a Protestant line, which was located in Thuringia. Our family has thus been Catholic for generations and Bavarian in origin. Our grandfather was always very proud of that. After the end of the Second World War in 1945, we all lived together in Walldorf (Hesse⁸), Farmstrasse 101, in the company barracks of Hochtief AG.⁹ There he taught us a favorite saying of his: White-blue is Bavarian and the geese shit green (Weiß-blau ist bayerisch und grün scheißen die Gäns).¹⁰ And occasionally he sang the song Not every day is Sunday (Alle Tage ist kein Sonntag). This was a was popular hit during the war and enjoyed great popularity even in the post-war years. Since it reflects part of our grandfather’s personality, let me quote the first stanza:

I also associate these lyrics with him:

Who were our ancestors?

To answer this question, I can refer to research notes handwritten by our father, Johann (called Hans) Vorndran, MD and to the corresponding excerpts from the various parish registers. Because he was a student at a German university (first in Kiel studying law and then in Berlin for oriental studies), our father was obliged to provide the so-called Certificate of Aryan Descent. This certificate was required as proof of pure Aryan descent from the Aryan national community. State and government agencies in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 required this for certain groups of people, especially for civil servants,

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Certificate of Descent

physicians, jurists and scientists. It served to deprive and exclude non-Aryans, especially Jews, Sinti and Roma,¹¹ of their civil rights - right up to their state-organized mass murder (Holocaust, 1941-1945).

Our father required extensive research in order to be able to fill out the so-called family questionnaire. Aryan descent was proven by the presentation of seven birth or baptismal certificates (his own, his parents and four grandparents). The unclear definitions of Jew and non-Aryan resulted in absurd

contradictions. Due to the lack of specific racial characteristics for Jews, the Jewish religion was used to define a Jew. But I do not want to go into this here in detail. In any case, the racist mania of the Nazis created a whole generation of genealogists who had to rely on pastors, archivists and registrars.

At the very least we know from our father’s handwritten records that our forefather¹² was named Joseph Vorndran (born Aug. 15, 1775, died Jun. 21, 1845) and was married to Margarete Eisenmann. Both came from Oberweissenbrunn in the Rhön region¹³, which has belonged to Bischofsheim since 1978. This region is known for the Kreuzberg monastery that includes a pilgrimage church and brews a tasty dark beer! But how did our ancestors come to Franconia? Due to the marriage of Johann Vorndran, road caretaker¹⁴ (born Apr. 18, 1804 in Oberweissenbrunn, died Feb. 16, 1863 in Burgebrach, Upper Franconia) to Anna Maria Feulner, farmer’s daughter, (born Mar. 5, 1817 in Baunach, Upper Franconia). It is interesting that this marriage indeed caused a change in residence, but no change in profession, as one might initially assume.

Key documents

Essential information about the various personal and professional chapters in the life of our grandfather Johann Vorndran are provided, although only in brief, by the personnel information form at Hochtief AG in Essen, dated September 2, 1941 and signed by him. There is also an undated handwritten CV addressed to the management of Hochtief AG and to the Agency for Returning Emigrants in Dusseldorf around the time of his second and final return from Turkey in 1941. And, of course, there is a large number of other documents, mostly in the possession of my cousin Sabine Halide Pauw née Vorndran. I thank you very much for giving them to me. By the way, my cousin owes her middle name Halide to one of the most important Turkish women writers of the 20th century, Halide Edib Adıvar (1884 -1964).

In the course of working on our grandfather’s life story, I realized that I cannot ignore the careers of his two sons Hans and Willy,¹⁵ whose fates are also closely intertwined with Turkey. Consequently, this book has now become a family history up to about the year 1955 – and even beyond in some respects. In that regard, I was able to fall back on documents recently recovered from the estate of our father Hans.

In addition, of course, I have also used generally accessible sources to better understand the historical context. This literature is listed in the Appendix.

The starting point of my research: Hochtief AG personnel information form dated September 2, 1941.

(excerpts)

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School, apprenticeship as metal worker in Munich (1883 – 1901)

The sparse documents available at this time outlines Johann Vorndran’s schooling. He attended the elementary school in Burgkunstadt from 1883 to 1890 and for three more years after that, a vocational school not described in more detail. After his apprenticeship as a metalworker for construction techniques¹⁶ in Munich, he worked there for the company Kustermann and Maffei.

Eight years in Switzerland (1902 – 1909)

He then moved to Switzerland for eight years. First, he worked for three years (1902-1904) as a metalworker at (Theodor) Bell & Co. in Kriens in the canton of Lucerne. At the turn of the century (19th to 20th), this was a small, agricultural community with about five thousand inhabitants, mostly Catholic.

At that time, Theodor Bell was an important Swiss company for the production of Francis water turbines,¹⁷ cable cars, steel bridges and other steel constructions. After that, he worked for five years (1905-1909) at Bosshard & Co. in the town of Näfels (Swiss canton of Glarus). Here he worked as an installation mechanic for iron structures, mainly for bridges on the Gotthard Railway, which was integrated into the Swiss Federal Railway (SBB) in 1909. Näfels was and is a small, Catholic village with history, boasting some historical buildings, such as the Franciscan monastery Mariaburg.

Pilgrimages to Rome (1910 and 1911)

Our grandfather Johann Vorndran was obviously religious. In August 1910 and February 1911, he made pilgrimages to the Vatican, visiting the Basilica of St. Paul on the Via Ostiense.¹⁸ He had each visit documented with a certificate bearing the papal coat of arms (the papal tiara and the Keys of St. Peter¹⁹) and his own name.

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Certificate of visit to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls

Nothing is known about the circumstances of these trips. There is also no information about his employment during this period. In his personnel information form filled out for Hochtief in 1941, he stated that he had acquired Turkish and Italian language skills abroad. This suggests that our grandfather spent some time in Italy.

To Constantinople at age 34

The following period presented our grandfather with a completely new and different world. We do not know what motivated him at the age of 34 to go to Constantinople in 1911 (officially named Istanbul since 1928), to Muslim Turkey - more precisely the Ottoman Empire (which existed until 1923).

Indeed, how did everyday life in Constantinople at the time appear to a European who was not privileged by a military posting or as a diplomat or merchant, but had come as a craftsman?

The Sick Man of Europe²⁰ – a Short History

In order to know this, a small historical digression is necessary to show developments in the Ottoman Empire. With the Tanzimat reforms (1839-1876), the Ottomans tried to stop the steady decline of their empire, especially in comparison with the emerging industries of the European powers. The huge Ottoman Empire was on the verge of dissolution. The so-called Oriental Question – the survival of the Ottoman Empire – engaged the diplomats of Russia, Austria, Great Britain and France.

In Europe one referred to Turkey as the Sick Man of Europe.

As part of the so-called salutary reorganization,²¹ the sultan gradually gave up his previously unlimited rights over the lives and property of his subjects. The civil equality of all subjects was achieved by the dissolution of the Millet system.²² Previously, all non-Muslims were divided into three religious communities (Millets); Orthodox Christians (Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks), Armenian Christians (including Copts and Syrians), and Jews.

Due to its lack of competitiveness in crafts and its lack of industry, the Ottoman Empire became an exporter of raw materials and importer of European goods.

This was facilitated by the so-called Capitulations²³ (trade agreements) with European states, which flooded the country with cheap manufactured goods. The Ottoman Empire sank to a semi-colonial status as a market and a source of raw materials for industrialized countries.

As a consequence, skilled workers came to Constantinople. A further increase in the number of foreign craftsmen resulted from brisk building activity, among them being the construction of the German Legation (1871-77),

which later gained the rank of embassy and today serves as consulate-general.²⁴ The building is located near Taksim Square on the Inönü Caddesi²⁵ (formerly Gümüşsuyu Caddesi), which leads in a sweeping arc down to the Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus.

The Tanzimat period ended with the adoption of the Ottoman Constitution in 1876. This constitution was, however, suspended by Sultan Abd ül-Hamid II (1876-1909) shortly after the outbreak of the Russian-Ottoman War (1877-78). He had come to power by coup d’état. His brother Murad V was deposed as sultan due to his alleged inability to rule after only three months. Abd ül-Hamid dissolved the parliament and ruled for 30 years as a despot. His reign included the massacres of the Armenians (1894-1896), especially in the provinces of Eastern Anatolia, which killed some 300,000 people. The trigger was an uprising of the Armenians because of a double tax burden imposed on them; they were being taxed both by Kurdish feudal lords and by the Ottoman state. The suppression of the revolt and the subsequent pogroms²⁶ were carried out with the strong support of the so-called Hamidiye Regiments. These were a specialized militia directly subordinate to the sultan since 1891. They consisted exclusively of Kurdish tribesmen of the Sunni Muslim faith. They were exempted from regular military service, exempted from tax, and served their tribal leaders, who were elevated to the rank of colonel. According to Rolf Hosfeld (pages 43ff.),²⁷ as Sultan and Caliph,²⁸ Abdul ül-Hamid’s goal was to stabilize the advancing disintegration of the Ottoman Empire on the basis of Sharia,²⁹ by force if necessary, and restore the non-Muslim population to the status of a tolerated minority, subject by right of conquest in accord with the divine world order.

In 1897 Sultan Abd ül-Hamid declared an end to the Armenian Question. Russia was preoccupied by its new rival Japan in the Far East, and the British empire focused itself on its mandate in Egypt and the Suez Canal. German policy under Kaiser Wilhelm II now came to regard the Ottoman Empire as a factor in world politics. Its characteristic eastern culture, however violent it may be, should not be measured by western standards. In addition, no one wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of foreign countries. The sultan showed his thanks to Germany with the concession for the construction of the Baghdad Railway and the port facility in Haydarpaşa on the Asian side of Constantinople. See Hosfeld on pages 50f.

Germans in Constantinople

Now let us return to the Germans in Turkey. Here I refer especially to the standard work by Anne Dietrich Being German in Istanbul. As early as 1850, around 1,000 German-speaking people were recorded in Constantinople. Three years earlier, German, Austrian and Swiss traders and craftsmen had founded an association they named Teutonia.³⁰

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Caricature in the London magazine Punch (1915): I’ll give up this bed, Wilhelm. Do you want it?

The club house still stands today on Yüksek Kaldırım street in the Beyoğlu district near the Tünel (opened in 1875 as an underground funicular, it connects the two districts Karaköy and Beyoğlu). It is located at the western end of Istiklal Caddesi, which at that time was also named Cadde-i Kebir or Grand Rue de Pera (French was spoken in educated Ottoman circles; Pera is an older name for Beyoğlu). In 1861 the German Craftsmen Association was founded, which was renamed Alemania in 1912.³¹ In 1882, Paul Lange, the head of the sultan’s palace orchestra, founded a male choir in Teutonia. Over the years, the profile of the club membership changed.

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The lower stretch of the Cadde-i Kebir (now Istiklal Caddesi) ca. 1900

Starting around 1890, socially well-situated circles were to be found there, i.e. businesspeople, bank directors, officers, the diplomatic corps. For many decades Teutonia was the focal point of the cultural life of the German-speaking community.

Prussian Dominance

As early as the middle of the 19th century, the German Protestant community was active and dominated the German colony in Constantinople. It was organized according to the principles of the Old Prussian State Church. This was because in its early years it was financed exclusively by the Kingdom of Prussia and was officially under its protection through its legation. The Austrian legation, however, was oriented on Roman Catholicism.

There were tensions between the two faiths. Already in 1843 there was the Protestant-German Charity Association. In 1846 an infirmary was set up, the predecessor of the German Hospital. This hospital came under the care of Kaiserswerth deaconesses³², whose work gained widespread recognition in the city in the course of the next several decades. I find particularly remarkable that, starting in 1856, there was also a German Women’s Association.

Initially, there were plans to found a school to be run by the Kaiserswerth deaconesses. One such school already existed in Smyrna (today Izmir). This plan failed because no teaching sisters were available. Thus in 1851, Protestant schooling was first provided under the direction of the legation preacher, who was also a parish pastor. In 1856, a property was acquired in Aynalı Çeşme³³ for the construction of the school; the Protestant church and vicarage are still located on that property. Instruction began in autumn 1857 with 44 children. They were predominantly Protestant, but the children of other Christian denominations were also taught, so it was really an interdenominational school.

From the idea of a German Citizens’ School to the Alman Lisesi

Over the years, the idea of a German Citizens’ School developed. Such a school was to be equally available to Jewish, Armenian, Catholic and Protestant children. This idea led to the foundation of a new German non-denominational school by the German and Swiss School Association in 1868. This school thus competed with the Protestant school. The founding of the empire in 1871³⁴ brought the Germans in the Ottoman Empire increased prestige. Denominational quarrels receded and a new nationalism gained ground. So, the time was right, despite resistance from Protestant circles, for a merger of the two German schools.

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The once imposing club house Teutonia – today left to decay

In 1874 the merger of location and curriculum was completed. In attendance were 80 Protestant, 60 Catholic, 45 Jewish and 6 Greek Orthodox children. The great earthquake of 1884, however, had an impact on the German and Swiss Public School.

Although it continued operations on a makeshift basis, a new building was required. In 1897 the school moved to the location where the Deutsche Schule (Alman Lisesi)³⁵ is still operating today, in Beyoğlu near Tünel / Yüksek Kaldırım. Today, there is unfortunately only limited access for Turkish pupils beginning with the 9th grade after a preparatory year. This is on account of Turkish school legislation, as I learned during my visit to the school in 2008 on the occasion of the Graduation Golden Anniversary of my former class. Unfortunately, due to new Turkish legislation under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there is no longer joint instruction of Turks, Germans and other foreigners. There is now only a school for Turks, and separately, the German Embassy School. Erwin Köhle, former head of the school board and husband of my school friend Christa Bruckner, reported this to me on the occasion of the reunion in Leverkusen in May 2016.

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Not only our 9th grade class in 1954/55 reflected the diversity of religions in the metropolis of Istanbul³⁶

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Celebration of the graduation golden anniversary reunion in 2008, graduates and spouses. Extreme right: the newcomer Hans-Jürgen Vorndran (the author).

As a result, and in my opinion, the joint learning and the experiencing of the different cultural backgrounds this contributed to, has come to an unfortunate end. As it is constantly emphasized by all those involved, it is precisely this enrichment of our lives, that was the special feature of our school days! This is how a good, almost 150-year long tradition comes to a slow end.

Our time in Istanbul (1952-1956)

The Alman Lisesi has special significance for our family: our father Hans (first cousin of Antonin Steiner, father of Yaromir and Karel) graduated from high school there, and his younger brother Willy also went there until the tenth grade. Also, we siblings (Rainer, Gisela and I) warmed school benches there during our stay in Istanbul (1952-56).

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View of our Istanbul from the German School showing Serail Point,³⁷ the Hagia Sophia and the Sultanahmet Mosque in 2008

However, Rainer and I initially went for two years to the Austrian St. George’s College in Karaköy, a foundation of the Lazarist order in 1882.³⁸ Superior Ernest Raidl was school director at that time. This Catholic order for men goes back to St. Vincent de Paul. It was founded in 1625 in service to the poor in Paris.

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The Priest’s House, part of the estate of the Lazarists of St. George’s College on the Princes’ Island of Burgaz.³⁹

An important object for Lazarists is school education. The St. George’s College is divided into a girls’ school and a boys’ school, each with attached boarding facilities for resident pupils. The girls’ school is run by Catholic sisters. My brother Rainer and I felt very comfortable at St. George’s College. We were also happy to serve there as altar boys. We proudly wore a school uniform for the first time in our lives: blue peaked cap, gray flannel trousers and a dark blue blazer with the school crest on the breast.

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The German Secondary School in 1955

We spent a part of our three-month summer vacations on the island of Burgaz, where the order owned a country estate. I remember the refreshing swims in the then clean Sea of Marmara, climbing among the rocks on the south side, where I once had a mountain emergency, and the days in May when the morning fog lay around the island like a wreath, defying the sun until noon.

I remember the German School in Istanbul (Alman Lisesi), on the other hand, as much more demanding and more learning oriented. Here too, we wore no school uniform. As compensation, there were grounds belonging to Teutonia in the district of Moda, on the Asian side. In summer we went there (by ferry and bus) and played football with our friends Dieter Laudien, Fifi Baxmann and the Armenian twins Mıgırdıç and Movses Balıkçıyan.

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With school friends Fifi Baxmann and Dieter Laudien

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Towards the end of World War II, Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with the German Reich on August 1, 1944 and made a rather symbolic declaration of war on February 23, 1945 without actually entering the war. A consequence of this was that the Turkish state seized German property in Turkey and interned the remaining Germans in Anatolia. Our transfer to the German School was therefore only possible after the building was returned to the school association in 1953. Our father played a significant role in these negotiations in his capacity as German Consul in Istanbul (1951-56). He was also on the boards of the school association and of Teutonia.

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Excerpt from the annual report of the German School, 1954/55⁴⁰

In addition, he promoted the work of the Turkish-German Friendship Association (the so-called Dostluken), in which the Turkish military had also been engaged since the days of their Brothership in Arms in the First World War.⁴¹

As a consequence, the name of Ali Ekrem Rüştü Akömer (1892-1984) can be found signed in our parents’ guest book. He represented German and Austrian companies in Turkey at that time. Because of his efforts on behalf of German-Turkish friendship, historical literature refers to him as a factotum and marginal figure of history. He could look back on a turbulent life. He served in the rank of lieutenant in the 3rd Guards Ulans regiment in Potsdam (Germany) 1910-12. In the First World War he served at Gallipoli as adjutant to Liman von Sanders.⁴² He led a unit of the Turkish Lightning Corps to Aleppo. Then he was adjutant to the last caliph (but who did not bear the title of sultan) Abdülmecid II. After the caliph was deposed, he resigned from the military in 1924. He was co-founder and secretary general of the Turkish Olympic Committee. He attended the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. He also promoted the Turkish-German youth exchange without paying any regard to Nazi sentiment.⁴³ He was employed with the DLRG and ADAC in Stuttgart in 1950.⁴⁴ After being awarded the Iron Cross First and Second Class in the First World War, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972 for his tireless dedication. We went on wonderful boating trips with the Dostluken on the Bosphorus and into the Belgrade Forest in the northern limits of Istanbul.

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2001 in the Kaisersaal of the German Consulate General in Istanbul. From right Sabine Halide, Yasmina, Alexander (who just passed his Abitur), Larissa and Erald Pauw.

Alexander, Larissa and Yasmina Pauw, children of our cousin Sabine Halide Pauw (née Vorndran), also completed their school careers at the German School in Istanbul, starting in 1994 (when Alexander began school) until 2003 (when Yasmina graduated). Her father, Erald Pauw, was a voluntary (unpaid) member on the school association board for many years. This association, as with many other German schools, was the school’s financial sponsor. Incidentally, the long-established Pauw family is one of the so-called Bosphorus Germans; they have been present in Istanbul for generations.

Daily Life in Constantinople ca. 1900

But let us return to our grandfather’s time. In addition to the German School, the hospital and the Protestant church, there were numerous shops, libraries, pensions and hotels under German or Austrian management. The beer taverns (meyhane) enjoyed special popularity. Around 1900 a part of the daily routine of young employees and wage earners was to treat themselves to a German beer after work.

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Advertisement for Gabelfrühstück⁴⁵

Even today, the attentive visitor can see advertising for a Gabelfrühstück⁴⁶ on a building in the Tünel area. Our grandfather Johann Vorndran, a Bavarian by nature and conviction, was a beer drinker, and he liked to tell us about the Bomonti Brewery in the district of Şişli. The brewery drew its brewing water from the Belgrade Forest in the city’s north. Even today, parts of Istanbul are supplied with drinking water from the reservoir there via pipeline. In contrast, his second wife Wilhelmine complained to us children in Walldorf (after 1945) that he often roamed the beer halls with friends – especially after longer periods of work in Anatolia.⁴⁷ Completely understandable to me. Construction sites in the country’s interior were often far away from any western civilization and facilities.

So, there was definitely a German