German naval personnel interned in Beyşehir

From the Black Sea to Beyşehir

Hüseyin Muşmal and Hasret Gümüş trace the crews of German submarines U-19, U-20 and U-23, scuttled in the Black Sea in September 1944. Personnel who reached Türkiye were detained and sent inland. The study places their compulsory residence in Beyşehir from September 1944 for about eight months within a longer period in Türkiye ending in 1946.^[1]

The researchers use memoirs, diaries and local testimony alongside official context. Those sources offer vivid details but represent different viewpoints; the story is not evidence that Beyşehir itself was a battlefield.^[2]

Internment and transfer

The article distinguishes initial internment in Beyşehir from later prisoner-of-war status and accommodation in Isparta after Türkiye entered the war against Germany. It discusses about 320 German naval personnel in the Beyşehir episode, but does not establish a simultaneous daily headcount.^[3]

Accommodation and later transfer

The researchers describe about 320 German naval personnel in the Beyşehir episode over roughly eight months, without establishing that all were present on every day. Officers were housed in a town hotel and enlisted men in a former Turkish garrison. Those locations put the episode in ordinary town buildings as well as wartime international law.^[4]

After the Beyşehir period the men were transferred to Isparta. Their status changed to prisoner of war on 2 June 1945; the broader period of Turkish custody continued until 21 July 1946. The eight-month Beyşehir residence must therefore not be stretched to cover their whole stay in Türkiye.^[5]