We Refugees Archive

Dr. Ing. Martin Wagner, Stadtbaurat A.D.
Berlin-Halensee, Friedrichsfuherstrasse 25, Fernsprecher: J73958
Istanbul-Moda, Moda-Köskü am 25 Februar 1936.

Mein lieber Mächler, 11Martin Mächer (1881-1958), schweizerisch-deutscher Stadtplaner und Architekt.

Was muss Sie das wohl gekostet haben, mir nach fast einjährigem Schweigen den ersten Brief zu schreiben! Nun, wo ich ihn habe, danke ich Ihnen recht herzlich für dieses Lebenszeichen. […]

Ja, kommt man in Deutschland überhaupt zum arbeiten? Ich meine: zu ganz neuem schöpferischen Tun? Ich kann mir das schwer vorstellen. Einmal deshalb nicht, weil man aus Deutschland überhaupt keine Arbeit von Belang zu Gesicht oder zu Gehör bekommt. Sodann aber auch, weil das Satanische die ganze Welt zu regieren scheint und völlig unfruchtbar macht. Uns Auslandsdeutschen geht es da garnicht anders! Obgleich wir hier fast ohne jede Ausnahme materiell ohne Sorge sind, täglich die herrlichste Natur geniessen und echt ostische Ruhe haben, so will sich all das doch nicht zu Boden setzen und Früchte tragen. Die Unruhe der ganzen Welt legt sich wie eine Gewitterwolke auf unsere Seele. Man wartet immer nur auf die Entladung. Aber sie kommt nicht. Es war mir interessant zu hören, dass es nicht  nur mir so geht. Die Mehrzahl der nun auf etwa 42 Köpfe angewachsenen deutsche Professoren-Kolonie bestätigte mir mein eigenes Erleben in diesem Punkt. (Dass nun auch Reuter [gemeint ist Ernst Reuter] in das Ministerium nach Ankara gerufen wurde, das wissen Sie wohl schon. Ich sehe ihn aber selten und höre nur, dass er nicht den rechten Wirkungskreis für seine Talente gefunden hat.)

Und in dieser Atmosphäre haben Sie den Mut, Ihre Grosssiedlung wieder vorzunehmen? Grosssiedlung im Sinne von reformierter Grosstadt mit Citybildung und so? Lieber Mächler, wenn unsere Grosstädte nicht das Gewicht ihrer Masse an den Füssen hätten, wenn sie nicht kapitalisierte Steinbrüche wären, in denen Sklaven fast ewige Renten zu erarbeiten hätten, dann wären diese Gebilde heute längst nicht mehr auf der Erde und durch weit bessere Organismen des Lebens, des Wohnens und des Arbeitens ersetzt! Sie sehen doch, dass alle Grosstadtstaaten in den letzten Zügen liegen und offenbar nur das eine Rettungsmittel kennen, ihre investierten Kapitalien von Kanonen schützen zu lassen. Was brauchen wir noch unsere alten Grosstädte? So fragt der abgesetzte Stadtbaurat von Berlin! Jawohl, er fragte schon sehr lange so, und wird immer wieder diese Frage stellen. Nun, wo ich hier ganz gegen meinen Willen gezwungen werde, einer alten Türkenstadt europäischen Grosstadtcharakter zu geben, stelle ich diese Frage noch im stärkeren Masse.

Verstehen Sie mich nicht falsch! Ich wollte auf das Europäische und auf das Weltstädische nicht verzichten! Aber war nicht kürzlich auch in einem bayrischen Dorf olympischer Weltstadtgeist versammelt? Geben Sie dem wirklichen Weltgeist nur ein Stelldichein und Sie werden finden, dass er 90 % unserer alten Grosstadtbaumassen gut entbehren kann. Rufen Sie die Nobelpreisträger nach Malorka – die Politiker nach Genf – die Industriekapitäne nach Lugano – die Künstler nach Kreta – die Filmer nach Tahiti, und Sie haben überall die kleine Weltstadt mit dem grossen Weltgeist. Aber Weltgeist muss schon da sein, sonst bleibt auch das kleinste Dorf nur eine Geisterwelt. Aber wie weit sind wir wohl heute vom wirklichen grossen Weltgeist entfernt? Gewiss er lebt, er ist da, aber er hat nichts zu sagen! Das grosse Wort haben die Banausen! Denken Sie einmal darüber nach: Weltstädte in wandernden Zeltlägern, – um das Problem zu übertreiben. Mir kommt es nur auf die Richtung der Entwicklung an. Schaffen Sie Weltstädte mit 50 000 Einwohnern, dann aber haben Sie meine neue Stadt im neuen Lande!

[…]

Mit herzlichsten Grüssen an alle Weltbürger

Ihr

Martin Wagner

Footnotes

• 1Martin Mächer (1881-1958), schweizerisch-deutscher Stadtplaner und Architekt.

Dr. Ing. Martin Wagner, City Architect A.D.
Berlin-Halensee, Friedrichsfuherstrasse 25, telephone: J73958
Istanbul-Moda, Moda-Köskü on February 25, 1936.

My dear Mächler, 11Martin Mächer (1881-1958), Swiss-German city planner and architect.

What must it have cost you to write me the first letter after almost a year of silence! Now that I have it, I thank you very much for this sign of life. […]

Yes, does one get to work at all in Germany? I mean: to completely new creative activity? I can hardly imagine that. First of all, because one doesn’t get to see or hear any work of importance from Germany. Secondly, however, also because the satanic seems to rule the whole world and makes it completely barren. It is no different for us Germans abroad! Although we are here almost without exception materially without worry, enjoy daily the most marvelous nature and have real eastern peace, all this does not want to settle down and bear fruit. The restlessness of the whole world settles on our soul like a thundercloud. One is always waiting for the discharge. But it does not come. It was interesting to me to hear that it was not just me. The majority of the German professors’ colony, which has now grown to about 42 heads, confirmed my own experience on this point. (That now Reuter [meaning Ernst Reuter] has also been called to the ministry in Ankara, you probably already know. But I rarely see him and only hear that he has not found the right sphere of activity for his talents).

And in this atmosphere you have the courage to undertake your large-scale settlement again? A large settlement in the sense of a large reformed city with city building and so on? Dear Mächler, if our large cities did not have the weight of their masses on their feet, if they were not capitalized quarries in which slaves had to work out almost eternal pensions, then these structures would have long since ceased to exist on earth today and would have been replaced by far better organisms of life, living and working! You see that all big city states lie in the last trains and know obviously only the one rescue, which is to let protect their invested capitals by cannons. What do we still need our old big cities for? So asks the deposed city councilor of Berlin! Yes, he has been asking this question for a long time, and he will keep asking it. Now, when I am forced against my will to give an old Turkish city the character of a large European city, I ask this question even more strongly.

Do not misunderstand me! I did not want to renounce the European and the cosmopolitan! But wasn’t there recently an Olympic cosmopolitan spirit in a Bavarian village? Give the real world spirit only one rendezvous and you will find that it can well spare 90% of our old big city building masses. Call the Nobel Prize winners to Malorka – the politicians to Geneva – the captains of industry to Lugano – the artists to Crete – the filmmakers to Tahiti, and you have everywhere the small world city with the big world spirit. But world spirit must be there, otherwise even the smallest village remains only a ghost world. But how far away are we today from the real great world spirit? Certainly he lives, he is there, but he has nothing to say! The banauses have the big word! Think about it once: World cities in wandering tent stores, – to exaggerate the problem. What matters to me is only the direction of development. Create world cities with 50 000 inhabitants, but then you will have my new city in the new country!

[…]

With warmest greetings to all cosmopolitans

Yours

Martin Wagner

Footnotes

• 1Martin Mächer (1881-1958), Swiss-German city planner and architect.

A close confidant of Atatürk’s 11Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) founded the Republic of Turkey, which emerged from the collapsed Ottoman Empire after World War I, and was its first president from 1923 to 1938. Until today, he is admired as a symbolic figure of Turkish national self-assertion with a strong and mostly uncritical personality cult. He is best known for the uncompromising modernization course with which he led the young Turkish republic: As a path to modernization, he proclaimed a radical laicization and Europeanization of the state. vehemently advocated the recruitment of foreign architects. Experienced architects and artists came to Turkey, including Martin Wagner (1885-1957), the former city architect of Berlin, who came to Turkey in 1935. He received an appointment as urban planning advisor to the city of Istanbul. There he prepared a series of urban planning reports and a general development plan for the city. Through his mediation, a year later the famous architect Bruno Taut was engaged from Japan to Turkey to the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul.

During his time in exile in Istanbul, Martin Wagner maintained (correspondence) contacts with many supporters and representatives of Neues Bauen (New Building), such as Ernst Reuter (Ankara), Walter Gropius (first London, later USA) Ernst May (emigrated to Tanganyika in East Africa), Martin Mächler, Hans Scharoun (Berlin) and Bruno Taut (Istanbul).

In the period before World War I until the time of the Weimar Republic (1910s to 1930s), Neues Bauen (New Bulding) emerged as a significant movement in German architecture and urban planning that confronted conservative and traditionalist trends. Neues Bauen was characterized by a rationalist approach and sociopolitical objectives: Housing for as many people as possible was to be created through a simple yet aesthetic architectural style.

Under National Socialism, Neues Bauen was suppressed and traditionalist architectural styles were enforced instead.

In 1936 Wagner wrote from Istanbul Moda to the Swiss-German architect and urban planner Martin Mächler. Interesting here are his reflections on the (urban planning) developments in a “satanic” time of the “unrest of the whole world”, in which it was precisely the philistines who were speaking out against the cosmopolitans. It is also interesting that Wagner describes his situation in exile as safe and comfortable, but at the same time emphasizes – with a Western disdain for the “East” – the involuntary nature of his activity and stay in Istanbul.

Footnotes

• 1Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) founded the Republic of Turkey, which emerged from the collapsed Ottoman Empire after World War I, and was its first president from 1923 to 1938. Until today, he is admired as a symbolic figure of Turkish national self-assertion with a strong and mostly uncritical personality cult. He is best known for the uncompromising modernization course with which he led the young Turkish republic: As a path to modernization, he proclaimed a radical laicization and Europeanization of the state.

Letter from Martin Wagner to Martin Mächler, quoted from: Ilse Balg (ed.), Martin Mächler – Weltstadt Berlin. Schriften und Materialien, Berlin: Galerie Wannsee Verlag, 1986, pp. 374-376.