Georg Birgelen knows his way around diplomatic crises. He has been in charge of the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Istanbul for two and a half years. Previously, he was a permanent representative of the German ambassador to Moscow. And no other diplomat has looked after imprisoned "world" journalist Deniz Yücel as closely as Birgelen, 62. He supplied Yücel with food when he hid in front of the police for a few weeks in January 2017 in the summer residence of the German ambassador in Istanbul , later Birgelen visited him regularly in the maximum security prison in Silivri.
This article is from the SPIEGEL
Issue 9/2018
Hollywood internally
Power, violence and revenge in the film industryDigital Edition | Printed issues | Apps | SUBSCRIPTION
Last Thursday, after 366 days of imprisonment, everything is actually prepared for Yücel's release. After weeks of negotiations, an intervention by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and two secret meetings of German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish government has signaled that Deniz Yücel will be released from custody.
But the German Consul General suspects that one of the biggest tests is still to come: he must persuade Yücel to agree to Ankara's demands. The journalist has repeatedly stated in prison that he does not participate in collusion. He wanted a fair trial and continued to work as a journalist in Turkey after his release.
Birgelen got to know Yücel as a fighter, as a man who stands by his principles even under difficult conditions, but can also be incredibly stubborn. The Consul is nervous on the way to the detention center. He thinks it is quite possible that Yücel will collapse the agreement on his release in the last second.
Yücel had said, "Once I get out of here, I'm not going to dictate what steps to take." And indeed, the "world" correspondent remains in conversation with Birgelen initially hard. He actually wants to stay in Turkey for a few weeks, or at least a few days, but he lets the Consul General know.
DPA
Charter plane with Yücel in Berlin: get away as fast as you can
Yücel and Birgelen talk for a long time. Birgelen worries Yücel that there have been secret transactions between Germany and Turkey. At the end, the government in Ankara made only one request to the German Foreign Minister: Yücel had to leave the country immediately after his release.
With difficulty Yücel convinces himself, in the end he agrees to leave Turkey immediately. His release is nothing in the way. The lifting of pre-trial detention is only a formality, it should be announced the next morning.
For 367 days, Yücel was imprisoned innocently and without charge. 367 days that dragged on his own nerves, but also on the nerves of his relatives and friends, his colleagues, as well as the politicians and officials involved in his fate.
DPA
True-to-scale floor plan of Yücel's cell (printed on the backs of the "World" of December 9, 2017): "Reading, writing, meeting lawyers"
Yücel was the most prominent German prisoner in Turkey, so his case was the most complicated. From the point of view of the diplomats in the Foreign Office, reporting on him was a curse and a blessing at the same time: it prevented Yücel's being forgotten but was also a constant balancing act for those who sought his release.
The German-Turkish journalist became a symbol of the crisis between the two countries, even though it began well before his arrest and is far from over when he is released. The case marks the political gap that has opened between Ankara and Berlin: on the one hand, a regime that ruthlessly opposes the opposition and does not shy away from taking representatives of foreign media hostage. On the other hand, a journalist who is not distracted from his work by anything or anyone. Neither by the threats of an autocrat nor by warnings of the Federal Government or the concerns of its own editor-in-chief.
In the video: Absurd approach "
Deniz Yücel was imprisoned for a year and his sudden release surprised diplomats, friends and journalists alike. SPIEGEL correspondent Maximilian Popp on the case Yücel - and the many journalists still imprisoned.
Video
SPIEGEL editors have held many confidential discussions in recent months with those who have taken care of Yücel and his release: with Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, diplomats, Yücel's lawyers, and his colleagues and friends. Much information can not be published until after the case is resolved. Yücel himself could not be questioned, he is currently bringing his honeymoon to an unknown location.
What has led to his release in the end, can only answer the Turkish President. As always in such cases, many factors played a decisive role in the decision: economic pressure, the German charm offensive and not least the stubbornness of the journalist Deniz Yücel. But the impression remains that his release was as much an act of arbitrariness as the arrest over a year ago.
February 2016. Deniz Yücel provokes the Turkish government.
In more than a decade as Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Turkey only a few times. Well, in 2016, as the refugee crisis is smoldering and Merkel relies on Ankara's support, she travels to the country almost every month. So also on the 8th of February.
Deniz Yücel takes the floor in front of the cameras at the press conference at the office of former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara. He expresses Merkel in German to be silent on human rights violations in the country out of consideration for the refugee deal. Turkey slipped to # 159 in the International Press Freedom Ranking and security forces are targeting civilians in the southeast. "You do not hear anything about them," he says.
Davutoglu slip away from the facial features. He obviously did not expect such an attack and he finds it difficult to control himself. "You did not ask a question, you gave a lecture," he tells Yücel.
Overnight, the "world" journalist in Turkey becomes an enemy of the state. Government-friendly media launch a campaign against him, defaming him as a "religious enemy" and sympathizer of the banned Kurdish workers' party PKK. A little later, the then "World" editor-in-chief Stefan Aust decides to withdraw Yücel from Turkey. The Foreign Office had advised. SPIEGEL ONLINE also brings back his correspondent after his Turkish press card and thus the residence permit had not been extended.
Zuma / Action Press
Related Albayrak, Erdogan: Make an example
But Yücel returns to Turkey, from the beginning of April appear in the "world" again correspondent texts from him. Because he owns not only German but also Turkish citizenship, he does not need a visa - unlike the correspondents of other newspapers. In a long conversation, Ulf Poschardt, at that time "World Vice-Editor-in-Chief," advises Martin Schäfer, then spokesman for the Foreign Office, not to send the correspondent Yücel back to Istanbul. There is more than ever the risk that Yücel could be arrested, so the warning. As a dual national Yücel would then not even have legal entitlement to consular care by the German Embassy. Turkey also sees Yücel primarily as its own citizen, not as Germans.
September 2016. Erdogan's son-in-law starts journalists.
The hackers of radical left-wing group RedHack have repeatedly caused a sensation in Turkey by spectacular action. They penetrated into the computer systems of the Turkish police, the secret service, the university council. In September 2016, they succeed in their biggest coup so far: they crack the e-mail account of the Turkish Energy Minister Berat Albayrak.
Albayrak is not just any member of the government. He is the son-in-law of Erdogan and is considered his crown prince and most important confidant. His brother Serhat controls the Turkuvaz media group, which includes the daily newspaper "Sabah" and the television channel A Haber.
RedHack plays the Albayrak emails to journalists, whereupon appear in individual Turkish media first articles. For the Minister, the revelations are an embarrassment: they document how he puts pressure on the media and operates secret oil transactions with the Kurds in northern Iraq.
Albayrak is doing a lot to stop further releases. Alleged RedHack members are arrested. Whenever a text appears from the compilation, the website is blocked. But the government does not get the leak stuffed. Finally, in the beginning of December, all e-mails will end up on the WikiLeaks platform. Now Deniz uses Yücel from the dataset. Using the emails, he describes in a "World" article on December 13, 2016, how the government has established a secret troll army on the Internet.
Albayrak is not undisputed despite his prominent position within the Turkish government. He has raised by his cocky demeanor quite a few cabinet members against him. His opponents would love to see him fall over the RedHack affair. Albayrak apparently knows that he must not show any weakness now and increases the pressure. In his brother's "Sabah" newspaper, a report appears on December 25 stating that there are arrest warrants against nine journalists who reported on the Albayrak mails - one of them is Yücel.
Christmas 2016. The Federal Government becomes an escapee.
The Turkish police are not actively looking for the "world" journalist, they do not write him out to search and do not visit him at home. He does not seem to play a major role for the Turkish government at this time.
Yücel decides to go underground anyway. He calls the German Embassy in Ankara, where hardly anyone is on duty on Christmas Day. An employee puts him in contact with the consulate in Istanbul.
Thanassis Stavrakis / AP / DPA
Prison in Silivri near Istanbul: The government detains its worst enemies here
Consul General Georg Birgelen is on the treadmill in the gym when Yücel calls for help. He consults with Ankara and Berlin. The German diplomats decide quickly. They house Yücel at the ambassador's summer residence in Tarabya, on the shores of the Bosphorus. The 18-hectare site was donated in 1880 by the then Ottoman Sultan to the German Reich. The property next door belongs to President Erdogan.
The procedure is not undisputed in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs: A "message asylum", as practiced by other states, does not know the Federal Republic.
Yücel writes a message to his closest friends that day: I've been away for a while. Do not worry. For almost two months Yücel hides in one of the wooden houses in Tarabya. Patrol patrol in front of the property. Birgelen supplies Yücel with food and cigarettes. Apart from him, only a few officials from the Foreign Office and members of the Federal Government are inaugurated in the process.
It is still unclear whether the Turkish government has already taken the plan to tackle Yücel before the RedHack affair. A high-ranking official who is familiar with the negotiations says that Yücel had come more or less by accident into the circle of accused persons during the RedHack investigation. "Berat Albayrak has arbitrarily attacked anyone who reported on RedHack."
At first Erdogan does not know who Deniz Yücel is. He apparently only learns by a call from the Federal Government of the case. The president asks confidants about the journalist, he wants to know who this man is. In the presidential palace they realize that Yücel is a special case. He is not just a Turkish journalist who can be locked away without anyone noticing. He has a German passport and writes for a German newspaper. What to do?
A group of moderate advisors and ministers advises Erdogan to tacitly resolve the case in dialogue with Germany. "It was clear that we would harm ourselves with the arrest of Yücel in the long term," says a government politician who does not want to be named. Scharfmacher, to which also Albayrak belongs, want to make an example of the "world" journalist. Erdogan is undecided.
The Foreign Office is considering whether Yücel can be secretly taken out of the country, but how? On a boat across the Aegean Sea? In a car across the Turkish-Bulgarian border? Or could you bring Yücel to NATO Air Force Base Konya and fly out of there with an Awacs plane? The scenarios are quickly rejected as absurd.
On February 2, 2017, Merkel discusses the case of Yücel with Erdogan in Ankara. But the hope of German diplomats for a political solution breaks down. The Turkish president insists that Yücel faces the police.
The Federal Foreign Office informs Yücel's employer, the Springer publishing house, that the situation that Yücel had driven to Tarabya shortly before the turn of the year was unchanged. Only the public tirades of Erdogan against Germany had eased a bit. Nevertheless, Yücel can not stand it anymore. He wants to be "not a second Julian Assange," he says, referring to the founder of the WikiLeaks disclosure platform, who has been stuck in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 2012. He wants to stand up.
February 2017. The Turkish government takes Yücel hostage.
Attorney Veysel Ok is confident his client will be released when he and Yücel arrive at the Vatan Caddesi Police Station in Istanbul on February 14th.
"Mr. Yücel, Chancellor Merkel is interested in you," the police chief welcomes his visitors. "Where were you?"
"At home," answers Yücel. They drink tea. Then Yücel is questioned. The officers ask him about the Albayrak email, his contacts to RedHack. It is a well-timed game: The chief of police from Ankara has long been ordered to arrest the journalist.
Can Erok / Abaca / DDP
Released Yücel in Istanbul: "I'm not available for dirty deals"
Yücel lands in a cell in the cellar of the guard, along with two or three other prisoners. Neon lights burn around the clock in the hallway. It stinks of sweat, the toilets are dirty. Pen and paper are prohibited. Yücel uses a broken plastic fork as a pen and the red sauce of the canned food as an ink. Later, he manages to smuggle a pen from the doctor's office. He writes a detention report, which appears under the heading "We are not here for fun" in the "Welt am Sonntag". ("Morning: sticky, cold toast with cheese / sausage, lunch and dinner food from canned food, always looks the same and always tastes just miserable.")
In the Foreign Office they still hope to find a compromise with Turkey. But in truth, Yücel's fate has long since been decided. The hardliners in Ankara to Energy Minister Albayrak have prevailed.
After two weeks at the police station, Yücel will be brought to the magistrate's court in the Çaglayan court on 27 February in Istanbul. The hearing begins with a surprise. Unlike at the police station, Yücel is no longer asked about the Albayrak emails. Instead, it is suddenly about a text about the failed attempted coup on 15 July 2016, a reportage on the Turkish military's war against Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country and an interview with PKK leader Cemil Bayk - quite different articles.
President Erdogan, a Turkish official later declares, did not want the e-mail affair of his son-in-law to be reopened in public. The judge locked Yücel therefore under the pretext of terrorist propaganda in custody.
Erdogan has now recognized the case as an election campaign theme. In April 2017, people in Turkey are voting on a constitutional amendment that will give the president even more power. Anti-European propaganda is well received by nationalist voters. Erdogan referred Yücel in a speech on 3 March as a member of the PKK and as a "German agent" who had hidden in the German consulate.
March 2017. Deniz Yücel ends up in solitary confinement in Silivri.
Just a few years ago, the high-security wing in Silivri near Istanbul consisted of a few concrete buildings. Meanwhile, the detention center has become Europe's largest prison complex. The government is holding its worst enemies in Silivri: opposition politicians, journalists, officers allegedly involved in the July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
Deniz Yücel is also relocated to Silivri after a few days in the Istanbul-Metris prison. His cell has a toilet, a shower and a tiny courtyard surrounded by high concrete walls. The guards push the food through a flap in the door. Yücel is in solitary confinement for the first nine months. He gets to see but his lawyers, his wife and the Consul General no one to see.
In an interview, he tells how he kills time: "Reading, writing, cleaning, preparing for lawyer talks, meeting lawyers, you do not have as much time in jail as I would have imagined." In the jail shop, I can buy pens and paper And from the many letters I already have calluses on my right hand. "
Christian Mang / Imago
Free Deniz motorcade in Berlin: "One year stolen"
The prison sentence is not only a burden for Yücel, but also for his family and friends - especially for Dilek Mayatürk, his girlfriend and later wife. Mayaturk is a poet and has worked as a television producer, including for the BBC. Yücel met her while reporting on the Turkish state's war against Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey. When Yücel was arrested, Mayaturk had just started a new job in Munich. The two were at this time only half a year together.
Mayaturk faced one of the most difficult decisions of her life: she had started a new life in Munich, but knew that she would hardly support Yücel from a distance. She quit her job, gave up the apartment and moved back to Istanbul. In April, the two marry in prison.
Mayatürk is allowed to visit Yücel once a week in Silivri. They talk to each other for one hour, separated by a pane of glass. Mayaturk says little herself, she listens to everything.
His wife becomes the mainstay of Yücel's imprisonment. It helps him not to despair of injustice. Mayaturk tries to show no weakness. But she suffers from the situation. She is sleeping badly. She begins to paint and play the cello to distract herself. "This year, stolen by the Turkish state, will never be returned to anyone," she says.
In Berlin, journalist Doris Akrap and author Imran Ayata found friends with #FreeDeniz. Ayata is not dissimilar to Yücel: he thinks fast and formulated pointedly. Above all, he has important contacts in the culture business as managing director of the PR agency Ballhaus West. Ayata and Akrap launch a campaign to release Yücel: they organize motorcades, concerts and readings on which celebrities such as Herbert Grönemeyer and Hanna Schygulla recite texts by Yücel.
The Freundeskreis #FreeDeniz manages to bring together people from different milieus and camps. Journalists from "taz" and Springer, leftist radicals and CDU voters are demonstrating for the release of Yücel.
July 2017. Erdogan seeks proximity to Germany.
Erdogan is perceived by his admirers as an idealist, by his opponents as an ideologue. In truth, the Turkish president is above all one thing: an opportunist.
In the first half of the year, Erdogan is confronting Germany. He accuses the Germans of "Nazi practices" and terrorist support, his authorities arrest the German journalist Mesale Tolu at the end of April and, two months later, the human rights activist Peter Steudtner. In background talks, German diplomats warn journalists of further arrests: Erdogan is collecting hostages, they say.
At the end of July, the Federal Government draws consequences. Foreign Minister Gabriel announces a reorientation of Turkey's policy: He is tightening up the security advice for Turkish travelers and is checking state export guarantees for German companies in Turkey. Arms exports should also be shelved.
In Ankara, the change of course causes nervousness. Entrepreneurs and industrialists call Premier Binali Yldrm to warn of a break with Germany. The Turkish economy relies on investments from Europe. Erdogan orders his people to cement the relationship with the Germans after the federal election in September.
At some point, Gabriel stumbles over a sentence that Erdogan has said about the Germans: there is only one person who understands Turkey, and that is Gerhard Schröder. "When I heard that, I called Gerd and asked him if he would not mediate," Gabriel recalls. The former Chancellor agrees, but wants to discuss with Angela Merkel beforehand in order to be credible to Erdogan.
One week after the election, Schröder travels to Istanbul. Erdogan offers a trade: Germany should extradite those officers who are wanted since the coup attempt of 15 July 2016 as a conspirator. Then he was ready to release Yücel, Steudtner and the other Germans. Schröder refuses: "Even if I were chancellor, I would not do that." Shortly thereafter, Chancellery Minister Peter Altmaier travels to Istanbul.
Erdogan leaves more wishes. He wants German armourers to modernize Turkish tanks, it's about a better mine protection for M60 tanks from American production and a "hard-kill" defense system for German "Leopard 2" tank.
Both sides send out signals of reconciliation. In October 2017, the Federal Security Council approved a pre-requisition for the upgrade of the M60 tanks. And the human rights activist Peter Steudtner is released. On November 4, 2017, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu invites his colleague Gabriel to Antalya, shortly before Christmas journalist Mesale Tolu is released from custody.
End of 2017. Yücel fears a dirty deal.
Deniz Yücel had filed a lawsuit against his detention at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and on Tuesday, November 28, the Turkish government submitted its comments. It contains no new evidence. For the first time there is real hope that Yücel could be released. "When we saw that after ten months of extensive investigation work, they did not find anything, and I knew that they would not get away with it," says "Welt" editor-in-chief Ulf Poschardt today.
Shortly after Christmas Erdogan flies to Tunisia and dictates to the traveling press a sentence in the notepads: "We must reduce the number of enemies and increase the number of friends."
"OK," comments Poschardt in the "Welt". "The Federal Republic should not reject the outstretched hand." Poschardt knows that he is in a double role: on the one hand a journalist, on the other employer, who does not want to complicate the efforts to release his correspondent journalistic. "Whenever I wrote about Turkey, I always wrote in the knowledge that it was perceived that way," he says.
On January 6, 2018, the negotiations are entering the hot phase. Sigmar Gabriel invites his Turkish counterpart to Goslar. The fact that he serves his tea by hand from a Turkish pot is criticized by German politicians, while in Turkish media Gabriel is celebrated. The German Foreign Minister is promising that Germany could agree to the modernization of the Turkish "Leopard 2" tank.
When Yücel finds out about it in prison, he decides to give an interview to the German Press Agency (dpa), it is written about his lawyers. "I'm not available for dirty deals," says Yücel. He did not want to know his freedom "stained with Rheinmetall tanks or the activities of any other brothers in arms".
The diplomats in the Foreign Office are alarmed, they fear that Yücel could have torpedoed with his efforts to release him. Also in the Springer publishing house one is not happy. "World" editor-in-chief Poschardt called the editor-in-chief of dpa and outlined the consequences of the interview.
But the dpa was not deterred, as Yücel. "You can not forbid Deniz," says Poschardt.
However, it is not Yücel's objection, but the Turkish military offensive in northern Syria a few days later, which destroys a deal for the time being. Ironically, with those "Leopard 2" tanks that wanted to modernize Berlin, the Turkish army is now against the Kurdish militia YPG in Syria before Afrin.
Inga Kjer / Photothek via Getty Images
Foreign Minister Gabriel (M.) in the "World" editorial board (with Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner and "World" editor-in-chief Poschardt on 16 February in Berlin on the occasion of the release of Deniz Yücel): "I called Gerd"
Foreign Minister Gabriel decides to meet Erdogan in person. He does not want to confront the Turkish president hard, but relies on his goodwill. On February 4, he secretly travels to Rome, where Erdogan visits the Pope. One and a half hours talk the two politicians in the Hotel Excelsior together. Only at the very end comes Gabriel to talk about the case of Yücel, he asks him for his advice on the matter. Erdogan promises to work to speed up the process.
When the Turkish President invites the German Foreign Minister to Istanbul a week later, Gabriel knows that things are going in the right direction. At this second meeting, the two discuss very concretely the further procedure.
Only a few are privy to the secret negotiations. Even the chancellor tells Gabriel only two days before Yücel's release that there is a breakthrough.
February 2018. How Yücel's departure by a hair fails
For Veysel Ok, Friday is a special day: as a lawyer, he represents not only Deniz Yücel, but also the former editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper "Taraf", Ahmet Altan, who has been imprisoned in Silivri for one and a half years. In both cases, a court decision is expected.
Ok sits on Friday morning in a motorway service area near Silivri, together with Yücel's wife Dilek Mayatürk and Consul General Georg Birgelen. "World" journalist Daniel Dylan-Böhmer, author Imran Ayata and other friends came from Germany. The group is waiting for the news from the court. At eleven o'clock, a lawyer finally calls Ok on the mobile. The judge has just ordered the release of Yücels from pre-trial detention. The process continues. Yücel is allowed to leave the country.
In the service area rejoicing breaks out. The group rushes to the prison. It takes several hours until the formalities are done and Yücel actually steps outside. Ok, a photo taps Yücel Mayatürk's picture, with a bunch of parsley in his hand. Oks's other client, the Turkish journalist Ahmet Altan, is less fortunate: he is sentenced to life imprisonment that day.
The officials in the Foreign Office are still nervous at this time. They fear the Turkish government could change their minds at the last minute. From Berlin issued the instruction, Yücel please please drive to the airport as soon as possible. However, the journalist insists on keeping Besiktas in front of his apartment in the Istanbul district. He knows that he will probably not be able to return to Turkey for a long time. He wants to pick up his cat and some personal items.
Yücel records a video message. "I still do not know why I was arrested a year ago, more specifically why I was taken hostage a year ago and I do not know why I was released today." When Foreign Minister Gabriel hears about it, he warns that Yücel will not publish the video until he's out of the country.
Consul Birgelen is getting restless. The Turkish and German governments have agreed that Yücel will leave for Germany on Friday. The pilots of the machine chartered by Springer-Verlag must comply with rest periods. At 18:50, the group finally breaks out of Besiktas. It's raining. The streets are blocked. The convoy reaches the airport just in time. At 20.50 the plane leaves Turkish soil.
Correction: In an earlier version, we referred to Ulf Poschardt as Editor-in-Chief when he was still vice-boss of the "Welt". We have corrected that.