İbrahim Tali Öngören
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İbrahim Tali Öngören (1875–1952) was a Turkish military officer and politician.


Education and early life

He attended the medical academy of the Ottoman military and during the Turco-Italian war he was deployed to Tripolitania where he met Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) in 1911. While preparation towards World War I were met, he was assigned the Deputy Chief of the Health Department of the Ottoman Army in 1914. He was promoted to Colonel in June 1915. As such he served in Çanakkale and Sedd el Bahr, later he stationed in the city of Diyarbakır where he met Atatürk again in 1916. He was shortly assigned as the Medical Inspector to the Ottoman Army in the Caucasus but upon his return to Istanbul, he became the Inspector for the Ottoman soldiers in treatment in the
German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
. In Germany he attended a medical congress on infectious illnesses, representing the Ottoman Empire. He became an adherent to the Kemalist ideology, was one of the military officers who supported Mustafa Kemal from the start of the
Turkish War of Independence , strength1 = May 1919: 35,000November 1920: 86,000Turkish General Staff, ''Türk İstiklal Harbinde Batı Cephesi'', Edition II, Part 2, Ankara 1999, p. 225August 1922: 271,000Celâl Erikan, Rıdvan Akın: ''Kurtuluş Savaşı tarih ...
and accompanied Atatürk on his journey to
Samsun Samsun is a List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, city on the north coast of Turkey and a major Black Sea port. The urban area recorded a population of 738,692 in 2022. The city is the capital of Samsun Province which has a population of ...
in 1919. During the Turkish War of Independence he was deployed to the Eastern Front where the Kemalist forces launched an offensive against
Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
.


Political career


Kemalist representative

At the Congress of the Peoples of the East of the Communist International in Baku in 1920, he represented a Kemalist delegation which attempted to raise support for their fight against the Allied forces occupying
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
. Talî argued the resistance against the Allied Powers was a struggle between Turkish Nationalist Movement and western capitalism. After Turkey was created in 1923, he was appointed the Turkish ambassador to
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
from June 1924 to January 1926. Later he was involved in the
Turkification Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization () describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specif ...
process of the Turkish territory, which included a large Kurdish population in the eastern provinces. In 1927, he was appointed the Inspector General of the First Inspectorate General, which span over several provinces with a Kurdish majority and was established as a reaction to the Kurdish led Sheikh Said Rebellion. As an Inspector General, he had wide-ranging authority in the eastern provinces and was able to deport and resettle people he thought would not fit in the area according to the policies outlined of the Report for Reform on the East. He divided the possessions of Kurdish tribal leaders into several smaller ones and supported the Kurdish populations
Turkification Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization () describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specif ...
through education and the Turkish Hearths. Öngören supervised the implementation of a new Five-Year plan for Security and Disarmament which was announced in April 1932. The soldiers of the Seventh Army of Turkey were involved in the plan due to expected battles. By the end of the year, Tali Öngören mentioned that thousands of weapons were confiscated in the campaign and Şükrü Kaya, the Minister of the Interior at the time, elaborated detailed reports about the weapons confiscated. In January 1933 Öngören resigned from the post as Inspector-General and was succeeded by Hilmi Ergeneli who served until 1935.


Öngören and the Jews

In 1934 he was appointed the Inspector General of the newly established Second Inspectorate General in the western provinces of Turkey. In May and June 1934, he traveled through the provinces under his domain and prepared a report concerning the population of the provinces which included a significant
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
population at the time. He presented his report about the journey to the Ministry of the Interior, which blamed the Jews of being involved in labor unions and also exploiting the Turkish population in the region. He organized pogroms against the Jews and stated that :
"The Jew of Thrace is of such moral corruption and such lack of character that it strikes you in the eyes. He is harmful. ..In the Jewish conception of the world, honor and dignity have no place. ..The Jews of Thrace are striving to make Thrace identical to Palestine. For the development of Thrace, it is of the utmost necessity not to tolerate this element he Jews ..continuing to suck the blood of the Turks. he Jewsconstitute this secret danger and may perhaps, through their workers' clubs, seek to establish communist nuclei in our country; that is why it is an absolute necessity ..to finally and in the most radical way solve the ewishproblem."
Due to health reasons, Öngören had to resign from the Inspectorate General in August 1935. He died on the 2 January 1952.


Personal life

Ibrahim Tali Öngören was married and had three children.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Öngören, İbrahim Tali Kemalists Turkish nationalists Ambassadors of Turkey to Poland 20th-century Turkish diplomats 1875 births 1952 deaths Antisemitism in Turkey Armenian genocide and the Holocaust