Türkiye on Monday will mark the 64th anniversary of the first major coup in the history of the republic. The 1960 coup, which ended with the executions of the country’s prime minister and two ministers, is a reminder of the dark times followed by a darker era and more coups.
The coup drastically ended an era that started with Türkiye’s first truly democratic elections in 1950 and since then, democracy has remained vulnerable to “interventions” by the military, sometimes acting alone, sometimes with powers desperate to oust the governments they disliked. Its architects went unpunished for decades and when a government that can punish them came to power, all were already deceased. The hanging deaths of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan also inspired the 1980 military junta to find the solution to political turmoil in the country by “hanging people, one from left, one from right,” as its leader put it.
But more significantly, it showed malicious minds that a democratically elected government could be eliminated with a careful orchestration of a coup aided by the media and other players in the corridors of power.
The coup’s target was the Democrat Party (DP) of Menderes, who won the first elections held four years after Türkiye formally switched to a multiparty system. Ironically, it was Menderes who paved the way for the “retirement” of top military brass in 1950 amid reports of a prepared coup.
As the DP boosted its popularity against its main rival, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), political tensions flared, especially after the party’s second electoral victory in 1954. An impending economic crisis, an internal conflict within the DP and reports of senior officers of the army displeased with the government’s policies further exacerbated the situation for the party. In 1955, the first social “crisis” emerged in the form of riots in the cities of Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir. The infamous “Sept. 6-7 incidents” led to mass lootings of properties of minorities in those cities by mobs angered by rumors of attacks targeting the Turkish Consulate and former home of the republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
In the meantime, Menderes found out about another coup attempt, which was foiled when a major tipped off the government.
The Menderes government was still popular when Ismet Inönü, the second president of the country and head of the CHP, launched a nationwide campaign dubbed the “Great Offensive” (as in the campaign of Turkish forces in the War of Independence where Inönü played a major role). Inönü faced protests in his first stopover, the province of Uşak, where a stone thrown by a protester hit him. An angry mob also assaulted his motorcade as he was returning to Istanbul. The incident was a sign of a deepening social divide, only worsened by a string of demonstrations by university students opposing the government policies, including the establishment of a new inquest committee viewed as a way to suppress any dissent. The killing of demonstrating student Turan Emeksiz in Istanbul in April 1960 escalated the tensions and paved the way for the declaration of martial law in Istanbul and Ankara. However, more demonstrations against the government followed, including one where Menderes personally tried to calm down the protesters.
A “silent parade” by a group of military cadets in the capital Ankara to protest the government on May 21, 1960, was a harbinger of the coup d’etat as reports of top military brass’ displeasure with the government were almost an open secret by then. Six days later, a group of generals and military officers calling themselves the National Unity Committee announced that they seized power, claiming the DP was drifting Türkiye to a regime of oppression. The committee practically suspended democracy by annulling the Constitution and Parliament and suspending any political activity. President Celal Bayar, Menderes, ministers and several lawmakers were among those detained by the junta. After a trial that lasted for about one year, 15 prominent figures were sentenced to death. Except for Menderes, Polatkan and Zorlu, all were pardoned or had their sentences commuted to prison terms. On Sept. 17, 1961, three men were hanged on Imralı Island in the Marmara Sea.
It took decades before Menderes, Zorlu and Polatkan had their names cleared of charges and their graves were moved to a cemetery in central Istanbul from the island in 1990. Since then, commemoration ceremonies have been held annually for the victims of the first coup.
Today, the names of those behind the coup are largely forgotten, though they got away with their crimes. But the memories of the post-coup period remain alive in Yassıada, the island where Menderes and others were tried in a special courthouse, which is recently renamed “Democracy and Freedoms Island.”
Lengthy minutes of the trial also shed light on how the laws were conveniently violated by the junta’s judiciary arm to send the prime minister and ministers to their deaths. Minutes, accessible online on the website of Parliament’s library, demonstrate the junta’s efforts to tie the executed men to a series of cases based on fabricated charges. Prosecutor and law historian Ibrahim Çiçek told Anadolu Agency (AA) ahead of the anniversary of the coup that minutes show that what happened in 1960 was a coup, although some circles defined it as a “revolution.”
“After the coup, putschists disagreed on what to do with defendants in the Yassıada trials. Some favored hanging them, while others proposed sending them into exile abroad. They finally consulted with a group of law professors. The professors told them that they cannot justify the motives of the coup if they do not punish anyone,” he said.
Çiçek pointed out “strange things” happening during the trials, such as in the process of summoning the eyewitnesses. “They gathered them in one place and picked certain people among them for attendance to hearings. Others did not appear before any court. They did not summon eyewitnesses sought by defense lawyers, such as the head of an intelligence agency Menderes’ lawyer wanted to appear before the court for a trial on Sept. 6-7 incidents,” he said. Çiçek also reiterated that the court could not cite a legal reason in some convictions, such as in the sentencing of Hasan Polatkan, who was only charged with negligence in a corruption case.
He stated that Menderes and others were forced to take the blame for cases in which they had no connection whatsoever, such as the Sept. 6-7 incidents. He highlighted that the media played a role in inciting the incidents, including rumors that Zorlu sought a public demonstration in response to turmoil in Cyprus, an island now divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.
“As a matter of fact, it would be something against the government and the government tried to contain it when it first heard about a planned rally. Menderes and President Bayar even traveled to Istanbul to personally intervene in riots,” he said. He pointed out “serious signs of conspiracy” in plotting the riots that are ultimately blamed on the Menderes government.
“There was a deep network of people plotting these, but they got away with it while politicians were accused,” he said, referring to several people, including Orhan Birgit, a lawyer who was behind the Sept. 6-7 riots and a raid on the Tan newspaper before that, another dark episode in Turkish history.
Both incidents were viewed as attacks by nationalists on minorities and “Communist” media outlets, though the perpetrators behind both got away with lenient sentences or no sentence at all. Birgit, who portrayed himself as a nationalist first, later joined the DP’s main rival, the CHP, and even served as a tourism minister for the party later in his life before his death in 2019.
The coup encouraged future military interventions in 1971, 1980 and 1997, as the military, the self-proclaimed defender of the republic, intervened in the country's governance at times when it saw it as necessary, especially when the broadly interpreted secularism of the country and public safety were considered to be in danger.
The 1971, 1980 and 1997 coups respected the internal military hierarchy, headed by the chief of the general staff. The only military coup that failed was the one instigated by the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) on July 15, 2016. FETÖ's military infiltrators tried to seize power but faced unprecedented public resistance when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called upon the public to "protect the democracy."
The 2016 coup attempt was also the first time that courts managed to properly punish its perpetrators. Many involved in the coup attempt were sentenced to life. As for past coups, instigators of the 1980 coup died of old age briefly after a landmark sentence, while those accused of perpetrating the 1997 coup were pardoned by Erdoğan recently due to illnesses related to old age shortly after their conviction and subsequent incarceration.
