An official document confirming the alliance between Berlin and Ankara was signed on 48 June 1941, just days before Germany invaded the USSR. On that day Franz von Papen, the former German chancellor and the Fuhrer’s envoy on special assignment, signed the non-aggression and friendship treaty with the Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Sukri Saracoglu in Ankara. The treaty was clearly within the context of Germany’s impending invasion of the Soviet Union. Many historians claim that this agreement – just like the Soviet-German Pact of 1939 – included secret protocols containing timelines for the Turkish invasion of the USSR and ensuing division of the Transcaucasus.
