Today in History – 14/15 November

İnönü’s interest in chemistry

President İsmet İnönü was interested in a subject he never had the opportunity to study at length: chemistry. İnönü first divulged this secret to Minister of National Education Hasan Âli Yücel in 1942 and asked him to find a teacher that would instruct him well on chemistry. The Minister recommended Dr. Avni Bekman and provided the following information:

He was sent to Germany by the state before World War I and, after studying the German language in high school, he was admitted to the University of Berlin. He returned to Turkey with two PhDs after eleven years abroad. He is the author of the chemistry books we teach in high school. However, as we have no School of Science at Ankara University, he is currently teaching chemistry at the Gazi Institute of Education.

Thus began the chemistry classes held twice a week in the evening in a special lab set up in one of the rooms at Çankaya Palace. Interestingly enough, Hitler, who was hoping to establish close ties with the Ankara government, found out about İnönü’s interest and sent him a chemistry lab as a gift.

Often assigned homework by his teacher after class, İnönü once took the liberty of assigning Dr. Berkman a different kind of homework: he asked him to establish a School of Science within Ankara University. Indeed, the chemistry lab Hitler sent İnönü as a gift would be the first fixture of the School of Science where Dr. Avni Bekman taught his first class in 1943.