Footprints of a German Geoscientist in Istanbul (1915-1918): Professor Dr. Walther Penck

Privat Dozent Dr. Walther Penck was one of the German scholars, who were invited in 1915 to Istanbul, in order to reformize and improve the education at Istanbul Darülfünunu (Istanbul University). He was appointed as the Professor of Geology and Mineralogy and had founded together with his assistant Hamit Nafiz (Pamir) Bey the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy. This establishment dates the beginning of a systematic education and research of geology in Turkey. For the treatment of malaria Penck was forced to go to Germany in the early summer of 1918. His attempts to return to Turkey remained inconclusive due to the chaotic conditions at the end of the war and due to the capitulation regulations of the Alliance. In this paper, with the help of some documents from the archive of Penck’s Family, we will try to shed light on unknown and/or less known items of the three years until 1918, he spent in Istanbul