The Magic Message from Anatolia That Echoed Around the World
SEBAHATTIN ÇELEBİ
Every Turkish guest worker in Cologne’s working-class districts knew him — the man with the bağlama. By day he toiled on construction sites; by evening he breathed the soul of Anatolia to life in his modest apartment on Keupstraße lived in Germany for three decades, becoming a legend that transcended the Turkish community.
It is a remarkable story. A folk singer from the Anatolian heartland, who had initially come to seek medical care for his ailing daughter, stayed thirty years in a foreign land and became, in the words of those who witnessed it, one of the most important cultural mediators between Türkiye and Germany. His music provided a sense of home for thousands of guest workers, and his humility and humanity set an example of what it means to belong across borders.
Arrival in Germany: A Father Fights for His Child
In the early 1970s, Neşet Ertaş faced what he would later call the hardest decision of his life. His daughter Döne was gravely ill, and the medical options available in Türkiye were limited. Like so many Turks of his generation, he saw in Germany as offering better care and a new horizon.
He arrived in Cologne with his bağlama and a small suitcase — a city that had by then already become a center of Turkish migration. What was planned as a brief stay became a chapter of his life that would leave its mark not only on his own artistry but on the entire cultural landscape of the Turkish community in Germany.
Between the Scaffolding and the Stage
Neşet Ertaş found his new home on Keupstraße — that street in Cologne-Mülheim now known as the Turkish Mile or Little Istanbul. In a modest apartment, a man already famous in his homeland lived the life of an ordinary guest worker.
By day he swung a hammer on Cologne’s building sites, earning his living through hard physical labor. The hands that coaxed the finest melodies from the bağlama each evening were stained with cement and mortar each morning. This double existence — laborer and artist — made him an authentic voice of the Turkish guest worker generation.
In the evenings, his small apartment transformed into a cultural salon. Turkish families from across Cologne and the Rhineland came to him — not only to hear his music but to find a piece of home. In an age before the internet, when the thread connecting people to their homeland was thin and fragile, Neşet Ertaş became a living bridge between Anatolia and the Rhine.
Building Bridges: The Universal Language of Music
What was perhaps most remarkable about Neşet Ertaş was his ability to build bridges to his German neighbors and colleagues without a shared language. His German workmates on the construction sites came to know him as a modest, generous man. Even without understanding his words, they felt the emotion in his music.
At summer gatherings in the back courtyards of Keupstraße, he played for a mixed neighborhood. German pensioners sat beside Turkish grandmothers, all of them drawn under the spell of the bağlama’s melancholic tones. Music became the universal language that dissolved every barrier.
A Cultural Inheritance: Teacher to a Generation
Particularly profound was his role as a cultural mentor to the young Turks growing up in Germany. Every weekend, young musicians came to him — some born in Türkiye, others born on German soil. They came to learn from the master who embodied the authentic tradition of Anatolian folk music.
For the second and third generation of Turkish immigrants, he was a vital point of reference, a thread back to their roots. In a time of searching — caught between Turkish origins and German lives — he offered something rare: orientation. He showed that one could honor both worlds, inhabit both cultures without betraying either.
His apartment became an informal music school, where not only technique was taught but the cultural and spiritual dimensions of Anatolian folk music were passed on. Many of the next generation’s prominent Turkish-German musicians received their first musical formation within those walls.
Longing in Exile: New Songs Are Born
The years in Germany left a deep impression on his art. The experience of migration, the ache for home, the weight of life in a foreign land — all of it flowed into his music. Songs like Garip Bülbül (The Lonely Nightingale) and Sevda Çiçeği (The Flower of Loving) were born in this period and became anthems of the Turkish diaspora.
Yet these songs spoke not only of yearning for the Anatolian steppe. They also held gratitude — for the welcome Germany had offered, for friendships forged on scaffolding and in shared courtyards, and for the hope of a better future for the children who were growing up between two worlds.
Refusing Commerce: Art Over Business
Although Neşet Ertaş lived in Germany and his music found a wide audience there, he consistently turned down commercial offers from record companies. For him, music was a spiritual matter, not a business. His motto said it plainly: “I do not sing the songs. The songs sing me”.
This stance earned him deep respect, including from German cultural figures who recognized in him an artist of uncompromising authenticity. German ethnomusicologists and journalists took notice, drawn to the integrity with which he guarded his craft.
The End of an Era: A Return to the Homeland
In the year 2000, after nearly three decades in Germany, Neşet Ertaş decided to return to Türkiye. His daughter’s treatment had run its course successfully; he himself had grown older, and the call of the homeland had grown louder than he could resist.
His farewell in Cologne became a deeply moving occasion. Hundreds came — from the Turkish community, but also German friends and neighbors — to say goodbye to the man who had spent thirty years as a cultural ambassador between two worlds.
A Legacy: The Cologne Years of a Turkish Legend
What Neşet Ertaş lived and accomplished in Germany makes him a singular figure in the history of the Turkish-German relationship. He embodied a generation of guest workers who brought with them not only their labor but their culture, their warmth, and their humanity.
His years in Cologne showed, by example, how belonging can be built: through respect, through openness, through the willingness to learn from one another. He remained true to his roots without closing himself off to his surroundings. He preserved his traditions without turning them into a museum piece.
Today, more than a decade after his death, Neşet Ertaş is venerated as a legend in both Türkiye and Germany. In Cologne, people still remember the quiet man with the bağlama who lived on Keupstraße for thirty years and, in doing so, wrote a quiet piece of history.
His music lives on — not only in the hearts of the Turkish community, but in the hearts of all who believe that true art knows no borders and that humanity remains the finest bridge between cultures.
