The Mechanisms for Terrorizing Minorities: The Capital Tax and Work Battalions in Turkey during the Second World War

In this essay policies against non-Muslim minorities implemented during World War II by the Turkish government are analyzed: specifically, the mobilization of minority young men aged eighteen to forty-five years into work battalions from May 1941 to September 1942, as a repetition of the Amele Taburlari during World War I, and the capital tax implemented as a means of economic destruction of the non-Muslim minorities from November 1942 to March 1944. The motivations, conditions, and implementation of both anti-minority measures are analyzed and their consequences are presented.