Wartime Turkey & Axis Chromium Trade

Turkey remained neutral through most of the Second World War and occupied a strategically important position between Europe, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Middle East. Both Allied and Axis governments competed for diplomatic influence and access to Turkish resources.

Chromium ore was particularly important because it was used in hardening specialist steels. Allied policy increasingly sought to restrict German access to Turkish chromium and other strategic materials, while Istanbul became a major meeting point for diplomats, agents and intermediaries from competing intelligence services.

Alex Gerlis’s Sea of Spies sends the fictional Richard Prince into this historical environment to investigate secret trade with Nazi Germany. The specific agent network and mission are fictional, but Turkey’s neutrality, chromium trade and wartime espionage activity are historical.