Changes After Construction
The building, whose foundation was laid in 1894, was constructed with a large part of its cost covered by the architect Otto Kapp von Gültstein, who was responsible for the first section of the Baghdad Railway project.
In 1901, the school administrative association had an annex building constructed in the school garden by the architect C. Schwatlo.
The building, which was abandoned during the First World War, was used as barracks by French soldiers.
In 1925, after the proclamation of the Republic, it began educational activities again.
The school, which closed again in 1944 during the final period of the Second World War, took its present form after undergoing a series of restorations in 1953.
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The educational roots of Private German High School date back to the “German and Swiss School,” founded in 1868.
After the campus of the German and Swiss School near Galata was heavily damaged in the 1894 earthquake, it moved to its present building.
Gustave Wülfing, the Director of the Ottoman Bank at the time, provided financial support for the construction of the present campus.
German Emperor Wilhelm II, who came to Istanbul in 1898, visited the school.
Private German High School, which grants the same diploma as high schools in Germany, is the first educational institution outside the country to have this right.
Names such as Münib Engin Noyan, Atıl Kutoğlu, Bülent Eczacıbaşı, and Ahmet Emin Yalman are among the famous graduates of this school.
