Born as the eldest son of Ali and Rasiha Derviş in Salonika, Veli Derviş learned German in school. His father passed away when he was young, and his mother became a midwife. In 1912, he moved with his mother and brother Mehmet to Istanbul, where he served in the military on the German battleship Göben, known in Turkey as the Yavuz Sultan Selim.

Coming from a prominent tobacco family, Veli Derviş established a tobacco branch in Vienna, Austria. During World War I, he relocated to Dresden, Germany, which was becoming a hub for industrialized cigarette production. In 1923, he moved to Hamburg, a trading city with a free port, where he founded his company, “Dervisch Zigaretten,” with a production facility located in the city center on Spaldingstrasse.

During the Nazi regime, he faced challenges with the administration; however, as a Turkish citizen allied with Germany, married to a German woman, and producing goods deemed essential for the war effort, he managed to remain unharmed. He also assisted Jewish workers in escaping Germany via Turkey.

In 1943, heavy bombing led to the loss of his production site in Hamburg, but he quickly reopened another facility in Timmendorf on the shores of the Baltic Sea. After the war, he was able to resume work without concerns about denazification, allowing him to help many refugees from the East who had lost everything. He built shelters for them and employed a significant number of people, reaching a peak of 120 employees.

In 1938, Veli Derviş adopted the surname EREN, becoming Weli DERWISCH-EREN in German. He was a prominent figure, serving as the president of the Turkish Committee in Northern Germany and later as the consular representative of the Turkish General Consulate in Frankfurt.

In 1950, he was suspected of fraud and imprisoned for several weeks without formal charges, which led to severe difficulties for his business and ultimately resulted in his tragic death by suicide.

Veli had one daughter and a granddaughter. He also had a brother, Mehmed, who had a son, Akgün, and a grandson, Hakan, who tragically passed away in a car accident in 1993. Currently, Veli's only surviving family member is his granddaughter, Marian.

Author: Marian Sihle-Wissel, granddaughter.