This article discusses a little-known aspect of higher education history. The Republic of Turkey was established in 1923. The system of higher education Turkey inherited from the Ottomans totaled some 300+ Islamic "madrasas", one of which was converted into a fledgling university at the turn of the century; and three military academies, one of which was expanded into a civil engineering school around 1909. Starting in 1933, Turkey reformed its higher education using invitees fleeing the Nazis, for whom America was out of reach because of restrictive immigration laws and wide-spread anti-Semitic hiring bias at its universities. Almost overnight, the University of Istanbul was referred to as the best German university in the world. Historians of higher education might have difficulty matching so significant a qualitative transformation implemented at the national level in so short a timeframe. One country's great loss was another country's gain, and a third country's benefits delayed. (Contains 30 footnotes and 3 figures.)