Germany & the Genocide
Posted 22 October 2012 - 10:05 AM
Photograph links Germans to 1915 Armenia genocide
Sunday, 21 October 2012
[Summary: Newly discovered picture shows Kaiser's officers at scene of
Turkish atrocity. The photograph is available at the link above.]
The photograph - never published before - was apparently taken in the
summer of 1915. Human skulls are scattered over the earth. They are
all that remain of a handful of Armenians slaughtered by the Ottoman
Turks during the First World War. Behind the skulls, posing for the
camera, are three Turkish officers in tall, soft hats and a man, on
the far right, who is dressed in Kurdish clothes. But the two other
men are Germans, both dressed in the military flat caps, belts and
tunics of the Kaiserreichsheer, the Imperial German Army. It is an
atrocity snapshot - just like those pictures the Nazis took of their
soldiers posing before Jewish Holocaust victims a quarter of a century
Did the Germans participate in the mass killing of Christian Armenians
in 1915? This is not the first photograph of its kind; yet hitherto
the Germans have been largely absolved of crimes against humanity
during the first holocaust of the 20th century. German diplomats in
Turkish provinces during the First World War recorded the forced
deportations and mass killing of a million and a half Armenian
civilians with both horror and denunciation of the Ottoman Turks,
calling the Turkish militia-killers "scum". German parliamentarians
condemned the slaughter in the Reichstag.
Indeed, a German army medical officer, Armin Wegner, risked his life
to take harrowing photographs of dying and dead Armenians during the
genocide. In 1933, Wegner pleaded with Hitler on behalf of German
Jews, asking what would become of Germany if he continued his
persecution. He was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo and is today
recognised at the Yad Vashem Jewish Holocaust memorial in Israel; some
of his ashes are buried at the Armenian Genocide Museum in the
It is this same Armenian institution and its energetic director, Hayk
Demoyan, which discovered this latest photograph. It was found with
other pictures of Turks standing beside skulls, the photographs
attached to a long-lost survivor's testimony. All appear to have been
taken at a location identified as "Yerznka" - the town of Erzinjan,
many of whose inhabitants were murdered on the road to Erzerum.
Erzinjan was briefly captured by Russian General Nikolai Yudenich from
the Turkish 3rd Army in June of 1916, and Armenians fighting on the
Russian side were able to gather much photographic and documentary
evidence of the genocide against their people the previous year.
Russian newspapers - also archived at the Yerevan museum - printed
graphic photographs of the killing fields. Then the Russians were
forced to withdraw.
Wegner took many photographs at the end of the deportation trail in
what is now northern Syria, where tens of thousands of Armenians died
of cholera and dysentery in primitive concentration camps. However,
the museum in Yerevan has recently uncovered more photos taken in
Rakka and Ras al-Ayn, apparently in secret by Armenian survivors. One
picture - captioned in Armenian, "A caravan of Armenian refugees at
Ras al-Ayn" - shows tents and refugees. The photograph seems to have
been shot from a balcony overlooking the camp.
Another, captioned in German "Armenian camp in Rakka", may have been
taken by one of Wegner's military colleagues, showing a number of men
and women among drab-looking tents. Alas, almost all those Armenians
who survived the 1915 death marches to Ras al-Ayn and Rakka were
executed the following year when the Turkish-Ottoman genocide caught
up with them.
Some German consuls spoke out against Turkey. The Armenian-American
historian Peter Balakian has described how a German Protestant
petition to Berlin protested that "since the end of May, the
deportation of the entire Armenian population from all the Anatolian
Vilayets [governorates] and Cilicia in the Arabian steppes south of
the Baghdad-Berlin railway had been ordered". As the Deutsche Bank was
funding the railway, its officials were appalled to see its rolling
stock packed with Armenian male deportees and transported to places of
execution. Furthermore, Professor Balakian and other historians have
traced how some of the German witnesses to the Armenian holocaust
played a role in the Nazi regime.
Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath, for example, was attached to the
Turkish 4th Army in 1915 with instructions to monitor "operations"
against the Armenians; he later became Hitler's foreign minister and
"Protector of Bohemia and Moravia" during Reinhard Heydrich's terror
in Czechoslovakia. Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg was consul at
Erzerum from 1915-16 and later Hitler's ambassador to Moscow.
Rudolf Hoess was a German army captain in Turkey in 1916; from
1940-43, he was commandant of the Auschwitz extermination camp and
then deputy inspector of concentration camps at SS headquarters. He
was convicted and hanged by the Poles at Auschwitz in 1947.
We may never know, however, the identity of the two officers standing so nonchalantly beside the skulls of Erzinjan.
Posted 24 October 2012 - 09:47 AM
October 22, 2012 | 21:29
BERLIN. - The theme of the Armenian Genocide will become one of
the constant exhibitions in Berlin, Germany. The realization of the
program will start in 2016 when the capital city will open the Centre
Against Expulsions. A Foundation Centre Against Expulsions has been
operating since 2000 in solidarity for the victims of genocides and
forced relocations. Head of the center and German MP Erika Steinbach
included also the exhibition on the Armenian Genocide. In addition
she speaks up for the recognition of the genocide both in German and
To note, both the foundation and the scientific council are for the
exposition on the Armenian Genocide to make part of the constant
exhibition. The initiative brings forth protest of the left wing party.
Posted 14 November 2012 - 12:57 PM
- Yervant1 likes this
Posted 01 March 2015 - 08:46 AM
Ralf Wieland: Germany shares responsibility for Armenian Genocide
During the First World War Germany as an ally was well aware of the
Young Turks' plans and shared responsibility for a genocide
perpetrated against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, chairman of the
state parliament of Berlin Ralf Wieland said.
The state parliament of Berlin organized a commemoration event
dedicated to the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.
The speakers called on Turkey to recognize the Genocide in order to
prevent repetition of similar crimes against humanity.
President the state parliament of Berlin touched upon the role of
Germany: "During the First World War, Kaiser's German,y as an ally,
knew about the plans of the Young Turk government, and shared with
them the responsibility for perpetrating a genocide against the
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The German side was aware, however,
prevention of the crime was not in the interests of the country".
Posted 06 March 2015 - 10:57 AM
DEUTSCHE WELLE: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE - GERMAN GUILT?
11:21, 06 Mar 2015
Witness or accomplice? At a congress in Berlin, historians have been
debating Germany's role in the genocide of Armenians 100 years ago.
New findings show that Germany's complicity is greater than previously
(Deutsche Welle) - In the German Reichstag on September 29, 1916,
the diplomat Gottlieb von Jagow had to give parliament an account of
the terrible events in Turkey, then the Ottoman Empire.
It was about mass displacement and executions taking place in the
eastern region of Anatolia. The German Empire was a colonial power
there at the time and also an ally of the Ottoman government, which
had previously initiated a mass persecution of Christian Armenians
before the onset of World War I. "We did everything we could," stated
Jagow in defense of Germany's passivity.
This silent acquiescence toward the mass murders has been the subject
of the International Historians Congress in Berlin.
Historians see the German Empire's involvement in the deportation
of Armenians as a proven fact. However, the part the Germans played
is still not clear. Were they mere witnesses, or were they actually
Depending on estimates, 300,000 to 1.5 million Armenians were murdered
by the Turks. and refer to it as genocide. Yet in modern-day Turkey,
the state that replaced the Ottoman Empire, the human suffering of
that era is still officially seen as "a war-related dislocation and
security measure." The number of victims is still a matter of dispute
in Turkey, making reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia difficult.
Germany knew and turned a blind eye
Armenians view the Germans as accomplices, says historian Ashot Hayruni
The 160 historians in Berlin were focused on Germany's complicity in
the Armenians' suffering. According to the Armenian historian Ashot
Hayruni from the State University of Yerevan, the Germans are seen
as accomplices because of their silence and cold indifference.
The German government just stood by and watched as the young
Turkish government expelled Armenians from Turkey to the deserts of
Mesopotamia, a region now in modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and Syria. And
Germans claimed that they did not want to interfere, even though they
were very well-informed.
Historian Christin Pschichholz from the University of Potsam has
no doubts. After having read files at the German Foreign Ministry,
she concludes that, "the German government had extensive information
about the destructive policies regarding the Armenian population
in the Ottoman Empire. Death marches, executions and forced labor:
German diplomats painstakingly took note of everything happening
around them at that time.
Historical witnesses were quite aware of the atrocities, as illustrated
by a dispatch sent on July 7, 1915 by the German Ambassador in
Constantinople (now Istanbul) to the Imperial Chancellor. It said,
"it is the declared intention of the government [meaning the Turkish
government] to destroy the Armenian race in the Turkish Empire."
A German military mission was posted to the Ottoman Empire at the
time of the genocide
Historian Rolf Holsfeld at Lepsiushaus, a highly regarded research
institute in Potsdam, says, "the statement that genocide took place
on Ottoman territory in 1915 and 1916 has been officially known to
the German government for over 100 years. "
The way Germany handles the subject of the Armenian genocide does
not directly reflect on Germany's complicity at that time. German
government officials have always avoided using the word genocide when
speaking of Armenia. Instead, they speak of massacre and dislocation.
In February 2015, the Linkspartei, German's far-left party, asked
parliament about the use of terms regarding the persecuted Armenians
in Turkey and the government decided to continue using the same
terminology. The reason given was that it did not want to jeopardize
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. The German government's policy:
categorizations should be left to academia.
Armenia, together with more than 20 other countries, and the majority
of the historians at the Berlin convention have classified the events
as genocide, in accordance with the UN Genocide Convention of 1948.
About a year ago, the former Premier and now President of Turkey, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, broke the decade-old silence of Turkish officials on
this subject. He apologized to the victims and their descendants and
spoke of the "inhuman consequences" of the Armenians' expulsion. He
did not speak of genocide.
President Erdogan apologized in the name of present-day Turkey
Former East German civil rights activist and former member of
parliament for the Social Democrats, Markus Meckel, was in the
Bundestag when the Armenian issue was first discussed 10 years ago.
Even then, no resolution regarding Turkey could be adopted if it
contained the word genocide. After a great deal of discussion, an
ensuing paper stated that the Germans apologized for the "inglorious
role" of the German Empire. It was not possible to say more. Even in
communism, said Meckel, history was defined by politics.
Yet Germany could send an important political signal by recognizing
the suffering of the Armenian people as genocide. He says, "Anyone
who does not use this term is basically giving the suffering and the
catastrophe a lesser meaning."
Historian Ashot Hayruni from the State University of Yerevan thinks
it is the German government's obligation and says, "It is important
that the German government adopts a decision in which the genocide
is recognized and condemned as such."
To Yerevan with a small German delegation
Historical photograph of Armenian refugees
According to DW sources, the German parliament plans to remember the
victims of the Armenian genocide with a debate. But there is little
cause to believe that anything will change in an argument about
Quite the contrary: now there is a dispute as to who will represent
Germany at the main memorial service in Armenia on the 100th
anniversary of the genocide on April 24 this year. The expulsion of the
ethnic group began at Istanbul's Haydarpasa station on April 24, 2015.
Until now, the German Foreign Ministry claims that it is still checking
to see who will officially represent Germany in the Armenian capital.
Insiders are expecting that Germany's reticence on this issue will
be underscored by the absence of high-level politicians. It is
possible that only the German ambassador will attend the service,
whereas France will be represented by the president himself, Francois
Hollande. Historian Jurgen Gottschlich has called this 'scandalous.'
Posted 10 March 2015 - 09:33 AM
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE GERMAN "AMNESIA"
Cornelius Janzen, who hosts the "Culture Hour" program on the
German-language 3Sat satellite TV, presented a video recently, and
entitled "Germans and the Armenian Genocide."
The maker of this video states that the political archives of the
German MFA contains hundreds of documents that attest to the systematic
slaughter of Armenians and the German Empire's role in this tragedy.
Dr. Rolf Hosfeld, the scientific managing director of the House of
Lepsius Organization (Lepsiushaus), and Jurgen Gottschlich, a foreign
correspondent for German daily Die Tageszeitung in Turkey, also were
guests of this program.
Gottschlich expressed a conviction that the German Empire's role in
the Armenian Genocide was more than a mere observer. He has studied
the Turkish and the German archives, and come to the conclusion that
Germany had provided an active political support in the carrying out
of this genocide, and so as to fulfill its own military objectives.
And as per Hosfeld, the aforementioned events had unrolled in the
context of military thinking, and with the desire to win the First
World War at any cost. He believes that Germany has tolerated the
Armenian Genocide. Hosfeld also criticizes Germany's current position
on this matter, and accuses it of "amnesia."
Posted 07 September 2015 - 08:54 AM
Swedish newspaper: Germany doesn't want to remember about its role in
Germany doesn't want to acknowledge its own role in the Armenian
Genocide, the Swedish newspaper Politiken writes.
For a long time, Germany didn't want to acknowledge the Armenian
Genocide, since it didn't want to spoil its relations with Turkey. And
perhaps it also didn't want to remember about its own role and
liabilities, the article reads.
`Germany was Turkey's ally in the World War I. The German officers
served in the Ottoman military police; [German] diplomats and
political functionaries travelled throughout the country. Some of them
observed the deportations, while others took part in them. Still
others wrote home, urging Germany to interfere.
Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg said: `Our only aim is
to keep Turkey on our side until the end of the war, no matter whether
as a result Armenians do perish or not.'
Debates rise about the fact why Germany hasn't so far acknowledged the
happening as a Genocide, like France, for instance. For fear of
spoiling relations or because of reluctance to remember about its own
role? Discussions have revived more then ever,' the article reads.
Posted 08 October 2015 - 10:17 AM
JUSTIFYING GENOCIDE: GERMANY AND THE ARMENIANS FROM BISMARCK TO HITLER HARDCOVER- JANUARY 4, 2016
by Stefan Ihrig (Author)
The Armenian Genocide and the Nazi Holocaust are often thought to
be separated by a large distance in time and space. But Stefan Ihrig
shows that they were much more connected than previously thought.
Bismarck and then Wilhelm II staked their foreign policy on close
relations with a stable Ottoman Empire. To the extent that the
Armenians were restless under Ottoman rule, they were a problem
for Germany too. From the 1890s onward Germany became accustomed to
excusing violence against Armenians, even accepting it as a foreign
policy necessity. For many Germans, the Armenians represented an
explicitly racial problem and despite the Armenians' Christianity,
Germans portrayed them as the "Jews of the Orient."
As Stefan Ihrig reveals in this first comprehensive study of the
subject, many Germans before World War I sympathized with the Ottomans'
longstanding repression of the Armenians and would go on to defend
vigorously the Turks' wartime program of extermination. After the war,
in what Ihrig terms the "great genocide debate," German nationalists
first denied and then justified genocide in sweeping terms. The Nazis
too came to see genocide as justifiable: in their version of history,
the Armenian Genocide had made possible the astonishing rise of the
Ihrig is careful to note that this connection does not imply the
Armenian Genocide somehow caused the Holocaust, nor does it make
Germans any less culpable. But no history of the twentieth century
should ignore the deep, direct, and disturbing connections between
these two crimes.
Posted 13 January 2016 - 11:32 AM
ARMENIANS WERE THE "JEWS OF THE ORIENT" IN GERMAN DISCOURSE
by MassisPost January 12, 2016, 1:04 pm 0 Comments
Historian Stefan Ihrig
By Vartan Estukyan
Historian Stefan Ihrig authored another important book titled as
"Justfiying Genocide" that is published by Harvard University Press.
In this book, Ihrig discussed the Germans' view of the Armenians
from Bismarck to Hitler and we talked to him about the background
and the factors that led to this historical attitude of Germans
How was the view of Germany toward Armenians during the Bismarck era?
Which factors had shaped that view?
Armenians were not much of a topic for most Germans in the Bismarck
years. The Armenians really made an entry on the international stage
with the Congress of Berlin in 1878. In the years after, Germany under
Bismarck followed a kind of dual policy toward the Ottoman Empire:
to use it as a deflector of tensions from the center of Europe and to
gradually get Germany closer to the Ottomans as a possible partner. In
all this, Armenians were something of an irritation -but also an
opportunity for Germany. An opportunity because Bismarck's Germany
used the Armenian topic to endear itself to Abdulhamid by either
standing by him or by being silent and not speaking out for Armenians.
It is known that under the reign of Abdulhamid II, Ottoman Empire
had developed close relations with Germany. What kind of a stand
did Germany take towards 1894 and 1895-96 Armenian massacres in the
The trend started under Bismarck continued afterwards: Germany used
the Armenian topic to build up its standing with the Ottoman rulers.
But, again, the topic was problematic. The 1890s massacres were a
challenge for Germany in as far as fellow Christians were in need of
protection and intervention, yet official Germany stood by Abdulhamid
throughout the process, silently, almost like an accomplice. Though
behind closed doors, the outrage was loud and clear.
In public Germany, something of a conflict between pro-Ottoman and
pro-Armenian papers and activists started and it continued until
the massacres had ended. One side wanted to raise awareness about
Armenian suffering, while the other side either denied the extent of
the violence or offered justifications for why the Ottoman state had to
keep down Armenians. The pro-Ottoman side was the stronger one, aided
by newspapers that were in the government's pocket. The interesting
thing here is that Armenians were almost never really discussed as
fellow Christians. Already in the 1890s, the racial dimension was
becoming more and more important than any religious aspect.
When German Emperor William II traveled to Istanbul in 1898, this
necessitated a new look at what had happened to Armenians in the
years before. This led to the productions of not only justifications
for the German silence on the matter and support for the Ottomans,
but also very distinct justifications for why the Armenians had to
be massacred the way it had happened. The most shameful, but most
important and commercially successful justification for violence
against Armenians was a book by Friedrich Naumann, in which he -an
important imperial thinker, liberal politician and Protestant pastor-
justified why Germany had to be silent and even fully justified
massacring Armenians. His and others' justificationalist discourses
were bad precedents for future developments.
It is told that Germany did not prevent the genocide, because they
needed Ottomans more than Armenians. However, as explained in the book,
the Armenian enmity in Germany had strong historical roots. What do
you think about that issue?
The historical roots of Germany's stance on the Armenian topic during
World War I go back to the late 19th century. Germany as a state and
a society had become used to the Armenians being "expendable" at the
altar of imperial policies; Germany had become used to justifying
the violence against Armenians. Thus, it was not really a question
of "enmity", but rather very sophisticated indifference based on a
foundation of justifications for why violence against Armenians could
be understood as "justifiable" -ranging from realpolitik to racial
perceptions. During World War I, holding on to Ottomans as allies was
of vital importance and Armenians again were seen as expendable. It
is well documented how German diplomats knew about the genocide in
progress and how the official Ottoman propaganda was believed at
first. For some part of 1915, the matter was seen as a military one.
Then, in the summer, the German embassy in Istanbul fully realized
that the annihilation of Armenians was planned and in progress. But
due to the alleged interests of the war, this never translated into
anything but very shy protests. Germany -once more, like in the 1890s-
became something of an "enabler" of Ottoman violence against Armenians;
only now, on a much larger and more horrifying scale.
You wrote that Germany whitewashed the traces of the Armenian Genocide
pursuant to the World War I. In that context, is it possible to say
that they were still sharing the same destiny?
Already once the German embassy realized that what its consuls in
Anatolia were witnessing was "the annihilation of a people", in the
summer of 1915, the German Foreign Office became afraid that what
was happening to Armenians would be used against Germany after the
war had ended. Entente propaganda at the time alleged that Germany was
behind the Armenian Genocide. As a reaction, the German Foreign Office,
already during the war, began to develop an official line and also to
produce documents showing that it had not only tried to stop genocide
in progress but had helped individual Armenians as well. After World
War I, the German Foreign Office continued to try to "control the
story", but failed. In the summer of 1919, the German Foreign Office
published documents on the Armenian Genocide which were meant to
positively influence world opinion in relation to Germany's alleged
co-conspiracy in the genocide. This publication, however, in fact
kick-started a large genocide debate in Germany. This genocide debate
would reach its high-point when TalÃ¢t Pasha's assassin stood trial
in Berlin and it continued until the Treaty of Lausanne was signed.
In the race hierarchy of the Nazis, Armenians were seen as
'quasi-Jews'. What is the reason of that?
The Nazi view of Armenians was based on the views that had developed
at the end of the 19th century in racial anthropology and also in
popular discourse about Armenians. German anti-Armenianism was like a
carbon-copy of Central European modern, racial Antisemitism. In racial
anthropology and popular racial books, Armenians were portrayed as
either racially related or equivalent to, or even "worse" than the
Jews. The Nazis merely took previously existing discourses about the
race of the Armenians -the "Jews of the Orient" as they had often
been called since the late 19th century in German discourse.
It is known that the Nazis could update their race hierarchy as
'occasions required', like in the case of Arabs. Did they see the
Armenians as 'weak ally' against the Soviets?
Despite the Nazi racial views on Armenians -which are documented for
Hitler himself for the 1920s and the 1930s as well- the Nazis did not
translate this into active persecution of Armenians in Nazi-conquered
Europe. Armenians presented one of these cases in which the Nazis
could set aside their essentialist racial worldview for immediate
political and military gains, for a moment at least. Though, of
course, it remains unclear what would have happened to German racial
anti-Armenianism once the German armies would have been victorious
against the Soviet Union.
The book prefaces with an anecdote on the famous 'Forty Days in the
Musa Dagh' of Franz Werfel. You said that Werfel had written that book
to warn the Jews against their upcoming fate. How could Werfel and
European Jews have established an interrelation between the Unionists
and the Nazis? What is its historical and political background?
When Werfel wrote his famous "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh", it was
mainly as a warning to Germany against Hitler. He wrote that Armenians
were his "stand-in Jews". For Werfel, it was obvious that the readers
of the book would see the parallels between the genocidal politics of
one regime and those of the one that was dawning upon Germany. The
main reason why he expected that was the great genocide debate that
had taken place in Germany around the Armenian Genocide in the early
1920s. Probably one of the greatest genocide debates in history before
the Holocaust. People in Weimar Germany knew very, very well about
the Armenian Genocide. During this great genocide debate, the German
press had debated motivations and intent for genocide; the execution
and ramifications; as well as, shockingly, possible justifications for
Genocide for many years. And, importantly, discussing the violence
against Armenians and debating the Armenian topic had always also
meant -to some extent- talking about Jews. Through the racial views
of German justificationalism and German anti-Armenianism, there had
been always a connection to the Jews and the alleged "Jewish Question."
Werfel was already on a lecture tour in the winter of 1932/33 in
Germany reading from his unfinished manuscript, again to warn Germany
against Hitler. He read the chapter in which the German pro-Armenian
activist, Johannes Lepsius, meets Enver Pasha in 1915 and tries to
get him to stop the genocide in progress. As a newspaper review from
that winter told: it was clear to the audience in Werfel's reading
that Lepsius was not so much speaking to Enver, but rather to the
audience, to Germany. Werfel was too slow in finishing his grand
warning against Hitler. The novel was only published in late 1933,
only to be banned shortly after its publication. Werfel's was mainly
a German and a Jewish story. Only due to its timing, it has been
remembered mainly as an Armenian story.
Posted 24 January 2016 - 12:11 PM
The Daily Beast: Stefan Ihrig
HISTORY LESSON 01.24.16 12:15 AM ET
How the Armenian Genocide Shaped the Holocaust
Nowhere was the debate over what was going on in Turkey to the Armenians
more heated than Germany'and the conclusions drawn would change history.
One day in the winter of 1941, as he `walked through the streets of the
Warsaw Ghetto,' Hermann Wygoda, `Ghetto smuggler,' tried to make sense
of what was happening to him and the people around him: `I wondered
whether God knew what was going on beneath Him on this troubled earth.
The only analogy I could find in history was perhaps the pogrom of the
Jews in Alexandria at the time of the Roman governor Flaccus ... or the
massacre of the Armenians by the Turks during World War I.'
Wygoda was not the only one seeing this parallel. The German Social
Democrats in exile reported continuously on the situation in Germany in
their `Germany reports'. In February 1939 they warned, `At this moment
in Germany the unstoppable extermination of a minority is taking place
by way of the brutal means of murder, of torment to the degree of
absurdity, of plunder, of assault, and of starvation. What happened to
the Armenians during the [world war] in Turkey is now being committed
against the Jews, [but] slower and more systemically.'
We could also mention the famous German-Jewish writer Franz Werfel who
in 1932/1933 wrote his most well-known novel about the Armenian
Genocide, his Forty Days of Musa Dagh, mainly to warn Germany about
Hitler. The book was later extremely popular in the Nazi-imposed ghettos
of Eastern Europe.
There seems to be something obvious connecting both great genocides of
the 20th century. Yet, in its hundredth year, the Armenian Genocide is
still a peripheral object in the violent history of the 20th century.
Most of the new grand histories of World War I marginalize the topic, if
they mention it at all. It seems as if the topic is an exclusively
partisan affair of the Armenian diaspora and a few confused others (like
me). But the Armenian Genocide is an integral part of the history of
humanity's darkest century. There can be no doubt that it is an
important part of the prehistory of the Holocaust, even if history books
suggest that the two genocides were separated by a great distance in
time and space.
Mainstream history writing has not only been reluctant to discuss the
Armenian Genocide at all, but even more so to even think about the
possible connections. The alleged and imagined controversy over the
factuality of the Armenian Genocide'or more correctly the denialist
campaign sponsored by Turkey'have contributed to this impression of a
great distance separating this genocide from the Holocaust.
Many problems surround the topic and Turkish denialism is but one of
them. Claims to the uniqueness of the Holocaust and a lack of Nazi
sources referring directly to the Armenians are others.
In fact the sentence attributed to Hitler, and the most famous Nazi
quote on the matter, apparently epitomizes just that: `Who, after all,
speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?' But this is
something of a dead end, if not a distraction from the deeper
connections between the two genocides. For one, it is not entirely clear
whether he said it or not. Some sources of the meeting have it, others
don't (which, however, does not have to signify that he did not say it).
Also, it means something different than some understand it. It is more
about the fact that nations at war can commit horrible atrocities and
get away with it.
The relationship between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust is
apparent in two periods of history. The first is the debate that raged
in Germany regarding the slaughter of Armenians by its ally the Ottoman
Empire in the early 1920s. The debate came down in favor of genocide,
and by the time the Nazis came to power, violence against the Armenians
had been understood and even outright justified, already for decades.
The second period is when the Nazis were in power and looked to the
post-ethnic cleansing Turkey as a role model.
Strangely enough, not only does Germany connect the two genocides in its
own history very closely, it is also Germany that offers some historical
clarity on the debate of whether it was a genocide or not.
It has been claimed that interwar Germany did not `come to terms' with
the Armenian Genocide and that this somehow made the Holocaust possible.
However, the opposite is true: Germany not only came to terms with it,
but probably had the greatest genocide debate up to that point in human
history. It was rather that the outcome of this genocide debate was
particularly problematic: it had ended in justifications of genocide and
even with calls for the expulsion of Jews from Germany. And despite a
drawn-out debate there had been a marked failure to produce a deeper
religious, humanist, or philosophical analysis, appreciation, and
condemnation of what genocide meant. While most of the political
spectrum had found solace in the fact that this had been an `Asian
thing,' only the political extremes on both ends of the spectrum,
radical Socialists, and Nazis realized that this was potentially also a
To understand all this one has to take a look at Germany's very own
Armenian history. Germany was not only an ally of the Ottoman Empire
during World War I'at the time the genocide was committed'but had been a
quasi-ally as early as the 1890s. And already since Bismarck's times it
had often acted as the Ottomans' European shield when it came to the
Armenians. In the 1890s when tens of thousands of Armenians were killed
in the Hamidian massacres (1894-1896), this was also a `problem' for
Germany, but also an opportunity to further ingratiate itself with the
Ottomans (economic concessions were the immediate results). But it was
problematic mainly vis-Ã-vis its own public at home. Pro-Armenian
activists and papers were raising awareness of what had happened in the
Ottoman Empire and the pro-Ottoman elites were disquieted; the result
was a propaganda war between both sides waged in the German newspapers.
The pro-Ottoman (and anti-Armenian) side seemed to be winning, but the
massacres simply did not come to an end. During the last massacres (in
1896) a series of essays reporting on the atrocities of the last years
was published in Germany and for a moment pro-Armenian sentiment seemed
to have carried the day.
But then, merely two years later, the German Emperor Wilhelm II
travelled to Istanbul. This obvious show of friendship with the `bloody'
sultan necessitated a revisiting of the Armenian massacres in Germany
and produced discourses that not only justified the violence against the
Armenians but also the German government's silence and continued support
for the Ottomans. The preeminent German liberal thinker, imperialist,
and Protestant pastor Friedrich Naumann even went one step further and
argued for an ethic-free German foreign policy, devoted solely to
national self-interest. This was a dynamic that would play out two more
times in German history, during the genocide as well as after World War
I in a great German genocide debate (1919-1923).
During World War I Germany, now officially an ally of the Ottomans,
again acted as a shield for violent Ottoman policies vis-Ã-vis the
Armenians. However, now this violence reached unprecedented, genocidal
heights. While official Germany continued to back their Ottoman ally and
even continued to spew violent anti-Armenian propaganda and
justifications for whatever was actually happening to the Armenians,
behind closed doors Germany started to become anxious. Official Germany
now feared that what was happening in Anatolia and Mesopotamia would be
used against Germany after the war. And so already in the summer of 1919
the German Foreign Office published a collection of documents from its
internal correspondence on the Armenian Genocide. It was meant to show
the world that Germany was innocent of the charge of co-conspiracy in
the murder of the Armenians, but it inadvertently kick-started a
genocide debate in Germany that would continue for almost four years.
The publication of this documental record of the Armenian Genocide, with
all its gory details, provoked an outcry and condemnations in the
liberal and left press in Germany, including attacks on Germany's
wartime leaders. At this point large sections of the press already
acknowledged what we, today, would term `genocide' and what they called
`annihilation of a nation' or `murder of the Armenian people.' But then
followed a long year of backlash in which nationalist and formerly
pro-Ottoman papers minimized what had happened, focused on the alleged
Armenian wartime stab in the back, and justified what the Young Turk
leadership had done as `military necessities.'
The debate could have ended here, but then, in March 1921, Talt Pasha,
former Ottoman Grand Vizier and Minister of the Interior as well as the
widely perceived author of the genocide, was assassinated in a crowded
Berlin shopping street. Three months later the assassin stood trial in
Berlin and was acquitted by a jury ` the trial had been completely
turned around and focused rather on the Armenian Genocide and Talt
Pasha's role in it than on the actual assassination.
Not only shocked by the outcome of the trial but also by all the
evidence and testimony produced in the Berlin court, the German press
again focused on the Armenian Genocide in depth. Discussing the trial,
the German papers reproduced a horrifying liturgy of genocidal
suffering. Now the whole German press landscape, including the formerly
denialist papers, came to accept the charge of `genocide' against the
Young Turk leadership. Again, the debate did not come to an end here,
another backlash followed. Nationalist papers again offered
justifications, but now for what even they understood as genocide. And
this after the German genocide debate had already gone on since 1919 and
after it had included all the ingredients needed for a true genocide
debate: detailed elaborations on the scope, intent for, and
ramifications of this `murder of a people.' And it was on this note that
the debate simmered for another two years until the Treaty of Lausanne
was signed (establishing modern Turkey).
All this would perhaps not be that important, had Germany not been
merely ten years before Hitler's rise to power: A genocide debate had
not only taken place, but had ended in justifications for genocide. Even
then, the true saliency of the topic lay in the racial and national view
of the Armenians held by many of the German commentators: they were seen
as the (true) `Jews of the Orient,' either as equivalent to the Jews of
Europe or even `worse.' This German anti-Armenianism was as old as
Germany's tradition of excusing violence against the Armenians
(especially since the 1890s) and was a carbon copy of modern, racial
Anti-Semitism. In this logic, it had been no surprise that in 1922, when
another two Young Turks were assassinated in Berlin, the nationalist
press connected the Armenian assassins to the German Jewish question.
Consciously confusing the two categories, the (hyper-)nationalist press
called for an `ethnic surgeon' to cut out what was eating away at
So, who was still talking about the Armenians in the Third Reich?
Surprisingly, almost nobody. The Nazis were remarkably silent on the
topic, but were very vocal on what had followed the Armenian Genocide.
The rise of the New Turkey and all the accomplishments of Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk were important ingredients in the Nazi political imagination. In
the German interwar and Nazi discourses on the New Turkey, one finds a
chilling propagation of what a post-genocidal country, one cleansed of
its minorities, could achieve: To the Nazis, the New Turkey was
something of a post-genocidal wonderland, something that Germany would
have to emulate. The Nazis were discussing the Turkish model already in
the early 1920s. A German-Jewish newspaper reader and critic of
Anti-Semitism, Siegfried Lichtenstaedter, understood the `Turkish
lessons' formulated in Nazi articles (in 1923 and 1924) to mean that the
Jews of Germany and Austria should be, and had to be, killed and their
property given to `Aryans.' He wrote this in his 1926 book Anti-Semitica.
In the end it does not matter how important we find the possible
influences exerted from the Armenian Genocide on the Nazis'they surely
did not need to learn their murderous business from others. What they
did learn was that there were many people, even in an open pluralistic
society who would ignore, rationalize, or even outright justify
genocidal violence. Even the Churches did not significantly intervene
for fellow Christians. To paraphrase the impression of a Jewish reader
of Werfel's book in the ghettos during World War II: If nobody would
save Christians, who would intervene for the Jews? And if German
nationalists could find it in themselves to justify the genocide of
Christians and were not met with much opposition in the German public,
who would speak out for the Jews?
There are no easy and automatic casual connections from one genocide to
the next, but the Armenian Genocide and its close proximity to the
Holocaust illustrate the importance and the pitfalls of how we come to
terms with the past. They also illustrate that we are far from done with
struggling to understand the tragic 20th century. This is why the
Armenian Genocide finally needs to take its place, and be allowed to
take its place, in the bloody history of the 20th century, not only
generally in world history, but specifically in European and German history.
Stefan Ihrig is the author of Justifying Genocide: Germany and the
Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler published by Harvard University Press.
Posted 19 February 2016 - 10:45 AM
BUNDESTAG TO HOST DISCUSSION ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
February 19, 2016 - 16:14 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - The issue of Germany's recognition of the Armenian
Genocide will be discussed on February 24, Ermenihaber.am reports
citing Turkish media.
According to sources, draft resolutions on the massacres were
introduced to Bundestag by the Left Party and the Alliance '90/The
Greens. The discussions are set to last 38 minutes.
To remind, the German Bundestag had characterized the massacres of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. In order to create a
comprehensive text, the German authorities and the opposition had
agreed to transfer the issue to the Foreign Relations and Human
Bundestag Speaker Norbert Lamert, German President Joachim Gauck,
as well as Alliance '90/The Greens' co-chairman Cem Ozdemir have at
various points spoken out on Germany's own share in the slaughter of
1.5 million Armenians.
Posted 22 February 2016 - 09:57 AM
Feb 20 2016
Justifying Genocide by Stefan Ihrig review: Germany's first taste of genocide
As this gripping, readable study of the Armenian genocide makes clear,
Germany long before the Nazis had come to terms with `Völkermord'
On the eve of the Nazi invasion of Poland that began the second World
War, Hitler allegedly quipped, `Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?' Today, the question has lost its
rhetorical ring ` indeed, a great many people speak of that
2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the 20th century's first
genocide, the killing of perhaps one million Armenians by Ottoman
Turks. The centenary witnessed an outpouring of books and media
attention devoted to the mass killing. Turkey's official refusal to
accept responsibility for the atrocities ` and even to acknowledge
their commission ` continues to make for political turmoil at home and
to earn the nation opprobrium abroad.
Now comes Stefan Ihrig's fascinating and highly readable account,
Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to
Hitler, which suggests that Hitler was wrong even at the time.
Ihrig, a scholar at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, demonstrates
that the mass killings of Armenians hardly had to wait the better part
of a century to seep into the public's consciousness. Far from a crime
long concealed in secrecy, rumour and denial, the genocide was widely
known and reported on from the time of its commission ` particularly
in Germany, the nation that would soon build aggressively on the
Germany and Turkey were allies during the first World War, with the
Ottoman-German alliance ratified on August 2nd, 1914, shortly after
the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. German diplomats stationed in
Turkey knew about the `deportations' of the Armenians from the get-go,
and communicated much of what they knew to officials back home.
Johannes Lepsius, a Protestant German missionary, published a
remarkably detailed account called Report on the Situation of the
Armenian People in Turkey, some 20,000 copies of which were
distributed to Protestant vicarages in 1916. Lepsius also lectured to
German parliamentarians in the Reichstag about the atrocities. As
Ihrig observes, `no other government was as well informed about the
genocide in progress as the German government, except of course, for
the Ottoman government itself'.
At first blush, Ihrig's claim might look anachronistic. After all, the
word `genocide' did not come into existence until 1944, when Raphael
Lemkin, a Polish Jewish adviser to the US war department, introduced
the novel coinage to describe the Nazis' treatment of Jews in occupied
It is one thing, then, to claim that German officials were aware of
crimes committed against Ottoman Armenians, and another to say that
they were aware of the genocidal character of these crimes. Yet Ihrig
convincingly demonstrates that German reports of the day used `fully
fledged `genocide language'', describing the carnage as tantamount to
`extermination' and the `annihilation' of a people.
Reports even spoke of Völkermord ` `people murder', that anticipated
Lemkin's neologism. German officials recognised that Turkish
atrocities represented nothing short of a co-ordinated effort to
destroy the Armenian people.
Admittedly, the average German might have known far less, thanks both
to wartime press censorship and the natural incredulity that greets
reports of stupefying atrocity. But even this changed dramatically in
the postwar years.
On March 15th, 1921, in the middle of a crowded street in Berlin,
Talt Pasha, the former Ottoman Grand Vizier and a leading architect
of the atrocities, was gunned down by an Armenian student. Seized by
the police, the student, Soghomon Tehlirian, insisted that the victim,
and not the assassin, was the true murderer.
The trial, staged in Berlin, only lasted a couple of days but still
was `one of the most spectacular' of the 20th century. The defendant
openly acknowledged that he had committed the act but denied his
guilt. `I have killed a man, but a murderer I was not [sic].' This
defence turned matters on their head: `in the end it was the Ottoman
Empire and the victim, Talt Pasha, who were on trial'.
Testifying on his own behalf, Tehlirian insisted he had been plagued
by images of his slain mother and graphically described the massacre
of his family (an incident that historians now know the assassin did
not himself witness). The missionary Lepsius also testified for the
defence, describing Talt's role in organising the mass `deportations'
of Armenians. (In a communique, Talt had cynically described the
destination of the deportations as `oblivion'.)
The brief trial ended in Tehlirian's shocking acquittal; it is unclear
whether the jury believed the killing was justified or that trauma had
rendered the defendant less than fully responsible for his actions.
In any case, the trial was extensively reported in German newspapers,
so claims of public ignorance about the genocide were no longer
credible by the early years of the Weimar Republic. And yet knowledge
did not necessarily mean condemnation. Rather, Tehlirian's trial
sparked a passionate debate within Germany, not about whether the
reports of atrocity were true, but whether the atrocities themselves
Notably, a great many German newspapers, particularly those on the
political right, lined up against the Armenians. This was partly a
case of nationalist publications defending the actions of an ally. But
the nature of the defence was chilling, especially when read through
the filter of German history to come.
The killings, German pundits opined, took place during wartime, and
were largely provoked by the Armenians themselves, who constituted, so
it was claimed, a fifth column of backstabbers prepared to sabotage
the Turks. Armenians were disparaged as a people without a homeland
and any sense of national loyalty: clannish, greedy, shifty and
committed only to their own power.
While it may seem odd that a European nation should ally itself with a
Muslim majority against a Christian minority, Ihrig reminds us that
Armenians were viewed less in religious than in racial terms, as
constituting a distinct, and decidedly less savoury type of human.
If all this sounds disturbingly familiar, it is hardly coincidence.
Ihrig brilliantly lays bare the `confluence' between German
anti-Semitic and anti-Armenian stereotypes. Jews and Armenians were
treated as `Semitic cousins', with the latter playing the role of
`quasi-` or even `über-Jews'.
To his credit, Ihrig generally avoids drawing any straight line from
German debates about the Armenian genocide to the Holocaust. The Nazis
were not, he concludes, simple imitators of the Young Turks. But
Turkey had introduced extermination as a way in which a modern nation
state could `solve' problems posed by an unwelcome minority.
In spirited fashion, Germany had debated the merits of this solution.
And in the decades preceding their own, more ambitious campaign of
genocide, many right- wing Germans had responded with understanding if
not outright approval.
Lawrence Douglas teaches at Amherst College, US. He is the author most
recently of The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great
Nazi War Crimes Trial
Posted 22 February 2016 - 10:07 AM
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TO BE COMMEMORATED AT GERMAN BUNDESTAG
12:41, 22 Feb 2016
The Armenian Genocide will be commemorated at the German Bundestag.
Two factions - the Alliance 90 and the Greens will make mention of
the Armenian genocide 100 years ago.
Forty- minutes are provided for the commemoration scheduled for
February 25, according to Bundestag's official webpage.
The Greens want the Bundestag to adopt a resolution to recognize the
Turkish genocide of about one million Armenians this week.
The governing coalition of the CDU and SPD were unwilling to submit to
the Bundestag a joint application, although that had been negotiated
in November of the SPD, the CDU and the Greens, Green Party Chairman
Cem Ozdemir told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He said "the
absence of a statement is a dowry to Erdogan."
Posted 22 February 2016 - 10:30 AM
TO VOTE OR NOT TO VOTE: BUNDESTAG TO HOLD A DEBATE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
17:34, 22 Feb 2016
The German Bundestag is set to hold a debate on the Armenian Genocide
on February 25. The Alliance 90/The Greens faction will make mention of
the Armenian Genocide 100 years ago. Forty-five minutes are allocated
for the report.
"There will be a statement followed by a debate," Cem Ozdemir,
President of the Greens Party said in an exclusive interview with
Public Radio of Armenia.
According to him, the Greens will present a statement, which has the
same emphasis as the draft bill debated with the ruling coalition back
in November 2015. Although the parties had reached some common ground,
the bill was later prevented by the coalition.
"Obviously, the political motives are more important for the coalition
than joint recognition," Mr. Ozdemir said.
"We want the debate to be followed by voting. However, this is still
uncertain, as we don't know what the disposition of the ruling
coalition is. If no voting follows, the bill will again be sent
back to the Commission, where it is doomed to share the fate of an
earlier motion submitted on April 24, 2015. It will remain pending,
as the ruling coalition is not interested in raising the issue again,"
President of the Greens Party said.
He added that the debate scheduled for February 25 is of great
significance, considering that no other events commemorating the
genocide of Armenians or other ethnic minorities is envisaged in the
Bundestag this year.
The German Bundestag held heated debated on the Armenian Genocide on
April 24, 2015, a day after German President Joachim Gauck used the
word "genocide" to describe the events of 1915.
While the Greens and the Left Party supported the term 'genocide,' the
federal government and the coalition parties had certain reservations.
A single joint resolution is still being worked out. It's unclear
whether the final text will include the word "genocide" or not. It's
also hard to predict when the Bundestag will hold a final voting on
Posted 25 February 2016 - 10:42 AM
TESSA HOFMANN: BEHAVIOR OF GERMAN AUTHORITIES IN RELATION TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IS THE SAME AS IT WAS IN 1915
February 24, 2016,
YEREVAN ( Armenpress) -- Behavior of German authorities in relation
to Armenian Genocide is the same as it was in 1915. Renowned genocide
scholar Tessa Hofmann remarked in an interview with Armenpress.
Although this topic is on the agenda of the German Parliament for this
Thursday, Hofmann highly doubts that the issue will be discussed. She
explains her opinion by the relations between Turkey and Germany,
which are currently mostly focused on the refugee crisis.
"In this situation our Foreign Office will do everything possible not
to disturb the relations with Ankara - comparable to the situation
in 1915, when official Germany sacrificed all human and humanitarian
criteria for the sake of Ottoman-German military alliance. Neither the
Ottoman genocide, nor the ongoing fight against the Kurds in Turkey
(with all its 'collateral damage' to the Kurdish civic population)
will change this, I am afraid. And the critics of such 'realpolitical'
attitudes in this country are not numerous and influential enough to
stop it. And even if the possibility of a parliamentary debate on
the Armenian genocide is discussed next Thursday, there is little
chance that the oppositional 'Green' Party gains enough support
among the ruling coalition of conservatives and Social-Democrats",
Tessa Hofmann said.
The Armenian Genocide issue will be discussed at the German Bundestag
on February 25, paying tribute and honoring the victims of the crime
that took place 100 years ago.
The discussion was initiated by the Bundestag "Alliance'90 / The
Greens" party, the co-president of which is Cem Ozdemir, who is
Turkish by nationality. The discussion will last 45 minutes.
"Alliance '90 / The Greens" and its co-president have repeatedly
condemned the Armenian Genocide, urging Turkey to recognize the
historical facts and come to terms with the reality.
Posted 26 February 2016 - 11:05 AM
The same BS continuous!
BUNDESTAG TO VOTE ON NEW ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL BEFORE APRIL 24
20:39, 25 Feb 2016
The German Bundestag held a debate on the Armenian Genocide today but
did not vote on the bill proposed by the Alliance 90/The Greens. The
ruling coalition said it's not the proper time to adopt the bill and
proposed to continue the discussions in the coming weeks to prepare
a new finalized document until April 24, 2016.
Chairman of the Alliance 90/The Greens Cem Ozdemir agreed to withdraw
his bill on condition that the new document to be agreed before
April 24 clearly mentions the events of 1915 as genocide, accepts
Germany's role in the massacre and contributes to the normalization
of the Armenian-Turkish relations.
The issue was brought to the agenda by the Alliance 90/The Greens,
which has always urged to describe the events of 1915 as 'genocide.'
Addressing the Bundestag today, Ozdemir said "the authorities have
no common stance on the issue out of the fear to irritate Erdogan. "I
don't understand why we cannot vote for this bill. We should do that
for the simple reason of clearing our conscience," he said.
"Turkey is distorting its own history, while our goal is to establish
the truth. A clear message on the part of Germany could change a lot,"
Klaus BrÃ¤hmig of CDU/CSU said, in turn, that "the current Turkish
authorities are not responsible for their ancestors, but can take
steps to improve relations with Armenia."
"Today we need no reports criticizing Turkey. Instead, we need steps
that will contribute to the settlement of the migrants' issue. Judging
from our own history, we can say that no matter how actively we invite
Turkey to assess their own past, their people must be ready for it. It
will happen, when there is no pressure from the outside. Therefore,
we cannot vote in favor of this resolution," he said.
The bill debated today noted that "the German Bundestag bows to the
victims of forced displacement and massacre of the Armenians and
Aramaeans, Assyrians and other Christian minorities of the Ottoman
Empire, which began 100 years ago. It deplored the actions of the
then Turkish government, almost full annihilation of the Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire.
The resolution noted that "the fate of the Armenians stands as
exemplary in the history of mass exterminations, ethnic cleansing,
deportations and yes, genocide, which marked the 20th century in
such a terrible way." German President Joachim Gauck used the same
wording as he addressed a commemoration ceremony on the eve of the
100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
The bill stated that "An honest appraisal of history is the most
important basis for reconciliation."
The bill also referred to the German role in the Armenian Genocide,
noting that "today's German authorities are obliged to contribute
to the resumption of the Armenian-Turkish relations, opening of the
Unlike the resolution adopted by the Bundestag in 2005, the bill
considered today clearly described the events as "genocide."
Posted 26 February 2016 - 11:24 AM
TAGESSCHAU: FREEZING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION FOR FEAR OF ENRAGING TURKEY IS COWARDICE
Region:World News, Armenia, Turkey
Theme: Politics, Analytics
Our only goal is to keep Turkey by our side until the end of the war,
regardless of whether Armenians perish in the process or not. This
sentence made by Germany in the years of WWI is timely after more than
100 years. This sentence became more important than Bundestag's call
to Turkey to acknowledge the crimes of the Ottoman Empire, Michael
Heussen writes in his article in the German newpaper Tagesschau.
According to the article, the German Parliament almost said "yes"
to acknowledging the Armenian pogroms of 1915 as a genocide, but
Germany is still afraid of enraging Turkey, especially considering
that the latter has promised to stop the migrant flow in its country.
"Berlin still doesn't want to lose its ally in Bosporus. Turkey is a
state partner; therefore Berlin also keeps silent about the crimes,
which are currently taking place in eastern Turkey. This was also
the case in 1915, and nothing has changed up to now. To the call to
stop the crimes against Armenians in the years of WWI, Chancellor of
Germany Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg responded: "Our only goal is
to keep Turkey by our side until the end of the war, regardless of
whether Armenians perish in the process or not.," the author writes.
Michael Heussen notes that today Turkey continues to persecute the
Kurds, while the West keeps silent. "At the moment, Turkey is the
most important country for the West in terms of stopping the refugees.
Therefore, it wouldn't be constructive to enrage the Turks by a
Bundestag resolution or official recognition of the Armenian pogroms
as a "genocide": this is what politicians think," the author writes,
excoriating this standpoint.
According to the author, this opinion is an absolute cowardice.
"Genocide is a genocide, regardless of who committed it. Genocide
must be called by its name. Not only for the Armenians, who have
been waiting so long for the acknowledgement of the crime committed
against their ancestors, but also for preventing such crimes. Thus,
it's more important than ever for the Bundestag to officially call
on Turkey to finally recognize the crime committed by the Ottomans,"
the author concludes.
Posted 26 February 2016 - 11:32 AM
At the end, the truth will prevail!
CEM OZDEMIR IS SURE: BUNDESTAG WILL RECOGNIZE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
February 26, 2016 14:22
Yerevan /Mediamax/. Armenian National Assembly Deputy Speaker
Eduard Sharmazanov, who is in Berlin with a working visit, met with
Co-Chairman of the German political party Alliance '90/The Greens,
According to the National Assembly press service, the meeting took part
within international conference titled "Genocide of the Christian
nations in Ottoman and Kemalist Turkey" at Humboldt University
Eduard Sharmazanov highly appreciated Cem Ozdemir's principal approach
towards recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
The two sides attached importance to the necessity of recognition
of the Armenian Genocide by both Bundestag and the international
The parties stated that the discussions on the issue of Armenian
Genocide by German Parliament reiterated that "the condemnation of
the Armenian Genocide by Bundestag is inevitable".
It should be recalled that Cem Ozdemir initiated the discussion of
resolution on recognizing the Armenian Genocide by the Bundestag.
- See more at:
Posted 27 February 2016 - 12:38 PM
ARMENIA MASSACRE: TOO MUCH REGARD FOR TURKEY?
Deutsche Welle, Germany
Feb 26 2016
The timing is provocative: Just two weeks before the EU-Turkey
summit, the Green Party is putting before parliament a resolution
which describes the massacre of the Armenian people 100 years ago
For the governing coalition, the timing of the Greens' resolution
couldn't be worse. Because of the refugee crisis, the government is
trying to avoid being too hard on Turkey and referring to the mass
murder of Armenians a century ago as "genocide."
The government is under pressure to noticeably reduce the number of
refugees coming to Germany. In Chancellor Angela Merkel's strategy,
Turkey has a special role as the most significant transit country
On March 7, important negotiations with Ankara at the EU-Turkey
summit are set to take place. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
is considered to be an irritable negotiating partner and Germany does
not want to get his back up.
According to Armenian accounts, some 1.5 million members of the
Armenian minority community were killed between April 1915 and 1917 at
the hands of their Ottoman rulers in what is present-day Turkey. For
its part, Turkey maintains that between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians
were killed, and that just as many Turks died during the same period.
Ankara speaks of an atmosphere of civil war and famine. To this day,
the Turkish government reacts with hostility whenever the term genocide
is used to describe the killings.
Everyone on the same page
A church mass in the Armenian capital Yerivan commemorated the genocide
in April 2015
The governing coalition takes the same view on the issue as the
Greens. At a parliamentary debate in April 2015, parliamentarians were
unanimous in their opinion that the massacre of the Armenian people a
century ago was genocide. German President Joachim Gauck and Bundestag
President Norbert Lammert both used the term to describe the killings.
But what was missing was the passing of a parliamentary resolution
that included the term "genocide." In October, the CDU/CSU, SPD, and
the Green Party finally agreed on its adoption. But the resolution
was brought before parliament as being solely from the Greens. The
draft text says that the fate of the murdered Armenians "stands as
an example of the mass extermination, ethnic cleansing, expulsion,
and even genocide that has so terribly marked the history of the 20th
century." The text also refers to the "uniqueness of the Holocaust"
as well as the "inglorious role of the German Reich" in the massacre
of the Armenian people.
Criticism from the Greens
Green Party leader Cem Ozdemir has accused the governing coalition
of deferring too much to Turkey and pulling back from the common
Green chairman Cem Ozdemir says the German government is avoiding
"The resolution consciously stops short of asking the federal
government to recognize the genocide in order not to make a big deal
of this now," Ozdemir told DW. "You could have easily said, well it's
the parliament, it's not the government."
CDU member of parliament Christoph Bergner clearly stated his
opinion during the debate in April. "I really doubt that we can
present ourselves in a convincing way and take a clear position
in this discussion if we shy away from using the term 'genocide',"
Bergner said. Despite this, he's against the Greens' resolution. "Our
objections refer to the process, not the content," Bergner told DW.
"When you're in negotiations with a partner, you try not to burden
those negotiations," he said with regard to Turkey. He accuses the
Greens of using the genocide issue for a partisan maneuver.
'There is never going to be a right time'
The right resolution at the wrong time? Ozdemir rejects that idea.
"There's never going to be a right time for this issue. It's been
the wrong time for a hundred years now. It's just an excuse."
Even though it's likely that the resolution from the Greens will fail,
Bergner says that doesn't mean the discussion about the Armenian
genocide is over. "I hope that we'll find a better time during this
coalition to agree on a formulation."
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