NEW BOOK PROVIDES SHOCKING EVIDENCE OF GERMAN CO-RESPONSIBILITY IN ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By MassisPost
Updated: January 8, 2014
“Keep Turkey on our side … whether as a result Armenians do perish
or not.”
The German ambassador in Constantinople, Count Paul Wolff-Metternich,
wrote to the Imperial Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, in
Berlin on December 7, 1915: … Our displeasure over the persecution of
the Armenians should be clearly expressed in our press and an end be
put to our gushing over the Turks. Whatever they are accomplishing is
due to our doing; those are our officers, our cannons, our money… In
order to achieve any success in the Armenian question, we will have to
inspire fear in the Turkish government regarding the consequences. If,
for military considerations, we do not dare to confront it with a
firmer stance, then we will have no choice but… to stand back and
watch how our ally continues to massacre.
The Chancellor’s response: The proposed public reprimand of an ally
in the course of a war would be an act which is unprecedented in
history. 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.
TORONTO -The Zoryan Institute is pleased to announce that the
long-awaited English edition of The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from
the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915-1916, compiled and edited
by Wolfgang Gust, has just been released by Berghahn Books. It
contains hundreds of telegrams, letters and reports from German
consular officials in the Ottoman Empire to the Foreign Office in
Berlin which describe in graphic and shocking detail the unfolding
genocide of the Armenians. The documents provide unequivocal evidence
of the genocidal intent of the Young Turks and the German government’s
official acquiescence and complicity.
Upon the earlier release of the German and Turkish editions of the
book, the media reacted emphatically:
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [Germany]-“The documents collected here
illustrate clearly the shared responsibility of the Kaiserreich, the
most important ally of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War…
They are therefore largely undisguised and so vivid that the reader
often shudders when reading them.”
Forum Wissenschaft [Germany]-“Wolfgang Gust documents, in this
excellent political-historical edition from contemporary German
sources and the Foreign Office of the Reich government, the murderous
events themselves…as well as the political co-responsibility of
the German state.
Hurriyet Daily News [Turkey]-“If you read the book and look at the
documents, if you are a person who is introduced to the subject
through this book, then there is no way that you would not believe
in the genocide and justify the Armenians.”
The exceptional importance of these documents is underscored by the
fact that only German diplomats and military officials were able to
send uncensored reports out of Turkey during World War I. Apart from
the Americans, who remained neutral in the war until April 6, 1917,
German diplomats and their informants from the missions or employees of
the Baghdad Railway were the most important non-Armenian eyewitnesses
of the Genocide. These documents, meant strictly for internal use
and never intended for publication, are remarkable for their candid
revelations. Even as allies of the Ottoman Empire, German officials
still felt compelled for moral and political reasons to report and
complain about the atrocities being committed against the Armenians
by their Ottoman ally.
In describing how he came to undertake this massive project, Gust
writes, …~E.I was shocked to see the Germans again playing an
important role in mass murder at the edge of Europe. This genocide was
neither initiated nor committed by Germans, but was widely accepted
by them.
Imperial Germany was the closest ally of the Young Turks and had a
formal military alliance with them. Was there a link between these two
most important genocides in Europe? Did the Nazis copy the methods of
the Young Turks, who had committed the Armenian Genocide? Were the two
World Wars in reality one historical event, as some historians believe?
Questions upon questions. Was Imperial Germany a driving force in the
genocide of the Armenians, or possibly even the source of the idea,
as some non-German historians have suspected…. Did Imperial Germany
view the Armenian Genocide with indifference or with sympathy? Did
some Germans or part of the leading class resist the deportations
and mass killings? And finally, did Germany have the power to stop
the Armenian Genocide, and if they were able to so, why did they not
make use of this power?
The answers to these questions are found in this prodigious 800-page
collection. For more information about the book, please contact the
Zoryan Institute [email protected] or telephone 416-250-9807.
The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office
Archives, 1915-1916, compiled and edited by Wolfgang Gust. New York
and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014. $89.95US, $95.50CDN.
The Zoryan Institute is a non-profit, international center devoted
to the research and documentation of contemporary issues with a focus
on Genocide, Diaspora and Homeland. The Zoryan Institute through its
division, the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights
Studies, runs an annual course in comparative genocide studies in
partnership with the University of Toronto and is co-publisher of
Genocide Studies International in partnership with the University of
Toronto Press. For more information please contact the Institute by
email [email protected] or telephone 416-250-9807.
Related topic on this subject: The German-Turkish Conspiracy Against
the Diaspora by Toros Sarian
http://massispost.com/archives/10436