The Armenian Genocide from the German Foreign Office Archives

The Armenian Genocide from the German Foreign Office Archives

During World War I, Imperial Germany played a significant role in the mass murder of Armenians. While Germany did not initiate or directly carry out the Armenian genocide, many Germans accepted and supported these atrocities. However, some scholars challenge this view, arguing that the German government may have instigated or assisted in the persecution of the Armenians  [1]Hofmann, Tessa. “The Genocide against the Ottoman Armenians: German Diplomatic Correspondence and Eyewitness Testimonies.” Genocide Studies International, vol. 9, no. 1, 2015, pp. 22–60.

The Armenian genocide is a crucial part of German history because it occurred under German influence and control. German officers served in all critical branches of the Ottoman armed forces, and German diplomats recorded the genocide as it unfolded, 25 years before the Holocaust. Hitler and the Nazis had extensive knowledge of the Armenian genocide. From the outset, German anti-Armenianism had racial and nationalist origins. Karl May’s series of ‘Oriental Odyssey’ novels espoused this anti-Armenian ideology. In his books, the reader encounters May’s despicable Armenian, with his crooked nose and an overall physical appearance resembling a vulture. His books were the most widely read books of the late Kaiserreich.

Germany supported the Ottoman government and its propaganda during the 1890s, even after the massacres had ended. Emperor Wilhelm II cemented this support by making a trip to Constantinople, Damascus, and Jerusalem to show his moral backing for Abdul Hamid II. This trip and the implications of the Armenian tragedy were defining moments in how Germany viewed its national interests. However, these policies towards Abdul Hamid II were not new and had existed long before Wilhelm II’s reign.

“[W]ith us there is not the least interest in the Armenian circumstances [and] that we view this question as one concerning the domestic relationship between the Sultan and his subjects and do not share the urge to cause the Sultan any problems by emphasizing article 61 of the Berlin Treaty.” [2]Saupp, N., 1990. Das Deutsche Reich und die Armenische Frage 1878-1914. Köln: Hundt Druck GmbH.

In 1896, Alfons Mumm von Schwarzenstein – a diplomat working for the German Foreign Office stated:

it could not be the purpose of German politics to look after the Christians of all the world and to organize a European Crusade against the Crescent. [3]Schmuhl, H.,n.d. Arbeitsmarktpolitik und Arbeitsverwaltung in Deutschland.

With few exceptions, most press coverage focused on and described the racial attributes of Armenians, portraying them as “the worst type in the world.” This rhetoric was easier to sell to the German public, given the prevalence of anti-Semitic sentiments at the time. Thus, the idea of beating “the Jews of the Orient” ^[4]hrig, S., 2016. Justifying genocide. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. – Page 74 to death and not worrying about “fellow Christians” was palatable to the public.

Anti-Armenian sentiment in the Kaiserreich emerged in the 1890s and later developed into the anti-Semitic template in Nazi Germany. The systematic nature of the Ottoman’s persecution bore similar characteristics to the later Nazi extermination of European Jewry. Even the former Greek term holokau[s]ton was first applied to massacres of Armenians, as revealed by Jon Petrie. In 1913, Duckett Z. Ferriman used the term for the murder of 30,000 Armenians in Cilicia in 1909. Only after WWII did the term “Holocaust” become increasingly reserved for the mass murder of Jews. [5]Petrie, J. (2000). The secular word Holocaust: Scholarly myths, history, and 20th century meanings. Journal of Genocide Research, 2(1), pp.31–63. doi:10.1080/146235200112409..

At the same time, Friedrich Naumann (1860-1919), a German politician and Protestant parish pastor, provided justifications for killing Armenians. Naumann numbed German society to the Armenian plight and made anti-Armenianism ‘morally’ and ‘politically’ palatable

[Note:] Friedrich Naumann, the father of German liberalism and a thinker of Central Europe (Mitteleuropa), was a German liberal politician and Protestant parish pastor. Naumann, however, provided justifications for killing Armenians by blaming their deaths on their rebellious nature and uprisings against the Turks. This tactic is still used by Turkey to reject the factual basis of the genocide and shift responsibility away from the perpetrators. According to this line of thinking, if there were deaths, the Armenians were at fault for engaging in subversion, rebellion, and civil war

Journalist Hans Barth (1862 -1928), a correspondent for the Berliner Tageblatt in Rome, first published an anti-Armenian article in the journal Zukunft. Following this, Barth published the book ‘Turk Defend Yourself’ (1898). By 1906, nationalist Germans were comfortable with the idea that certain other ‘races,’ such as Armenians and Jews, had to be sacrificed on the altar of national and Great Power politics.

A multitude of German engineers, economists, and financial agents followed in the wake of the military mission. Their role in the reorganization of the production and communications of the Ottoman Empire was perhaps more significant and threatening than that of the soldiers, as the Turkish army had become an auxiliary of the German Empire.

Fast forward to March 2000, when the monumental work of Wolfgang Gust and his spouse Sigrid Gust provided further evidence of how the German army became complicit in the Armenian genocide. Gust disclosed the omissions and falsifications that covered German accountability. A clear set of documents from the German Foreign Office Archives recount how German diplomats and the military were the only ones able to send uncensored reports by telegram, making these telegrams the most crucial non-Armenian eyewitness accounts of the genocide. German diplomats, officers, and their informants from missions or from among the employees of the Baghdad Railway were the only foreigners who could enter freely and unhindered in the areas where the genocide mainly took place.

Wolfgang Gust’s work also shows the shared responsibility of the German Empire. These documents were not intended for public use, leaving no doubt about the motives, methods, and after-effects of the Armenian genocide and proving state-sponsored genocide. The official German diplomatic documents are essential in understanding what happened to the Armenians during WWI and why these events constitute genocide. Only Germany had the right to report day-by-day in secret code about the ongoing genocide.

Recently, German President Joachim Wilhelm Gauck (March 18, 2012 – March 18, 2017) took the initiative and organized a large mass at Berlin’s second-biggest Cathedral Church on April 23, 2015, with Armenians and Orthodox Greeks. In his speech there, Gauck said that Germans were not spectators but indeed active perpetrators of this crime and described the events as Genocide.[6]BBC News. 2022. Armenian killings were genocide - German president. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32437633>

At the same time, one cannot ignore the German officers’ unique position in overseeing the Ottoman army while they watched as the genocide was carried out. This is apparent from multiple first-hand accounts. Max Scheubner-Richter [7]Leverkuehn, P., Kaiser, H. and Lean, A., 2008. A German officer during the Armenian genocide. London: Taderon Press for the Gomidas Institute. a German vice-consul and commander of a joint German-Turkish special guerrilla force, described plans to ‘destroy’ the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire:

The first item on this agenda concerns the liquidation of the Armenians. Ittihad will dangle before the Allies a specter of an alleged revolution prepared by the Armenian Dashnak party. Moreover, local incidents of social unrest and acts of Armenian self defense will deliberately be provoked and inflated and will be used as pretexts to effect the deportations. Once en route, however, the convoys will be attacked and exterminated by Kurdish and Turkish brigands, and in part by gendarmes, who will be instigated for that purpose by Ittihad.[8]Dwork, D. and Pelt, V. (2002). Holocaust : a history. New York: Norton.

However, based on eye-witness Armenian accounts, many German officers had no qualms about turning Armenians over to the Turkish authorities. As expressed by Armenian youths who had sought refuge with them:

They [German officers] knew full well that they were delivering them to their executioners [The Turks]. If an Armenian merely spoke negatively about a German—be he the emperor or von der Goltz Pasha, or the average German—or dared to criticize German indifference toward the Armenian massacres, he was immediately arrested and turned over to the nearest Turkish military or police authority And if the Germans found a certain Armenian particularly irritating, they pinned the label of spy on him. [9]Grigoris Palakʻean, Balakian, P. and Sevag, A.G. (2010). Armenian Golgotha : a memoir of the Armenian genocide, 1915-1918. New York: Vintage Books.

Harry Stürmer served as the correspondent for “Kölnische Zeitung” in Constantinople between 1915-1917. During this time, he closely followed the events happening in the Ottoman capital and published damning reports on German and Turkish policies. His book, “Two War Years in Constantinople,” contained astonishing accounts of the systematic extermination of Ottoman Armenians. The original German manuscript was published by the Swiss nation, and the German Foreign Office attempted to suppress the work by purchasing the translation rights of the European language editions. However, they could not buy the English rights in time, and Stürmer’s book was published in English shortly after its German publication. Dr Hilmar Kaiser, a specialist in late Ottoman history, provides an assessment of the original German translation in this revised edition.

Stürmer describes the Ottoman’s plan to exterminate the whole Armenian population:

This “evacuation necessary for military purposes” emptied Armenia Proper of men. How often have Turks themselves told me—I could mention names, but I will not expose my informants, who were on the whole decent exceptions to the rule, to the wrath of Enver or Talaat—how often have they assured me that practically not a single Armenian is to be found in Armenia! [10]Stürmer, H. and Allen, E., n.d. Two War Years in Constantinople Sketches of German and Young Turkish Ethics and Politics. Project Gutenberg. Page 48

‌Along the side, how the Germans government was a culprit in committing the killing atrocities:

This, more than everything else I saw on the German-Turkish side throughout the war, persuaded me to take up arms against my own people and to adopt the position I now hold. I say “German-Turkish,” for I must hold the German Government as equally responsible with the Turks for the atrocities they allowed them to commit. [11]ibid. Page 48

With excruciating detail, Stürmer describes how the German officers herded the Armenians like cattle and eventually used women and children as targeting practices:

German officers light-heartedly taking the initiative in exterminating and scattering the Armenians when the less-zealous local authorities who still retained some remnants of human feeling, scrupled to obey the instructions of “Nur-el-Osmanieh” (the headquarters of the Committee at Stamboul). [12]ibid. Page 75

The case is well known and has been absolutely verified of the scandalous conduct of two German officers passing through a village in far Asia Minor, where the Armenians had taken refuge in their houses and barricaded them to prevent being herded off like cattle. The order had been given that guns were to be turned on them, but not a single Turk had the courage to carry out this order and fire on women and children. Without any authority whatsoever, the two German officers then turned to and gave an exhibition of their shooting capacities! [13]ibid. Page 68

These set of documents will provide clear proof on:

• The Hatred of the Armenians by the Turks before and during the WWI
• The people who are responsible for the Genocide
• The executors and the preparators
• The objective of the Genocide
• Deportations and annihilation campaigns
• Interrogations and torture
• The murder of adult Armenians males
• Acts of extermination in hometowns
• The annihilation of entire towns and villages
• The deportation convoys
• The fate of the women and girls (rape, torture, abduction, slavery)
• The deportation routes going to hell and arriving in hell (Deir-es-zo and chabur river)
• Economic consequences
• The Imperial Germany role played in the Genocide of the Armenians.
• The role of the Germans and the reactions of German politicians to the Genocide
• The role of the German officers

One last point: one thing is for sure, although the sites of the Armenian genocide in the late Ottoman Empire were thousands of miles away from German South West Africa, and the circumstances of the mass killings were very different, there are still some linkages between the two atrocities. Most notably, the German army and state were implicated in both. In the case of the Armenian genocide, German army officers were directly involved in some of the Turkish Ottoman horrible acts, most prominently in advising the Turkish authorities about how to deal with the Van Uprising of April-May 1915.

Below is a just a sample of these telegrams, however our objective is to provide more documents here at a later stage.

[Note]: Some of the accounts provided in these telegrams can be verified from the US State Department‘s 1920 records.

• From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) – No. 58. Pera, 24 February 1913
  
• From the Secretary of State of the Foreign Office (Jagow) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim). Berlin, 22 April 1913
  
• From the Consul in Damascus (Padel) to the Embassy in Constantinople. Damascus, 30 March 1915. Who was Eberhard Count Wolfskeel von Reichenberg?
  
• From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim). Erzerum, 15 May 1915
  
• From Colonel Stange to the German Military Mission in Constantinople: Report on the Deportation of the Armenians. Erzerum, 23 August 1915