Eberhard Count Wolfskeel von Reichenberg

Who was Eberhard Count Wolfskeel von Reichenberg?

On 30 March 1915 (i.e., long before the Armenian uprising in Van, which the Turks and the Germans gave out as being the trigger for the deportations), the embassy in Constantinople received a telegram from its representative in Damascus, Padel, where Djemal Pasha resided, the commander of the 4th Army, which was responsible for Zeytun. ‘Count Wolfskel informed me’, it says in the text, in which the German artillery officer’s name is spelled incorrectly, ‘that Consul Rössler in Aleppo plans to travel to Zeytun because of the events there, which have meanwhile developed satisfactorily. Th e military authority considers this journey to be extremely questionable and requests that he refrain from undertaking it. As requested, I telegraphed this to Rössler. On behalf of Count Wolfskel, I request that instructions be sent accordingly from there to Aleppo’, and this was then done. In a telegram dated 30 March 1915, the embassy instructed Rössler, ‘Please do not travel to Zeytun, but rather restrict yourself to a visit to Marash.’

From the Consul in Damascus (Padel)
to the Embassy in ConstantinopleDamascus, 30 March 1915

Urgent.

Count Wolfskel informed me that Consul Rössler in Aleppo plans to travel to Zeytun because of the events there, which have meanwhile developed satisfactorily. The military authority considers this journey to be extremely questionable and requests that he refrain from undertaking it. As requested, I telegraphed this to Rössler. On behalf of Count Wolfskel, I request that instructions be sent accordingly from there to Aleppo.

Padel

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So who was Count Wolffskeel?

Eberhard Count Wolfskeel von Reichenberg was a German military officer serving with the Ottoman army ^[1]Reichenberg, V., Kaiser, H. and Gomidas Institute (2004). Eberhard Count Wolffskeel Von Reichenberg, Zeitoun, Mousa Dagh, Ourfa : letters on the American genocide. Princeton, Nj ; London: Gomidas … Continue reading

Wolffskeel not only fought, like hundreds of other officers, in the German military mission but also held the rank of chief of staff in the Ottoman Army [2]Bihl, Wolfdieter: Die Kaukasus-Politik der Mittelmächte. Wien, Köln, Graz 1975, p. 53. As well his 1985 book Die Armenische Frage im Ersten Weltkrieg, in: Ohandjanian, Artem (ed.): 1915-1985: … Continue reading . As the Eighth Ottoman Army Corps chief of staff, he might have been involved in conducting military operations against the indigent Armenians, as seen below.

He was the one who gave the go-ahead to bombard Urfa when the civilians refused to leave, after which 1,000 Armenians surrendered and were mascaraed.

Wolfskeel, who had intervened with Padel to get the embassy to stop Rössler, was personally involved in the whole matter and much more so than most Germans serving with the Ottoman army at the time. He was one of the very few German officers (if not the only one) who had actually taken part in the Ottoman actions against the Armenians: at Zeytun, for example, he had shelled an Armenian monastery. Later he was even dispatched with Ottoman forces to fight against the very same Armenians resisting at Musa Dagh who were immortalized by Franz Werfel in his novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. ^[3] Ihrig, S. (2016). Justifying genocide : Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.)

“This is an internal matter concerning the Turks alone – we can’t interfere!” That is what one is always hearing. But when it has to do with bringing the Armenians to submission, then one does interfere after all. And when the Armenians of Ourfa, after having witnessed the treatment of their compatriots from other districts, refused to leave their city and offered resistance no less a personage than Count Wolf von Wolffskeel permitted the city to be bombarded and 1000 Armenian men having given themselves up, he was unable to prevent the butchery of all them”.^[5]Govt.nz. (2022). [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OAM19161124.2.6