Hatred of the Armenians by the Turks before and during the WWI
(From German Archives)
The animosity of the Turks against the Armenians goes long before 1915. Often for social, economic, religious, vocational and political factors. This hatred started brewing again after the beginning of WWI. “The old hatred is rising again within the Turkish population,” Paul Schwarz, the German Consul in Erzerum reported to Constantinople at the end of 1914.
The unprecedent ruthless campaigns the Turks carried out was at an epic scale. What shocked German and foreign observers most is how the Turks carried out their murder, enslavement, deportation or other inhumane treatment against civilian Armenian population.:
From Colonel Stange to the German Military Mission in Constantinople
Report
Military Mission J. No. 3841
Erzurum, 23 August 1915
[..] a prime example of the ruthless, inhumane and unlawful arbitrariness, the bestial brutality of all the Turks involved, vis-à-vis this category of people whom they hated deeply and regarded as being fair game and outlaws. There are a great number of reliable examples attesting to these facts. The government did nothing at all to help the exiles in any way, and since the police knew the mind-set of their superiors, they therefore did everything in their power to augment the agony of the Armenians. [..]
1915-08-23-DE-013
Laura Moehring, a German nurse, reported on information she was given by military police, who told her how men were taken away to be killed:
From the Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient Friedrich Schuchardt to the German Foreign Office
Privat Correspondence
12 July 1915
Enclosure 2
[.]”that many of the men who had been taken away had been killed, and that this was the best thing for the Turks. Since the massacres [of the 19th century], the Armenians had hated the Turks so much that the latter had always lived in fear.”[.]
1915-08-20-DE-001
Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg and Eva Elvers, two other nurses, reported how Armenians must suffer before they get killed:
Friedrich Schuchardt, Director of the Deutscher Hülfsbund für christliches Liebeswerk im Orient (German Hülfsbund) to the Federal Foreign Office
Private letter
Report on the situation in Ersindjan, (28)
June 1915
[..]The Chodscha – the Mohammedan clergyman at our hospital – wanted to make it clear to us that the Turks were actually proceeding with great leniency; the Armenians hat tortured the Turks, because their religion was a less worthy one and they themselves were ignorant, but the enlightened Moslems were not permitted to retaliate; instead, they had to content themselves with simply killing their victims. He finished with the proverb, ‘This matter comes from God; if he does not have pity, why should you?'” The two nurses asked the gendarme who told them of these mass murders, “If you want to murder them, why don’t you do so in their villages? Why cause them first to suffer such misery?” He replied, “This is the right way; they must suffer. [..]
1915-08-21-DE-001
Bastendorff, a German engineer, wrote how no women no children will be rescued and how they will drop dead and whatever is left, the dogs will finish them:
From the Consul in Aleppo (Roessler) to the Reichskanzler (Bethmann Hollweg)Report
Aleppo, 18 December 1915.
[..]In November the women’s groups arrived from Urfa. One woman who recognised me again begged me to rescue her children. The supervisor pushed her back and shouted to her, ‘No one is going to be rescued here; you’ve got to walk until you drop dead. And wherever you may happen to end, the dogs will eat you.’ Soldiers from Hama, who were accompanying this group, demanded that the supervisor arrange for some bread, as the women had already been on the move for two days. His answer was merely, ‘They can drop dead; they’re not getting anything to eat.. [..]
Bastendorff
1916-01-03-DE-002
An Armenian who was questioned by Roessler reported how sever the torture were:
From the Consul in Aleppo (Roessler) to the Reichskanzler (Bethmann Hollweg)
Report
Aleppo, September 2, 1915
[..] “Two hours this side of Aintab, an Armenian, about 25 years old, was murdered in a khan situated on the Aintab-Kilis road. The body was propped up in the door of the khan, a cigarette in its mouth, a cigarette behind its ear and its moustache smeared with dung. The following was called out to those passing by, ‘Look at how this ‘hashash’ (ruffian) [deserter or refugee] can still smoke. [..]
W. Spieker
1915-09-03-DE-002
This hatred was not only deeply rooted towards average Armenian person but also towards the educated cast:
Ambassador Wolff-Metternich spoke of
The Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Reich Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg)
Report
Ref. 147
Pera, April 2, 1916.
[..] the fanatical hatred, especially among the leading public figures, against the Armenians in general and, in particular, against the leaders of the Armenian revolutionary parties.[..]
Metternich
1916-04-02-DE-001
At the beginning of 1918, the German correspondent of Frankfurter Zeitung (Frankfurt Newspaper), Paul Weitz, reported from Gümüchhane in how the Turkish military officers and the local Kurdish chieftains had pooled their strategies and organized massacres that confirmed the most dreadful stories. And how whole communities are being liquidated – by means including mass burnings, drowning, and asphyxiation at Euphrates banks. However, the lives of the Armenians were in the capricious hands of the ruling vali, feudal lords, or tribal chieftains who decided the fate of the Armenians.
From the correspondent of the “Frankfurter Zeitung” in Constantinople, Paul Weitz, covering his journey throughout north-eastern Turkey
[Transmitted from the Political Department of von Mackensen’s Army Command (J No. 9825) to Reichskanzler Hertling]
Bucharest, 20 June 1918[..] We stayed for a few hours in what was once a very bustling town. Sitting together with Kurdish notabilities in a coffee house, the most dreadful details of the Armenian massacres were told with rare frankness. The fact was mentioned again and again that there was not a single Armenian left in the area in question, something which we noticed more than once while continuing our journey [..]
[..]The gendarmes told us how, in 1915, they drove the Armenian population, headed by the Bishop of Ersindjian, to the Euphrates and drowned it. Kurds kept watch along both banks, shooting anyone who dared to save themselves. We were shown the places where the victims of this atrocious inhumanity were driven, almost naked in the wintry cold, by their tormentors into the floods. We also visited the huge barracks in the surrounding area, in which 1,500 Armenians were literally slaughtered, all at the same time. One of the gendarmes set the number of people he himself had killed at 50, another at 27. These people boasted of this as if it were a glorious deed, without our asking about it. [..]
1918-06-20-DE-001