The twentieth century was one of the most troubled times in human history. It is known as, among others, as the “Century of Genocides”, for a good reason. Two of the most heinous of these crimes against humanity were carried out by ultra-nationalist movements in Turkey and Germany in the relatively narrow timeframe from 1915-45. Considering that the two countries also maintained cordial relationships and alliance from the late-nineteenth century onwards, it is even more reasonable to suspect a direct link between the systematic annihilation of Christian minorities in eastern Anatolia and the Jewish minority in much of mainland Europe by the Young Turks and National Socialists respectively.
Indeed, the historians have long discussed the complex relationship between the Armenian Genocide and the later and much deadlier Holocaust. While the Armenian Genocide was not a direct cause of the Holocaust, it clearly served as a great influence and precedent for the ultra-nationalist Nazi regime to look towards for inspiration. The inaction of the international community and the success of post-war Turkey in particular emboldened the Third Reich to undertake its own Jewish extermination program, expecting—unfortunately, with some validity—that their policies will not be vehemently condemned or prevented by the League of Nations or any rival superpower.
Abandoned Villages in Armenia
Lead-Up to the Genocide
The Ottoman Caliphate was facing a steady decline as the rest of Europe experienced rapid economic, political and military development during the late-nineteenth century. The Russo-Ottoman War of 1877 proved especially disastrous for an Empire which had dominated south-eastern Europe for over four centuries. In the aftermath of the war, which the Caliphate only survived because of foreign intervention by Western European powers, the newly united German Empire emerged as the only European power willing to establish an amicable bilateral partnership not based on territorial ambitions. Otto Von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany, put it rather subtly in a now-famous quote, saying Germany’s involvement in the Ottoman affairs was “Not worthy of the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” This attitude by a rising European superpower was more than a blessing for the Sultan, who sent a delegation to Germany in 1881. By this time already, the Caliphate was facing growing nationalist resistance in the very heartland of its Empire, the Asia Minor itself. A key question for the European powers was the fate of the Armenians, who were a Christian nation living in eastern Anatolia for thousands of years. With Bismarck unwilling to take the Armenian side on the issue, the two Empires quickly came closer. In fact, the Armenian question played a key part in the ultimate alliance between the two.
The transformation from Bismarck’s era was smooth, with Wilhelm II assuring the Ottomans of his continued neutrality shortly after Bismarck’s resignation In fact, the ‘neutrality’ was fiercely maintained; of course, by defending or ignoring the Ottoman policies in vague terms, not by acknowledging that the Armenians were fighting for the right of self-determination. Massacres against Armenians populations in certain areas by nationalist Turks had already begun in the 1890s, and the German media barely even discussed the issue. Most of the coverage was pro-Turkish, with a notable exception being the Frankfurter Zeitung, which actually finally managed to spark somewhat of a debate in 1895.
Reaction
What is more shocking is that the casual dismissal of the Ottoman atrocities against a particular ethnicity continued even after the full-scale genocide during the Great War. During the war, not only were the approximately two million Armenians in eastern Anatolia removed from their ancestral homeland (most of them massacred and some deported), but the Pontic Greek population on the north-east coast was also systemically forced out of the to-be Turkey. The genocide of Armenians and Greeks continued almost until the very dissolution of the Caliphate in 1924, long after the Great War had ended. And yet, not only did the German government stay chillingly silent on the issue, but even the media barely reported the massive war crimes.
Only key issue for the German media was precisely that their own country had just lost a deadly war, experienced an unpopular Socialist revolution and been humiliated and forced to pay heavy reparations for it. In these circumstances, the criticism of a major German ally, especially one who actually recovered very quickly from the trauma and emerged with a new successful nationalist government (also considering the fact that Germany had done nothing to stop the genocide), was a touchy situation for any newspaper to discuss. In fact, the first serious treatment of the subject came only in a periodical in 1918 by Dr. Johannes Lepsius, and even he focused most of his energies excusing the Imperial Germany for its inaction. In 1919, Armin Wegner wrote a very detailed emotional open letter to President Wilson, pleading with him to take the Armenian Genocide seriously, but even this failed to garner much attention.
In the end, the topic finally became the subject of mainstream press attention after the assassination of Talaat Pasha – the main perpetrator of the Armenian Genocide – by an Armenian nationalist in Berlin, on 15th March 1921. Unsurprisingly, the Turk Pasha was mostly presented as the true victim of Armenian wickedness, especially after the murdered was absolved of any criminal charges after a short trial. One especially vicious case was that of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, which excused the genocide as a necessary last resort at dealing with a rebel people and minimised the scale of the tragedy.
This attitude coincided with the rise of anti-Semitism in the inter-war Germany. In fact, having presumed the terrible guilt of the Armenians, the anti-Armenian side soon overwhelmed their opposition in the media (Ihrig, 273 onwards). Soon, the Armenians were being seen as half-Jews or even worse than Jews. They had their own “Armenian secret organisation” like the Jews (Ihrig, 284), and were genetically and racially related to the latter in the broader category of the evil ‘Armenoid’ races. Perhaps most importantly, the ultimate ascent of the Republic of Turkey was thought to have been made possible only due to the elimination of the resistant minorities (Ihrig, 321).
In the end, the Armenian Genocide provided Nazi Germany with a perfect example of a recent Genocide, which had not only supposedly achieved its goals in unifying the nation by eliminating its enemies, but also been left virtually unpunished by the major world powers. It did not directly cause the Holocaust, but certainly improved the prospects of its success in Hitler’s mind, and allowed the German populace to justify it with a real-life example. The two genocides ultimately differed greatly in their (scale and) aftermath, however, while those responsible for the Armenian Genocide had escaped justice, the Nazi officials responsible for the Holocaust were carefully tried and most were executed at the Nuremburg Trials. In Turkey, the nationalists won while losing in Germany. As a result, Turkey still refuses, and in fact, criminalises the acknowledgment of the events of 1915-1916. Conversely, Germany has come to terms with its dark history. This is reflected in the foreign policy of the two nations even today. While Germany is much more pacifist than other world powers with comparable influence, Turkey is still aggressively engaged in disputes with Armenia and Greece.
