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The German Question: Historian studies Deutschland’s reaction to the Genocide
Recently the Department for the Armenian Question and Armenian Genocide at the Institute of History National Academy of Sciences published an exclusive collection of German documents on the Armenian Genocide.
On the initiative of department head Stepan Stepanyan, who has been studying German archives for years, a summary of the German documents reveal topics never before spoken about.
Stepanyan, a specialist of German archives on genocide
Nearly 500 pages, the volume is in Armenian and Russian and includes data on more than 200 documents.
Three years ago Wolfgang Gust, a journalist working for “Spiegel” magazine, and his wife, Sigrid presented the documents to the Armenian scholar.
The couple had once read the history of Armenia and Armenians and has been interested especially in the “Armenian Question”. They started to purposefully study the German archival materials. As a result they found numerous important documents relating to the genocide of Armenians and decided to send them to Armenia.
Learning about Stepanyan’s interest, they contacted him and passed the archival documents to him.
“At the end of my studies I concluded that, had it been willing, Germany could have prevented our genocide,” Stepanyan says. “I have found a document where German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann writes the German do not need Armenians and an Armenia populated with Armenians is harmful for their interests.”
The Department for Armenian Question and Armenian Genocide at the Institute of History has been around since the 1960s, created during the same period as the Genocide Memorial.
The department has published more than 300 works on the Genocide.
During his leadership academician Mkrtich Nersisyan directed the publication of the first collection of documents titled “The Genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire”.
The volume includes documents from Russian, German, British and Armenian archives.
The collection has been a research source for many academic works.
Stepanyan, though, has always directed his interest toward Germany’s position on the Genocide.
“The German archives are really very reliable. From the beginning of the 19th century Germany has been and remains one of Turkey’s biggest allies,” Stepanyan says. “This power has been aware of all the developments in Turkey, has been aware of the preparations Turkey made for the Armenian genocide. All these are clearly expressed in the materials of the German archives.”
According to Stepanyan he is the first Armenian historian who has delved into the German archives after the Second World War.
The majority of the documents he revealed describe the cruelty with which the Turks carried out their plan.
“Armenians were disarmed and literally slaughtered, were burnt with oil, were thrown into rivers alive, women were raped, then killed, the bodies of pregnant women were cut and babies killed: this is how the Armenian massacre is described in the German documents,” Stepanyan says.
Of the documents he revealed historian Stepanyan stresses especially the open letter addressed to the US President Woodrow Wilson in January 1919 by German writer and Armenian sympathizer Armin Wegner.
The content is approximately the following: “Mister President, you do not close your ears when a foreigner talks to you. But I present you the history of annihilation of a nation the Young Turks did… In the spring of 1915 the Turkish authorities initiated the deportation and the genocide of 2 million Armenians.”
Wegner documented the Armenian genocide in 1915, with more than 2,000 photos. After exhibiting the photos in Germany he sent them to Armenia, but they have not been preserved.
Historian Stepanyan says his department’s research is essential. But he believes the state should take more action to facilitate general recognition of the Genocide.
“We do our best. But we cannot promote anything alone,” he says. “Our state should never give up its exacting and stubborn position. And we historians should continue presenting the international community the dark pages of the Armenian Genocide.”