Genocide Quotes

[Hovik]

I am starting this thread to highlight some very important and powerful quotes by various figures with relation to the Armenian Genocide. I don't expect, and will not allow this thread to become a discussion, it's purpose is for the posting of quotes, nothing more.
Hovik

[Hovik]

"Turkish rule...meant unutterable contempt... The Armenians (and the Greeks) were dogs and pigs... to be spat upon, if their shadow darkened a Turk, to be outraged (raped), to be mats on which he wiped the mud from his feet. Conceive the inevitable result of centuries of slavery, of subjection to insult and scorn, centuries in which nothing that belonged to the Armenian, neither his property, his house, his person, nor his family, was sacred or safe from violence - capricious, unprovoked violence - to resist which by violence meant death."

Willam Ramsay
British Ethnographer

[Hovik]

I recently noticed that Samantha Power in her book "A Problem from Hell: American and the age of Genocide" when quoting the famous Hitler line:

"Afterall, who today speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

uses the following source:

Albert Miller, "Neue Zurcher Zeitung", May 5, 1979, quoted in ibid., p. 89

I know that may not seem important, but the denial machine often spits out lines like "That quote was fabricated", so it'd be interesting to go back to this source and check it out...

[1.5 million]

I recently noticed that Samantha Power in her book "A Problem from Hell: American and the age of Genocide" when quoting the famous Hitler line:

"Afterall, who today speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

uses the following source:

Albert Miller, "Neue Zurcher Zeitung", May 5, 1979, quoted in ibid., p. 89

I know that may not seem important, but the denial machine often spits out lines like "That quote was fabricated", so it'd be interesting to go back to this source and check it out...

The book which should be referenced in this case is Kevork Bardakjian's "Hitler and the Armenian Genocide" Bardakijian thoroughly researched the issue and authenticated the quote based (among other things such as interviews with Germans who were familiar with those who took notes at Hitler's speechs at Obersalzburg in 1939 where the quote is from) but primarioy based on sworn testimony given by Louis Lochner who was the journalist who recieved the notes of the speeches and passed them to British Inteligence in 1942 (I believe). There are no known recordings of the speech (much as Talat gave his most severe orders without official records made - purposly so). And the conterversy surounds the fact that 3 versions of notes from the speechs exist (it is believed that Hitler gave 2 speeches that day) and all three were obtained by the Nurenburg prosecuters. The notes with the quotes concerning Armenians are believed to have been taken by Admiral Canaris - head of the Abwer - the Nazi military Intelligence who was known to object to many of the policies of Hitler and was involved in a resistence against him among some German officers during the war (and possibly involved in at least one assasination attempt against him). Only this version has the quotes concerning the Armenians. The controversy arises because the other versions were used as evidence an Nurenburg - but not thins one. The reason was that the other versions could much more easily be authenticated because they were obtained directly from the sources and not through an intermediary - Lochner. The prosecution teem fully accepted the Lochner provided version of the notes as authentic - and as the most accurate - however due to rules of trial evidence and due to the fact that the more easily authenticatable versions contained the evidence needed by the prosecution - the Lochner version was never entered into evidence. Bardakjian clearly authenticates their accuracy and explains all of this in his book. He additionally provided evidence of other Hitler quotes - some as early as 1931 & 1933 - from reputable (printed) sources - in which Hitler speaks in very similar themes concerning the Armenians - thus proving that the quote was consistenct with his thinking. Bardakjian even recounts the various means how Hitler likely obtained his knowledge about the Armenian Genocide - including his presence in Berlin in 1921 during the Tehlirian trial for the murder of Talat (which was bigger then the OJ trial in its day) - and also recounts the roles of many of Hitlers early advisors/confidants who served in Turkey during WWI - most notable was Max von Sheubner-Richter - a direct Genocide observer whose name should be familiar to all Armenians. Anway - Over the years I have been involved in a number of debates regarding the authenticity of the quote in the past and if I can dig some of what i kept up perhaps I can repost more here.

[1.5 million]

Bardakjian - Hitler and the Armenian Genocide

In his 1985 book “Hitler and the Armenian Genocide” Dr K.B. Bardakjian thoroughly establishes the credibility of Hitler’s statement “After all, who remembers now the extermination of the Armenians?” (note: we often see this quote stated in slightly different manner due to latitudes in the translation from the German – however, the gist of the quote is accurate in all versions) Additionally (and in doing so) Dr Bardakjain illustrates Hitler’s knowledge of the Armenian Genocide, through:

1) his trusted advisor Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (stationed in Turkey during WWI),
2) as a result of the Tehlirian trial for the murder of Talat (which was held with much fanfare in Berlin in 1921 while Hitler was also there), and
3) through general knowledge of the plight of the Armenians in WWI which was well known by the Germans as a result of the hundreds of correspondences and publicity from Turkey to this regard during the First World War.

The following is an excerpt from the “Contents of Speech to the Supreme Commanders and Commanding Generals, Obersalzberg, August 22, 1939” which I have constructed based on one of the translations of the text of the original document delivered to Louis Paul Lochner days after the Speech. Lochner, an American Journalist in Germany with well known ties to the German resistance (to the Nazis) was known to have passed on many accurate German military and policy documents to the Americans and British in the early part of the war. He was present, and was interviewed (under oath) concerning the validity of the document, at the Nuremberg trials after the war and he testified that his source, Hermann Maassz had passed onto him a number of documents during these period which were all accurate and useful. The originator of the text is (with some certainty) thought to be Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, Hitler’s military intelligence, who was witnessed (by another German officer at the speech – who later testified to this) too be taking notes. These two, who were horrified by its contents, conspired to preserve the notes and pass a copy along to other members of the German resistance. While the original notes have been lost – various translations and subsequent versions are known to be in existence. (and their source with Adm Canaris has been independently verified by Winfried Baumgart, a well known researcher in Nazi documents) One of these translations (from which I quote) now resides in the American Archives.

“Our strength consists of our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter – with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state.”

“I have issued a command….that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head (SS) formations in readiness…with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

“Poland will be depopulated and then settled by the Germans.”

“The little states cannot scare me. Since Kemal’s death Turkey is being governed by cretins and semi-idiots.”

“Be tough! Be without compassion! Act more quickly and more brutally than the others! The citizens of western Europe must shudder in horror.”

“The new method of conducting war corresponds to the new draft of the frontiers….”


And there you have it – what I consider to be the relevant passages. I shall follow with some further posts of Herr Hitler acknowledging his knowledge of the Armenian situation (and he and other Nazi’s expressing racists thoughts against Armenians) etc.


Alferd Rosenberg, Chief ideologist of Nazism (the German Gokalp) stated: “Armenians are even worse than Jews” and called Jews and Armenians “the people of the wastes”

Hitler is quoted as saying: “Considering that only a pure consciousness of racism can ensure the survival of our race, we were constrained to introduce racial legislation in such a clear way that such legislation could eliminate all alien racial infection, and this infection is not caused only by Jews. In enlightening the German people with regard to this racial legislation, we should conceive of it as having the task of protecting the German blood from contamination, not only of the Jewish but also of the Armenian blood”

Seems strange that he would single out the Armenians – but like you said FJ – there is much in common between the two peoples and the Nazi’s were into this Eugenics thing where they measured characteristics (& twisted them around something fierce)

Hitler also is quoted as saying: “One of the most famous examples is the downfall of that people who were once so proud, the Persians, who now lead a pitiful existence as Armenians”

Apparently Hitler believed that Armenians were once the original Persians – and although they were clearly “Caucasian” they had fallen low by blending with Semitic peoples etc. – thus he saw Armenians as somehow “fallen” Caucasians.

It is also interesting how the Nazis saw Pan-Turanism as a threat (and of course an inspiration). Remember – it was the Nazis who returned Talat’s body in 1943 – attempting to curry favor with the Turks (many of whom were very interested in sharing Hitler’s vision). At the same time, the Nazi’s wished to use Pan-Turanist aspirations of the Turks to draw of Russian divisions in defense of the Caucuses (which never materialized) they were fearful of the potential for Pan-Turanism.

On 8 May 1942 Rosenburg, then minister of Axis occupied territories in the east reported on a series of discussions with Hitler:

“The Fuehrer…asked my opinion about the Armenians. I stated that Armenia was the best bolt between Turkey and the Aserbeidschan and thus could stop a Pan-Turanism movement towards the East. Generally speaking the Armenian people themselves are stationary, a people of farmers who had considerable industrial skill.”

Thus, the Nazi’s schemed both with the Turks (Ultimately unsuccessful due to considerable U.S. and British pressure) while fearing the potential competition of Pan-Turanism.

[1.5 million]

more (exerpted from my posts during a debate in 1999/2000)

There is sufficient evidence available to accept – with reasonable accuracy (as reasonable as any acceptance of someone’s eyewitness accounts etc.) that in fact Hitler did say “After all, who remembers now the extermination of the Armenians?” (or something in German which translates to such).

First, all accounts of this speech (or possibly/likely two speeches) are taken from notes of those who were present. The speech(s) were apparently not scripted. Each version has core common elements with varying degrees of detail and emphasis. The “Lochner” version with the Armenian reference is the most detailed transcription. While it was not accepted as direct evidence at Nuremberg – it was very well known and was accepted by members of the prosecution team as accurate and legitimate. (This has been attested to in interviews). Additionally, the intermediary who delivered the speech to Lochner (as well as Lochner himself) was/were interviewed (at Nuremberg) under oath and they attested to the accuracy and source. The prosecution team accepted these facts.

The reason(s) the document was not submitted as evidence during the trial are two fold. First – the discovery of two versions of notes of the speeche(s) by the US Army (directly from German officers) – each containing the incriminating passages the prosecutors were looking for – and these made the “Lochner” version unnecessary. The other versions contained sufficient proof of pre-meditated aggression against the Poles to make the prosecutions case. These versions had no issues of concern as to source (even if the “Lochner” version had been proven such to the satisfaction of the prosecution) thus were less likely to be potentially challenged on a technicality – and the Nuremberg prosecutors wanted to limit any challenges of evidence. So, while they fully accepted the veracity of the Lochner version, it became unnecessary, thus was not included as direct evidence.

The second point regarding this document is that Lochner delivered a copy of the translation to the British Embassy in Berlin in 1939 and it exists in the British diplomatic Archives dated as such. To believe that either the Germans or the British somehow colluded (with Armenians or Armenian sympathizers) to include a non-existent reference regarding the extermination of the Armenians at this time is simply ludicrous and unbelievable. (where is the motivation and how did/would the Armenians be able to do such?) In fact, the “Lochner” document was the first and is still the most complete account of Hitler’s speech (s) to the Supreme Commanders and Commanding Generals, Obersalzberg, August 22, 1939. The Nuremberg prosecutors realized and accepted this.

[1.5 million]

Some related info I can across from my old files)

Mike Joseph




National Assembly of Wales, Cardiff

April 25th 2002



Cardiff, April 2002


Denying Hitler's Question (1)

Late last year I was invited to address a Swansea University seminar (2) on the subject of Questioning Hitler's Question.

My subject was the question (3) that Adolf Hitler put to his top generals on August 22 1939:

"Who after all talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?"

In my lecture, I showed how the record of Hitler's outrageous speech on the eve of war was immediately leaked to the western press by Admiral Canaris and others who later conspired to bomb Hitler; how the speech, including that contemptuous question, was published during the war by the head of Berlin's foreign press corps, Louis Lochner, bureau chief of the Associated Press; I showed that Hitler's purpose in making this speech was to convince his generals that genocide was part and parcel of Germany's war aims, and I showed that he explicitly referred to the Armenian Genocide to demonstrate that genocide may be committed with impunity. I showed that, with one Welsh exception - to which I will return - Hitler was right to taunt the world for forgetting the Armenian Genocide by 1939; and nevertheless knew that his generals would be impressed with his reference to the Armenian catastrophe: because the German army would have vivid personal memories of it from their war service in the Ottoman Empire just twenty years earlier.

After all, the Armenian Genocide was conducted under the cover of the First World War by Germany's ally, the Ottoman Turks, and it was monitored, supported and even led by many of the 800 German officers and 12,000 German troops stationed in Turkey, including those who became leading Nazi criminals.

It was a remarkable fact, I told my Swansea audience, that while we have no documented record of Hitler referring to the Holocaust as an accomplished deed, here was hard evidence of Hitler attesting to the earlier genocide to pave the way for the Holocaust. It was indeed a smoking gun.

But as I spoke, I was noticing a postgraduate student, sitting in a corner of the Swansea seminar room, smiling with that fixed, waterproof kind of smile that displays scorn rather than satisfaction.

When I had finished talking and taken some questions, he finally spoke up. Everything I said was suspect. I had failed to consider Turkish sources which showed that there had been no genocide, that the Armenians had been just as bad, and that all western references to genocide were mistakes, lies and forgeries. I paraphrase, but you get the drift.

From an academic point of view, these were pretty lame assertions, which simply ignored the detailed evidence I had just presented. I had analysed a paper by a leading Turkish denier of the Armenian Genocide, Professor Dr. Turkkaya Ataöv. Ataöv is Professor of International Relations at Ankara University. His department boasts that it trains its graduates for positions in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So when Professor Ataöv spins, we may be confident he spins in time with the Turkish government.

His paper, Hitler and the Armenian Question, deals with the awkward fact - for the denier - of Hitler's question. You can read it on the web at www.mfa.gov.tr. I showed the Swansea seminar how Ataöv's claim that Hitler did not ask his question, and his claim that he made only one other reference to the Armenians are both disproved by published evidence; and I went on to show that Ataöv's claim that Hitler's associates were "completely ignorant" of the genocide is hopelessly wrong. I only have time for one piece of the evidence, but it is unnerving.

Hitler's most intimate knowledge of the Armenian Genocide came from Dr Max Erwin von Scheubner Richter. Richter had been Vice-Consul in Erzurum, and Co-Commander of a joint Turko-German guerilla force. He learnt the whole apparatus of modern genocide - deception, concealment, lulling and trapping the victims. He reported extensively on the massacres. In his last report to Berlin he declared:

"The Armenians of Turkey for all practical purposes have been exterminated"

Scheubner Richter joined the Nazi party a few years later, on attending a gathering addressed by Hitler. He now called for

"a ruthless and relentless campaign to cleanse Germany of aliens"

and Hitler made him general manager of the party's military wing, the SA.

Now Scheubner Richter may have been a fascist and a racist, but he was also a clear thinking strategist. He wrote that:

"the nationalist revolution must not precede the acquisition of political power, rather control over the nation's police constitutes the prerequisite for the nationalist revolution".

Six weeks after he wrote this, Scheubner Richter's warning was brought home in the most forceful way to Hitler. On November 9 1923, a column of several thousands Nazis led by standard-bearers left Munich's Bürgerbräukeller to march across the city to the Bavarian War Ministry - the first steps of a march to Berlin and seizing power. Hitler had vacillated for a day, uncertain whether this was the time and the way to challenge the state. Now he was marching silently, at the head of the column, supported by Ludendorff and Scheubner Richter. He took Scheubner Richter's arm, an uncharacteristic gesture of seeking support. At the Odeonsplatz they came up against a police cordon beside the Bavarian War Memorial. A shot rang out, followed by an exchange of fire. Scheubner Richter was the first to fall dead, pulling Hitler down, and wrenching his arm out of joint.

Hitler later had the flag that had headed the march soaked in the blood of the 14 Nazis killed at Odeonsplatz. He made the annual commemoration of the march the central image of Nazi sacrifice. But of the 14 dead, Hitler said:

"all are replaceable, but for one: Scheubner Richter".

Ten years' later, Hitler achieved the control of the state that Scheubner Richter had warned was the prerequisite for his revolution. By then, no doubt Hitler had thought carefully about all that his irreplaceable colleague had to say about getting away with genocide.

So, far from Hitler and his aides being completely ignorant of the fate of the Armenians, they could not have been more steeped in it.

Thus when the voice of denial was raised in an obscure seminar room on a university campus on the western fringes of Europe, I felt many reactions. As an academic challenge, it was a non-starter. As evidence of the determination with which Turkey pursues its policy of denial into the furthest corners of the world, it was startling. But as a personal challenge, it was troubling.

Because my point of view, though deeply respecting evidence and truth, is not academic but personal. It is barely a year since I discovered the truth of that genocide. As a researcher of the Holocaust, and the son of a refugee survivor, the impact could not have been greater. Having worked for a decade to uncover the truth of how my mother and her family lost their home in Leipzig, and how her whole family lost their lives in the Soviet Union at the hands of one of the bloodiest SS murderers; having encountered the Nazi who plundered my mother's house, and the Nazis who continue to shelter my family's killers in today's Germany, it has still taken me all these ten years to appreciate the significance of the Twentieth Century's first genocide.

And having discovered it, I can no longer shake it off. 25 years before the Nazi Holocaust, the Turks had already done it all. Nothing was new.

There is the same demonising of a minority group as the enemy of the nation. These people are in our way, they are our misfortune. There is the same apparatus of state-run genocide: the deception, the pretexts, the concealments, the lulling and trapping of the victim people; the same round-up and instant execution of the most effective leaders and intellectuals who might lead resistance - the first on April 24th 1915; there is the same huge programme of plunder to accompany the murder; there are the same mass shootings with the victims forced to dig their own graves; the same lie that the mass deportations are for resettlement; there are the same death marches; there are the same concentration camps whose only product is death.

Responsible for implementing the genocide, the Turks had their own SS - the Special Organisation, and there was even a Turkish Wannsee Conference, a secret gathering of 75 top leaders in Istanbul on February 26, 1915 to finalise the operational plan for the solution to the Armenian Question. A plan which achieved the destruction of over a million and a half Armenians.

Therefore, when a smiling postgraduate student at a Welsh university college announces that all this is just lies and forgeries, he might as well have been denying the Holocaust.

But he has come to the wrong place to deny genocide. The UK may these days, for reasons of state, flinch from challenging Turkey's denial, but Wales, and Welsh politicians have long been concerned for the truth of these matters.

It was in 1914 that a Welsh MP, Aneurin Williams warned our Foreign Office of a "great fear of a massacre" in Turkey. Williams pursued his campaign to reveal the truth in parliament and the press, through the First World War and beyond.

His pressure must have contributed, in February 1916, to the British government commissioning and publishing a monumental Parliamentary Blue Book (4) to investigate the genocide and document it in detail from primary sources. Its co-author was Arnold Toynbee, the eminent British historian.

This book, the first record of the first genocide of the Twentieth Century, was presented to Wales' First Minister Rhodri Morgan at a ceremony just a year ago (5) ; his gesture of acceptance signalled that Wales is further along the road to truth than Westminster.

And then there was the Welsh politician who, in 1939, admitted Britain's role in the power politics that betrayed the Armenians to their fate in the First War: Writing his memoirs (6), David Lloyd George recalled that the Armenians had been guaranteed Russian protection, but Britain opposed the presence of Russian troops in eastern Turkey as a threat to colonial interests in India.

"The Russians were forced to withdraw; the wretched Armenians were once more placed under the heel of their old masters … the action of the British Government led inevitably to the terrible massacres … and worst of all to the holocausts of 1915. By these atrocities, almost unparalleled in the black record of Turkish misrule, the Armenian population was reduced in numbers by well over a million."

What of that use of the word holocaust in, of all years, 1939? In the year in which Adolf Hitler asked,

"Who after all talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?"


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) This is an unrevised transcript of an address to the Armenian Genocide Commemoration at the National Assembly for Wales on April 25th 2002. The reader will be aware that it has not been adapted for the printed page. The material for the talk comes from work in progress on the author's forthcoming book, The Hundred Year House

(2) All non-attributed historical and journalistic references are from third party sources and/or the author's own research. For all enquiries re non-attributed sources, contact the author at [email protected]

(3) Hitler's rhetorical question was posed in a speech to his military commanders on 22 August 1939. Versions of the speech were reported to the British Government by 25 August, published in the New York Times 18 October 1942, and published in the same month in a book, What About Germany, Louis P Lochner, New York, Dodd Mead & Co, 1942. Versions of the speech were also taken in evidence at the Nuremberg Trials.

(4) The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916, Bryce & Toynbee; Uncensored Edition, Gomidas Institute, Princeton New Jersey, 2000, ed Ara Sarafian.

(5) The event was a ceremony to commemorate the Armenian Genocide held on April 24th 2001 (the anniversary of the start of the Genocide in 1915), held at the Temple of Peace, Cardiff. The remembrance service was conducted by representatives from many Christian denomination in Wales, with the Church in Wales represented by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Wales. It was attended by the First Minister of the National Assembly of Wales, Rhodri Morgan. In attending and laying a wreath, Rhodri Morgan is seen as making a significant gesture of acceptance of the historical truth of the Armenian Genocide, contrasting with the continued reluctance of the UK government in the face of Turkish disapproval.

(6) Memoirs of the Peace Conference, David Lloyd George, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1939, Volume II page 811.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cragsite/MikeJosephSpeech.htm#footnote1

[1.5 million]

Hitler's first mention of Armenians

Adolph Hitler interview with Richard Breiting (who was poisoned by the Gestapo in 1937) , editor of Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten (a German daily newspaper) 4 May 1931: (excerpts)

“We must already be thinking of resettlement of millions of men from Germany and Europe. Migrations of people have always taken place”

“Are we really going to remain a nation of have-nots forever?” “ We have the capacity to rouse and lead the masses against this situation.”

“We intend to introduce a great resettlement policy;”

In 1923 little Greece could resettle a million men. Think of the biblical deportations and the massacres of the Middle Ages and remember the extermination (some texts translate as eradication) of the Armenians (some texts translate as Armenia).”

This proves that Hitler was both aware of the Armenian Genocide and was influenced by the Turkish success at "eradicating Armenia" and "exterminating Armenians"

[maral_m79]

Wow 1.5 million .. very interesting posts.
Thanks for sharing..

[Gavur]

The Blight of Asia George Horton 1926

Book: The Blight of Asia
Author: George Horton
Publication: 1926




FOREWORD:

"We turned a deaf ear to the dying Christians, when they called to us for aid, fully aware that America was their only hope, and now it would appear that there is a growing tendency in this country to whitewash the Turks and condone their crimes in order to obtain material advantages from them."