1921-05-30-DE-001

1921-05-30-DE-001

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Link: http://www.armenocide.net/armenocide/armgende.nsf/$$AllDocs/1921-05-30-DE-001
Source: DE/PA-AA/NL/Rössler/Bd. 2.
Edition: Genocide 1915/16
Embassy/consular serial number:
Translated by: Vera Draack (Translation sponsored by Zoryan Institute)
Last updated: 03/30/2012

From the former Consul in Aleppo (Roessler) to the German Foreign Office

Concept

Concept [The date of the document has been estimated and is based on a remark written at the top of the page, “Draft of a statement to the German Foreign Office by Consul Rössler in Eger, dated the end of May 1921, with regard to the examination as a witness in the proceedings against Teilirian.”]

If the German Foreign Office should give its permission that I be examined as a witness in the proceedings against the murderer of Talaat Pasha, I would have to be released from official secrecy and would be obliged to answer all of the presiding judge’s questions under the oath I would swear as a witness. I would not be able to avoid expressing my conviction that Talaat Pasha is, in fact, one of those Turkish statesmen who wanted the Armenians to be annihilated and carried this out according to plan. All of the softening effects that might arise, for example from my depiction of the exceptional danger that the Armenian question was, in fact, for Turkey as it was to be used by Russia as a means of dividing up Turkey, would recede to the background compared with the main impression that my testimony would make. I suppose that the court will present me with documents that were published by the Armenian, Aram Andonian, and which contain accounts of Talaat Pasha’s orders in the matter concerning the deportation and annihilation. I would have to give testimony to the effect that these documents are, in all probability, genuine. I would also have to testify that a remark made to me by the Commissioner of Deportations, who was sent from Constantinople to Aleppo, was actually made, “You do not understand what we want: we want an Armenia without Armenians.”