The fact of the genocide plays an important role in the current discussion on the recognition of the Armenian genocide, because Turkey denies the genocide, respectively makes out acts of revenge by the Armenians, especially in 1917, to be a Turkish genocide by the Armenians (this will be the topic of the coming edition). That is why this guide concentrates on proving the genocide of 1915, which was largely completed by 1916, as well as the background on this genocide, insofar as it comes to light from the files.

For Johannes Lepsius, the genocide of 1915 and 1916 was also in the foreground; thus, this guide in its perceptions does not go far beyond that which the editor Lepsius summed up in his introduction. Only the chapter on Germany’ s role contains new emphases. For those readers with no knowledge of German, however, this guide is an important supplement to the references which come, for the most part, from American sources, because Lepsius’ book, “ Germany and Armenia” has not been translated into English or at least never published in English..

The numerous documents which Lepsius published on the Caucasian campaign are not taken into account in this guide (they are dealt with in the introduction to a later Caucasian edition), nor those on the German relief organisations and their problems, which play a relatively large role in the Lepsius edition.

The testimonials of German diplomats and the German witnesses enlisted by them are in the foreground of the passages quoted. Eye witness reports and the testimonials of Armenians are only added if they have been specifically or tacitly confirmed by German diplomats. This is by no means evidence of a lack of confidence in what is certainly the most important and vivid testimony given by Armenians. This weighting is only meant as preventive action against those who describe the statements made by Armenians as being less credible because they are very prejudiced.

Only a short chapter has been devoted to the German attitude on the Armenian genocide, because the basis in the Lepsius documents is too narrow. It will be treated in full in the next edition.

If the name of the document is printed in bold, an English translation of the original document is available. The original document opens up when the name of the document is clicked on.

Contents

Chapter 1: From the Outbreak of War until the Revolt in Van

(I) Co-existence between the Turks and the Armenians

1) The Armenians’ relationship to the Young Turks after this group came into power

2) Turkish repressions against the Armenians since the spring of 1915

3) Disarming and desertion of the Armenian soldiers

(II) Supposed and Actual Armenian Revolts

1) The events in Zeitun

2) The events in Dörtyol

3) The revolt in Van

Chapter 2: Deportations and Acts of Annihilation

(I) Der 24. April 1915

(II) The Geographical Expansion of the Deportations

(III) Forced Conversions to Islam

(IV) The Deportations as far as the Collection Points

1) The Deportation Trains

2) Isolation of Those Men able to defend Themselves in Labour Battalions

3) Separation and Annihilation of the Armenian Men

4) The Fate of the Women and Girls

5) The Annihilation of Entire Trains

Digression: The Fate of the Catholics and Protestants

(V) From the Collection Points to the Death Camps

1) The Collection Points

2) The Death Trains along the Euphrates River

a) Settlement Attempts

b) The Death Marches in the South and South-East

c) Acts of Annihilation

Chapter 3: Pretexts for the Genocide and Defences

(I) The Pretexts

1) Sympathy for the Entente

2) Accusation of Treason against the Armenians

(II) The Defences

Chapter 4: The Policy of the Final Solution

(I) The Collision Course

1) The Policy of the Young Turks

2) The Role of the Turkish Military

(II) The Motives for the Annihilation of the Armenians

1) Gains

2) The Will of the Turkish Hardliners to Destroy

(III) The Dimension of the Genocide

(IV) The Statistics on the Genocide

(V) Covering Up and Denying the Genocide

Chapter 5: Those Responsible for the Genocide

(I) The Initiators

1) The Leadership in Constantinople

2) The Role of the Young Turks

3) Those Responsible in the Provinces

a) The Agitators

b) The Moderates

(II) The Executives

1) Government Agencies

2) The Military

3) The Gendarmes

4) Special Organisations and Ethnos

(III) Turkish resistance to the Deportations

Chapter 6: The role of the Germans

(I) Germany and the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire

1) Antipathy of the Armenian Population towards Germany

2) Search for Refugee by the Armenian Clergy

3) Political Pressure on the Armenians

(II) Germany’s Position with Regard to the Deportations

1) Approval to the Deportations

2) The Principe of Non-Intervention in Turkish Politics

3) Disapproval of the Genocide by Germans in Turkey

(III) Germany and the Consequences of the Genocide

1) Germany’s Economic Interests in Turkey

2) The Public in Germany

3) The People of the World

(IV) Germany’s Joint Responsibility for the Genocide

1) Statements on German Involvement in the Genocide

2) Protests against German Involvement in the Genocide

3) German Settlement Plans for Armenians along the Baghdad Railway Line?

4) The Baghdad Railway and its Armenian Employees

(V) German Attempts at Justification

(VI) The German Military

Chapter 1: From the Outbreak of War until the Revolt in Van

In Turkish history, 20 April 1915 is considered to be the reason for the strong action taken against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and this portrayal was accepted, although only officially, by the Germans. According to the Turkish portrayal, the Armenians in the eastern Armenian metropolis of Van revolted on this day against the Turkish government and, thus, attacked the fighting troops from the rear. The logical consequence was the evacuation of the Armenians from those regions close to the front.

Although official German policy at that time agreed to this version, to which the Turkish people have adhered until the present, reports of German observers did not. This version was accepted by only a few diplomats and for only a few weeks, as it was not possible to observe the situation in Van personally, for the German Empire did not have consular representation in Van, nor did it have much contact with the German and Swiss representatives of relief organisations there. Soon, the impression of the German diplomatic representatives in the Ottoman Empire was that the Turkish government was merely using the real or supposed revolt of the Armenians in Van as an excuse to deport and exterminate the Armenians.

For already before 20 April 1915, rigorous measures were taken by the Turks against the Armenians and these were described by the German observers. Until the obvious outbreak of the Armenian genocide the Germans’ relationship to the new Turkey of the Young Turks as well as speculations on Russian intentions and the Armenians’ reactions to this was at the foreground of German interest.

The Armenians, the most important minority in the Ottoman Empire, apart from the Greeks, had suffered greatly under Turkish rulership in the past, especially in the period from 1894 until 1896, when hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed in massacres. However, since the Young Turks had taken over power the climate between the two ethnic groups had improved noticeably. Several German sources go into this new situation.

(I) Co-existence between the Turks and the Armenians

1) The Armenians’ relationship to the Young Turks after this group came into power

In a report on the beginning of 1915, the German journalist, von Tyszka, writes:

• Until recently, in fact at the beginning of this year, the Armenians were regarded as the most reliable element, indeed the only reliable people within the Christian elements in Turkey. One could read it in all the newspapers and the important Turkish dignitaries confirmed this on every occasion, which presented itself. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• When the Hamidic regime was overthrown and the Young Turks came into power, the Armenians took the side of the Young Turks. They put their revolutionary organisation at the disposal of the Young Turkish regime and produced even some ministers too. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

• that the Armenians were completely appeased and considered themselves to be loyal Ottomans [1914-02-16-DE-001].

• Generally speaking, the Patriarch observed that every reasonable Armenian would wish to remain under Turkish rule and would reject an annexation of the districts concerned to a foreign state [1914-12-29-DE-001]

• I gained the impression that, in the interest of preserving their national individuality, it would not suit the Russian Armenians at all if the Turkish Armenians came under Russian rule. [1913-09-26-DE-001]

After the outbreak of war, the relationship of the two peoples towards each other changed. Vice-Consul Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, who stood in as administrator for Consul Edgar Anders while he was in Russian captivity, reported from Erzerum in connection with the “purges”:

• The Armenian population of the Vilajets of Erserum, especially the country people, is very worried because of a few incidents, which they see as harbingers of new massacres. … Even with the Turkish population, as one can see from certain symptoms, the old hatred is rising again. [1914-12-30-DE-001]

• that some inhabitants of Armenian villages on the Turkish side were killed by Muslims. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• In two districts of Van formal butcheries took place under the connivance of the Kaymakams. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• Since the commencement of the Russian-Turkish war, hundreds of Armenian villages have been plundered by the Kurds and irregular militias in the eastern Vilayets and thousands of defenceless Armenians have been murdered. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• Since March, an about-turn has taken place which is as general and consequent as if the Turks had never known up until now what dangerous people had been living within their midst. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• During the last few days house-to-house searches took place at all the homes of the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire residing here - Armenians, Syrians, Greeks – on order from higher up (most likely from Constantinople). In some houses, papers were confiscated, apparently only because they were in a foreign language. [1915-03-07-DE-011]

• the Armenian farmers were being used like draft animals to transport ammunition and provisions and many of them died from this inhumane treatment; the least of them, it is said hardly a quarter, returned to their villages. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• During the winter the male Armenian population was used for provision and munitions colonies in the Eastern theatre of war. Out of those sent only a few returned: from 2-300 on average just 50. The Armenian villages were destroyed in spring after they had already been ravaged as a result of billeting and requisitioning. Between May and June, Bitlis was cleared of all Armenians. [1915-11-06-DE-012]

After the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks in the Middle Ages until the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, Armenians, like all Christians, were not allowed to use weapons in military service. After only a few years of equal rights, the Turkish government again limited admittance to military service. Scheubner-Richter reports from Erzerum:

• Military authorities have ordered severed measures; Armenians are also not permitted to use weapons in military service. [1915-03-03-DE-011]

• The reports about the behaviour of the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army during the campaign in the Caucasus are particularly serious: they are said to have repeatedly turned their weapons against the Turks, a fact that is even being confirmed by German officers who were present during those combats. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

Shortly after Turkey had entered the war on our side, in October 1914, we already received the news from the Consul in Aleppo that the military conscription of the Armenians would be subject to great difficulties ... The complaints lodged about desertions and switching of numerous Armenians to the Russian side were ever increasing.

• Shortly after Turkey had entered the war on our side, in October 1914, we already received the news from the Consul in Aleppo that the military conscription of the Armenians would be subject to great difficulties. … The complaints lodged about desertions and switching of numerous Armenians to the Russian side were ever increasing. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

• It is correct that the Turkish Armenians repeatedly served as guides for the Russians in their advances against Erzerum. Also some of these were found among the prisoners who were seized from the Russians. On the other hand, he considers it to be out of the question that Armenians troops had fired at their Turkish comrades; they had always used the Armenians behind the front. [1915-04-26-DE-011]

• But this claim is quite impossible, especially to such an extent, and has actually been proved to be wrong. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

In spring, events took place in several towns in the Ottoman Empire which were regarded by one side as being Armenian revolts and by other sides as inconsequentialities or purely defence on the part of the Armenians. German sources, in particular, give a great deal of information on the events in Zeitun (known today as Süleymanli, north of Marash) and in the coastal town of Dörtyol. German diplomatic representatives were not present in Van, but because of the importance of the occurrences there, German sources often speak of them.

1) The events in Zeitun

Zeitun is a town north of Marash, known today as Kahramanmaras, which has always been populated by Armenians. It made history, because for a long time it held a semi-autonomous status. Its inhabitants, exclusively Armenians, had always proven themselves to be particularly ready to show active resistance and withstood Turkish sieges several times. This won them the admiration of all the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the hatred of the Turks.

Ambassador Wangenheim reports in the middle of April 1915:

• Without doubt, excesses and acts of terror have taken place against the Armenians in eastern Anatolia and, in general, the events have probably been related correctly by the Armenian side, even if they were somewhat exaggerated. In many cases they have been sparked off by the distress and suffering that every war, even in industrialised countries, brings with it; however, in other cases, the blame was actually on the Armenians, and one can only accuse the authorities of not taking the necessary precautions in good time and of taking unnecessarily rigorous measures afterwards instead. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• German female missionaries from Marasch are reporting that the hitherto still active and passive opposition by the inhabitants of Zeitun against the enlisting into the army of the conscripts of this Armenian city has been broken from Turkish side. [1914-10-16-DE-001]

• despite the disarming of the inhabitants of Zeitun which was ordered some time ago, the refractory Armenians have weapons, and the reason for these clashes lies in the resistance to conscription. [1915-03-29-DE-001]

• In Zeitun some Armenian deserters, who were to be arrested, shot a couple of Turkish gendarmes. [1915-03-26-DE-001]

• it cannot be a question of an uprising of the Armenians. [1915-03-26-DE-001]

• in which deserters were staying. It was surrounded, the deserters broke out and about 150 people fled into the mountains. Some were killed in action, some wounded and taken prisoner. The monastery was pounded to pieces by artillery. Battles against the town of Zeitun no longer seem to be imminent. [1915-03-31-DE-001]

• raised the question whether they were instigated from abroad. During my official trip from 28 March to 10 April to Marasch I could not confirm this. The chief judge of the court-martial told me though that there was foreign influence, but he did not provide any evidence. These unrests are rather fully explained by their seeds which exist locally and which stem from the deep suffering gripping Turkey. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• The first signs of storm brewing up involved by an incident at Zeitun. In this small town in South Armenia, which was almost exclusively inhabited by Armenians and built like a fortress, a group of Armenian deserters had gone into hiding in March 1915 and put up desperate resistance to their Turkish military pursuers. This led to a siege and storming of the town, whereby considerable stores of modern weapons were found. As a part of the population had made common cause with the revolutionaries, under martial law a regime of a strict criminal prosecution was imposed on the town. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

• those people arrested who had supplied information on the robbers and who had been promised immunity from prosecution. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• government is asking all deserters to surrender. By the end of March, 450 surrendered from Marasch and 125 from Zeitun; part of them are being used in a penal company and part are waiting for their verdict at the court-martial. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• The only purpose of the unheard-of atrocities and ill-treatment committed by the Kaimakam of Zeitun, Hussein Hüssni, by Suleiman Bey’s sergeant-major, by the mufti and government officials, who merely succeeded in discrediting the government’s reputation, was to force these peaceful people to go to extremes in order to give the government a reason to annihilate them. [1915-04-26-DE-014]

• The danger of other massacres has temporarily passed even though the Muslim instigators are still busy at work. On 31 March, they sent a telegram asking the central government to move the inhabitants of Zeitun (around 10000 souls) elsewhere and to level the town to the ground. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• at least a thousand, possibly several thousand. They are being replaced by Mohammedan refugees from Macedonia. [1915-05-03-DE-011]

• ... If you could see in what sort of a condition the people are arriving from Setun. One does not like to behold such misery and when one even sees what kind of devilish joy it arouses in the Turks and that they are not even satisfied with what they see – they would most like to see the blood of those people flowing. [1915-05-27-DE-001]

• On 11. 4. a transport of families (25) arrived from Setun in Marasch in a sorry state. When they approached the town, the Muslims from Marasch went out to meet them and they had fiendish joy in seeing the people of Setun captured. They could not refrain from adding to their misery by pestering them with words and abuse and the others had to calmly submit to all this. … When recently the government gave the order for some of the stray dogs on the street to be shot dead, many Turks took them into their houses quickly because they considered it to be a sin, but on the other hand to kill a person is still a merit, not a sin. The Christians are less than dogs in the eyes of many Turks. … The Turks have fiendish enjoyment in seeing these poor people herded together like a flock of sheep and led away, being pushed by the rough soldiers. [1915-05-27-DE-001]

• The Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople called upon Minister Talaat Bey to obtain first-hand information concerning the events there. Using this occasion, the Minister explained to the Patriarch that he was very satisfied with the attitude of the Armenian population in Zeitun. It must have been disconcerting for the Armenians to find that the entire population of Zeitun, including the women and children, had left Zeitun a few hours after the clashes, with 5000 being deported to Konia and the remaining being forced to Sort, south of Musch. On questioning the Turkish Government, the Patriarch received the answer that this involved an offence similar to that which occurred 40 to 50 years ago and nothing could be done against it while the war was on. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The Islamic population of Marasch clearly was going to use this incident as a reason to start with a massacre but remained calm since the set-up of a court-martial was announced. ... Armenian population of Marasch is entirely peaceable. [1915-03-26-DE-001]

• The proceedings at the court-martial are mostly against all rich and respected Armenians, most of whom apparently never had anything to do with the incidents in Zeitun and who would prefer to have all robbers removed so that Marasch can become a safe area again. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• These measures taken by the central government must obviously be based on false reports from Marash. They are a disaster for the province and the country, intended to systematically ruin an important part of the population. They are based on a false fundamental conception which sees the entire Armenian population as being suspect or even the enemy. [1915-04-20-DE-013]

• It would have made more sense for the court-martial to proceed against the Daschnaksutiun, which do not shy away from arms smuggle, and the Hintschak. But this was not the case. It should be mentioned that the charitable society always refused to deal in arms and was never involved in politics, and never accepted members of the Daschnakzutiun. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• hot coals were put down the dress of a mother visiting her son in jail to bring him food – all prisoners had to be fed by their relatives. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

Armenian deserters had also hidden in Dörtjol, a town on the Mediterranean coast heavily populated by Armenians. The consul in Adana, Eugen Buege, gives a detailed account based on the report of the Armenian auxiliary official, Simon Agabalian, concerning which Buege believes “that altogether the matter has been described accurately”. Agabalian:

• The inhabitants of Dörtjol had to serve or to pay “bedel” during mobilisation. Because of the general lack of money, these people could not help themselves and many, or you can rather say all, of them deserted instead of responding to the military invitation. Some of the deserters fled far away and others stayed home. The attention of the government was arisen by these circumstances and by the mistrust of the Turks living in this area towards the Armenians, more so because the inhabitants of Dörtjol defended themselves against the Turks. [1915-03-13-DE-012].

• At the beginning of March, after Englishmen from the fleet had repeatedly landed and made some purchases undisturbed, there were two Armenians staying in the Armenian town of Dörtjol who originated from that area and who were acting on behalf of the English. One of these emissaries fell into the hands of the Turkish authorities and was executed in Adana. A further consequence was that the whole of the male population of Dörtjol was enlisted and led to the Vilayet Aleppo where they were set to building roads. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• During one night all the male Armenians of the village were arrested and sent away from this area, due to the emphatic request from the Turkish population of the neighbouring residences to remove the Armenians from Dörtjol and because they wanted to arrest deserters and avoid any unforeseen actions. They were sent to Aleppo under strict supervision and are now doing roadwork. During the arrest the Armenians showed submission and did not resist the officials. Three people were shot while trying to flee. Even these did not use any weapons. [1915-03-13-DE-012]

• neither discovered in Alexandrette nor in Doertjol. In Alexandrette, a very thorough massive search of houses uncovered neither weapons nor any other incriminating documents. According to reports, however, some arms were found in Doertjol. But this was not surprising since the inhabitants of this area had been able to defend themselves only with weapons during the so-called Adana massacre in 1909 during which they were in danger of being butchered by their Muslim neighbours. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

German diplomats were only able to report from hearsay on Van, the quasi-official trigger for the Armenian genocide, because there was no German consulate in Van. The news from German and Swiss members of relief organisations who were stationed there is only to be found in a very fragmentary manner in the files of the German Foreign Office. Thus, Turkish accounts predominate in the German diplomatic correspondence.

Due to a report from Erzerum also based on official Turkish statements, Wangenheim reports to Berlin:

• Consul of Erzerum telegraphed on 24 April that according to official information the revolt in Van has been suppressed; about 400 Armenians were killed, the rest fled to Russia. Supposedly, Kurds were also involved in the revolt in order to revenge themselves for the execution of their sheik in Bitlis in 1914 and oppression by the government. [1915-04-27-DE-001]

• “Our party has its bands of fidais in all of the Turkish Armenian centres ; their purpose is to ensure that the reaction does not raise its head again.” [1915-04-30-DE-001]

• In continuing unrests in Van, the Turks now have 1000 dead, the Armenians 3000. [1915-05-09-DE-011]

• The apparent cause of the troubles in Van is the arrest and murder of some Armenian public personalities, especially that of Mr. Ischkhan and the Armenian deputy of Van, Vramiam, who both enjoyed great respect within the Armenian community. It remains to be seen whether these incidents have occurred with the knowledge of the authorities there. But the government should have known that through these actions they had finally caused the infuriation which had been brewing for a long time, but particularly since the beginning of the war, and which could only be suppressed by the leaders, to break out. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• Induced and incited by Russian agents, the Armenians have waged war so thoroughly against the Ottoman population that in the Vilayet of Wan, which used to boast 150000 Turks, only 30000 Moslems are still alive. [1915-08-06-DE-012]

• The following occurred in Wan: A national service Armenian conscript was arrested by the Turkish gendarmes on 6 May O.S. in Schabak, south of Wan. As they wanted to commit him in Wan, several of his friends resisted the committal and freed the young man by force. The General Governor of Wan summoned a meeting of the Armenian revolutionary party, Tschanaksuition, and together they passed a resolution that the head of the party with the Chief of the Gendarmery, accompanied by several gendarmes and members of the Armenian Revolutionary Union, should go to Schatak and take the deserter into police custody. On the way to Schatak, the Armenian party head and the members were murdered by the Turkish gendarmes. As the Governor of Wan wanted to arrest the other members of Tschanaksuition, part of them put up armed resistance while the others moved into neighbouring villages. During the fighting between the Armenians and the Turkish troops a few hundred Armenians were killed. Ten days later Russian troops appeared in Wan, whereupon the Turkish Governor-General, Djevdet Bey, brother-in-law of Enver Pasha, fled. An Armenian Government was appointed in which Kurds also participated. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The head of the Security police in the Ministry of the Interior, Djembolad Bey, assigned me to Essad Bey, the head of Section 2, as he himself had been in office for too short a time to be able to offer information concerning the misdemeanours of Armenians against Muslims. Essad Bey, who wants to publish the collected materials in a brochure in a few months’ time, stated to me: Over the last few years, the Armenian movement has been seen in the eastern part of the Empire. At the outbreak of war they took on a more threatening character. Bands were formed out of the Armenian revolutionary party, Taschnaksuition. Pasdermadjan, a former deputy from Erzerum, was the leader. … In fact, he appeared again as the top commander of five Armenian bands which carried out acts of terrorism in villages around Wan and then spread terror through murder and all sorts of disgraceful deeds in Wan itself. The Moslem population had chartered seven ships in Wan in order to flee by crossing the lake from Van to Adelchivas at the northend of the lake. All seven barges with at least 400 people on each, in total 2800 people, went down with all hands due to explosions. 200 Muslim families were massacred by Armenian brigands in Wan. The elderly, women and children were not spared. In the American hospital in Wan, several hundred Muslim women and children sought refuge. They were discovered, petrol was poured over them and set light to. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• when the Armenians revolted behind the Turkish army during the Turkish advance on Azerbaijan, during which no fewer than 180000 Mohammedans were killed. Thus, it was not surprising that the Mohammedans had taken their revenge for this. [1915-10-01-DE-004]

• Things took a disastrous turn the following month, in April 1915, when in Upper Armenia, in particular in the area around Wan, in the rear of the Turkish troops who were advancing against Azerbaidzhan, a general Armenian revolt broke out which cost the lives of thousands of Muslims within only a few days. For obvious reasons very little or even nothing was published in any press which was hostile to Turkey or Germany about this bloodbath which was to have such sad consequences for the Armenians. By way of mobilising superior forces and with considerable losses, the Turks succeeded in suppressing the revolt in the rear of their front. It is understandable that they then decided to make such occurrence impossible in future. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

• The fact that in and around Wan, i.e. in the war zone, the Armenians, by way of treason, switched to the side of the enemy, is not surprising after all that had preceded; I suppose this development had been anticipated by the Turkish authorities. It is also a known fact that some of the Kurds were supporting the enemy. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Deportations in great numbers and obviously according to a central plan began in May 1915. In the beginning, apart from the intellectuals in the capital city of Constantinople and the supposedly insurgent people in Zeitun and towns along the Mediterranean coast, they mainly befell the Armenians in the east near the Russian front. From the very beginning, acts of annihilation were carried out alongside the deportations, such as in the plains of Mush, the Erzerum plateau, in the town of Trebizond and in the area surrounding Erzindjan. Furthermore, a Vali (Reschid Bey) in Vilayet Diarbekir, called “ ;bloodhound” by the German diplomats, carried out acts of extermination against the Armenians in a war of annihilation against Christians of all denominations. Insofar as the deported reached their area of destination at all, these were to be found south of Aleppo, but especially along the river Euphrates in the Syrian desert. Apart from the deportation and annihilation of the Armenians, conversions to Islam were carried out by force or under great pressure. Despite German protests, not only the Gregorian, but also the Catholic and the Protestant Armenians were deported and annihilated.

(I) 24 April 1915

All over the world, Armenians remember the genocide of 1915/16 on 24 April. On that day in the year 1915, the Ottoman government had all Armenian intellectuals of any importance arrested and sent to the interior. Only a few of those arrested survived. In German sources, this annihilation of the Armenian elite is mentioned in only a few documents.

On 30 April 1915, Ambassador Hans Baron von Wangenheim reported on the arrest of the Armenian elite:

• During the night from Saturday to Sunday, 25^th inst., and from Sunday to Monday, 26^th inst., numerous arrests of Armenians have taken place here. Altogether around 500 persons from all classes of society are said to have been arrested, including doctors, journalists, authors, clergymen, also some deputies. The offices of the newspaper Azadamart , a body of the Daschnakzutiun party, to which many of those arrested belong, were closed down by the authorities. During the following days, most of them were deported to the interior of Asia Minor. [1915-04-30-DE-002]

• Among the local Armenians there were a number of personalities who were politically not quite safe; these were, of course, to be found in particular among the members of the clubs and editorial offices. The fear that in case of an unfavourable change in the war, these elements could take the opportunity for stirring up trouble, was not to be overlooked. The time seemed favourable for removing all these suspects from the capital. Many people would definitely be among the deportees who were by no means guilty. The government would not deny this and he - Talaat – would grant permission for these to return of his own accord and without needing any special intervention. Talaat Bey declared that the claim that there was evidence available of a coup being planned for the day of the Coronation festivities was incorrect. [1915-04-30-DE-002]

The measures were thereby so implemented that in the main city and in the centres inland, the leaders of the population, intellectuals, notabilities and church dignitaries were thrown into prison overnight and without interrogation and court proceedings either shot or deported. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

The German journalist, von Tyszka, reports from Constantinople on the fate of the Armenian elite:

• all Armenians in Ajasch, west of Angora, had been murdered, according to comments expressed by the police administrator in Constantinople, Bedri Bey, to a well-known Turkish civil servant. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• Originally, he was to have been sent to Ayasch near Angora, where those personalities who were more heavily incriminated were accommodated and some were kept in detention; at our intercession he was interned in Changri (Kiangri) where those banned were able to move about freely and carry out their profession. [1915-10-05-DE-011]

Both the period when the deportation of the Armenians in great numbers began as well as the forms it took varied from region to region. The first to be deported after the Armenians from Zeitun were the Armenians from the provinces close to the Russian border and those on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean which was controlled by the Entente fleet. In detail, Erzerum and its surroundings, the plains of Mush (on which over one hundred purely Armenians villages were to be found) as well as the area around Bitlis were affected; furthermore, the coastal strip on the Black Sea, especially Trebizond. But very soon the deportations were expanded to those regions which were not situated near the front, until finally the Armenians from all regions were deported or threatened with deportation. Local conditions were a further factor for the regional expansion of the deportations, on the one hand due to the presence of Turkish agitators, and on the other hand Ottoman officials who opposed the deportations or at least wished that they be carried out more humanely.

Erzerum was the largest town close to the Russian border, where the organisers of the genocide as well as Turkish military and police chiefs in favour of deportation were staying. German reports well verify the deportations in the north-east, because Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, the Vice-Consul and administrator in Erzerum (Anders, the German consul, had been taken a prisoner of war by the Russians), was an attentive observer.

Scheubner-Richter reporting on the countryside around Erzerum:

• I personally saw deserted Armenian villages which had been plundered; the same applies to the Monastery of Kizilwang. The monastery church had been ravaged. [1915-06-02-DE-012]

• The measures adopted by the government have been limited up to now to searching houses and arresting people. The majority of the arrested persons has been set free and some of them are said to have been sent to the inner parts of the country. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• The Armenian population from the surrounding villages is being deported … this greatly upsets the population. [1915-05-15-DE-013]

• mainly women and children who were driven away, whereby they had to leave their possessions behind. [1915-05-16-DE-011]

• The misery of the deported Armenians is dreadful. Thousands of women and children are camped around the town without food. The pointless measure of deportation gives rise to the greatest rage. [1915-05-18-DE-012]

• The deportation of the Armenians began around the middle of May 1915. … These were carried out by the Turkish organs in the most brutal manner; the copy of a letter written by the Armenian villagers and addressed to their Bishop provides evidence about it: the people were driven from their homes, farms and fields within the shortest possible space of time and herded together. A large number of them were not even given the time by the gendarmes to pack the barest necessities to take with them. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• At the beginning of June, the deportation of the Armenians from the city of Erserum began. The manner in which this was carried out by governmental and police authorities and their organs was devoid of any kind of organisation and discipline. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• The whole Armenian population in the Vilayet Adana is extremely frightened due to the procedure of the government. Hundreds of families are being exiled, the prisons are overfilled and again early this morning several people were executed. [1915-05-18-DE-011]

• I have discovered from a completely reliable source that the number of Armenian families who have been banned until now from Sandschak Marash and the eastern part of Vilayet Adana amounts to 2000, i.e. 10000 persons. [1915-05-26-DE-012]

• Zeitun and the surrounding area as well as Alabasch, Elbistan, Dörtjol, Hassanbeïli have been completely cleared out. Not only have those families been banned who are not completely irreproachable, but also the entire population. [1915-06-12-DE-013]

• According to the reliable information issued by the Catholicos of Sis up to now 30000 Armenians have been deported from his diocese alone. Zeitun and surrounding areas, Elbistan, Dörtyol, Alabasch, Hassanbeïli and even some smaller places have been completely cleared. ... The exiles are forced to leave their homes either immediately or within a few days so that they have to relinquish their houses and a large part of their movable possessions. They are not even able to provide themselves with the necessary supplies for their transportation. [1915-06-17-DE-003]

• Sister Alma, likewise, gave a detailed account of the decimation of the Armenians in Harput. The persecutions had already begun in May. [1915-11-06-DE-012]

• After all the suffering in the past, deportation has now been ordered indiscriminately for the entire Christian population in the towns and country. [1915-06-26-DE-014]

• Conditions in the districts of Mardin Amadia have turned into a real persecution of the Christians. This is undoubtedly the government’s fault. [1915-06-13-DE-011]

• The order was announced today that Armenians, including women and children, had to depart within five days. Their possessions will be taken into the care of the authorities. Only the sick may remain. [1915-06-25-DE-013]

• Alone in the Vilayet of Trapezunt about 30000 persons are affected by the deportations. [1915-06-27-DE-013]

• Armenian families have been ordered to have themselves ready for departure tomorrow evening. [1915-06-29-DE-017]

• On 24^th June the local leaders of the Armenian committee were arrested and exiled to the interior of the country via Samsum. The same day I heard that the deportation of all Armenians was being considered and that there was a trend towards using this occasion to instigate excesses against the local Armenians. ... On 26^th June the Armenians were then told to prepare themselves for deportation into the interior of the country with only 5 days’ notice. Only the sick were allowed to stay behind and accommodation was planned for them in hospitals. ... The deportation from the town of Trapezunt and the immediate vicinity has been completed. Some cases of suicide and a case of arson were registered. Other occurrences have not been recorded. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

Only the sick were excepted; later an exception was granted for widows, orphans, old people and children under the age of five years, also for the sick and for Catholic Armenians. According to the latest reports, however, most of the exceptions were revoked once again and only children and those who were not transportable, remained behind, the latter were brought into hospitals. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

In violation of the strict rules of observation for professional diplomats, the elected Vice-Consul, Kuckhoff, also reported from Samsun in June:

• due to general conspiracy and treason as well as devastation of some towns in anatolia and killing of their muslim population, government imposed deportation of entire armenian population to mesopotamia in five days’ time to enable them to settle their affairs in the town [1915-06-27-DE-011]

• The main reason for these measures is said to have been the seizure of the town of Wan on the part of the Armenians and the declaration of independence of the same, as well as the destruction of Schabin-Karahissar (Vilayet Sivas). Allegedly, the revolutionaries in both places have murdered the entire Muslim population, [1915-07-16-DE-003]

• All Armenians without exception: men, women, the old, children, even babies, the Orthodox, Protestants and Catholics - the latter never took part in any national revolutionary movement and were also spared by Hamid - had to leave. No Christian Armenian is allowed to stay here; not even those of foreign nationality; the latter are to be expelled from the country. [1915-07-16-DE-003]

• The expulsion and resettlement of the Armenian people was limited until 14 days ago to the provinces nearest to the eastern theatre of war and to certain areas in the province of Adana; since then the Porte has resolved to extend these measures also to the provinces of Trapezunt, Mamuret-ul-Aziz and Siwas and had begun with these measures even though these parts of the country are not threatened by any enemy invasion for the time being. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

• since the end of May, the deportation of the entire Armenian population has been ordered from all the Anatolian Vilayets and Cilicia in the Arabian steppe south of the Baghdad railway. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• Thus, by July 15 almost all of the Armenians had been expelled from Erserum. ... there are no more Armenians in the administrative district of the local consulate. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• For the present, the Armenian question is finished in Erzindjan. There are no native Armenians left here with the exception of a few craftsmen, kept behind by the government. [1915-11-06-DE-011]

• On the journey from Erzerum to Mossul via Khinis, Musch, Bitlis and Seert, all the villages and homes I came across, all of which used to be inhabited by Armenians, were found to be totally empty and destroyed. … According to statements given by Kurds, all Armenians in the area around here had been murdered. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

• the authorities had recently begun resettling the Armenian inhabitants of various locations in the area surrounding Izmit (Nikomedien), i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the capital, because they allegedly wanted to support a Russian landing on the mouth of the Sakaria. [1915-08-12-DE-001]

• The government … also wishes to annihilate the Armenians in the west. [1915-08-15-DE-012]

• The transports are first directed to Konia where there is a fairly large concentration camp; …The accommodation and catering for the deportees is bad. There is a high death rate. In Eregli there is a large camp (approx.. 3000 people); it appears that those who have travelled by train are accommodated there as the people still had a lot of belongings with them; there is also a high death rate in this camp. …In E. five railway trains arrive each day, each with 1000 - 1500 Armenians; Mr. Zabel has seen 8000 moving along on foot. Ulukirchla is one of the worst stations. The camp there was formerly occupied by labour battalions, is infested with refuse, insects etc. The conditions for the deportees there is very wretched. Beyond Ulukirchla there is no more transport by train. The deportees are herded on in individual groups like cattle. … In Bozanti, the next station, there is neither accommodation nor bread; from there it is another 10 kms without a break to a refugee camp along the military supply and communication route. … In Adana the emigrants arrive completely exhausted. The military route Adana - Osmanié - Hamidé is now only passed along on foot; the camps (in the open air) are in a terrible condition. … In Kubla there is another large camp where, amongst other, the Armenians from Dörtjol are accommodated. [1915-08-21-DE-011].

• the evictions had spread to the Armenian population of the whole of Anatolia, as far as the outskirts of Constantinople and Smyrna. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• It is understandable for the Turks not to trust the Armenians who were living near the Russian border, but why did they deport with the same harshness those living in areas far from the border, such as from Jalova, Angora, Brussa and Kastamuni? [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• There are probably only a very few left in the European part of Turkey after the Armenian population in the larger cities and towns in the interior was sent to Anatolia during the past few months. [1915-12-27-DE-002]

• Measures against the Armenians have been tightened: widows, orphans and soldiers’ families, even the sick and the blind are to leave immediately! [1915-09-13-DE-011]

• Incidentally, the deportations are continuing in the most vigorous manner and with the most terrible results. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

Roessler reported the following on the city of Aintab:

• After the deportations which took place some months ago there were still seven to eight thousand Armenians left in Aintab. Of these, 5 to 6000 have already been or are in the process of being deported, irregardless of their denomination. [1916-01-03-DE-011]

• On 19th April it became known here that the order had been given to likewise deport those 9000 Armenians in Marash who had been spared up until then and were the remainder of formerly 24000. During the first exile campaign, these people had sold their only belongings while carrying out the order to get ready to go on the road and since then have been severely weakened by deprivation. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• the railway line from Osmanie to Islahiye and the plains south of Marash, on which smaller and larger camps of dispersed Armenians left behind can be found everywhere. In Marash itself, there is dreadful poverty and hardship among the approx. 7000 Armenians left behind there. [1916-04-28-DE-002]

• The deportation of the 9000 left behind in Marash is in full swing. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

• In Marasch not even the families were spared who had formerly been granted special permits by the Minister of the Interior. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• I am still quite miserable from the journey I made with the deportees from Baghtsche to Marasch! I met all these crowds of people in the mountains – children 4 weeks of age lay under the bushes, 3 – 4 year olds were sitting on the rocks – abandoned – without one piece of bread, their mothers had to leave them there – as they themselves could not go on! We could hardly progress due to the stench of corpses – we rode along for many hours - where 100 - 150 bodies lay … Those poor people were not even allowed to buy one drink of water for 1 Ltq. – the thousands were camped by dirty sewage water which came from the town of Marasch, although the Aksu was only 5 minutes away. They were forced to drink this water by which they were camped! ... I went down to the plain, visited the people in their camps – it was terrible to hear what had been done to them en route. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

• In Marash, where there were about 4000 Armenians left from 25000, new deportations are again being carried out on Talaat Bey’s orders. [1916-10-02-DE-002]

• that he had met the last Christian Armenians in Eregli; from there to Siwas the Armenians had been completely cleared away, "either deported, or converted or murdered.” [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• In Angora the Vali, Reschid Bey, well-known for his deeds in Diarbekir, is engaged in tracing the last Armenians (solely Catholics) and expelling them. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• The Turkish government ... is now about to dissolve and disperse the last groups of Armenians who have survived the deportations. These include Armenians who remained in northern Syria (Marasch, Aleppo, Ras-ul-Ain) as well as in some larger places in Asia Minor (Angora, Konia), especially those who had been deported there or had emigrated there earlier. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• According to news reaching us from all sides, the persecution of the Armenians is continuing unabatingly and inexorably. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Consul Roessler:

• The number of deaths among the deported has risen rapidly since the beginning of September, where the daily average was 25, to 40, 60 and more by the middle of September. [Footnote: On the 26^th of this month there were 110 dead; on the 27^th of this month there were 95. Not a day has passed since the middle of September where there were less than 80.] [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• Yesterday orders given to clear town of deportees (20000) within 14 days. ... According to statements made by the director of political affairs in the Vilayets, 40000 are concentrated at Katma and Radju, further suspects from West, Middle and North Anatolia are approaching; 300000 are being sent on to the South for "re-settlement" (Rakka, Derzor, Western Hauran). [1915-10-18-DE-011]

• The death rate is extraordinarily high among the expelled in the city of Aleppo. ... The number of deaths reported every day amounts to between 150 and 200. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

• Armenians from Aintab who have already been living here for 3 or 4 years are required to leave Aleppo within a week. [1916-01-10-DE-011]

• Orders have been given to deport every Armenian who is not in the possession of Identity Papers (“Teskere Nufus”) issued in Aleppo, without taking into consideration the time already spent in Aleppo. Only those issued there are valid proof that the holder is not among the deportees. Therefore, if an Armenian came, for example, to Aleppo ten years ago from another Turkish town to settle there and holds a Teskere Nufus from the other town, without having had reason to exchange it for a local one, then he is doomed to deportation. With this order the Government possesses an effective weapon with which to deport the majority of the local Armenians. Only those born here are safe, as long as they are registered with the authorities, something, which is commonly known, is not the case throughout among Ottoman subjects. [1916-01-26-DE-001]

• In Aleppo, in March and the first half of April, not only were the Armenians who had come from elsewhere and were in hiding here, severely hunted down, but also the deportation of those Armenians who were living here was begun. ... Since the 18^th April, some peace has set in in Aleppo and it seems that this was due to the intervention of the Imperial Embassy. This induced the Minister of the Interior to give the order to the local authorities not to deport local residents, nor Catholics and Protestants. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• still approx. 4000 deported Armenians hiding as refugees. They flee from the police from one house, one quarter to another and eke out a miserable existence. They are being clandestinely supported by the chairmen of their parish councils. [1916-04-28-DE-002]

• Because of these events, Djemal Pascha then gave orders to evacuate Marash completely and to send without exception all those deportees further on who came from elsewhere and were staying in Aleppo. Those Armenians who resided in Aleppo were to be excepted, because they were, in fact, innocent. [1916-05-12-DE-011]

• Since the day before yesterday, the permits are being taken away of even those people with a special Resident’s Permit. Apparently an announcement is being printed that all those named are to leave Aleppo within a few days; anyone disobeying this order will be shot. [1916-06-05-DE-011]

• In my interviews with him, Djemal Pasha informed me that he will no longer deport those Armenians whom he has given Residents’ Permits for Aleppo. He is being forced to deport the remaining Armenians who immigrated there, because they had set up a secret action committee in Aleppo against the Turkish government. [Note on this from Mordtmann: Beatrice Rohner wrote]: “I recently had another meeting with him (the Wali); he had promised to give me some Resident’s Permits for several new assistants who were to be employed, but then he regressed on his word, saying that he had received an order from Djemal Pasha not to leave one single Armenian in Aleppo who had come from elsewhere. [1916-06-11-DE-011]

• Here in Aleppo there are several (4 – 5000) Armenians from elsewhere who eke out a miserable existence, constantly running from the police. Again and again they were chased away, some of them brought to the deportation camp outside the town, from which they constantly escaped again. Naturally, thousands were deported. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

• Since 19 June, the ruthless deportation from Aleppo has begun again. Pretext: these are sanitary measures or political suspects. Even those who have resided here for a long time have been deported. [1916-06-27-DE-011]

• The number of Armenians from elsewhere whose deportation is directly at hand amounts to over 8000. In addition, the American consul estimates the number of people residing here who are in great danger of being deported to be about 15 thousand. [1916-08-08-DE-011]

• On 12 August, the first 200 persons were deported. Others will follow. [1916-08-13-DE-001]

• Since 12 July, the deportations have stopped in Aleppo, because it seems that a conflict has broken out between the higher authorities over the fact that richer Armenians have succeeded in gaining exemption, whereas the poorer of them have been handed over to the police. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

• Strictly confidentially I have been asked by the Armenian side whether the towns of Aintab, Marasch, Adana and [indecipherable] can be spared for a contribution of 10000 Turkish pounds each. They have also requested that, if measures to be taken against them are unavoidable, they be allowed to emigrate instead of being deported. [1915-07-30-DE-011]

• 20000 needy. [1917-03-15-DE-012]

• This measure caused severe distress among the local Armenian population and people believed that upon completion of the Bairam festivities beginning today the local Armenians would also be deported. Due to the large number of Armenians residing here (80000 people according to lowest estimations), carrying out such a measure would not only have greatly disrupted doings and dealings, but would also have severely endangered the life and property of the non-Mohammedan residents, foreigners not excluded … Talaat Bey … ensured me upon my inquiry that the Armenians of Constantinople were not to be deported.
• This measure evoked serious concern among the local Armenian people and rumours were going around that after the end of the Bairam festival, which begins today, the local Armenians would also be expelled. In view of the large number of Armenians living here (according to the latest estimations a minimum of 80000 people) the realisation of these plans would not only lead to severe disruptions in trade and commerce, but would also seriously endanger the lives and possessions of the non-Muslim population, not excluding foreigners. ... Talaat Bey ... assured me upon my enquiry that there was no intention of deporting the Armenians living in Constantinople. [1915-08-12-DE-001]

• Based on the news that the Turkish government has recently planned to deport the Armenians in Constantinople as well, I had an interview today with Halil Bey and pointed out to him once again the danger of such an action and the great damage of an economic nature. Halil Bey stated that the Council of Ministers had already decided to refrain from all further deportations of Armenians, particularly those in Constantinople. [1915-11-08-DE-011]

• I have learned from reliable sources that the Turkish government has decided, despite all assurances to the contrary, to deport those Armenians residing in Constantinople as well. [1915-11-12-DE-001]

• now also begun deporting the Armenians from Constantinople, contrary to earlier promises. Supposedly, 10000 have already been deported and most of them were killed in the Ismid Mountains. A proscription list of more than 70000 was prepared. Should this report be accurate, request that emphatic interviews be carried out. [1915-12-05-DE-011]

• I have learned from a very trustworthy source that according to information provided by the local Chief of Police, which I beg to keep secret, lately about 4000 Armenians also from Constantinople have been deported to Anatolia and that the remaining 80000 Armenians still living in Constantinople are to be gradually cleared away, 30000 having already been deported during the summer and a further 30000 having fled. [1915-12-07-DE-001]

It was a different matter in the case of the important harbour town of Smyrna . Here, the intervention of a German general definitely saved the Armenians from being deported.

Chargé d’Affaires Radowitz sent a telegram to Berlin in November 1916:

• As the Imperial Consul in Smyrna has reported, the authorities there have begun with the deportation of the Armenian population. ... As a result of this, on the 8th inst., a number of arrests were made and the next day 300 Armenians were deported by train, irrespective of age and gender. Other transportations are to follow. The deportation is being organised by the Chief of Police in Smyrna, whom the Vali has given a free hand. ... Marshal Liman von Sanders, who is at present in Smyrna, has pointed out to the Vali that these mass deportations are damaging as far as military considerations are involved and he would therefore not tolerate any more arrests and deportations. ... I regard it as quite out of the question that this order can be rescinded by protests to the Sublime Porte and must fear that in the not too distant future they will also begin with the deportation of the local Armenians here. ... As far as I could make out, the number of Armenians living in Smyrna is about 6 – 7000, including the richest people in the town, but also individual bad characters. [1916-11-13-DE-001]

• It was confirmed to me that several hundred Armenians had been arrested by the police - partly in the roughest manner, by fetching old women and sick children out of their beds in the night - and had been taken straight to the train station. Two trains full of Armenians had been transported away. ... On the morning of 10 November I sent the Chief of Staff of the 5^th Army, Colonel Kiasim Bey, to the Vali and had it said to him that I would no longer tolerate such mass arrests and transportations which in many ways intervened in military matters in a town threatened by the enemy. Should the police nevertheless continue with these acts, I would make the troops under my control prevent them by force of arms. ... Around 1.30 in the afternoon Major Kiasim Bey arrived back from the Vali ... and informed me that the arrests and transportations had been stopped and would be discontinued. [1916-11-17-DE-001]

• In the meantime, the deportations of Armenians in Smyrna have been adjourned. [1916-11-25-DE-001]

In case of new deportations, Kuehlmann, the Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office, instructed the ambassador in Constantinople,

• to urgently advise against carrying these out. … A sharp and definite denial is requested, because there is a fear of adverse influence on Russian negotiations. Insofar as the removal of individual Armenians is unavoidable for military reasons, it is urgently recommended that they be accommodated in Anatolia rather than Mesopotamia, and that they be treated well during transport. [1917-12-10-DE-001]

• Talaat Pasha requests that talk of new deportations of Armenians be categorically denied. [1917-12-11-DE-001]

• so that the allegedly planned new deportations of Armenians from Konia and Aleppo and the surrounding area cease. Please request the government there to determine whether the deportation plan … actually exists. [1917-12-10-DE-001]

• The Grand Vizier added confidentially that he planned to publish a general pardon and amnesty for Armenia as well as an appropriation of funds, should a separate peace be reached with Russia. Each deportee or captive Armenian would be free to go wherever they want to, and would receive financial support. He, Talaat Pascha, had already discussed the question of financing with Djavid Bey. [1917-12-11-DE-001]

• It has just come to my knowledge that during the middle of March, at the order of the commander of the 4^th Corps, Ali Ihsan Pasha, measures were again carried out against the remainder of the Armenians still there, in particular in Vilayet Mamuret-ul-Aziz. Thus, about 300 women and children were brought to Mamuret-ul-Aziz from the towns of Pertak and Peri. The adolescent boys were tied up and brought on their own behind the others. The Wali of Mamuret-ul-Aziz left the women and children unhindered, but the boys were taken to prison. [1918-05-15-DE-001]

(III) Forced Conversions to Islam

An unknown number of Armenians remained in their home towns or in towns that were mainly in Anatolia. Armenian women were incorporated in harems, children in families or orphanages, boys and men were hidden. It also seems that village communities received permission to stay under certain conditions. It was a precondition for all of these people that they convert to Islam. A conversion to Islam which was generally carried out by force destroyed the identity of those Armenians who survived outside the cities of Constantinople and – in the beginning – Smyrna, an identity which mainly included the Gregorian, sometimes also the Catholic or Protestant faith.

Vice-Consul Kuckhoff reports from Samsun:

• they involve nothing less than the destruction or enforced Islamization of a whole people. ... The way in which the expulsion orders are being carried out threatens to go to such extremes that it only finds parallels in the persecution of the Jews in Spain and Portugal: The government sent fanatical, strictly religious Muslim men and women into all Armenian homes to spread propaganda for converting to Islam, of course under threat of serious consequences for those who remain true to their beliefs. ... In the area around Samsun, all Armenian villages have been converted to Islam, in Uniah likewise. [1915-07-16-DE-003]

• Girls and young women were carried off to the Turkish harems and Kurdish villages, where they had no choice but to convert to Islam. Moreover, countless numbers of children were taken from their Christian parents to be brought up now as Moslems. Some hundreds of Christian families were spared deportation as they decided themselves to convert to Islam. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• the Turkish government is attempting to force the remainder of the Armenian people to convert to Islam. It is obvious that we cannot watch quietly while such actions are going on. [1915-12-12-DE-002]

• An American missionary brought a document with him which was sent by the central authority to the local authorities in the interior. In this, the latter authority is ordered to use its influence to have the remaining part of the Armenian population sign a document requesting a great favour: permission to convert to Islam. Those who refuse will, according to current practice, be sent to their certain death in exile. [1915-12-12-DE-002]

• The Director of the Turkish orphanage explained to the Christian pupils that either they had to convert to Islam or they had to leave the orphanage … [and] that in an Ottoman orphanage there was no room for the Christian religion. [1915-12-21-DE-011]

• Halil Bey denies categorically that forced conversions to Islam in numbers worth mentioning have been attempted. The lower civil servants have already been punished for the encroachments, which have occurred. [1915-12-21-DE-011]

• approx. 25000 Armenians who, according to Armenian reports, have converted to Islam ... in order to save themselves. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• In response to my protests the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Halil Bey, categorically denied, that any significant number of forced conversions of Armenians to Islam had been attempted. The lower civil servants involved in those reported cases of encroachments had already been punished. The assurances of the Minister are contradictory to the concurring reports which the Imperial Embassy has been repeatedly receiving concerning this question from different localities and from independent sources. From the detailed statements of Vice - Consul Kuckhoff in Samsun, which have been confirmed from other sources, it can be concluded that in particular in the districts around the Black Sea the attempts to Islamize the Armenians, partly through persuasion and partly through threats, has been carried out on a very large scale. [1916-01-24-DE-001]

• In Mr. Roessler’s opinion, further defence of those who have been converted in this manner would only lead to their being deported and killed along the way. It has finally been confirmed in a letter from Konia that the Armenians concentrated there are gradually being deported further into the interior, where they are then divided up among Turkish villages and forced to accept Islam. [1916-01-28-DE-001]

• At the end of February, beginning of March the Armenians in the labour battalion in Aleppo were recommended to convert to the Islamic faith, partly with success. In the course of the month of March, the police compiled lists of the Armenians in Aleppo in preparation for deportation and spread the word that the only way of being spared from deportation was the conversion to Islam. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• Both Halil Bey and Talaat Bey have assured me repeatedly that the last thing they wished to do was to carry out any action against the Christian elements in the Armenian population. Any excesses by the lower public authorities would be punished most strictly. … Halil Bey assured me again that the central government in Constantinople knew nothing of these occurrences. After speaking with his colleague, Talaat Bey, he stated that strict orders had lately been given to the provincial authorities to stop all attempts to convert the Christian Armenian population to Islam. In addition, the provincial authorities had been strictly forbidden to accept even voluntary offers of conversion to Islam. Indeed, since that time no new reports of attempts at conversion of the Armenian population have been received here. [1916-05-11-DE-001]

• all of the Armenians left here to built roads, those who are in the construction and engineering regiment as well as those in the trade school, and also all of the Greeks were locked up yesterday evening in the local Armenian church. The Greeks and those Armenians who had converted to Islam were released again today after a severe bastinado. The authorities recommended to the other Armenians that they convert to Islam; if not, they would be deported and banned to a place not yet decided upon. [1916-06-28-DE-001]

• All of the Armenians are more or less being forced to become Mohammedans. [1916-06-30-DE-011]

• Despite the official denial and despite alleged orders to the contrary, the forced conversion of the Armenians to Islam is also being carried out in other places. Our counter-suggestions are of no use. [1916-07-08-DE-011]

• Despite all official denials, Islamization plays a great role in this last phase of the persecution of the Armenians. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• but they do apply, in as far as the main motive is not religious fanaticism, as for example with the enforced conversion of the Jews and Moors in Spain in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, but the intention to amalgamate the Armenians with the Muslim population of the empire. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• Today, to celebrate the day (national holiday), all the Armenian military doctors of every rank were forced by threat to convert to Islam. [1916-07-23-DE-001]

• According to unanimous reports, during the past few weeks in Hama, Homs, Damascus etc. the deportees have been forced in masses to convert to Islam by threatening them with further deportation. This is a purely bureaucratic procedure: petition and then a change of name. [1916-08-29-DE-001]

• According to reliable sources and contrary to all Turkish attempts to deny this, the forced conversions to the Islamic religion among the deported Armenians are being continued. ... It was only with great difficulty that we managed to prevent a public discussion of the deplorable occurrences until now. Those interested ... urgently demanding guarantees that those who have been forced to convert will have the factual possibility after peace has been made of returning to their former faith. I request that Your Excellency brings up this matter again in a friendly, but suitably serious manner with the Porte and indicates that by tolerating the forced conversions to the Islamic religion it is not only making its position at the peace conference more difficult, but also giving the powers a new lever – now and also in future – to interfere in national Turkish affairs. [1916-12-25-DE-001]

• Instructions carried out. Halil Bey promised to work towards immediately stopping the forced conversions. An immediate return to Christianity of those forced to convert is not opportune. ... He promised to work on Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey towards immediately stopping the forced conversions. To facilitate a return to Christianity at this point for those who converted would probably not be feasible and not practical, because this could result in new deportations. This will be just as possible after the war, as it was after the persecution of the Armenians during the age of Abdul Hamid. [1917-01-05-DE-011]

• There are still a number of scattered or refugees in the Anatolian towns, most of whom, however, have converted to Islam. Apart from the forced conversions which took place in masses, a further characteristic symbol was the mass adoption of Armenian children. This was carried out for many thousands. They are being artificially turned into fanatical Mohammedans. [1917-07-14-DE-001]

To give a rough idea, the deportation trains travelled to collection points in the south of the country, especially to Aleppo and the surrounding area. There they separated in two directions: one went south to Palastina, the other east along the river Euphrates to the Mesopotamian desert, towards Mossul. The Turkish administration headquarters for the deportations was also in Aleppo.

As found throughout the entire implementation of the Armenian genocide, there were also extremely varied processes here: they ranged from the annihilation of entire deportation trains to – relatively – well-ordered deportations, although this applied to only a few trains and also usually only to certain stretches. Many reports give a general impression of what happened on the Anatolian roads.

1) The Deportation Trains

Most of those deported were sent via certain routes. One of the deportation routes was from Trebizond and Erzerum via Erzindjan to the south, whereby there was a difference – in some cases a great difference – between the trains from the two towns.

Ambassador Wangeheim on the deportations from Trebizond:

• Altogether, this involved about 30000 people in the Vilayet Trapezunt alone who were to be deported via Erzindschan to Mesopotamia. A mass transportation of this kind to a destination many hundreds of kilometres away, without sufficient means of transport, through areas that offer neither accommodation nor food and which are infested with epidemic diseases, in particular by typhus fever, is bound to claim numerous victims, in particular amongst the women and children. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

• On the morning of 26 June, a large group of expellees passed through Ersindjan, consisting only of women and children. Many among them were ill and well advanced in pregnancy; many women and most of the children were half naked. They carried bundles of grass and ate this, because they had nothing else. ... This group headed towards the Kemach gorge. On 27 June I met another group of women and children at the Sibikoi pass. They were also in a miserable state. ... Then, in Sibikoi, there was a third group, which was to spend the night there. They were packed together in a circle in an open square and the gendarmes did not even permit them to fetch water. Shortly before Trapezunt, I met a caravan on 1 July consisting of men, women and children. Based on their clothing, these were Armenian notabilities carrying their bundles themselves, because they had neither wagons nor donkeys. The people of Trapezunt were forced out in an awful and cruel manner. They were not allowed to sell anything or take anything with them. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• According to a good source, the occurrences in Trapezunt were also not carried out correctly. The people from the area there came through here on foot and with little or no belongings. [1915-11-06-DE-011]

• At the beginning of June, the first group of Armenian notabilities were given a period of 14 days to leave Erserum. Approximately 500 people left Erserum on June 16 and marched through the mountains via Kharput to Urfa. ... The second group, approximately 3000 people, left Erserum on June 19 and 20. ... The rest of them reached Ersindjan without being molested, where they stayed until the roads were secured. The third group of expellees, still approximately 300 families, left Erserum on June 26. They reached Ersindjan safely and without being molested. The fourth group, consisting mainly of trademen's families who had first received residence permits from the government, which were later taken away from them at the order of the army's Supreme Command, also reached Ersindjan safely via Baiburt. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• After what could be observed here in the recent past, successful steps have been taken to make the deportation of the Armenians more humane, although, naturally, we have no further details about them. While previously miserable hoards of poor women and children with no belongings were driven past, accompanied by only a few armed men, the people who passed by later on also had pack animals and livestock with them. In the end, the citizens of Erzerum passed by in huge, well-equipped ox-cart caravans. The people (obviously all of the men present) looked very well, travelled in short stages and were protected by extremely numerous gendarmes led by officers. The largest of the trains was accompanied by a high official, the Mutessarif of Bajazid himself. The people encamped on the Erzindjan plain and moved on after about a week. [1915-11-06-DE-011]

An Austrian personally witnessed the passing of a train of deported people near Urfa:

• Those groups that had already been on the march for a week or even longer gave a pitiful impression. Many exhausted and ill as a result of the tribulations of the march, limped along dragging children behind them (many babies and pregnant women). Looking at the children, the old and otherwise weak people one could usually observe that they had sore, swollen feet that were wrapped in rags. ... Many a group limps by, screaming in pain - as soon as they see a person, many of these wretched souls fall on their knees and beg for help and salvation or offer their children for adoption. Many die of exhaustion on these marches at 56° Centigrade and without water - anyone who is left behind can be sure of death. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

• Just as in similar earlier cases, I have received exact information about a further group which has left Adiaman. Of the 696 that left there, 321 arrived in Aleppo; 206 men and 57 women were murdered, 70 women and girls and 19 boys were kidnapped. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

• Women and children are being driven along with blows of the fists and with sticks. ... How great is the despair of mothers who have to give away their children in order to spare them the most wretched fate. ... Children who have been taken in by compassionate Christian families are later taken away from them by the authorities and given to the Turks. [1915-08-21-DE-011]

• Individual events, which presumably have otherwise taken place unnoticed recently happened in Aleppo before the eyes of the population itself. … The Swiss chief operating officer of the Baghdad railway told me that he had experienced many things in his life, which had hardened him, but that he would never have thought such a thing as this procession to be possible. It reminded him of the pictures of Indian famines. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• Nothing was undertaken on the part of the Turkish government to transport the expelled to their place of exile. The trains were occupied by the transportation of troops. No Armenian found space there. For the journey, no security measures were taken to ensure their safety. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• have been carried out with inhumane harshness over the last few months. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• On the entire journey, I and the German gentlemen who were accompanying me, saw the corpses of Armenian men, women and children: most displayed signs of multiple bayonet wounds. This was seen despite the route having been cleared of corpses by gendarmes at the instruction of the Government. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

• the indescribable brutality, the thirst, the hunger which is decimating those who are left, mostly widows and orphans who have been robbed of their very last possessions, before they, often only mere skeletons, arrive here, only perhaps one in six left, and that person is sent out again into the desert on a similar pitiful journey without any means of livelihood - and all that just to be rid of the Armenian name. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• The account by the Armenians, which is told over and over again, that the convoys full of exiles were deliberately driven backwards and forwards in order to “run them to death” is confirmed in this report by just one example. One group of deportees from Urfa was forced to take the following route: From Urfa to Tell-Abiad, from Tell-Abiad to Rakka, from Rakka to Tell-Abiad, from Tell-Abiad to Rakka. The distance from Tell-Abiad to Rakka is about 90 kms as the crow flies. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• The reports brought by non-Armenian witnesses from the heart of the country are so appalling that they cannot be written down. ... The people are driven like herds of animals for weeks and months to their destination and only in the rarest cases has the necessary food been provided for. Thus, these poor people fall prey in huge numbers to hunger and disease. Once they reach their destination they do not remain there, either, but are driven to a new destination and from here to another one, thus never having a chance to rest. [1916-03-03-DE-001]

• It is impossible to expect the government to support the exiles with money, food and other things. [1915-06-17-DE-003]

• met Armenian women between Erzindjan and Sipikor whose hunger caused them to eat grass. [1915-07-02-DE-011]

• One group that arrived here on 12^th inst., from Siwas had been on the road for 3 months and was completely exhausted. Some died immediately after their arrival. They had often been refused water en route. Along the Muradsu they were led in circles for 14 days in one place in such a way that during the daytime they had no water at all. I have not been informed how great the number of losses was in this group. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

• The whole of the route from here to beyond Aleppo resembles a caravan of misery and wretchedness. In places such as Karaman, Eregli and Bozanti, where the people themselves are suffering from a shortage of bread, the fate of the deportees is unimaginable; they are destined to suffer a slow, agonising death by starvation. [1915-08-21-DE-011]

• Starvation and epidemics are driving numerous to their deaths. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

In order to eliminate resistance to the deportations, those responsible for the genocide had isolated the Armenian soldiers from their fellow countrymen. Already in March 1915, the Armenian soldiers were not permitted to bear arms in military service. Wangenheim reports that

• for the past few weeks, the Armenians liable for compulsory service – both those men who have completed their military service and recruits – are no longer permitted to bear arms; rather, they are put to use building roads and carrying out similar duties. [1915-03-29-DE-001]

• male Armenians [were] called up for service in labour battalions. [1915-05-16-DE-011]

• those Armenian men able to bear arms were conscripted into the army to be detailed as porters and road workers on the interior military roads. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• Those called up for military service were attacked and shot in the street. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• About 100 Armenians from the work battalion were brutally murdered about 1 ½ hours to the north of Urfa. A day later, 400 from a labour battalion who were working in the south. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• resulted in the massacre of his Armenian and Syrian battalions. [1916-12-04-DE-001]

Separating men and women was a measure constantly used to weaken the deportees. Vice-Consul Holstein reports from Mossul:

• Until now, about six hundred women and children (Armenian, Chaldean, Syrian), whose male relatives in Seert, Mardin and Feihshahbur were massacred, have arrived here; the same number are expected during the next few days. [1915-07-21-DE-012]

• According to news received by the Catholicos of Sis, 800 to 1000 men who had been sent from Diarbekr to the south, never arrived. It is presumed that they have all been murdered. This must refer to an event which happened weeks ago. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• The Armenians from Kharput are reporting that in one village, some hours to the south of the town, the men were separated from the women. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• In Ras ul Ain, there are about 1600 women and children at present, the remainder of several thousands who were expelled from Charput and the surrounding area together with their husbands. Among these 1600 persons there is no longer one single man or male person over the age of 12 years. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• In fact, while in Ersindjan I did not notice any men among those Armenians from Vilayet Trapezunt passing through. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• These transports consisted only of women, old people and children. There was an absence of agile, robust men. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

• In the places where the massacres against the Armenians took place, for example in Baiburt, Marasch, Schebbin-Karahissar, Angora and Malatia, the men were separated from the families. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• I did not see any living male Armenian. It is said that a number of them fled into the mountains. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

• that many, even most of the convoys coming from those areas were lacking men or older boys. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• The grand-scale elimination of all males took place during the first days of July [1915-11-06-DE-012]

• The men were slaughtered to death and lay to the right and left of the road along which the women then had to pass. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• All the men were murdered along the way. [1915-07-16-DE-012]

• According to a statement made by the government, 14 of these people were murdered along the way; I have received private information that almost all the men were murdered. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• especially the men, were separated at Baiburt and I have been unable to ascertain anything as to their whereabouts. They were probably murdered. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• almost all of the men in Vilayet Trapezunt have supposedly been killed. ... The Armenians in Siwas were treated in a similarly brusque manner. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• I was informed by Turkish country dwellers that most of the men from Trapezunt were killed on the way to Gemischaneh. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• Out of the first convoy which left on 16 June on the direct route to Charput and which mainly consisted of Armenian notables who had a lot of baggage with them, all the men, with very few exceptions, have been murdered. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• the purpose[s] of the deportation of the Armenians: i.e. the elimination of the men. [1915-12-21-DE-011]

• the thousands of men who are butchered to death, either after being drawn aside or even before the eyes of their families. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• It can be regarded as an established fact that in the actual Armenian Vilayets - quite apart from the war zone near Wan - the deportation has been accompanied by the massacre of the adult male Armenians, but also partly of the whole population of Armenian towns and villages. The statements made by the survivors of such deported convoys are concordant with each other in such a way that a prior agreement to this effect is out of the question. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• This admission, however, - and please note that this is exactly what is involved here - contradicts the well-known strong family sense amongst the Armenians. Whenever the men fled in large numbers into the mountains, such as in the area around Suedije by the coast, they took the women and children with them. I know of cases where Armenian soldiers, having deserted, did not flee into the mountains, but headed straight for their families so that they could be deported with them, although they already knew what deportation entailed for them. In a few actual cases of armed rebellion against the deportation - in Fundadschak and Urfa - the rebels barricaded themselves in, together with their wives and children. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

After the extensive annihilation of the Armenian men right at the beginning of the deportations, the women and girls were left defenceless. Consul Roessler appeals to his embassy:

• The larger part of the Armenian deportees are women. They would be defenceless and liable to be violated during transport and in the villages. Would it not be possible to only deport the men and leave the women and children in Aleppo? Numerous children have already fallen victim to the deportations. [1915-06-06-DE-012]

• Of those banned here from Vilayet Diarbekir, only women and children have arrived here, and of the latter only about 1/3 of the original number ... of the women, the young ones were divided among the Muslim Kurds. [1915-07-16-DE-012]

• One group of women and girls was completely plundered between Mardin and Ras ul Ain by Bedouins. Those whom the Bedouins liked were dragged off by them. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• Around 500 Armenian women and children find themselves in deplorable conditions in the Armenian church in Bitlis. Armenian women are thought to be held captive in Turkish households. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

• the women, children, sick, and elderly, now robbed of any male protection, were driven out of their places of domicile and robbed of all possessions. Lacking equipment or provisions, barefoot, hungry, dying of thirst and subjected to continous mistreatment and violations, countless hundreds and thousands of Armenians were driven like cattle more than a hundred miles into exile while being intimidated by coarse Sapties. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• On each of those ten carts, 8 to 10 starving women and children were cowering, without any luggage, straw or water, without any trace of food, blankets, etc. One was dead, another lay there dying. There were no males with them over the age of 10 to 11 years. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• As I heard from an elderly Swiss couple, who are definitely trustworthy and have until now been living in Tel Abiad, the Armenians in that town sold their daughters aged between 8 and 12 years, first for 2 medjidis (one medjidi was equivalent to about 3.50 marks), later for 1 medjidi and less or they gave them away for nothing. Apparently they wanted to spare them the fate awaiting them in the desert as a result of the climate and of the Bedouins. The Turks in the village of Tell Abiad came rushing time and time again to barter with the deportees for their children. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• It has been reported earlier that some of the more attractive girls and women had been sold by the accompanying gendarmes and officers to the local Kurds. According to observations made by Vice-Consul Holstein, the price for a woman in the area through which he had travelled was anything up to 5 piasters (95 German pfennigs). [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• Once again, we have quite a few Armenians hier in the upper part of town, i.e. women and children; they gather here from the entire surrounding area. Most of them had been staying with the Turks, working in the fields or as wives, and were then simply thrown out when they were no longer wanted. [1917-05-23-DE-001]

The German missionary, Blank, reports on the orders of an officer:

• Finally he gave them the right to dispose over the women among these poor people by saying they may do what they like with them. [1915-05-27-DE-001]

• Encl. 1 is a petition by the Aleppo Building Department of the Baghdad Railway for the exemption of 53-year-old Karapanos, foreman in Karababa, and his family of ten, including 4 sisters: Mariam (21 years old), Rosa (18 yrs.), Anna (10 yrs.) and Guelfedar (8 yrs.). The petition was disposed of with the order ”With the exception of those marked in red, they can remain in Aleppo. 22. Eylul 331. The military commissioner: Hairi.”
• Marked in red are the 21- and 18-year-old sisters.
• Encl. 2 is a petition by the same division of construction for the sparing in Karababa of Schuekri Hampar, employed as a baker, and his family of six, including the sisters Mariam (21 years) and Guertschi (18 years). The application was accepted as follows:
• ”The two sisters cannot be exempted. The others are free. 22. Eylul 331. The military commissioner: Hairi.”

The German engineer, Bastendorff, reports on the fate of Armenian women in Ras ul Ain:

• The Circassians and Arabs from Ras-el-Ain took the prettiest girls home with them, many of them had already been retained by the Kurds during the journey. The policemen carried on a flourishing trade with the girls: against payment of a few Medjidies, anyone could take the girl of his choice either for a short while or for ever.The supervisor over the Armenians in Ras-el-Ain, a certain Nuri Çavush, even declared in the presence of our doctor Farah, that it always gave him great pleasure to deflower Armenian girls under the age of 12 years. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• On the way from Adiaman they had seen naked, murdered women, also mutilated ones, with their breasts cut off. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

• In six places between Tell-Ebiad and Kueltepe I saw dead naked women lying near to the railway lines, also a dead naked woman with mutilated feet, then two dead children, another dead older girl, next to her a dead child, then the still clothed body of a dead woman and another dead woman who had been gagged. Also I twice saw two dead children, making a total of 18 bodies in all. The women, except for one, were all completely naked, and, as far as I could tell from the train, all showed evidence of maltreatment. All the dead children were still clothed. Between Kueltepe and Harab-Nass I saw a dying child next to a telegraph pole, a further six completely naked dead women and two dead children. A completely naked woman crept out from under a bridge and begged with widespread arms that someone take her with them. But she was left behind. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• dwell on the numerous girls, women and children, who are being molested or mutilated by the guards and their accomplices and whose naked corpses are left lying by the wayside, along which the ever new hoards of deportees must pass. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• I saw for myself two women aged 16 and 30 years, who were dragged from the street by Turks and who then told me themselves - when the same day I was a guest of the Turks - they were from Adiaman and had already been on the move for 10 days. The gendarmes had been good to them, fought off a band of Kurd robbers who were lying in wait to seize some women; in the villages they were always given bread and cheese. A daily march lasted 6 - 7 hours; they often had a chance to rest. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

According to the German reports, the Armenians were partly or totally annihilated in several residential locations.

Mordtmann, the German consul general responsible for reporting on the Armenians in Turkey, noted after a discussion with the Swedish nun, Alma Johansson, who worked for the “German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient“ , on the events in Mush during the middle of June 1915:

• The city was surrounded by troops and encircled by artillery. On the night of Sunday, the 11 July, the massacres began, using rifles. The Turks claimed that several Armenians had attempted to break out in the direction of Sassun. A few well-situated Armenians were informed in the konak that they had to leave the city within three days, along with the entire population. But all their possessions had to be left behind as they now belonged to the state. Within two hours without waiting for the end of this period, the Turks had begun breaking into Armenian homes and plundering them. On Monday the 12^th , light artillery and rifle fire could be heard the whole day. The local Turkish population participated in these events. … The male Armenian population was murdered right in front of the town. The women, girls and children were carried off and taken on a further day’s march before being disposed of. Only three Armenian teachers from the orphanage were later set free. After the city was cleared, the Armenian Quarter was put to the torch and razed to the ground, along with the Armenian villages. [1915-11-06-DE-012]

• The former Mutessarif of Mardin, at present here, informed me about the following: The Vali of Diarbekir, Reschid Bey, ... just recently in Mardin .. allowed seven hundred Christians, mostly Armenians and including the Armenian Bishop to be slaughtered like sheep in one night near the city. They had been gathered together by the Gendarmerie sent especially from Diarbekir. Reschid Bey continued with this bloody deed against the innocent whose numbers have surpassed two thousand; confirmed today by the Mutessarif. [1915-07-10-DE-011]

• large massacres of Armenians have been carried out on the Khänus plain. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• In Trapezunt, Armenians were driven out to sea and then thrown overboard. The Bishop of Trapezunt was summoned to appear before a court-martial in Erserum and was strangulated on his way there, together with his guards. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• During the general deportation of the Armenians from Trapezunt, individual persons received oral or written permission from the Wali to stay here. These were officials from the Ottoman Bank, the Regie, two wives of officials and some unmarried women. They have now been deported one night and apparently killed right outside the town. [1915-08-27-DE-013]

• Armenians from Angora (mainly Catholics), including the Catholic Archbishop with his clergy and several nuns, ... all of them were killed some distance away. [1915-09-04-DE-001]

• With the participation of the military, bands of Kurds, who had been hired expressly for this purpose by Fetki Bey, the deputy of Diarbekir, had massacred the entire Christian population of the town of Djeziré (Vilayet Diarbekir) and that this was tolerated by the local authorities. In 1891, the number of inhabitants of Djeziré was estimated at about 10000, half of whom were Mohammedans (and of those, over 2000 Kurds); the other half consisted of 4750 Armenians (2500 Gregorians, 1250 Catholics, 1000 Protestants), 250 Catholic Chaldeans and 100 Syrian Jacobites. [1915-09-11-DE-011]

• the atrocious sight of the slain Armenians in the devastated villages of the areas we travelled through as far as Bitlis [1916-12-04-DE-001]

• 614 Armenian men, women and children, banned here from Diarbekir, were all massacred on their journey by raft; Keleks arrived here empty yesterday; for the past few days, bodies and human limbs have been floating past here in the river. Further transports of Armenian “emigrants” are on their way here; the same fate awaits them. [1915-06-10-DE-011]

• The Armenians deported from the plain of Erzerum were attacked by Kurds and similar riff-raff on their way to Kharput via Ersindjan. The majority of the men and children were murdered, the women robbed. [1915-06-18-DE-013]

• The number of Armenians murdered along the way amounts to three thousand. [1915-06-30-DE-013]

• Between 10 and 20000 people were probably killed, but the government's figures lie between only 3 and 4000. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• Besides this, the route for the deportees led through the Kurd district of Dersim, and the Vali of Trapezunt made an open declaration to the Consul, who had pointed such observations out to him, that he could only guarantee the safety of the transport as far as Erzindschan. From that point onwards, they are letting the deportees practically run the gauntlet through bands of Kurds and other waylayers. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

• Similarly, during the same period of time [as the inhabitants of Erserum ] and with the exception of only a few people, the inhabitants of the Ersindjan plain were also robbed and killed while passing through the Kemach gorge, and the women were kidnapped. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• The Armenians from Ersindjan were all driven together into the Kemach (Euphrates) valley and massacred there. There are fairly credible reports that the bodies were loaded onto carts which had already been placed there in preparation, and driven to the Euphrates and then thrown into the river. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• In Besnije, the entire population of about 1800 women and children and only a few men was deported; they were supposed to be transported to Urfa. By the river Goeksu, a tributary of the Euphrates, they had to take off their clothes, were then all massacred and thrown into the river. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• it was observed in Rumkaleh, Biredjik and Djerabulus that bodies had been floating past on the Euphrates for a total of 25 days. ... the bodies had stopped floating past for an interval of several days and then began again, in much larger numbers. This time they were mainly the bodies of women and children. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• Bodies are again floating down the Euphrates, in greater numbers and this time mainly women and children; they are being eaten by dogs and vultures. [1915-07-27-DE-011]

• On the road Urfa-Arab Punar, I did not, in fact, see any bodies in the dark, but my coachman, who travels this route regularly, showed me burnt patches at intervals by the side of the road where human bodies had been burned on the spot. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

Two dying women lay near a grave. Around them stand gravediggers and street urchins, waiting for the moment of death to lay them in the grave. In answer to my question, how these women got to the cemetery, I was told: There were five bodies brought on an oxen cart, placed one on top of the other without a coffin. When the gravedigger wanted to carry out his duties he noticed that of the five bodies three were still alive. A boy whose death did not seem to be imminent was taken away from the cemetery, while the two women were kept there. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

Roessler reports on a journey he made:

• After sighting the first of these corpses I went to the first khan and demanded of the owner that he send someone against payment to bury them. He smiled, but did as I wished. When I asked him as to why he had smiled he replied, “If you wish, I will have this corpse buried, but why do you lay so much value on this particular one? If you only knew how many are lying here in each and every gully, then you would refrain from having this particular one, which is visible from the road, buried.” [1915-11-08-DE-001]

• that even those Armenians who were still alive, but who were camping in the open air in a state of disease and exhaustion and were not being cared for by anyone, were bitten by dogs. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

The German Christians’ special interest in the Armenians lay in their brothers in faith, the Protestants and the Catholics. Even the German diplomats attempted to achieve exceptional measures for them, often under special pressure from denominational groups in Germany. Although the Germans were assured that the Catholic and Protestant Armenians would be excepted from deportations, these promises were not kept. Consul Roessler reports:

• As the local Vali, Beschir Sami Bey, informed me today, the privileges granted to the Catholic Armenians have been revoked again. Everyone without any exception is to be deported. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

• Recently, the Porte promised that Catholic and Protestant Armenians will remain in their home towns; later, this privilege was revoked for Angora and Adana. Steps were then taken on our part to revoke the Porte’s last decision. Success seems doubtful. [1915-08-23-DE-012]

• Contrary to the clear order given by the Home Secretary that Protestant Armenians may stay, Djemal Pasha has given counterorders. [1915-08-25-DE-011]

• On the morning of 31 August, the Armenian-Catholic Patriarch paid a visit to His Excellency, presented the enclosed copy of a general deportation order given by the governor of Adana and requested that a recommendation be made that the deportation order concerning the Armenian Catholics in Adana and Angora be revoked. His Excellency then had an appointment made for himself with Talaat Bey, who came to the embassy in person and informed that he had already revoked this deportation order. He will send a copy of the counterorder tomorrow. [1915-08-31-DE-011]

• After my interview with him yesterday, the further transport of the Armenian Protestants from Aintab and Marash who are here was inofficially postponed for a week by the Wali in order to await the results of steps taken by His Excellency with Djemal Pasha. [1915-08-31-DE-012]

• The Armenian Bishop is asking me to send a message to His Majesty, the Emperor saying that all Gregorian Armenians wish to become Protestants and are requesting the protection of the Emperor. [1915-08-21-DE-011]

• that the Foreign Secretary had promised him that the Catholic Armenians would be allowed to return. [1915-12-10-DE-002]

that the Catholic and Protestant Armenians, who had by and large not been involved in any revolutionary movements, would be allowed to return to their homes as far as possible. [1915-12-18-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann then reports from Aleppo:

• It was intended to remove the Protestant and Catholic Armenians - although the latter are only partly of Armenian race – from the coastal areas only. Moreover, they were supposed to be allowed to choose a place to settle further inland. But this has remained theory only. Those Protestants and Catholics who have arrived in Aleppo are being sent on, just like the orthodox Armenians, although the order for their exception has not been revoked. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• A number of Protestant and Catholic clerics refused to be converted. ... As they arrived in Tarsus after confronting various dangers, they met by chance Baron von Kress on his journey with Djemal Pasha to Constantinople. He introduced them to the Pasha who gave them a safe passage to Aleppo and later allocated their place of residence as partly Damascus and partly Jerusalem. [1916-01-31-DE-001]

• The Catholic Armenians, whom some reckon as reaching a figure close to 100,000 while others consider the figure to be higher, ... in a national respect, they have never given cause for complaint. It is just their aversion to nationalistic endeavours, which is generally recognised, that has drawn the particular hatred of their fellow countrymen against them and especially great hostility against their patriarch who forbid nationalistic activities. ... Despite the loyal attitude of the Catholic Armenians and despite the assurances they were given, the same fate befell them as their fellow countrymen. ... After the promises given to the apostolic delegate by the Turkish government, it was hoped that the rest of the Catholic Armenians would be allowed to return. None of them, in fact, did so. [1916-03-03-DE-001]

• The Turkish government ... had … repeatedly given assurances that the Armenians of Roman Catholic and Protestant faith would be exempted from the deportations as far as possible. Despite this promise, it was known to happen that these Armenians were also driven out of their homes. However, in individual cases it was possible to revoke the deportations which had already been initiated. [1916-05-11-DE-001]

• But they are also clearing up among the old established population and among the Catholic and Protestant Armenians, although the Porte has repeatedly assured that the latter will be spared. The remainder will be deported partly to Mesopotamia, partly converted to Islam. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• In the fall of 1915, a general pardon was issued for the Protestant and Catholic Armenians, probably at the instigation of the German and Austrian embassy, which was to protect them from being deported and leave them their possessions. This was only a let-down. It was mainly suppressed until the Protestant men were killed, nor did it have any practical significance for the women and children. ... With the exception of the German institutions, the preaching of God’s Word has ceased from the Black Sea as far as Syria; the Protestant parishes have been annihilated. Apart from individual exceptions (which could amount to 4 – 5), their preachers have been killed. Their chapels and schools have been taken away, desecrated or destroyed. The same applies to the Catholic and Gregorian Armenian parishes. [1917-07-14-DE-001]

• arrangements are being made to initiate a new exile based on former experiences of the lower police divisions and at their explicit affirmation. … [There was a] religious persecution. At any rate, reasons of a military nature are completely out of the question as it concerns almost solely women and children and, in addition, Angora lies as far as possible from every war zone. As far as I can see, Angora is the only parish among all those Catholic parishes hit by strict measures for which reasons of a military nature cannot even be put forward as a pretext. [1917-06-20-DE-001]

• the Turk[ish] gov[ernment] by informed in a friendly fashion of the events in Angora and the expectation be put forward that it will protect the Catholic Armenians there from attempts at forced conversions and other persecutions carried out by the local authorities. [1917-06-25-DE-001]

• prepared without doubt to avoid more severe action against the Armenian Catholics. … The question … must … be raised whether it seems advisable at all to appoint a German Catholic priest to care for the spiritual welfare of Armenian Catholics, and this all the more because only Ottoman subjects are concerned here. The results of this activity on the part of a German priest will surely be constant difficulties with the Turkish government. [1917-07-09-DE-001]

1) The Collection Points

According to German reports, there were several collection points for the deported Armenians. In October 1915, Vice-Consul Hoffmann reports from Alexandrette on some of them after he represented Roessler in Aleppo, thereby getting a good idea of the situation, because according to Hoffmann,

thanks to its central position, Aleppo is still the focal point of the deportation of the Armenians and, therefore, a particularly suitable location for gaining an overall picture of the occurrences.

The nearest destination up to now for the deportees arriving from the north and north-east were the stations Tell-Abiad, Rass-el-Ain and (for Aintab and Marasch) Aktsche-Koejuenli on the Baghdad Railway, then Aleppo . According to reports by the government, at the end of October about 20000 people were accommodated in Aleppo; only a few of them were in individual homes (at their own expense), the largest part in caravansaries (”khans”) or in open field camps on the outskirts of the town. The convoys arriving from Central, North and West Anatolia are streaming into the collection camp near Ma’mureh (alongside the Baghdad Railway in the Vilayet Adana) and on to the one in Katma (48 kms to the north-west of Aleppo by the Baghdad Railway). By the end of October, according to official government reports, about 40000 deportees had collected there.

• The government is providing no shelter whatsoever for these collection camps. The more wealthy among the deportees have a small tent with them, the poorer ones are having to make do with improvised roofs made of mats, bedding, etc.. In the way of provisions, the government supplies 100 drams of flour (= 320 grams) per day and per head, but only irregularly. Fuel for fires is not supplied; as there are no woods near the collection camps dry thistles are usually the only type of fuel available. As far as health is concerned, there are no facilities whatsoever. In particular, there are no latrine contrivances at all, not even the most primitive. There is not even a hole in the ground provided for this purpose. For the 40000 people near Katma, one single source provides water, but those living closest to it are preventing others from getting to it. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• In November and at the beginning of December large numbers of deportees were to be found along the railway route from Adana to Aleppo, in particular in Islahiye and in Katma. Here they had to be removed for military reasons to keep the military route free and to prevent the army being infected with diseases. The transportation was first done by train to Ras-ul-Ain. But as the deportees in Ras-ul-Ain were doomed to die and also as the railway could not cope with transporting the Armenians simultaneously with the soldiers, the Armenians were then sent on foot to Akhterin and then sent on from Akhterin to Bab. ... There it would have been possible to obtain provisions for them from the station in Akhtermin. But ... those poor people were sent on from Bab to Der Zor. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

• The number of those currently on the road in Aleppo alone is estimated at an average of several thousands. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• The crowds coming from the east have already been robbed of their cash when they enter Aleppo. Those coming from the north and the north-west are, for the most part, in a better state; many of them have not had to walk, they still have their possessions and their money. But, in time, their means must also peter out. It is to be feared that sooner or later, if they are not allowed to stay in the towns, large numbers of these exiles will suffer the same fate of starvation as those crowds that passed through here via Ras ul Ain. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• become aware of the bad impression that these miserable convoys make on the people of Aleppo and have re-routed them away from the town. [A witness:] I myself was a witness as to how the (Muslim) leader of a convoy of ten carts which, despite the re-routing, was making its way through a busy part of the town, was arrested by the police with severe reproaches. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• The concentration camp near Katma portrayed an indescribable view of insufficient hygienic facilities. The wanderers were at all stages of health and mobility: from the barefooted walker and the almost starving, who with great effort stumbled along, to the confused and silent, who just sat down on the road, to those who possessed well-kept footwear or pulled carts with various household articles. The difference can be explained by the distance which each had accomplished. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

• The Armenian assembly camp in Islahiye, despite being defended by German engineers, was subject to 6 weeks of raids by Kurds, during which even women and children were wantonly butchered to death. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

a) Settlement Attempts

There had obviously been attempts during the first weeks of deportation to settle the Armenians in Muslim villages, even if they were scattered. Thus, Roessler reports from Aleppo:

• The transportation of women and children to the country is still continuing. They are not allowed to enter even such small provincial towns as Bab, Membidj Idlib; instead, they are scattered among 3 to 4 families in the Muslim villages, where they are cut off from all help and must perish. [1915-06-12-DE-013]

• Here, the same as in other districts the inhabitants are being scattered around the interior of the country and resettled with the Muslims, partly in areas which are far from one another, as for example the residents of Zeitun, who have been sent partly to the areas around Konia, partly to Der Zor by the Euphrates river. [1915-06-17-DE-003]

• The poverty in both Marash and the surrounding area is indescribable, especially on the Basardjik plain where the Muhadjirs from Erzerum were settled. However, they would die of hunger if we did not assist them in some manner. [1916-04-28-DE-002]

• 3000 Armenian widows who were previously sent from Aleppo to Killis and were in relatively good keeping there, have recently been deported to Deïr Zor where the majority of them die. [1916-01-12-DE-011]

• Armenians who, with the government’s permission, had been settled for several months on estates in the country, are now being deported further; perhaps 10000 people. [1916-02-10-DE-001]

• Sabcha ... the first settlers' station. Formerly having several hundred inhabitants, it presently registers 7000 people (statement by the Nahié Mudir). ... the settlement has now grown towards the mountain crest … in streets that have been laid out straight at right angles; thousands of hands working with the greatest zeal; long rows of undressed stones are stored there … over 100 new houses have been erected. A further 250 houses are to be completed shortly. The first settlers arrived from Setun in July and August. The authorities have given the land for building and permitted stones to be cut. ... The settlers have set up a smithy, the sale of meat, 1 plumber and 2-3 small general stores. Many Armenians die from illness. Those in the camps, forced to protect themselves, banish the sick – mostly women – from the camp and leave them to nature. Without food, a doctor or care they lie whimpering and begging for bread until a kind fate lets them die … (approx. 40 dreadfully disfigured people). I counted 12 corpses washed ashore across from the crossing point; their dreadful smell does not rouse a single soul to bury them. According to the statement by the head of the district council, many more thousands of "settlers" are coming. His actual words were, "We let them come! To cultivate the land." Up- and downstream there is, however, fertile land for the survivors. [1915-11-16-DE-002]

• Of the largest stations, Sabcha has been completely emptied [1916-08-29-DE-001]

The streams of refugees divided beyond Aleppo and east of the provincial capital. While a smaller part of the deported Armenians was driven on in the direction of Palastina, those responsible for the genocide directed the larger part along the Euphrates river (first through Aleppo, later by-passing Aleppo via Bab and Meskene) to Deir-es-Zor and also further in the direction of Baghdad as well as Mossul, furthermore via Tell Abiad and Ras ul Ain to Mossul. Vice-Consul Hoffmann describes the routes:

• From the collective camps ... of Aleppo, ... for the past few months, the deportees are being transported on to the places intended for their ” resettlement”. At the beginning of the deportations, i.e. 2 - 4 months ago, the nearer points in Syria, such as Hama, Homs, Bab, Damascus, served as destinations. However, since the beginning of October - expressly stipulated in a poster displayed on walls in Aleppo - only the stations Rakka and Der-es-Zor by the Euphrates, as well as Hauran (Kerak) to the west, and only very recently Ras-el-Ain (last station of the Baghdad Railway in the direction of Mossul) are being allowed as destination points. According to estimates made by a senior official in the Vilayet Aleppo, by the middle of October about 300000 persons had been sent on towards the south and south-east for the purpose of ”resettlement”. ... Once at the destinations for resettlement - i.e. usually: Rakka, Der-es-Zor, Kerak, Mossul (approached from Rass-el-Ain) - the deportees are left to their own devices (according to statements made by the senior Vilayet officials mentioned above). As this source tells us, there is a lack of means and officials for ensuring proper resettlement. It was therefore unavoidable that all the deportees perished. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Consul Loytved-Hardegg reports from Damascus:

• Until now, 3000 Armenians have been brought to the Kerak area on the Hedyas train. 60000 Armenians are to be sent to this area and Hauran. [1915-08-26-DE-012]

• About 2000 families with 5 members each in the Vilayet Damascus. [1916-05-03-DE-001]

• In his estimation there are 60000 Armenians between Aleppo and the Hedschas. [1916-05-30-DE-001]

• For the number of Armenians settled in East Jordan, the Patriarch gave a figure of 15000 in Hauran and 3 to 4000 in Iraq. [1916-06-26-DE-001]

• The Armenians staying there, especially those who were deported from there to the villages in the Hauran District, are all exposed to severe hardship. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

• Among the 20000 deportees staying here, there are 15000 in need of support; in Hama itself, there are 1000, and 6000 in the surrounding villages who do not even have a crust of bread. Many die of hunger. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

• In May of this year, the number of Armenians between Aleppo and the Hedschas was estimated at 60000 persons by the Chairman of the Emigration Committee, Wali Hussein Kasim Bey (retired), who is considered to be sincere and a friend of the Armenians. Of these, about half will have died in the meantime. [1917-04-07-DE-001]

• New transports arrived daily; thus, the number of emigrants in Ras-el-Ain surpassed 10000 within a very short time. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• The Armenian camp comprises about one thousand people, formerly there are said to have been up to 5000. 600 are camping in a large courtyard, surrounded by bare mud walls, measuring about 80 x 100 metres and belonging to a khan, with rooms opening up to the outside. So these 600 are without a roof or any cooking facilities. 400 are camped down on the outside of the khan.
• These deportees are the remnants of various convoys from the north. Almost all of them are elderly women and children. According to my investigations, the men and any boys over the age of 11, have been separated off during the journey, led away and probably murdered; the young women and girls over 13 or 14 years were either raped and murdered or sold by their guards or Kurds or simply given away. ... Those camping outside appear still to have some vitality. Those lying in the yard are mostly so exhausted that they cannot stand up any longer, but sit around quite impassively, waiting for their death. An exhausted whimpering for water and bread is the only sound they make.
• There were no epidemics in the camp. According to the gravedigger up to 40, on average 25 to 30 persons, die each day of exhaustion, hunger, dysentery etc.
• Burials take place in mass graves, which are dug about 100 metres from the centre of the camp. During my first visit I saw two open ditches, one containing 16 to 20 naked corpses all thrown on top of each other (e.g. both legs of a female body were stretched in the air, while the invisible torso was hidden by other bodies), in the second, which was only half full, were 8 bodies, also naked, and all so emaciated that it was hardly possible to recognise their gender. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• The misery of these people is indescribable; women and children are dying of hunger every day; their clothes decay on their bodies. [1915-07-21-DE-012]

• that the Armenians from Asia Minor are to travel to Der es Zor and Mossul. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• Dr. Schacht, a captain in the medical corps, who chose the route along the river on his way from here to Baghdad, wrote to me on 3 November from Der Zor, "I have seen many bad things along the way. What people are saying is true." [1915-11-16-DE-002]

• Supplies of provisions with the transports have not been arranged, although this would be possible. Watering spots containing stale, clean water could easily be set up for those permanently passing by. Thus, apart from their burdens, their children, their sick and their illnesses, the deported must also lug along food and even water for the long marches. ... For months, all of the wayside places of rest have been turned into the most disgusting state by masses of human excrements, garbage, scraps and manure, and this will not change until the final troop has passed through. ... Abu Hrere on the river Euphrates ... equipped with a Handji and a shopkeeper only a short while ago … at present a huge human pile of fertiliser, ... a real place of death. [1915-11-16-DE-002]

• An Armenian who had the courage to go to Bab from time to time in disguise in order to bring the poverty stricken a support allowance (German sisters have not been allowed any activity outside of Aleppo), reported that at the end of January during the 2 ½ days of his stay in Bab, 1029 Armenians had died. The worst thing about it was when the weak and ill were forced to get up to walk the next part of the journey. They were driven with whips, their tents were even set alight. He witnessed how a woman was beaten to death with a club. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

• Beyond Der Zor begans the Trail of Horror. As far as I could see, it was divided into two sections: The first section from Der Zor to Sabha, along which I could gain an impression of what had happened here from the position of the bodies, the state of their decay and their clothing as well as from the rags of linen, pieces of clothing and parts of household utensils that were strewn in the road: How those latecomers had been wandering alone in the desert, had finally collapsed and with their faces tortured and distorted with pain had met their death in despair and how others were relieved more quickly thanks to the severe night frost and passed away peacefully in their sleep, how some had been unclothed by Arabian robbers, whereas the clothing of others had been torn from their bodies in rags by dogs and other vermin, how others had only lost their shoes and outerwear and others had only a short time ago finally collapsed and died next to their baggage, completely clothed ... probably during the last transportation, while the bloody and half-bleached skeletons remind them of previous transports. In the second section from Sabha to Meskene, where I no longer needed to guess the individual fates but had to behold the misery with my own eyes: a large transport of Armenians passed my by just beyond Sabha, driven by the gendarmerie guards to walk faster and faster, and then the whole misery of the stragglers became apparent in live form. I saw by the wayside hungry, thirsting, sick, dying, freshly deceased, mourning besides fresh bodies, and those who could not part quickly enough from their relatives, endangered their own lives, because the next station or oasis was three days march away for those on foot. Weakened by hunger, disease, pain they staggered on, fell a nd lay still on the ground. ... Not until I was between Meskene and Aleppo did I see no more Armenians and no more bodies since the transports did not touch Aleppo at all, but were re-routed via Bab. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

• I have seen with my own eyes about 100 bodies and almost just as many fresh graves on the road from Der Zor to Meskene. I have not counted the graves which in some places were combined to form cemeteries. I have seen around 20000 Armenians. I have restricted all my estimations of numbers to those I have actually seen for myself. I have never turned off the road and, for example in Der Sor, I did not visit the more distant parts of the town. So the number of really deported persons must be considerably higher. Furthermore, I have not seen those who were on the other bank of the Euphrates. The route along which I travelled, is said to be only part of the march. To the north of Meskene in the direction of Bab and to the north of Der Sor in the direction of Rebel Ain there are said to be significant camps where Armenians are awaiting their further deportation. It is therefore not out of the question that travellers along the same route a few weeks later, will count ten times as many bodies as I did. Everywhere in Turkey where the desert sand borders on occupied areas, similar tragic dramas such as these are said to be being played at this very time, with hundreds of thousands of actors. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

• News received on 19^th April told us that in every station between Aleppo and Der Zor, i.e. in Meskene, Abu Hrere, Hamam, Sabkha, 50–100 people are dying every day, most of them as a result of hunger. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• The state of the deportees simply defies description. There can, of course, no longer be any question of household goods, beds, clothes: everything has been sold or eaten. Today, the formerly wealthy do not even have enough bread every day. They go out in crowds and graze the fields (eat grass). If there is a camel or any other sort of pack animal in the vicinity which is dying, they fall on it and fight each other for it, just as if it were a treasure. Hundreds of them have died of hunger, thousands of typhus fever. Children who have lost their homes and their parents wander about everywhere. [1916-04-28-DE-002]

• that once again thousands were deported from Der Zor to Mossul. The roads are supposedly littered with bodies. Hundreds of those deported all the way down to Ana are dying of hunger. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

• All the crowds of deportees who have been forced back along the road are being driven towards the south. It is like a flooding human current. The misery is indescribable. It has been known to happen that the starving fry the flesh from the dead bodies … they search through horse manure for barley grains … There are 2500 tents in Abuhrere, but they must all move on, often without a bite of bread. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

• Due to heavy mortality as well as their constantly being moved on and new arrivals, the number of Armenians deported to Vilayet Mossul is constantly changing. At present, there are about 4 – 5000 deported Armenians from Erzerum, Bitlis, Ras el Ain and Deir Zor in Vilayet Mossul, mainly women and children. It is expected that this figure for the number of Armenians deported to this Vilayet will remain constant for a longer period in future. [1916-06-23-DE-001]

• A high-ranking German official told me on 18 July that the road from Sabkha via Hammam to Meskene is completely strewn with the remains of pieces of clothing. It looked as if an army had retreated along it. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

• Many families have not eaten anything for days and do not have the courage to go begging. The number of families such as these is increasing from day to day. How will all this end? If it continues like this for long, then the largest part of the population, perhaps all of them, will perish through hunger and deprivation. The people fight for the blood of slaughtered animals which has poured out onto the ground, they nibble at bones they find on manure heaps, they search through horse manure in the hope of finding a few grains of barley and devour them ravenously. They eat the flesh of animals and humans who have died by the wayside. Many of them who cannot stand it any longer throw themselves in the Euphrates, taking their children with them. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

• The road from Aleppo to Der-es-Sor (which the deportation convoys have been using for many months) now presents a different picture: it has become relatively quiet. It is true that at the stations closest to Aleppo there are still fairly large Armenians camps. But further to the south, away from Meskene, the camps are significantly reduced. [1916-08-29-DE-001]

• Along the road by the banks of the Euphrates, as far as Der-es-Sor there are now only small camps of about 1000 - 2000 people each. … The government is doing nothing at all to feed those who are placed in the camps. These are usually far from any towns and villages. For this reason, it is difficult to provide any food for them, even for those who still have some money. Provisions are limited to whatever the Arab farmers bring every day to the camp in the way of bread, melons etc., i.e. an absolutely insufficient amount. Many are living solely on melons that grow abundantly in those areas. They even eat them with the peel and seeds. When I distributed bread in a small camp, the people behaved like wild animals. I had to flee and leave the distributions to the gendarmes. Those who have no money, have to starve. ... As long as the deportees have got money, they are allowed to stay in their camps. When the money is used up, they are deported in the direction of Der-es-Sor. In doing so, families are ruthlessly torn apart. Near El-Hammam 6 - 700 Armenian men are working on government buildings without their families. By the way, they also look starved. The inhabitants of the camps are comprised of members of all social classes together. During my visits, I was often addressed in French, English and German, in German by pupils of German schools and orphanages. Many refugees try to flee to other camps which are nearer to towns and villages and therefore offer opportunities for nourishment. The gendarmes are constantly on the lookout for such refugees. Those who are arrested, are considered as lost. The winter’s cold will do the rest to finish off the deportees. [1916-09-05-DE-001]

• At some places along the route, the remaining Armenians are used to build roads, bridges and houses. [1917-02-14-DE-001]

• personally handed out at least a quarter-pound note, and in some cases more, to each of the 6000 deportees. Despite this, he is of the opinion that a very large number of them will die of hunger and deprivation. For there is now hunger, not only among the Armenians, but also among the population of Rakka itself, so that the distribution of food by the government to the deportees has almost completely stopped. … The deportees live pressed together closely. Their clothes are in rags. Typhus has broken out among them so that at present there are 20 deaths every day. [1917-02-14-DE-001]

• In Der-Zor there are 15000 whose feeding by the government is completely inadequate. [1915-07-30-DE-011]

• The main place of settlement is Der Zor. The entrance alone immediately displays the settlers' main occupation: burying the dead, dull brooding, laborious, sick, half-dead movement. Der Zor itself is not an ugly city, with lovely, wide streets. Previously 14000 inhabitants, presently 25-30000. There are no organisational arrangements for the huge, accumulated mass of people. There is insufficient food (for hours the bakers have no bread), a steam-driven mill clacks insufficiently day and night, a shortage of bread and vegetables was determined. 3 hospitals are crowded with over a thousand sick people. 1 local doctor, 1 government doctor, pharmacy almost empty. The local doctor just left town for a few days on a business trip. The mortality rate is 150-200 persons per day (in the words of the local doctor). Only in this way is it possible that thousands of settlers can still be brought in. A large camp above and below the town. On the left bank of the river next to the pontoon bridge masses of dying people have been camped in huts made of foliage typical for this area. They are the forgotten whose only liberator is death.
• No linguistic expression of thought can even come close to describing the reality of this human misery, so indescribable are the occurrences there. And this tragical heap is continually building up. According to the statements of other pedestrians, hundreds of unburied corpses, dragged off, then lie further away! The gendarme on duty answered, "What should we do? they all die by themselves."
• The authorities carefully clean all the corners and streets every day, build new residential areas such as in Sabcha, distribute money among the people as well as bread and flour and yet, with some exceptions, death is preferential to life. ... The mortality rate is 150-200 persons per day (in the words of the local doctor). [1915-11-16-DE-002]

• This is the largest town along the route. Here were many Armenians, more than 2000 to be sure. All the houses and khans were full of them. ... Many women, delousing themselves. Also many young girls and small children. On the streets of the clean little town there are many Armenians of all ages and of both sexes in Turkish farming clothes, but also many in European civilian clothing, obviously belonging to higher classes. Young girls in well-fitting European clothes. ... Der Zor is a friendly little town with straight streets and pavements. The Armenians were enjoying complete freedom there, could do just as they liked ... also in the way of food which they had to buy themselves. Anyone who had no money, could not buy anything. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

• As I learned on 20^th April from a Turkish officer on his way from Der Zor, the Mutesarrif of Der Zor has received the order only to leave as many Armenians there as correspond to 10 percent of the local population, but to send the rest on to Mossul. The local population of Der Zor could be perhaps 20000. The number of Armenians sent there is assessed at being at least 15000, so that a minimum of 13000 will have to be turned away. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• On 16 July, news was received from Der Zor that the Armenians had been ordered to continue their march. On 17^th , all clergymen and community leaders were arrested. By 22 July, so the order, all Armenians were to have taken to the road again. After the Central Government had previously decreed that only as many Armenians were allowed to remain in Der Zor as made up 10 percent of the total number of inhabitants, now the remainder were to be eradicated, an amendment which is possibly connected with the fact that the humane Mutesarrif Suad Bey has been transferred to Baghdad and a merciless successor has been appointed. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

• The people are slaughtering and eating stray dogs. Recently they even slaughtered a dying man and ate him; that is what I was told by an eye witness. One woman cut off her hair to sell it for bread. I saw how a woman ate the dried blood of a dead animal on the street. Up to now they all ate grass, but that has also dried up in the meantime. Last week we were in a house where the inhabitants had not eaten for 3 days. The woman held a small child in her arms and tried to give it some bread crumbs to eat. But the child was so weak, it couldn’t swallow any more, so it choked and died in her arms. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

• Of the largest stations ... Der-es-Sor only has a few hundred craftsmen left who were working for the troops, whereas at the latter place only 8 weeks ago many thousands (estimated by another side as being 20000) were still in the camp. The spiritual leaders such as teachers, lawyers, clergymen are said to have been taken recently from the camps and imprisoned in government buildings (most likely prisons). The others - also those who had actually begun really to settle in the more northerly stations - had disappeared. The official version was that they had been sent on to Mussul (i.e. a route along which very few of them had any chance of reaching their destination alive), but according to the general opinion of the people they had been murdered in the small valleys to the south-east of Der-es-Sor, on the strip between the Euphrates and Chabur rivers. The Armenians are said to have been led away in groups of a few hundred at a time and butchered to death by Circassians who had been especially commissioned to do so. ... the nomads have left that corner between the Euphrates and the Chabur, supposedly because of the activities described. [1916-08-29-DE-001]

• The 20 - 30000 Armenians, whom I saw during my last journey in Der-es-Sor and who began to breathe a sigh of relief under the humane attitude of the Mutessarrif, have meanwhile, since his replacement a few months ago by the present brutal Mutessarrif, Sekki Bey, a Circassian, been deported, except for some craftsmen and about 1200 children. As I have heard, they have been sent to the area of the Chabur river. There, according to general opinion, they will be massacred or will perish somehow. The 1200 children mentioned above have led a miserable existence. It is obvious from their facial appearance that they are suffering from starvation. [1916-09-05-DE-001]

The Chabur river, which flows into the Euphrates south-east of Deir-es-Zor, was indeed to become one of the most gruesome places of death for the deported Armenians who had survived until that time. But it was not the only gruesome place.

Another place was Tell Ermen ; as early as July 1915, Ambassador Wangenheim reports on its fate:

• In a report dated the 8^th inst., the Imperial Consul in Aleppo reports the following: “Major von Mikusch has returned from Mossul and reports the following: about a week ago, Kurds massacred Armenians in Tell Ermen and a neighbouring Armenian village. The large churches have been destroyed. Mr. von Mikusch personally saw 200 bodies. [1915-07-09-DE-001]

• everything had been destroyed here, except for 15 to 20 people who were able to flee. Vice-Consul Holstein even discovered remains, such as dismembered heads and limbs, in the church. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• On the sparsely populated route between Mossul and Rass-el-Ain, Vice Consul Holstein found five totally ravaged Armenian villages, including Tell-Ermen, which was inhabited by 2000 Armenians. ... In the other four villages, almost everything has been desolated. Between Tell-Ermen and Rass-el-Ain he stumbled upon five natural cisterns full of bodies, but he was not able to determine whether these had been battered to death or butchered. Along the whole route to the south of Nisibin he saw all the Muslims running around with scimitars. ”Ermen [Armenian]” was their only thought. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• On 6^th April it became known to us here that massacres had occurred again near Ras ul Ain. One piece of news said that the largest part of the concentration camp, consisting of 14000 people, has been destroyed, whereas, according to another communication, 400 families had been led out of the camp and murdered en route. After hearing the results of the reliable enquiries of a German who spent several days in Ras ul Ain ... I am forced to assume the following: The camp can now only consist of 2000 exiles. For a period of one whole month, 300 to 500 of them have been led out of the camp daily or almost daily and massacred about 10 kms away from Ras ul Ain. The bodies were thrown into the river, which ... at that time of year was running very high. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• The Turkish military pharmacist in Meskene, who has been stationed there for the past 6 months, told him that in Meskene alone 55000 Armenians had been buried. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

• As far as the fate of those deportees, who are sent on further from Der-es-Sor, is concerned, who, following official announcements, are said to be heading for Mossul, I have enquired with the Imperial Consulate as to how many deportees are estimated to have arrived from Der-es-Sor over the past few months. According to information from that source, on 15th April four transports left Der-es-Sor along two routes and 19000 altogether met up again in a camp by the river Chabur. On 22nd May, i.e. 5 weeks later, about 2500 people from these transports, including several hundred men, have arrived in Mossul. … No new transports have arrived in Mossul for the past 3 ½ months. This fact must confirm the opinion of the people of Der-es-Sor and the corresponding actual details, that under the rule of the new Circassian Mutessarrif of Der-es-Sor, short work is made of those who are deported further, more recently in the place where the Euphrates and the Chabur meet. [1916-09-05-DE-001]

• a memorandum by Mr. Buente, a certified engineer, on observations made during a journey along the river Khabur from 1 to 6 April. There is no doubt that the large numbers of human skulls and bones to be found there are from the Armenian massacres which took place the previous July and August: ... ”In the period from 1 to 6 April I went up the Chabur on the river Euphrates together with Captain Loeschebrand and Sergeant Langenegger from Buseir and found large amounts of bleached human skulls and skeletons on the left bank; some of the skulls had bullet holes. In some places we found stakes, also with human bones and skulls. The largest accumulations were across from the Kishla Sheddade. The population spoke of 12000 Armenians who were massacred, shot or drowned here alone.“ [1917-05-14-DE-001]

Chapter 3: Pretexts for the Genocide and Defences

Even in the relatively closed off Ottoman Empire, it was hardly possible to openly propagate the genocide of Christian minorities, in particular the Armenians, as a political goal. Thus, the government had to give both its own people and its allies real or supposed reasons which seemed to justify the strict measures taken against the Armenians. And the Armenians’ obvious defences had to be reinterpreted as revolts in order to give proof later for the Armenians’ supposedly traiterous attitude.

(I) The Pretexts

The Turkish accusations concerning treason followed two lines of argumentation: on the one hand, the Armenians had shown sympathy for the enemy Entente; on the other hand they had planned and carried out a conspiracy against the state. The Young Turk regime attempted to establish a causality between the two lines.

(1) Sympathy for the Entente

The majority of the Armenians – and the German diplomats were also of this opinion – had much more sympathy for the countries which made up the Entente (England, France and Russia), i.e. the war-time enemies of Turkey and Germany, than for the authoritarian regimes with which Turkey was allied. There were a number of historical reasons for this, but especially, of course, the fact that England and France symbolised a democracy which was very popular with the Armenians, but which the Germans despised. There is a reference in the files which is almost amusing.

In a long report, Ambassador Wolff-Metternich describes how the Armenian Great National Council functions and remarks on its constitution:

• This constitution was in accordance with the ultra-democratic spirit which had always reigned among the Gregorian Armenians. [1916-08-23-DE-001]

• It is an open question as to just how true the statement is that the Armenian subversive parties were raised by the community’s democratic constitution. At any rate, the National Council and the parties worked hand-in-hand and during the past few years they attempted to spread the same democratic spirit among the Protestant and Catholic Armenians, occasionally even with the support of the Porte, and accordingly to reorganise the administration of this community. [1916-08-23-DE-001]

• The surprisingly high educational standard of the Armenians both in the town and in the country, which they owe to the effects of their clergy and to their excellent schools, enables them to familiarise themselves with European culture and technology and to encourage the introduction of these in their home environment. It is important to remark that the influence of French culture on the Armenians is very strong and their sympathies are probably on the French side. The many schools, which are under the directorship of French clergymen, have had a very strong influence in this respect. [1915-08-10-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Scheubner-Richter speaks in a report of the

• influence of these mysterious men behind the scenes of the committee, who, in addition, are also hostile towards the Germans. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• Among their fellow countrymen, Turkish officers staying in Germany have made no secret of their anti-German views. [1917-05-23-DE-001]

• Referring to the sympathies of Armenians for one or the other power which is at war with us, the Patriarch explained that through border traffic with Russian regions, Russian sympathies are often brought in. Each year in spring, thousands of Armenians move to Russia to work there and return in fall to the Turkish homeland with their savings; at that point they draw a parallel between the treatment they receive abroad and their situation in Turkey, but they have no real idea how their destiny would shape up should they come under Russian rule. [1914-12-29-DE-001]

• if Turkey should fall into the hands of the English or French, then all these stricken Armenians would finally find peace. [1914-12-29-DE-001]

• Pronounced sympathies exist for the U.S. even though the practice of proselytising of the English and the American missionaries often causes offence. ... If there are sympathies for France, it is mainly because of French being taught as a first foreign language; knowledge of this language is the basis for introducing French ideas and French sympathy. [1914-12-29-DE-001]

• on the Turkish side of the border to Russia some of the Armenian villages occupied by Russians showed sympathy towards Russia. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• always claimed for herself this right to protection and took advantage of it. The fact that Russian Armenians, besides their enjoying greater security of life, also enjoy better living standards, is also a strong attraction for the great masses. However, on the other hand, it should be taken into consideration that stronger Russian influence would have resulted in a danger of denationalisation, limited only to the spiritual leaders of the Armenians. There are two different currents among those leaders: one of them places a high premium upon the need to safeguard the national identity that is deemed possible only in Turkey; and the other emphasises economical interests and the maintenance of religious ties with the Russians. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• The Christians ... made no secret of their aversion to Turkey and their sympathies for the Entente, in particular for Russia. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

• What could the common interest be for the Armenians to break away from Turkey? They have no connection to their kingdom, like the Bulgarians, the Greeks or the Serbs, and they see too clearly to trust the Russians. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• Of course, since the establishment of the new regime, the Armenians had been strongly influenced by London, Paris and in particular by Russia. The Russian Armenians were the actual connecting link with the Turkish Armenians. Attempts had been made at making the Turkish Armenians disloyal by means of money, spying and other methods. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

Zimmermann’s statements showed the direction in which the Young Turks, but also Germany in its official position, attempted to justify the deportations: Turkish Armenians had hatched plans for revolt, acquired weapons, cut telegraph wires and sided with the enemy – in short: they had betrayed their native country and risen against the Ottoman Empire. Soon there was no longer talk of rebellious Armenians, but of the entire Armenian people having risen against the Turks. But what is most conspicuous is that these accusations of treason were made almost solely by official Turkish and German sides, while generally the observers on the spot reached completely different conclusions. In the beginning, German consuls were also among those giving warnings, but their statements show that they produced hardly any evidence, merely passing on Turkish accusations.

There were reports or fears of revolts even before the events in Wan. After the bombardment of Trapezunt by the Russian fleet, Consul Bergfeldt reports:

• The purpose of the bombardment is not quite clear. I assume that the Russians had hoped the Armenian and Greek population would revolt, in which case they had planned a landing. [1914-11-18-DE-001]

• It is a matter of fact that Turkish officers do not see eye to eye with the Armenians and reproach them with being friendly to Russia and helping Russian troops to get into Turkish territory. [1914-12-30-DE-001]

• I have met with the opinion among the Turks – and the Armenians’ attitude up to the present has not refuted this – that, should Turkey be defeated, the Armenian population would definitely side with the winner. [1915-02-02-DE-001]

• accused of sympathising with the Empire’s enemies, of maintaining highly treasonable relations with them and openly revolting against the authorities of the country in individual places. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• that the Russian section of the Daschnakzutiun Party is demanding the destruction of the Muslim population in those areas which are to be relinquished by Turkey, in case the war ends unfavourably for that country. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• that he has evidence for a conspiracy among a part of the local Armenians. [1915-05-04-DE-011]

• there are increasingly more signs that this movement is more widespread than was presumed up to now and that it is being encouraged from abroad with the help of the Armenian revolution committee. ... It cannot be denied that the Armenian movement has taken on a worrying character over the past few weeks, which has given the government cause to introduce severe repressive measures. [1915-05-08-DE-001]

• In many spots weapons had been assembled for some time now – in the earlier stages for the purpose of self-defence only against an eventual massacre, but later also for the purpose of an armed uprising. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• Today I suggested to Talaat Bey that the deportation measures against the Armenians in Erzerum be moderated, especially against women and children. He objected, saying that not only had incriminating correspondence just been found among the Armenians in Erzerum, but also weapons, bombs and similar items. There had been a plan to begin a revolt when the Russians advanced and to attack the Turks from the rear. [1915-05-29-DE-011]

• In order to curb Armenian espionage and to prevent new Armenian mass uprisings, Enver Pasha, by putting the state of war (or emergency) forward as a pretext, intends ... to resettle in Mesopotamia all those families from the recently insurgent Armenian centres who are considered to be not quite unobjectionable. [1915-05-31-DE-001]

• It is a fact that a great Armenian conspiracy was excellently organised in the whole of Anatolia and was in constant contact with foreign countries. In all towns the conspirators were well equipped with weapons, ammunition and bombs. Many of these were discovered by the authorities, but most of them must still be hidden. The government, therefore, has every reason to put an end to this dangerous revolutionary activity. [1915-07-16-DE-003]

• on the one hand, the report confirms again that an Armenian conspiracy did in fact exist, but that, however, on the other hand, the rigorous measures of the Turkish government cannot be regarded as justified. [1915-07-16-DE-003]

• Moreover, Enver is also aware of a conspiracy, whereby about 30000 Armenians in the area around Adabazar-Ismid wanted to support a Russian landing at Sakaria. [1915-08-06-DE-012]

• With Russian support there had been revolts and acts of violence against the Muslim population, e.g. by Lake Wan, in Bitlis, in Musch. Occasionally telegraph wires had been cut and there were not just a few cases of espionage. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• Entire districts had been organised for an uprising and supplied with weapons. It was not about the uprising of individuals, but of entire areas, which is the reason why, not just individuals could be singled out for punishment. [1915-12-09-DE-001]

• In the districts on the Russian border and near Aleppo mass displacements had been necessary on the grounds of military security. A Russian-engineered large-scale conspiracy among the Gregorian Armenians in the border areas and near Aleppo has been discovered. Attacks on bridges and railways had been planned. [1915-12-18-DE-001]

• Armenians were apprehended who passed themselves off as Syrians and who were in possession of new British weapons. Their interrogation by the Mutessariff himself resulted in the following: they belong to a secret association which has connections with the Russians and the British. They gave many names, including a street and a house number in Aleppo where supposedly there was a cache of weapons, which was then actually found. [1916-05-12-DE-011]

• the weapons of soldiers who had deserted were traded for business purposes, whereby Muslims and Jews were also involved. [1916-05-12-DE-011]

• The revolution against the Turks was keenly preached by those Armenians who were living in neutral and hostile foreign countries. The result was revolts. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

• this was not a religious, but a political matter. Turkey could be compared to a man who is assaulted from all sides and must resort to the most drastic measures in this life-threatening situation. Furthermore, in every country, especially in times of agitation, the population easily went beyond the government’s severe measures and allowed itself to be carried away into rioting which could not be approved of. In Turkey, this was the case in particular with the Kurds. The Turkish government did not take action against the Armenians because they were Christians, but because they were Armenians and the continued existence of the nation was endangered. [1917-09-06-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann reports from Alexandrette, known today as Iskenderun:

• As far as I know about the character and doings of the small local population, I do not believe that they would commit treason. [1915-03-07-DE-011]

• Each side is revoking the accusations of the other party as unfounded, or the blame for such events is being put on the others. There only seems to be agreement on one point: that the Armenians have given up their ideas of a revolution since the introduction of the Constitution and that there is no organisation for such a revolt. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• believes that the Armenians would remain calm if they were not suppressed by the Turks and provoked by them. It is often a matter of envy of competitors. The behaviour of the Armenians is said to have been excellent. [1915-04-26-DE-011]

• These measures cannot be explained for military reasons, because the revolt of local Armenians is not expected. [1915-06-02-DE-012]

• by far the majority of the population in this Vilayet is obedient to the government and the Christians here are not even remotely considering rebelling against the government. [1915-05-05-DE-011]

• convinced of the peace-loving character of the local Christian population who are loyal to the government. But there is a danger that strong elements who are enemies of the Armenians will get the upper hand and move on to the worst. [1915-05-05-DE-011]

• that a rebellion on the part of the Armenians in Erserum and its surroundings is not expected despite the negligible numbers of Turkish military forces in existence here. The Armenians living in areas near to the Russian border have long ago left their homelands; some of them fled to Russia where they are said to have joined the Russian troops – as was the case in Van – to fight against the Turks. Some of them came to Erserum. Isolated incidents, such as armed resistance in the case of requisitions in far away villages, the killing of Turks who wanted Armenian girls and women handed over to them, or the cutting and sabotaging of telegraph and telephone lines, and espionage are not unusual phenomena during a war in border areas containing mixed populations. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• As far as I know, the house searches have not yielded any incriminating material. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• A revolt by the local Armenians is not to be expected; thus, this measure of cruel deportation is unfounded and provokes rage. [1915-05-16-DE-011]

• neither weapons nor compromising documents were found. If a rebellion had been planned here, then the most advantageous moment for such an event would have been in January, when the Russians were stationed 35 km from Erserum and Erserum's garrison held only a few hundred gendarmes, while in Erserum's labour battalions alone there were 3 - 4000 Armenians. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• The Armenian population in Erserum had remained completely calm until this point. Whether they would have remained so quiet if the Russians had advanced and come close to Erserum, for example, cannot be determined for certain at present. Except for a relatively small fraction, all Armenians who were fit for military service had been called up. In view of this, there seemed to be no particular reason to fear any effective uprising. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• Bombs and decoding manuals were supposedly found in Kaisarie during house-to-house searches. These movements are put down to provocative agitation by enemy powers. [1915-03-03-DE-011]

• The Armenians also operated with bombs and, consequently, the Dette Publique building and the post office were destroyed. [1915-04-24-DE-002]

• there was an explosion in the house of an Armenian who had immigrated from the United States. The neighbours who came hurrying by found the man, who had been severely wounded by an exploding grenade. He was able to indicate that there were three other, similar bombs in the house which they then hid at his orders. The police got wind of the matter; besides these three bombs they found 24 other, not yet loaded bombs under the tiled roof of the Armenian church, furthermore, some 62 rifles in Everek and the surrounding area. [1915-04-26-DE-014]

• Larger stocks of bombs were discovered in Diarbekir and Kaissarie. [1915-05-06-DE-002]

• the Minister of the Interior recently quoted the number of bombs found in Kaissarie as being 400; also some had been found in Diarbekir and sent to Van to be used there by the rebels. [1915-05-08-DE-001]

• The Minister of the Interior states that Armenians in Erzerum were heavily incriminated by discoveries of bombs and documents and that they had planned to start a revolt behind the Turkish troops when the Russians advanced. [1915-05-30-DE-011]

• Bombs and similar objects were not discovered in Erzerum and the surrounding area, and this can also be confirmed by the Wali. [1915-06-02-DE-014]

• The weapons, which the Turks found among the Armenians were mostly those which they had received from the Turks in 1908 so that they could help the Committee defend themselves against reactionaries. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The pretext for the deportations - the supposed finding of bombs and weapons at an Armenian cemetery - belongs to the already well-known inventory of such pretexts by the Turkish authorities. [1916-11-17-DE-001]

• In the meantime I have tried to find out on what the attitude of the government to a widespread Armenian conspiracy is based. But I have only been able to discover one fact. A neutral personality who is in close contact with Armenians and well informed about them, has told me that at the beginning letters had been sent by inhabitants of Dörtyol to Zeitun declaring that the moment was favourable for an uprising. Contact had been established to the English warships. Whether the letters had met with their approval is not known to my informant. If his source was properly informed at all, this would prove an appeal to revolt. It is unknown how the addressees reacted to this request. [1915-05-27-DE-001]

• I will depict the charges made about Alexandrette as an example. There is a passage in the detailed government report ... : ”Other Armenians have been brought by the English authorities from Cyprus to the area around Alexandrette. Amongst them were Toros, Oglu, Agop, on whom papers were found which prove without any doubt their criminal intent. These people have, amongst other things, caused trains to derail. On the other hand, the commanding officers of the English-French forces have contacted Armenians in the areas of Adana, Doertjol, Jumurtalik, Alexandrette and other coastal regions and incited them to revolt.” The core of truth that is behind this official proclamation ... is that one Armenian (Torosoglu Agop), who is said to have been set down on land near Doertjol by the English cruiser ”Doris”, was arrested there and found to be in possession of 40 allegedly English pounds. Everything else is embellishment. Neither were several Armenians involved, nor were revealing documents found on the named person, nor have Armenians caused trains to derail. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• The fact that this extermination is possible, that tens of thousands of Armenians allow themselves to be slaughtered by a small number of Kurds and irregulars without defending themselves (as happened here), seems to be proof of how unwilling these people are to fight and to act as revolutionaries. The Armenians, especially the inhabitants of the cities, these "Jews of the East", are certainly cunning tradespeople, as well as shortsighted politicians, but as far as I have come to know them, most of them are not active revolutionaries. If they were, and had they had weapons, they would most certainly have violently resisted the evacuation, since they were superior in number and their death was a certainty. But this only happened in a very few places, probably where the revolutionary committees had their seat. Everywhere else the evacuation was carried out without any incidents, and later they meekly allowed themselves to be slaughtered. The timorousness of the Turkish Armenians is possibly only surpassed by the Turks' fear of them. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• The directives which threaten the Armenians with destruction have been justified by the Turkish Sublime Porte by the revolutionary movement within the Armenian population and strategic measures in districts along the borders. It may be the case that somewhere Armenians were justly accused of this act. But this is no justification for the deplorable course of action being carried out. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• One probably arrives nearest to the truth when one admits, without attaching too much importance to the charges levelled against the Armenians, that the Turkish government recognised a welcome opportunity in the treason of the Armenians in Wan, to once and for all crush to insignificance the politically and - from the Muslim-Turkish point of view - economically equally onerous Armenian element of the population during the singularly favourable opportunity afforded by the current war. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Whenever German observers thought of actual or supposed revolts, they always spoke only of the case in Van which they could not investigate (no doubt the success of the Turkish powers of persuasion), but they also realised that, generally, the Armenians were merely using armed clashes to try and protect themselves against their imminent annihilation. Scheubner-Richter:

• According to my information a revolution or an uprisings prepared by Armenians had taken place only in Wan, in other places it was self-defence. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

• to attack and punish an Armenian village near Hesak in which supposedly rebellious Armenians had barricaded themselves. I discovered in time that the so-called “rebels” were people who had barricaded themselves for fear of being massacred and who would have gladly been prepared to give up their weapons if only they were assured of being left alive. [1916-12-04-DE-001]

• Since the beginning of this month the Wali of Diarbekir, Reschid Bey, has begun with the systematic extermination of the Christian population in his administrative district, making no distinction between race or creed. … As a result of this … the Christian population between Mardin and Midiat has risen up against the government and destroyed the telegraph wires. [1915-07-31-DE-001]

• The Government had taken preventive measures, to a degree of severity seldom seen in history, against the Armenians and thereby evoked resistance in three places: in Fundadjak, in Suediye and in Urfa. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

• Especially after the revolt in Fyndadyak, hundreds of badly wounded were sent to the hospital where they were treated and cared for for weeks and often months. Women and children, in particular, lay there with shot-up limbs, some of which had to be amputated; some, partly healed, are even today lying next to the hospital and waiting for our help! [1916-04-28-DE-002]

• The fighting in Suediye (from 4 villages in the vicinity of Antiochien) ended whereby the rebels embarked onto a ship, in a hidden bay, under covering fire of an enemy warship. According to the Armenian side the number of women and children came to 6000. If one calculates with this rural population the very high percentage of 10% as being able to bear arms, then one arrives at 600 who now will possibly be called to arms in an enemy army. Despite this fact and despite the finally contrived connection to an enemy cruiser, there is no evidence whatsoever that the district had previously thought about an uprising. They were more likely driven to resistance by their imminent deportation. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

• 14 days ago the Armenian population in Urfa received deportation orders, but decided that an immediate end was preferable to the atrocities of death during deportation and barricaded themselves. Fahri Pascha, who supposedly is in Urfa himself, has blocked off the Armenian quarter and ordered its destruction by artillery. – [In this connection a note from Mordtmann]: Yesterday, I received confirmation of the contents of this telegram from Talaat Bey who added that the Armenians had used hand grenades to defend themselves and that the battle was still going on. [1915-10-09-DE-011]

• For the Armenian uprising in Urfa it is also unnecessary to assume the influence of outside forces. One would like to think that outsiders arrived from Van and Diarbekr to stir up things and make themselves leaders. It is sufficient to say that the government’s preventive measures, the deportations and, therefore, the inherent decimation of their race and each individual was in the forefront of their minds and was enough for the people of Urfa to reach the decision to put up resistance. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

• knew that the men would be murdered, the women and girls violated, at best put into Muslim harems, and that the rest, namely children and older women, would be abandoned to death by starvation. Thus their decision, rather to die with their weapons in their hands and sell their lives as dearly as possible than to let themselves and their families be destroyed or dishonoured. [1915-11-16-DE-001]

• The incident in Zeitun was not the only one. Following it, similar rioting and fighting followed in several towns in the province, which led to the beginning of the evacuation of the heavily compromised Armenian population. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

• The following is from a memo placed at my disposal by Resident Minister von Oppenheim (retired), based on information from Count Wolfskehl: “Both the Armenian quarter, which is situated on a hill, as well as the individual houses, some of them very well built, had been prepared for defence in a definitely very military fashion. The main bases were the American mission (which the Armenians had taken by force), the Armenian church and school and some groups of especially solid houses. The defence was made up of about 2000 able-bodied men, well provided with rifles, including many of a small calibre, and ammunition. In addition to this they also used home-made hand grenades.” ... Apart from this battle, a larger riot already took place in Urfa some months ago, on 19 August, in which 200 Armenians and Syrian Christians were killed. [1915-11-20-DE-001]

• I have never heard this accusation, not even from the Turkish Muslim side, although the case is known to me in full detail. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• How easily these kinds of events can be distorted by reference to ” unquestionable facts” is shown in the case of the machine guns of Urfa. On the grounds of a testimony which he regarded as being first-rate beyond doubt, Baron Max von Oppenheim, in my presence, treated the use of machine guns (Russian?) by the insurgent Armenians in Urfa as proven and pursued threads to Wan and Russia. Count Wolfskeel, on the other hand, who had taken part in the repression of the insurgency, dismissed the story of the machine guns as a tale belonging to a fairytale world. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• Copy of a report from Urfa by the Deacon Künzler on occurrences there since the beginning of August up to the beginning of December. Even though it is true that the report tends to repeat some facts which are already known, it is worth repeating. In particular it becomes clear from this report that between 500 and 1000 Armenians had already been slaughtered before the battles began at the beginning of October. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• Apart from the case of Wan and its adjacent zone, particular caution is called for relative to the charge of a ”militarily organised plot”. Certain local insurrectionary movements cannot be treated as proof of such. For example, the fact that the revolt in Seitun cannot be singled out as a case of a conspiracy of that kind, is clearly evinced in the reports of the Imperial Consulate in Aleppo. Also the anger of the inhabitants of Fundadschak in August and that in Urfa in October was probably, as one would put it, ” militarily organised”, but locally restricted. It did not shape up as a by-product of a planned conspiracy, but developed on the spot spontaneously due to the threat of deportation. The uprising of the Armenians in the region of Suedije (to the south of Alexandrette) was, according to the descriptions even on the part of the Turkish military, not a conspiracy but, according to a Turkish admission, a spontaneous uprising, which was due mainly to the tactlessness of the Kaymakam of Latakije in the proclamation of the order for deportation. The recovery of the revolutionaries from Suedije by French warships was also not a long-planned act. This is apparent from the circumstances and the opinions of well-informed Turks. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Chapter 4: The Policy of the Final Solution

Germany was the closest ally of the Ottoman Empire. Contacts which took place almost daily between German diplomats and Turkish partners led to a series of references on the real reasons why the Young Turks wanted to destroy the Armenians as a nation, and their motives. They were also aware of efforts undertaken by the Young Turk leaders to hush up the reality of a planned genocide: by means of counter-orders which were obviously only meant as a deception, as far as simply denying the genocide.

(I) The Collision Course

It is not clear from the German diplomatic sources when the decision concerning the Armenian genocide was made by the Turkish leaders. However, the German sources did show the change towards an ultra-nationalistic policy.

1) The Policy of the Young Turks

The break from the mutuality with Armenian politicians to their persecution and murder was outwardly characterised by the assignment of reforms for the Armenian provinces which had been worked out by the Great Powers, especially Russia and Germany, in the embassy discussions in Constantinople. These reforms were to give the Armenians certain autonomous rights and, thus, protection against despotic acts by the Turkish administration, as had been common in the past. Ambassador Hans Baron von Wangenheim describes the termination of the contract with Hoff and Westenenk, politicians who were intended to become general inspectors for the Armenian provinces

• as a new link in that chain of government acts by which Turkey has lately self-confidently expressed its unlimited right of self-determination in all areas concerning its political system. [1915-02-02-DE-001]

• The government had now decided to put an end to the present situation whereby each religious community made their own special “politics” and could found and maintain special political associations for this purpose. In Turkey, only one “Ottoman policy” was to be pursued in future. [1915-04-30-DE-002]

• commented without reservation on the intentions of the government to use the World War to decimate its internal enemies - the local Christians of all confessions - without being hindered in doing so by diplomatic intervention from other countries. [1915-06-06-DE-012]

• The Vilayet Aleppo, particularly towns such as Aintab, are to be made Turkish again. [1915-08-27-DE-012]

• What is of crucial importance, is the calm and matter of course with which these persecutions take place. This shows a self-conceit which ridicules any outside interference. It was not the Armenians who evoked my intense interest in the causes and the consequences of the Turkish government’s actions to appear as a representative of law and humanity¸ but rather the Turkish senators of the local Senate: men of great service and immaculate character who felt extreme repugnance at acts, which their government carried out with unshakeable calm and as a matter of course. … On the 20^th of this month Hassan Fehmy Bey explained to me that Minister Talaat Bey wanted to see all Armenians removed from the Ministry of the Interior. … The Armenians have to be cleared out as they have a revengeful character and, as they are courageous, they are at the same time elements of potential danger to the state. … Consequently, in Turkey it is a resolved policy to remove the Armenians from all state departments and to further develop the Ottoman empire on a solid Turkish foundation. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• that the policy of a union and fusion of the various elements of the population which was originally adopted by the committee has “gone bankrupt”, and instead a “purge” of all the non-Mohammedan, i.e. Christian, elements in the empire should be contemplated. The article most likely gives a true impression of the convictions of the ultra-national circles. [1916-10-09-DE-001]

• take a new road towards a new goal. This necessity is based on the realisation that the familiar policy of unity among the elements of the population has gone bankrupt and that the era of purging has begun for our native country. [1916-10-09-DE-001]

• It is understandable that the evacuation and deportation of the Armenians, ordered for those compelling reasons given in the party’s report, are not a pleasant event for this people. [1916-10-09-DE-001]

• A large part of the Young Turkish Committee is of the opinion that the Ottoman Empire should only be built upon a purely Mohammedan, pan-Turkish foundation. Those inhabitants who are neither Mohammedan nor Turkish should be made to become so by force or, if that is not possible, annihilated. For these gentlemen, the present time seems to be the most suitable to put this plan into effect. The first item on their programme was the execution of the Armenians. [1916-12-04-DE-001]

• If we, the Turks, bleed to death in this battle for the existence of the Ottoman Empire, then there shall be no other nations in this empire either.” This remark by a Young Turkish politician characterises best the point of view held by the circles of the Young Turkish Committee. And the logical consequence of the weakening of pure Turkishness (the Anatolians), appearing more and more mainly because of a lack of organisation and foresight, is the violent annihilation of the other nations living in Turkey. [1916-12-04-DE-001]

• Revenge against the Arabs is also being considered, but the presently unfavourable military situation made it apparent that this was not yet the right moment. In the meantime, a suitable substitute was attempted by heavily recruiting Arabs and dispatching Arabian troops with the most inadequate equipment in climatically unfavourable areas (winter campaign 1914 Erserum, 1915 northern Persia). [1916-12-04-DE-001]

• a moderate tendency was gaining ground in influential circles, which, contrary to the inconsiderate nationalism of certain committee members, who did not even shy away from bloody acts of violence, demanded a sensible and tolerant internal policy for Turkey.... The Committee... at the beginning of its term of office, took up the cause of the union of all the different peoples living in Turkey in a spirit of free and voluntary collaboration within the state and was able at the beginning of its activities to unite almost all the dissenting elements - Arabs, Armenians and Greeks - if only for a short time. ... The wild, nationalist direction is of course not yet dead. The capable and reckless brains who are behind that direction, will not calm following their temporary defeat. ... But experience tells us that the watchword issued in Constantinople will be obeyed on the whole, and all the more so when the watchword is not the result of pressure on the central government from outside, but originates from a free decision of the Turkish rulers. [1917-02-16-DE-003]

• That the course of things, which could no longer be curbed, did not seem unwelcome to some of the Young Turkish rulers as a radical solution to the Armenian question, is unfortunately not improbable. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

Possibly, the deportation and extensive annihilation of the Armenians was decided upon by the Young Turks, but it was also supported by the Turkish military – if it was not actually, at least in part, the initiator, for example in the region of Erzerum. Although it also partly justified the deportations on the basis of military necessity, it went far beyond the necessary steps as far as open propagation of the annihilation of the Armenians. Because Erzerum was one of the most important, if not the most important regional centre of genocide, the German diplomatic reports on the role of the military go back at the beginning to the Administrator and Vice-Consul Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter who, as he himself was an active officer, was able to give authentic reports on the intentions of his Turkish colleagues.

Already before 24 April, Scheubner-Richter reports from Erzerum:

• Military authorities have ordered severe measures. [1915-03-03-DE-011]

• military circles who see the time ripe to settle scores with the Armenians. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• Measures on the deportation of the entire Armenian population in the local area … have been taken at the order of the Supreme Command of the Army and are being justified on the basis of military considerations. [1915-05-16-DE-011]

• Army Supreme Command … insisted and insists … on immediate deportation. The Wali was of the opinion that … the actual responsibility must fall to the military authorities. [1915-06-22-DE-014]

• The Commander-in-Chief has recently given orders that all Armenians are to be deported from Erserum. In my opinion, this order has no military justification and can only be put down to racial hatred … [1915-06-26-DE-013]

• Commander-in-Chief of the 3^rd Army, Mahmud Kiamel Pasha, who has relocated his headquarters here, is also interfering harshly in the government of the Vilayets. … [and] has ordered the immediate and most ruthless deportation of all Armenians. [1915-07-28-DE-015]

• his responsibility, but that of the army's Supreme Command and that he was at their command. Despite the well-known insecurity of the routes, they ordered the expulsion of the Armenians without sufficiently ensuring their safety. The Vali then promised to do his best to prevent any recurrences. He did, in fact, try to ensure the safety of the expellees, insofar as this was possible considering the opposing intentions of the committee and other leading personalities. But neither his influence nor his energy were sufficient to meet the resistance he met with both from the army's Supreme Command as well as from the committee in his endeavours to achieve this. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• The Commander-in-Chief, Kiamil Pasha, had given orders for the evacuation of the Armenian villages to the north of Erserum. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• Halil Bey arrived here yesterday with his staff. He himself is ill and must stay in bed for several days. A colonel from his staff just informed me that the Armenians in Mossul must also be massacred and it is his intention to do so. He will not be prevented from doing so, not even by me. [1915-11-04-DE-011]

• seemingly upon orders from the military. [1916-01-03-DE-011]

• The Wali sent the Police President to me to say that at the order of the highest Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Kiamil Pascha, respectively the military authorities all the Armenian women and children who are under our protection must be deported. [1916-02-10-DE-001]

1) Gains

The Armenians in Turkey were considered to be hard-working and rich. This stimulated the greed to enrich oneself at their expense. Although such gains are a little-known motive for the annihilation of the Armenians, they have been ascertained again and again by German observations.

An eye witness had reported to Roessler:

• Said, an immigrant from Tripoli, groom for Mr. Linsmeyer for the past 4 years, employed at a monthly salary of 400 piasters, volunteered for war service in order, as he said, to also be able to "slaughter" some Armenians. As his pay, he was promised a house in A., an Armenian village near Urfa. Two Circassians ... in Tell Abiad also volunteered for the same reason. The village elder in Tschadakli, a Circassian village near Goeksun, explained to an acquaintance of mine: Ew jikmak itschün giderler (they are going out there to ruin families). [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• purposes of the Armenian deportations: … the confiscation of Armenian property. [1915-12-21-DE-011]

• The women who arrived in Ras ul Ain had to undress completely several times during their journey before the eyes of the accompanying gendarmes. Their clothes were searched for money, even their hair and … private parts were examined to see whether they had hidden money there. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• German volunteer Schlimme ... saw for himself in Trapezunt how police officers in front of the police station took pitiful bundles away from the passing deportees. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• But prior to this, they had been plundered. I later learned from older policemen that the Kaimakam had taken his share of the loot. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• After the deportation, a large number of the Armenian homes were simply torn down by the population: first the windows, doors, stairs, etc. were hauled away ; later, the walls were torn down and all the wood that was in them was ripped out to be used as firewood. Even today, this wood is brought from the villages and offered for sale. [1917-05-23-DE-001]

• Amongst the arrivals there was not one who had rebelled against the government, but instead they were all from the better, wealthy people. ... they included people who had done everything to fulfil the wishes of the government and still they had to be deported, but why? Because they are wealthy! [1915-05-27-DE-001]

• The sale of any of their possessions was prohibited. Their shops and storerooms were to be sealed, all objects from their homes brought to certain places and placed under the supervision of the government. Money was to be brought to the post office for gradual forwarding at later intervals. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

• Things that had been left behind or even taken with them were confiscated by the escorting gendarmes and soldiers or stolen from the houses…. The authorities helped themselves at will to the possessions that had been left behind (houses, shops, goods, households) - in the Armenian church there were stocks to a value of about 150000 Ltq. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• The local committees of the Young Turks hope to gain extensive private profit from taking over the possessions of the deported Armenians and in view of the dependency of most administrative authorities from the Committee they will most certainly not have been wrong in their calculations. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

With little exception, public officials and police divisions are enriching themselves during the vacation of the Armenian houses in the most shameless way. [1915-08-27-DE-013]

Bergfeld speaks of the

• danger that the members of the Committee will take a fancy to such an effortless enrichment. [1915-08-27-DE-013]

• The return of the individuals in question to their homes was inadmissible, because they would no longer find their property there as the Liquidation Committee had meanwhile taken possession of it. [1915-12-27-DE-002]

• heavy losses which the creditors of the deportees are suffering and for which no-one who is familiar with the circumstances is seriously expecting any compensation from that famous liquidation law of 13. Eylul 331. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• ”It could have been expressed much more simply and clearly in two paragraphs, namely Paragraph 1) All of the Armenians’ goods have been confiscated. Paragraph 2) The government will collect the exiles’ claims and reimburse (or not reimburse) their debts. “ [1915-10-07-DE-002]

• According to the new law pertaining to abandoned possessions, the goods still withheld by the Armenians will no doubt be used by the bad Turkish elements as an opportunity to take possession of these goods and of the considerable fortunes of the Armenians at the same time. [1916-11-13-DE-001]

mainly to the resistance of those local circles who would suffer great losses of money if they disappeared. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

2) The Will of the Turkish Hardliners to Destroy

The elimination of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire could not have been achieved solely by means of goading peoples’ greed. Those responsible for the genocide went several steps further. They not only deported and killed those they suspected of resisting the authority of the state, of causing revolts and of treason, they also went as far as jointly and severally confining an entire people for the possible crimes of individuals.

Consul Roessler complained:

• The innocent should not be punished for the guilty. Enough misfortune has happened. It is time to stop. [1915-05-26-DE-012]

• I am convinced that the greater majority of the deportees is suffering innocently. ... The government also seems to be insisting on the archaic opinion that a whole people must be punished in solidarity for the deeds of an individual or of a few. For its punishments extend to destruction of the Armenians in whole districts. All Armenians with possessions, education or influence are to be removed so that only a leaderless herd is left behind. [1915-05-27-DE-001]

• However, the countermeasures taken - apparently valid for all Anatolian Vilayets - are of a severity and so conflicting with all humanitarian feelings that they cannot simply be treated with indifference: they involve nothing less than the destruction or enforced Islamization of a whole people, whose relatives for the greatest part did not even participate in the revolutionary movement and are therefore innocent victims themselves. [1915-07-16-DE-003]

• has sacrificed a magnitude of innocent people together with the few guilty ones. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• to be regarding the principle of taking revenge on the innocent for the deeds of the guilty, on whom one cannot, however, lay one’s hands, as being justified. For the Europeans this principle can only be explained by the fact that the Turks really do have concepts of decency and morality which in no way correspond to ours. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• explained that he was only able to respond to military considerations and that, at most, he was prepared to make an exception for those Armenians working for the Germans who were not related to the families of insurgents and who had no relevant social position. [1915-11-20-DE-001]

• Enver Pasha and Halil Bey ... take refuge behind the plea of necessities of war, that revolutionaries needed to be punished, and carefully evade the accusation that hundreds of thousands of women, children and elderly people are being driven into misery and ultimately to their deaths. [1915-12-07-DE-001]

• It had been impossible to single out any individual culprit from this mass. [1915-12-18-DE-001]

• In the course of the conversation a peculiar opinion was expressed by Talaat Bey, a viewpoint which I had already heard from his colleagues, saying that we in a similar situation would have acted in the same way to eradicate a revolutionary movement in Germany with force. I have continuously observed the total lack of understanding for the viewpoint that the innocent should not be hurt when pursuing the guilty and that only those found guilty of crimes should be punished. [1915-12-18-DE-001]

• les mesures de répression décrétés contre la population arménienne des provinces de l'Anatolie Orientale sont dictées par des raisons militaires et constituent un moyen de lé gitime défense. [“The measures of repression ordered against the Armenian population in the eastern Anatolian provinces are dictated by military reasons and constitute a means of legitimate defence.”] [1915-12-23-DE-001]

• It was not the nation as such which was guilty, but only a small minority. The Turkish government knows this just as well as everyone else in this country. [1917-07-14-DE-001]

• left large circles of its own people to the mercy of the anarchy of the masses aroused by racism and "the madness of retaliation". [1915-08-05-DE-002]

An eye witness reported to Roessler:

• A Turkish inspector said to me, ... "This time we have done our job on the Armenians in a way we have desired for a long time; out of every ten, we have not left nine alive." [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• 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]

• A train full of soldiers arrived. About 10 of the men were weak and ill. An Armenian doctor, who was treating them himself, declared them to be too exhausted and that he recommended sending those who were ill to Aleppo for a week for convalescence. Then a Turkish doctor came up and grumbled that the patients were just being lazy and that the Armenian only wanted to ruin the Turkish state. The army commander took his whip to the Armenian doctor and then ordered him to be tied up and brought to Aleppo. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• In November the women were deported 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.” [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• In addition there was of course the fanaticism of the Turks and their hatred. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

• longed-for goal, to a "solution" of the Armenian question. [1915-08-10-DE-001]

• openly admit that the final goal of their actions against the Armenians is their total annihilation in Turkey. After the war we will not have “any more Armenians in Turkey”, are the exact words of an eminent person. So long as this goal is not attainable through the various massacres, one hopes that the deprivation on the long journey to Mesopotamia and the unaccustomed climate there will finish the task. This solution to the Armenian question appears to be ideal for the hard-liners, to which almost all military and government civil servants belong. [1915-07-28-DE-015]

• a violent extermination policy, a forcible destruction of a whole people, [1915-08-10-DE-001]

• the way in which the resettlement is being carried out, shows that the government is indeed pursuing its purpose of eradicating the Armenian race from the Turkish Empire. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

• The signs are increasing that the government, either intentionally or unintentionally, is permitting the implementation of its measures to be taken off its hands and turned into the slaughter of the Armenians. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• According to statements made by the director of political affairs in the Vilayets ... these are to be left to themselves at their destination and " will all die"; in times of peace the government would have " perhaps" provided settlements … but now there is neither money nor officials to deal with the matter. In any case, everything and anything is missing for resettlement. [1915-10-18-DE-011]

• All steps taken in respect of the Armenians, as far as I could see and observe, led to the conclusion described to me by the Director of Emigrants, Schuekri Bey: “The final result must be the extermination of the Armenian race. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• Wali and Commissioner of Deportation are working relentlessly on the annihilation. [1916-02-10-DE-001]

• Eyub Bey, the former commissioner for the deportations in Aleppo (and who still holds a responsible position there today) is well-known for the statement ...: You still do not understand what we want: we want to obliterate the Armenian name for good and all. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

If the statements of the German diplomats and their informants on the individual aspects of the deportations already verify that the decimation resp. annihilation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was the main goal of the Young Turks, then the key quotations, including those of the German diplomats and observers, make it clear that, in their opinion, the deportations constituted genocide.

Scheubner-Richter from Erzerum:

• This large-scale deportation is tantamount to massacres, as due to the lack of any type of transportation barely half will reach their intended destination alive. [1915-06-02-DE-012]

• I am of the same opinion as all my colleagues, that the transport of women and children … borders on mass murder. [1915-06-29-DE-017]

• mass executions here and in the country’s interior. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

• that elsewhere there are plans to totally destroy the Armenians. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

• The destination of those exiled from Samsun is said to be Urfa, according to a statement by the Mutessarif. For sure no Christian Armenian will reach this destination. According to news from the interior, there are already reports of the disappearance of the deported population of whole towns.[1915-07-16-DE-003]

• wiping out the Armenian element [1915-07-16-DE-003]

• consciously aiming to achieve the downfall of the largest possible proportions of the Armenian people by using methods which are borrowed from antiquity [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• Reliable news which reach us here on the extermination of the Armenians in the east are atrocious. [1915-07-27-DE-011]

• the expulsion of the Armenians from the border areas ... has turned into a campaign of revenge, destruction and robbery against the Armenians. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• to culturally and economically annihilate and exterminate an entire race. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• I will disregard the fact that these measures by the government were carried out in such a way that they meant the absolute extermination of the Armenians. [1915-08-10-DE-001]

• mass deportation, in combination with the atrocities carried out on the part of Turkey. [1915-08-10-DE-001]

• The atrocities against the Armenians have taken on such an extent during the last few weeks despite our repeated representations that it now becomes our duty to express our definite disapproval of these occurrences. [1915-08-11-DE-011]

• systematic slaughter of the Armenian people who had been deported from their homes [1915-08-12-DE-001]

• extermination of the Armenians. [1915-08-12-DE-001]

• instead of being prevented by the local authorities, regularly accompanied the expulsion of the Armenians in such a way that most of them perished before they reached their destination. This refers in particular to the provinces of Trébizonde, Diarbékir and Erzéroum where the occurrences came to light; in certain places such as Mardin, all Christians, irrespective of their race or confession, have suffered the same fate. [1915-08-12-DE-001]

• method of killing the deportees on their journey. [1915-08-12-DE-011]

• based on the information which is still reaching us, the Armenians in the east have now [been] practically completely annihilated. [1915-08-15-DE-012]

The whole measure seems to be aimed at a complete extermination of the Armenians. [1915-08-21-DE-011]

Lieutenant Colonel Stange on the deportation of the Armenians from Erzerum, even though it was known that the deportation routes were unsafe, resp. that killer troops waited there for the Armenians:

• They were indeed meant to die. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• that hundreds and thousands were downright murdered ... that the evictions were carried out under inhumane conditions [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• a long-fostered plan to achieve the thorough weakening, if not the destruction of the Armenian people [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• Despite assurances by the Porte to the contrary, everything is being directed at the destruction of the Armenian people. [1915-09-25-DE-001]

• It is the government's endeavour to eliminate all the educated, wealthy and influential people and to leave nothing but the lowest level of society without a leader. This goal has already been reached in Marasch and Aintab, as in many other places. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• annihilation of the Armenian element. [1915-10-01-DE-004]

• The bloody measures, which have been taking place in the Asiatic part of Turkey, with no end in sight, have never occurred to such an extent in Turkey. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• So far the Armenians have been allowed to remain in the Vilayets of Smyrna and Adrianopel, likewise in part in Constantinople. In all the other provinces, the Armenians were exiled to Aleppo, Mosul, Zort and other places, destinations, which they did not arrive at. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• Today, victims are concerned in numbers unknown to a Turkish history, which is not lacking in incidents of acts of violence. That is the shattering truth. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• General conviction that all deportees will meet their death. [1915-10-18-DE-011]

• The complete removal of all Armenians from this country has been carried out. [1915-11-06-DE-011]

• These deportation measures have in reality taken on the character of a massacre of the greatest dimension. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• According to credible sources of information extermination is imminent if the inhumane measures, which the Armenians are subjected to, are not immediately brought to an end. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• the imminent extermination of the entire Armenian race. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• concerning the cruel treatment of the Armenians, and to make it aware of the disastrous consequences which will arise for the Turkish Empire should such a policy of annihilation be continued. [1915-11-12-DE-011]

• Colonel von Kress, Djemal’s Chief of Staff, tells me that the misery simply defies every description and transcends all accounts. [1915-12-07-DE-001]

• the ignominious expulsion of hundreds of thousands of the old, children and women will cast a long dark shadow over the Young Turkish history. [1915-12-09-DE-001]

• the expulsion of the Armenians mainly being terminated. [1915-12-27-DE-002]

• there is not much difference between the deportation of the Armenians and their extermination. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• The deportations from the actual Armenian Vilayets were usually carried out in such a brutal manner that only the wretched remains of a mountain people who were known to be strong and healthy actually arrived at the collection camps. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• the great economic losses ... as a result of the annihilation of the Armenians. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• the result meant the annihilation of the deportees, one way or another. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• this outrageous practice of murdering. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• the terrible methods applied in this country. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• that the real purpose of the Armenian deportations .. is the total extermination of the Armenian race. [1916-01-24-DE-001]

• the continual and gradual extermination of a large proportion of the Armenian population. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

• “Transfer of population” is the name given by the official report to this most terrible of all ways of dying! [1916-02-09-DE-001]

• It could be assumed that deportation is a milder form of punishment than murder. In fact, there is little difference between the former and the latter. [1916-03-03-DE-001]

• Those people have continued dying since then. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• were to be systematically exterminated. ... This cruel policy of extermination was a disgrace to Turkey. [1916-05-30-DE-001]

• The Turkish government has not been put off in the execution of its programme for settling the Armenian question by destroying the Armenian race. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• There was not one Armenian sound to be heard anywhere. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

• The new law dated 1 August of this year draws its conclusions from the government’s measures by which the Ottoman Armenians, as a nation capable of surviving, are to be annihilated: the destruction of the political community now follows upon the mass evacuations including the massacring of the men, the forced conversion to Islam of those left behind and the children, and the confiscation of wealth. [1916-08-23-DE-001]

• the last few pathetic Armenians consisting of women and children. [1916-09-25-DE-001]

• The fear I spoke of in my report from Erserum, namely that the evacuation of the Armenians would be tantamount to their annihilation resp. that this was the purpose behind it, has unfortunately turned out to be true. ... It would not be saying too much if I tell you that the Turkish Armenians, with the exception of several hundred thousand living in Constantinople and other larger cities, have been practically wiped out. [1916-12-04-DE-001]

• I believe that in terms of an overall outcome , the extermination policy has damaged the Turkish state. The atrocities of the Armenian campaigns will weigh heavily on the Turkish name for a long time to come. [1917-02-16-DE-003]

• that the execution of these deportation orders should lead to the destruction of a large proportion of the Armenian population. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

There are several statements on the number of deported and murdered Armenians, some of which only refer to certain sections. But they are useful for gaining an impression of the size which the observers on the spot perceived.

Consul Roessler reports:

• Number of Armenians killed in the east is now estimated by the local Armenians to be at least 2 and probably several hundred thousand. [1915-08-12-DE-011]

• the number of Armenians previously deported from western Asia Minor should amount to 40000. If they are now to be banned from large towns and the coastal strip of the Vilayet, this figure will increase to 150000. [1915-08-03-DE-011]

• The number of Armenians ... murdered probably already exceeds the amount of victims in the Young Turkish Massacre of 1909. [1915-09-10-DE-011]

• Whether the sacrifices endured by the Armenians exceed 500000 or fall short of it, is in principle of no importance. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• Of those deported women, children and elderly less than half are thought to have arrived at their designated destination. … Through means of slaughter at certain places along the route, through starvation and thirst, it appears that the number of deportees has been reduced to about half the original number.[1915-11-10-DE-011]

• It is not possible, naturally, to give exact details of the number of deportees or those slaughtered. According to the statistics of the Armenian Patriarchate the number of Armenians living in the Vilayets affected by the deportations amounted to 1200000. If one were also to assume that a part of the population were able to flee into the mountains and outlying districts and were, therefore, spared, one is still left with a sum of one million Armenian Christians affected by the deportations and slaughters, and without any differentiation between the confessions: Gregorians, Roman Catholics or Protestants. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

• of the deportation of ¾ million Armenians to the Mesopotamian desert. [1916-04-17-DE-001]

• We estimate the loss of human life among the Christians to be 1 ½ million. [1916-05-27-DE-001]

• if one .. estimates the total number of Turkish Armenians at 2.5 million and the number of deported at 2 million, and if the same relationship is assumed between the survivors and those killed as for Sister Rohner’s orphans, a figure of over 1.5 million killed and approximately 425000 survivors is reached. Previously, estimations of those killed have been between 800000 and 1 million and, considering the above, they do not seem to be exaggerated. [1916-10-04-DE-002]

• The losses to the Armenian people during the period since the deportation in the summer of 1915 until today have surpassed 2 million.. [1917-07-14-DE-001]

• As the Minister is well aware of the conditions in Turkish-Armenia due to his long-term stay there, I directed the conversation towards these. He said that before the war 2 million Armenians had lived in that particular area, in fact in all of Turkey, while now there were only ½ million residing in Constantinople, Aleppo, etc.; half a million had fled to Armenia, approximately half a million had been slaughtered (which he had partly witnessed himself), and approximately half a million were driven to Mesopotamia where almost all of them died. [1918-08-04-DE-001]

Even today, the Armenian genocide is denied by those affected, the Turkish government, but also by scientists. This is made easier for those who deny the genocide, at least it seems to be so, by orders and counter-orders given by the Ottoman leaders, who used this method as a general attempt to hush up the crimes they ordered to be carried out. The assessment of such orders is made difficult by the fact that, at least according to German sources, one of the most important members of the triumvirate did not completely support the official standpoint which was oriented towards the annihilation of the Armenians: the Minister of Naval Affairs and Supreme Commander of the 4^th Army, stationed in the south, Djemal Pascha.

Roessler reports that already before the beginning of the deportations on a large scale, Djemal Pascha had given orders

• that any Mohammedan who attacks an Armenian will be brought up before a court-martial. No one was to interfere in government matters. [1915-04-01-DE-011]

• Celui qui des muselmans pour n’importe quelle raison, attaque un arménien sera regardé comme un émeutier et sera remis sur-le-champ à la cour martiale. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• Recently, Djemal Pasha has given stricter orders again which are meant to avoid the slaughtering of the Armenians, and he has made a proposal to the government that similar orders also be given for the 3^rd Army’s sector. His area of command ends in the east at Urfa. Diarbekir belongs to the 3^rd Army. [1915-07-08-DE-012]

Mordtmann, the Armenian expert, notes after a discussion with Talaat:

• The Minister had not been informed in detail on the deportation of the Armenians from Marash and will inquire into the matter. [1915-05-26-DE-012]

• Although there were no signs of imminent excesses, I still mentioned to the local Vali in a friendly way the question of protection for the Christians in Trapezunt and surrounding areas. He gave me the most definite assurances that nothing would be undertaken against them as long as they behaved peaceably themselves and he showed me a telegram from the Minister of the Interior in which Tala'at Bey recommended the Armenians to be given special protection by the authorities. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

• Djemal Pasha’s orders are in contrast to this, but the Committee is in favour of it. [1915-08-12-DE-011]

• It is well known that Djemal Pasha has repeatedly given orders against such excesses, but that these orders are not always observed by other, irresponsible parties. [1915-08-14-DE-011]

• On the 2^nd of this month, Talaat Bey gave me the German translation of various telegraphic orders on the persecution of the Armenians which he sent to the provincial authorities concerned, copies of which are enclosed. With these, he wished to deliver proof that the central government is seriously attempting to end the riots, which have taken place against the Armenians in the heart of the country and to see to it that those who have been deported receive provisions during transport. [1915-09-04-DE-001]

• Today, Talaat Bey gave .. the enclosed orders. As soon as the wartime situation permits, he plans to travel to the province to supervise the conscientious compliance with the orders. [1915-09-04-DE-001]

• Today, Aziz Bey, the representative of Djanbulad Bey, informed me of the following at the Ministry of the Interior: ... If nothing is mentioned in the telegram concerning the return of those Catholics and Protestants who have already been deported, then this is because only some of them will be allowed to return, to avoid their gathering together again in larger groups in different localities. [1915-09-04-DE-001]

• The Porte has informed the consulate of the wording of the telegraphic instructions which were sent out (supposedly on 29 August) to various provincial governments, including that one, on the matter of the persecution of the Armenians. Basically, their message is: the mass evacuations are not for the purpose of exterminating the Armenians, but rather ensuring that certain elements which are enemies of the government are rendered harmless; the deported are to be protected and fed during transport; furthermore, those not yet deported as well as the soldiers' families, the Catholics and the Protestants, and craftsmen, insofar as they are indispensable, are no longer to be deported, as has previously been ordered; acts of violence against the deported will be legally punished and, in case of a repeated offence, the higher authorities will be called to account. [1915-09-04-DE-001]

• that a "clash" had taken place during the deportation of the Armenians from Angora. [1915-09-04-DE-001]

• The notification dated 29 August concerning the Armenians and given to the Imperial Embassy from the Porte is merely an audacious deception of the embassy, because, at the instigation of Inspector Ali Munif Bey, who was sent here, the Porte later completely revoked this order. The authorities, of course, are only carrying out the second instruction and continuing with the deportation. [1915-09-10-DE-011]

• directly contrary to the instructions recently given by the Ministry of the Interior which allowed us to hope that the persecution of the Armenians and the excesses related to this would now cease. [1915-09-11-DE-011]

• The Wali here understands the Porte’s instructions in the sense that only those Protestants and Catholics are no longer to be deported who have not yet been deported from their place of residence. [1915-09-12-DE-011]

• The interpretation of the Porte’s instructions by the authorities there is correct. The embassy was only given a German translation of the telegrams in question, which was unclear in places. [1915-09-12-DE-011]

• Further reports by the Imperial Consuls in Adana and Aleppo confirm that the well-known telegraphic instructions by the Porte for the improvement of the fate of the deported Armenians have on the whole not fulfilled their purpose due to the various exceptions to the privileges granted, which the Porte itself made at the beginning and later, and also due to the despotism of the provincial authorities. [1915-09-25-DE-001]

• The order given by the Porte to refrain from deporting those who were still in their homes is a complete illusion, as some of them can be termed as being suspicious and this is often used as an excuse. Contrary to the order, the families of soldiers are not being exempted. Also, the severely sick are being transported away mercilessly. [1915-09-25-DE-001]

• Talaat Bey, to whom I have pointed out these circumstances, has willingly offered his help; however, I can hardly believe that the orders of the Central Office will bring about any considerable improvement in the position of the deported Armenians. [1915-09-25-DE-001]

• Thus, it is understandable why Djemal Pasha issued a strict ban on photographing the exiles. In his report, a copy of which I obediently enclose and which he gave me to be used in strict confidence, he ordered that, to avoid punishment, all of the Baghdad railway's engineers are to hand over the prints, plates and films which they have. Photographing Armenians is to be considered the same as taking photographs of theatres of war without permission. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• La quatrième Armée ayant informée que certains Ingé nieurs et Employés du Chemin de Fer de Bagdad prennent les photographies de vue de transports des Arméniens, Son Excellence, Djémal Pacha, Commandant en Chef de l'Armée, a donné ordre afin que ces Ingénieurs et Employés remettent, de suite et dans le dé lai de 48 heures, au Commissariat Militaire tous les clichés des photographies avec toutes les copies qu'ils ont pris. Tous ceux qui ne remettront pas ces photographies seront soumis aux punitions et jugés comme ayant pris des photographies sur le champ de guerre sans autorisation. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• The Bishops from Konja and Ismid had sent a telegram to Enver Pasha from Eregli, asking for assistance regarding the expulsions of their Parochians. Enver Pasha replied, we have dispatched the Director for Emigration so that he can accommodate the Armenian refugees in the vicinity of their previous domiciles. The Director arrived in Eregli and explained to the Bishops that all those not accommodated had to be taken to Aleppo. When the Director was shown the telegram from Enver, he answered that it had indeed been Enver Pasha´s intention, but it was simply not possible. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The removal of the Armenians into the interior was necessary for military reasons and in the interest of Turkey’s self-preservation. If attacks had been carried out during this, they were most certainly disapproved of by the central government. Unfortunately, because of the large spatial distances and the primitive conditions of the empire, the central government was not always in a position to prevent clumsiness and carelessness in the lower authorities. [1915-10-01-DE-004]

• that he had to deny such questionable news; there were no massacres in Turkey. It could be inferred from this highly unsatisfactory answer that there were, in fact, riots in Djeziré and that the Porte believes that it can evade such unpleasant discussions by issuing a denial. [1915-10-15-DE-002]

• Turkish denials that no more deportations are to be undertaken, are worthless. [1915-12-07-DE-001]

• Today I discussed in great detail the situation of the Armenians with Talaat Bey. … He has taken extensive measures to feed the deported Armenian families. Crimes committed against Armenian property and person will be severely punished. Twenty people who had committed these crimes have recently been executed. [1915-12-18-DE-001]

• 1. with Enver Pascha, who confirms that no further measures will be taken against the Armenians. The expelled Armenians will be settled in towns. Freedom of religion is guaranteed. 2. with Talaat Bey (Minister of the Interior) … ; The Armenian churches will be re-opened. Settlement of the expelled Armenians in towns will be carried out in such a manner that they will be given at least the same amount of arable land as they owned previously. [1916-02-11-DE-001]

• As is known, I have repeatedly been given similar commitments by the Turkish ministers without being able to determine until now that such a commitment has been kept. [1916-02-11-DE-001]

• During my visit yesterday to the Supreme Porte, the Foreign Minister told me now, after consultation with Talaat, that the government, upon reports from the local Turkish authorities, recently ordered that some restless elements be removed. In their excessive eagerness, the local authorities had misinterpreted the order and taken measures to deport larger numbers of Armenians. It had now been ordered that absolutely no more Armenians in Konia, Angora, Aleppo, Aintab and Marash were to be deported. [1916-03-21-DE-001]

• This statistic on hand finally confirms the fact, also reported from other sources, that against the express orders of the central government the families of those men were deported who had been conscripted into military service. [1916-10-04-DE-002]

• The Turkish Imperial Gazette ( Takvimi-Vakaji ) has published … a provisional law by which the evacuated persons are to be given places of residence and estates free of charge in the towns they have been allocated to from the category of the vacant Evkaf and Miri estates for the purpose of their accommodation and settlement and to give them the means of supporting themselves. … The law is obviously in contradiction to the reports we have here on the treatment which those Armenians who were sent to Mesopotamia have been subjected to recently. [1916-10-20-DE-001]

• As I have heard in confidence, we can most certainly reckon with a stop to the deportation of the Armenians ... . It is said that the Armenians (although, however, this will not be enforced for some time yet) will be allowed to return to their old dwelling places, as long as these are not considered to be war zones. [1917-02-16-DE-003]

• Talaat Pasha confirmed to me in person that he plans to take a new line on all questions concerning the nationality policy. He had both the Catholic as well as the ecumenical Armenian patriarchs brought to him and informed them that the Armenian population could be sure that their constitutional rights would not be touched. What the previous government had been forced to put into action on the grounds of military necessity should, if possible, be rectified. Appropriate orders had been sent to all the provincial authorities. [1917-02-24-DE-001]

• I read in various German newspapers official Turkish denials of the atrocities committed against the Christians and am surprised at the naivety of the Porte in believing they can obliterate facts about the crimes by Turkish officials simply by telling downright lies. [1915-08-14-DE-012]

• The Turkish government has driven its Armenian subjects, the innocent ones, mark you, into the desert in thousands upon thousands, under the pretext of having to remove them from the war areas, exempting neither the sick nor pregnant women nor the families of conscripted men, has given them both food and water in insufficient quantities and irregularly, has done nothing against the epidemics which have broken out amongst them, has driven the women to such desperation that they set out their babies and newborns by the wayside, has sold their adolescent daughters, with the result that they have thrown themselves even with their small children into the river. It has left them to the mercy of their guards and therefore to dishonour; an escort which dragged away the girls and sold them. It has driven them into the hands of the Bedouins, who have plundered and kidnapped them. It has had the men illegally shot in lonely places and has the bodies of its victims fed to the dogs and birds of prey. It is supposed to have arranged for the murders of the representatives whom it had sent into exile. It has released prisoners from the prisons, put them in soldiers’ uniforms and sent them to the areas where the deportees would be passing through. It has called up Circassian volunteers and set them onto the Armenians. But what does it offer as semi-official explanations? "The Ottoman government ... is extending its benevolent protection to all honest Christians living peacefully in Turkey ..." I was not able to believe my own eyes when I saw this explanation and I can find no words to describe the depth of this untruth. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

Chapter 5: Those Responsible for the Genocide

Who was the driving force behind the Armenian genocide? The German diplomatic sources seldom go into this directly. But there are a number of references, some of them hidden, which show who the German observers considered to be the initiators of the deportations and the annihilation of the Armenians. Sometimes there is just talk of “from above”, sometimes of the “ government”, but for the most part of the Young Turk Party (“Ittihad ve Terakki”), i.e. the “Union for Unity and Progress”, or generally of the Young Turk “committees” or “clubs”.

(I) The Initiators

1) The Leadership in Constantinople

The German observers or their informants often did not know who exactly issued the orders, when they wrote ”from above“ or “from Constantinople“. They then often indicated “the government”, although especially in the case of the observers in the provinces it was not always clear whether they actually meant the government as such or simply the leaders. Thus, the team of leaders of the Young Turks, the radical wing of the party, the triumvirate Talaat, Enver and Djemal, or only one of them are sometimes concealed behind the “government”. The decisive factor was that these were orders, instructions or directives “from above”.

Roessler reported that the Vali from Aleppo, Djelal Bey, had said to him

• that apparently in the Turkish government apparently a current is gaining the upper hand which is inclined to consider all Armenians as suspicious or even hostile. He thinks of this development as a misfortune for his fatherland [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• The local Vali simply refers to instructions from Constantinopel. [1915-06-27-DE-013]

• coarse action, which the government not only tolerated but apparently supported. [1915-08-12-DE-001]

• Armenians ordered to be murdered. [1915-09-10-DE-011]

• A Turkish officer, who, because of these occurrences, was taking the Kaymakam of Ras ul Ain to task, received the calm answer that he was acting on orders. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• The orders for the expulsion of the Armenians had come from Constantinople. [1916-11-13-DE-001]

• The steps taken against the Armenians have been done so upon orders from Constantinople. [1916-11-17-DE-001]

In many cases, however, the references to “above” definitely concern the Young Turk Party itself, the committees and the clubs. Vice-Consul Scheubner-Richter reported on the “purging of the Erserum plain” by “irregulars”, as he calls them:

• The Armenian population maintains that the Turkish party “Ittihad” instigates this movement. [1914-12-30-DE-001]

• The clubs affiliated with the Comité Union et Progrès, in which many dishonest elements are said to be present. It is said that these clubs, in particular the one in Erzerum, have set up formal proscription lists, and a series of political murders which were committed on various respected Armenians since December of last year are attributed to their activities. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• confirms the activities of the Committee in Erzerum; the conscription list includes the names of 22 Armenians. [1915-04-26-DE-011]

• between Mamachatun and Ersindjan he met a gang of about 400 men with French-speaking leaders, who seemed to be waiting for the Armenians from Erzerum. [1915-07-02-DE-011]

• larger bands of ambushers under French-speaking leaders have been seen near Erzerum and Baiburt. ... Without being able to produce any evidence for my opinion, I cannot help thinking that the Young Turkish Committee can be regarded as the driving force behind the measures being taken against the Armenians. The Central Committee seems to want to finally put an end to the Armenian question in this way. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

• On the 8^th inst., Mr. von Scheubner sent a telegram from Erzerum that, according to the latest news from Baiburt, Erzindjan and Tershan, the Armenian massacres habe begun there once again. He is of the opinion that these atrocities by the committee, whose members there play a fateful role as co-government, are being supported under the connivance of the authorities. [1915-07-09-DE-001]

• was suddenly put to an end through some sort of influence by the committee. [1915-07-28-DE-015]

• In the local committee, though, it was a small group of fairly inferior individuals who terrorized the others and who, motivated by their personal interests and greed, preached a campaign of destruction against the Armenians. ... Unfortunately, [the influence of these men ]... is stronger than one is generally prepared to believe. ... the way in which the Armenian question was handled has shown clearly what a dangerous instrument governmental power is in the hands of people who are not prepared to act responsibly and who have only their own interests at heart. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• a very respected and influential Bey, added that although Armenian massacres had taken place formerly, they were generally restricted to battles amongst the men, but that now, against the instructions in the Koran, thousands of innocent women and children were being murdered. This was not being done by enraged mobs, but systematically and by the order of the government, "the committee", as he added with emphasis. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• The expulsion and destruction of the Armenians was decided on by the Committee of the Young Turks in Constantinople, was well organised by them. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• Although the Vali from Trapezunt is a member of the Young Turk Committee, he endeavoured to keep his independence and to lessen the measures against the Armenians as far as possible. His influence was probably responsible for the recall of the local inspector and leader of the Committee, Nai Bey, which has meanwhile been carried out. Unfortunately, he receives no support whatsoever from his officials and the police divisions. [1915-08-27-DE-013]

• I am not expecting success of any kind from the steps taken by the Vali, who is powerless against ... the Young Turk Committee. [1915-09-09-DE-011]

• the local committee leader, Ismail Safa, threatened general massacres if the Armenians were not deported. [1915-09-10-DE-011]

• It seems reasonable to suspect that the assault (of which Dr. Djilinguirian was the victim) was ordered by the leaders of the Committee and tolerated, if not aided and abetted by the authorities. But based on the situation it is not possible to furnish positive evidence for this, nor will the proceedings which have been initiated against the murderers shed any light upon this matter. [1915-10-05-DE-011]

• The Vali has declared for his own justification that the Young Turkish Committee in Smyrna was becoming more and more dissatisfied with his leniency towards the Armenians and therefore his position in Constantinople was shaken. [1916-11-13-DE-001]

• I knew that he did not condone the rigorous measures of the other committee members. [1916-12-04-DE-001]

• rigorous attempts of the Young Turkish Committee [1916-12-04-DE-001]

• to a reversal and to a complete victory of the stance of the advocates of Turkish nationalism within the Committee. The vast destruction of the Armenians which was carried out on a vast scale ... is the result of this political direction. [1917-02-16-DE-003]

• The Vali told me in confidence that he had enforced the rules in agreement with the Minister Talaat Bey and other significant persons (committee members). [1916-11-17-DE-001]

In the opinion of German observers, Minister of the Interior Talaat was, in fact, the person chiefly responsible for the genocide. Consul General Schmidt from Jerusalem reports that the Minister of Naval Affairs and associate in the triumvirate, Djemal, said about Talaat:

• Talaat Bey decides how far the deportation should be extended. [1915-09-09-DE-012]

• Talaat is extreme. What he wants has up until now happened. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The brain behind the deportation of the Armenians is Talaat Bey. [1915-12-07-DE-001]

• An official reason for carrying out the expulsion of the Armenians was the uprising in Wan. A man like Talaat Bey, possessing such an iron will, tends towards the most extreme measures when he believes them to be right. He will not let himself be influenced by anyone and favours any kind of report if it brings him closer to his goal. For this man the expulsion of the Armenians after the uprising in Wan became a necessity. The resulting injustices and hardships are of no importance. Talaat Bey is the optimist par excellence, especially regarding his own decisions. In the same way as he gives commands he accepts all complaints quite indifferently. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The deportations were a means of protecting the Armenians from worse, namely massacres. [1915-05-29-DE-011]

• the measures against the Armenians had, anyway, been stopped. “The Armenian question no longer exists.” [1915-08-31-DE-011]

• Only the deportation of the whole could ensure security. [1915-12-18-DE-001]

On the other hand, there were also Turkish statesmen at the top level who obviously disapproved of the Armenian genocide. One of these was the President of the Chamber, Halil Bey, who according to Ambassador Hohenlohe-Langenburg seems not to condone the government’s actions against the Armenians and

• maintained that the massacres and other atrocities were not approved by the government, but the government was not always in a position to prevent the excesses of the masses, also that the subordinated authorities had made mistakes in carrying out the deportation measures. [1915-08-12-DE-001]

Grand Vizier Halim was also opposed to the deportations, according to evidence given by the German diplomats. Wolff-Metternich:

• On this occasion I intentionally raised official protests with the Grand Vizier and not with a member of the triumvirate as it is known to me that he disapproves of the Armenian persecutions. [1915-12-09-DE-001]

• had not been in agreement with the treatment which the Armenian population had received. [1915-12-09-DE-001]

The Minister of Naval Affairs, Djemal Pasha, was obviously more difficult to judge. Ambassador Paul Count Wolff-Metternich about him:

• Djemal Pasha, who also belongs to those Turks who are ashamed, had up until now met with resistance in the Committee to the fulfilment of his wishes. Recently, however, as has been communicated to me by his Chief of Staff, Colonel von Kress, they have now been granted. [1915-12-09-DE-001]

• Djemal Pasha, the highest commanding officer in the 4^th Army Division, was not personally in favour of destroying the Armenians. His willpower was not strong enough to put a stop to it all, but it is a relief to be able to note a conciliatory gesture just once within this appalling picture. ... If the conditions among the ranks of the 4^th Army, although they are bad enough, still cannot compare with those of the 3 ^rd Army, then, besides the differences caused by the geographical and political situation as well as by the varying conditions of the communication routes, the influence of Djemal Pasha can also be taken into account. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• told me in confidence that he personally would like to relieve the lot of the Armenians within the scope of his possibilities, but that he had received strict orders from Constantinople to prevent any German and American participation in assistance for the Armenians, because the Armenians’ inner resistance against the Turkish government could only be overcome if they were taught that they could not expect any support whatsoever from any foreign government. [1916-03-29-DE-002]

• I pointed out the anti-Armenian atmosphere among the leading committee members in Constantinople, against which even Djemal Pasha was seemingly no match. [1916-05-30-DE-001]

a) The Agitators

The German consuls and observers knew more about those with whom they often worked together on a daily basis than about those responsible far away in Constantinople.

General Posseldt, the German commander of the fortress in Erzerum, reports:

• The head behind this anti-Armenian movement is said to be a certain Schakir Bey ..., his acolyte Halil and the Director of Police in Erzerum. [1915-04-26-DE-011]

• Hilmi Bey, Schakir Bey, the Member of Parliament for Erserum, Seyfoulla Bey; also here in office: the Vali, Tahsin Bey, the Director of Police, Choulousse Bey, and finally Mahmud Kiamil Pasha, who, besides the Director of Police, had proven to be the most brutal in executing the orders. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• A special official for the implementation of the government’s policy against Armenians, Eyub Bey, has been sent to Aleppo, where he is directly answerable to Fakri (Bey) Pasha. [1915-06-03-DE-011]

• that only the Vali of Diarbekir was responsible. [1915-06-10-DE-011]

• Le Vali de Diarbékir, Réchid bey a dans les derniers temps organisé des massacres en règle parmi la population chré tienne de sa circonscription, sans distinguer les Arméniens des Chrétiens appartenant à d’autres confession, et sans se soucier s’il s’agit de coupables ou d’innocents. A ce propos on rapporte le fait suivant, qui s’est passé tout dernièrement: Sur les ordres de Réchid bey des gendarmes de Diarbékir se rendirent à Mardine et y arrêtèrent l’évê que Arménien avec un grand nombre d’Arméniens et d’ autres Chrétiens, en tout sept cent personnes; tout ce monde fut conduit pendant la nuit à un endroit hors de la ville et égorgé comme des moutons. Le nombre total des victimes de ces massacres est é valué à 2000 âmes. [1915-07-12-DE-012]

• The Vali of Diarbekir, Reschid Bey, is causing havoc like an eager bloodhound amongst the Christians of his Vilayets [1915-07-10-DE-011]

• Everyone knows that the Vali of Diarbekir, for example, is the instigator of the terrible crimes committed on the Christians in his Vilayet. [1915-08-14-DE-012]

• The worst seems to have happened in the Vilayet Diarbekir, of which the Vali Reschid Bey ... has declared publicly that he will tolerate no Christian in his Vilayet. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• tried at the beginning to protect the Armenains but was then ordered to Constantinople, and since his return has been relentlessly against the Armenians. [1915-08-21-DE-011]

• Early Wednesday, she went to the Mutessarrif, Servet Bej, to secure protection and a reprieve for the institution and its occupants. The Mutessarrif, an intimate friend of Enver Pasha, conducted himself like a man possessed and rejected the requests brusquely. [1915-11-06-DE-012]

• He introduced himself to me as an opponent of the deportation of the Armenians. ... On the other hand, Mr. B., who is considered to be absolutely reliable, told me the Kaymakam had said in his presence he could watch for hours on end the Armenians ”dying wretchedly”.
• He introduced himself to me as an opponent of these deportations of the Armenians. … On the other hand, Mr. B., who can be considered to be absolutely reliable, told me the Kaymakam had said in his presence he could watch the Armenians ”dying wretchedly” for hours on end. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• The Kaimakam actually declared one day: “My heart is not as sensitive as that of the Europeans; it doesn’t bother me to watch these people dying.” [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• At the beginning of August, two Beys arrived from Diarbekir. ... Chalil and Ahmed Bey ... gave the order to begin a massacre. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• including Dr. Fuad, whom I knew to be one of the instigators of the Armenian massacres in Vilayet Trapezunt. [1916-12-04-DE-001]

There were several higher provincial officials who opposed the annihilation of the Armenians or at least attempted to alleviate the fate of the deportees. The most well-known among the Valis who refused to take part in the murder of the Armenians was the Governor General of Aleppo, Djelal Bey, who was relieved of his duties because of his mild policies.

Consul Roessler from Aleppo:

• Thus, the Vali Djelal Bey is eliminated; the government knows that he favours a milder policy. [1915-06-03-DE-011]

• Djelal Bey, the Vali from Aleppo, has received orders to change places with the Vali from Angora. The reason for his being relieved of his duties is the Armenian policy. Until now, the Vali had not banned any Armenians from the Vilayet Aleppo and had vouched that they would remain calm. Obviously, government also wants to have a free hand here. [1915-06-21-DE-013]

• Tahsin Bey, the Vali, has done his utmost to prevent slaughters from being carried out. [1915-04-26-DE-011]

• due to his previous involvement in Van, has valuable experience in the handling of the Armenian question and ... has a moderate point of view. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• He admitted that the events were ignominious. [1915-06-22-DE-014]

• The credit for this proper transportation of the Armenians from Erzerum obviously goes to the Vali there, Taxim-Bey. [1915-11-06-DE-011]

• I have expressed my deepest abhorrence against these crimes to the local government; the local Vali expresses his regret. [1915-06-10-DE-011]

• Vali Heidar Bey, who was reliable in such matters and did not wish the Armenians any harm, has meanwhile been relieved of his post. [1917-08-15-DE-001]

• The Valis of Smyrna, Rahmi Bey and from Adrianople, Hadji Adil Bey, explained that they did not wish to expel the Armenians. After arriving to give their reports to the Minister both stuck to their decisions. Also a sign of inconsistency in the Committee. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Holstein reports from Mossul:

• Recently, at the order of the Vali from Diarbekir, the Kaymakam from Midiat (a Moslem) was murdered, because he had refused to allow Christians in his district to be massacred. [1915-07-16-DE-012]

• As has only belatedly become known here, two Mutesarrifs from Mardin were removed from office, because they refused to carry out the government's orders against the Armenians. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• The Kaymakam of Sharkyschla has in the meantime been arrested and taken to Constantinople. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The Mutesarrif Suad Bey, a humane kind of person, who has lived for many years in Egypt, is one of the few Turkish officials, who tries to mitigate the horrific orders of the government in their implementation. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

Those who implemented the genocide were recruited from various fields. On the one hand, the lower officials from the provincial authorities were possible executives. Furthermore, soldiers are mentioned in several reports who took part in the deportations and acts of annihilation. In principle, the gendarmes, who are mentioned in many reports as escorts, were responsible for national security. Like the soldiers, it would have been their job to escort the deportees and, thus, to protect them. But generally they merely drove the defenceless Armenians further along, often using brutal methods, and also took part directly in acts of killing, as is made evident in the German sources. The fourth decisive party were special troops, made up partly of volunteers and partly of recruited prisoners. In some reports they are called “ Djettes” (spelled in various ways) or, according to the old name used in the 19^th century, “Bazibazuks”, but also “irregulars” or simply “volunteers”. In several cases, these special troops also appeared as ethnic groups: as “Ashirets”, Kurdish militia, or simply in the form of ethnic groups, Kurds especially and Circassians.

1) Government Agencies

References to the complicity of lower officials are seldom, because it was often a problem to identify them, but there are references to government agencies in general in several places, although just which government agencies are meant remains open.

Consul Roessler reports on corpses “all bound together in the same way, two by two, back to back”, which floated for more than three weeks on the Euphrates river:

• This regularity indicates that they were not the result of butchery, but had been killed intentionally by the authorities. Rumour has it, and this is probable, that the bodies had been thrown into the river in Adiaman by soldiers. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• Up to now the world has not experienced such atrocities which have been proven to be and are still being committed by officials in the Vilayet Diarbekir! [1915-08-14-DE-012]

• Thoughtlessness, lack of foresight and harshness on the part of the higher authorities and the brutality of the lower authorities work together so that the banned Armenians are, in part, not treated like human beings. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• It was imprudent of our Mr. Ehmann to attach any importance whatsoever to the word of honour of a Turkish official. [1915-12-12-DE-002]

• the deliberate and intentional destruction of the deportees by Turkish state organs. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• fact that has already been related frequently and just been confirmed once again, that the governmental organs have ordered and encouraged people to participate in the persecution of the Armenians ... [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• The deportation office has been disbanded. But in my opinion it would be wrong to assume from this that the government is in a more conciliatory mood towards the Armenians. Rather, this hardhearted work has practically been completed. The normal administrative authorities are sufficient for the epilogue. [1917-03-16-DE-001]

According to German sources, both Turkish officers and men also played a role in the implementation of both the deportations as well as the acts of annihilation. Naturally, the German diplomats are careful in matters of a military nature, because during a major war they were required to stay out of all military affairs. However, the sources also give references here to the entanglements of the Turkish military in the genocide.

Blank, the German missionary, reports on an officer who instructed his subordinates:

• If one of them put up any resistance or should run away, they should shoot him down immediately. If not, the other would do this to him. [1915-05-27-DE-001]

• having learned from a reliable source that the Armenians who were deported from Ersindjan were massacred by soldiers in the hills behind Ersindjan. [1915-07-02-DE-011]

• It has been proven that these murders on the part of the Kurds were carried out in the presence of the armed forces of the Turkish government, but probably even with their active participation. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• I have been informed by reliable sources that the Turkish military ... were involved here. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• In the Tscharschi even soldiers themselves were selling the belongings of the deportees. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

• led aside into the mountains and massacred with the help of military troops. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• with … the participation of the military. [1915-09-11-DE-011]

• Halil’s troops which massacred in the north. [1915-11-04-DE-011]

• There, the soldiers who supervised the railway had murdered and plundered all the Armenians who had settled near the railway. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

• These people, who were transported in two days from Damascus to Ras ul Ain and who, as it can be presumed, did not know anything about the plight of the deported Armenians and therefore had not been influenced in any way, were quite horrified upon their arrival. They were of the opinion that the Armenians had been massacred by soldiers. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

• A transport of 500 - 1000 had to collect 100 - 200 Lira in one night, if they were to see the morning at all – this was the threat expressed by the cruel soldiers! ... It was a dazzling series of robberies and murders on the part of the police and soldiers! [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Generally, the deportation trains were accompanied by gendarmes. This police, responsible for national security, had once been well trained by the French, but then often had to take over other duties. The quality of the new appointments was quite miserable. Vice-Consul Scheubner-Richter writes that they

• mainly consist of completely untrained people who run away. [1915-06-22-DE-014]

• When I gave them some they were beaten by the gendarmes. ... [and ] were also in a miserable state and were treated by the gendarmes like animals. ... The gendarmes accompanying us ... suggested several times that the Armenians should be massacred. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• that many women were raped and killed, especially by the gendarmes accompanying them. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• Turkish ... gendarmes were involved . [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• In most cases, the men were killed by gendarmes. [1915-08-12-DE-011]

• Using whips, the gendarmes drove the wretched, emaciated creatures, many of whom had a death-look about them, through the streets of Aleppo to the train station without permitting them to drink a drop of water or to receive a piece of bread here in the town. … Two women fell down to give birth and were only protected from being whipped by the gendarmes by town dwellers, who rushed to help them. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

• during his journey from Mossul to Aleppo, the people have been exhorted by gendarme patrols from Diarbekir and Mardin to ”finish off” the Armenians. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• Defenceless and exhausted women and children are being beaten by gendarmes with whips and clubs. Scenes such as these have often been observed before quite often and have now been confirmed to me again by a German officer who has come from that direction and who has seen the misery with his own eyes. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

• Many Armenians had gone into hiding in the homes of Arabs. The gendarmerie has been ordered to search for them in regular manhunts. Those hunted down are to be loaded into barges on the Euphrates and brought to Der-es-Sor. [1916-08-29-DE-001]

Soldiers and gendarmes could, at least, be recognised because of their uniforms. Special organisations, on the other hand, acted in as secretive a manner as possible. Neither their social nor their ethnic origin were easy to recognise. Nevertheless, there are also references to them in the German sources, sometimes obliquely referred to as gangs or Tshetes. The first references came from the victims themselves. Wangenheim wrote that the Armenian side held the following groups responsible for the occurrences:

• The irregulars and bands of marauders organised in military fashion and bearing the title Militia; these are being blamed for numerous plunders, murders, for robbery and other acts committed against the Armenian population of the country. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• In fact, between Erzinghian and Diarbekir Armenians have been massacred on the mountain road, allegedly by Kurds, and larger bands of ambushers ... have been seen near Erzerum and Baiburt . After all it is remarkable that in that area, which up to now was considered safe, such large bands can be formed. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

• has called up Circassian volunteers and set them onto the Armenians. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• The militia and gendarmes have at least tolerated the massacre and probably taken part in it. Replacements (released prisoners) including their officer have spoken happily of massacres between Nisibin and Tell Ermen and have completely plundered an Armenian village, the inhabitants of which were massacred. [1915-07-09-DE-001]

• has released prisoners from the prisons, put them in soldiers’ uniforms and sent them to the areas where the deportees would be passing through. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• It is definitely a fact that these Armenians, almost without exception, were murdered in the region of Mamachatun (Tertjan) by so-called “Tschetes” ; (volunteers), Ashirets and similar scum. These acts were, in fact, tolerated by the military escort cadres, were even accomplished through their assistance. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• was well organised … and carried out with the help of members of the Army and of voluntary bands. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• gangs of … have massacred the entire Christian population of the town of Djeziré (Vilayet Diarbekir) with the tacit connivance of the local authorities and the participation of the military. [1915-09-11-DE-011]

• The tchetes, the old bazibazuks from the war of 1877/8, were found once again where easy spoils and murder were to be had without any risk involved. As brave and humane in thought as the Turkish soldier is when he is not spurred on by religion, so cowardly is the irregular. It will certainly be claimed that the tchetes were instigated and led by Young Turks. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The women carried what they could hurriedly collect together. The tchetes followed this caravan of defenceless people and robbed, raped and murdered as they pleased. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• The prerequisite for effective aid is that the deportees are first definitely permitted to remain in towns to be determined, and not, as has happened until now and is still constantly happening, restlessly sent hither and thither at the discretion of whichever Turkish “special organisation” is dealing with those matters in a very unscrupulous manner. [1916-06-23-DE-001]

The German observers noted in several places that the liquidation of the Armenians was also condemned by many Turks. In his report on the events in Zeitun, i.e. before the quasi-official beginning of the deportations, Consul Roessler wrote that the initiators of a plan to deport all the Armenians from Zeitun and to raze the town

• put pressure upon the rich Armenians in Marasch to sign this telegram. But they refused by asking to have it shown to the Mutesarrif first. The Mutesarrif objected to it, as did the Mufti of Marasch. [1915-04-12-DE-001]

• had not met with the approval of many Turks. Some told me directly that it was incorrect to behave like this towards the poor people, but, they said, from our side we can do nothing about it. [1915-05-27-DE-001]

• In honour of the Turkish population on the whole it must be said that very many Turks are not in agreement with the expulsion of women and children. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

• our Koran does not allow the sort of treatment that the Armenians are having to tolerate at present. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• The Turkish people themselves are by no means in agreement with this solution to the Armenian question and across the country they are now already experiencing the severe economic consequences of the deportation of the Armenians. [1915-07-28-DE-015]

• Nor is this policy of extermination approved of by large circles of the Turkish population who still think reasonably, especially by the landowners. These circles, which have worked together with Armenians and gotten along well with them, recognise the great economical and political danger of this new " system towards a solution of the Armenian question". [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• A Turkish lieutenant colonel, who had served in the Dardanelles and was in the capital city on a short holiday, tearfully described what his relatives from Trapezunt and Siwas had related to him concerning the Turkish massacres of the Armenians. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

• there are still people who are ashamed of the Armenian persecutions among the older Turks. [1915-12-09-DE-001]

• all kinds of Muslim voices can be heard condemning the atrocious acts, particularly those against women and children, as a sin against the commandments of Islam. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• This cruel policy of extermination ... would greatly harm Turkey after peace had been achieved. [1916-05-30-DE-001]

Chapter 6: The Role of the Germans

In the documents published by Lepsius, many of those places have often been abridged in which the role of the Germans in the genocide was described in a negative manner. Other documents in which the Germans are portrayed unfavourably were not even included in the collection of documents. Thus, a chapter on the Germans and the Armenian genocide which is based on the documents published by Lepsius has only a limited significance and must, of necessity, be incomplete. Only after the planned publication of all of the German documents on genocide by the Foreign Office can a more extensive chapter be written on this problem area.

(I) Germany and the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire

1) Antipathy of the Armenian Population towards Germany

Similar to the majority of the Young Turks, the Germans also largely met with indifference or even antipathy from the Armenians. This critical attitude towards Germany had its roots in the persecution of the Armenians from 1894 to 1896, when the German Empire sided with Sultan Abdul Hamid.

After the fighting in Zeitun, Germany’s consul in Aleppo, Walter Roessler, noticed in the northern area of his working district an

• acute antipathy towards Germany shown also by most of the Armenian inhabitants of Marasch. [1914-10-16-DE-001]

• unfavourable mood of the Armenian population of those territories towards the German cause. [1914-12-29-DE-001]

• the Armenians in his district are afraid that in case of a German victory the existence of the Armenian people on Turkish ground will be annihilated, because Germany supported and even encouraged the Turkish government during the persecution of the Armenians. [1914-12-29-DE-001]

• The Patriarch avoided talking in detail about the Armenians’ unfavourable sentiments toward Germany and the underlying reason, but he meant that German politics under the rule of Abdul Hamid, which is viewed by the Armenians as hostile, was led by other considerations and that presently, due to different circumstances, there is no reason to reflect on the past and its occurrences. [1914-12-29-DE-001]

• The above statements of the Patriarch should be taken as more or less correct and sincere. ... But it seems impossible to influence the broad masses of the Armenian population in a pro-German direction through the medium of the Patriarchate. [1914-12-29-DE-001]

• The interpretation given to the Turkish actions in Dörtjol is indicative of the feeling of the Armenians against Germany. It is said that a German, who pretended to be English, visited the villages in that area and told the Armenians that they, the English, intended to occupy this area; what would the Armenian reaction be? They answered “of course”, nothing better could happen to them. The German reported this to the Turkish authorities. ... This shows once again how deeply rooted the mistrust of the Armenians against Germany is, since friendship for Turkey is automatically interpreted as enmity against the Armenians. [1915-03-07-DE-011]

• German influence on the Armenians was negligible until now. Only a small fraction of educated Armenians were aware of Germany... . When the war began, the Armenian population even had doubts whether the Germans were “ Christians” since they had allied themselves with the Turks. The fact that Germany was already a friend of the absolutist regime in Turkey, under which the Armenians had suffered considerably, still fills them with distrust. The responsibility for the war is attributed also to the influence of Germany and the economic losses resulting from Germany’s influence are particularly annoying to a people which is very keen on preserving and augmenting its possessions. Furthermore remarkable is the fact – as also noted in other countries – that we have few Armenian friends among those who were educated in Germany or received their education through German missionaries. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

• Shortly after Turkey had entered the war on our side, in October 1914, we already received the news from the Consul in Aleppo, ... that a considerable hatred of the Germans was apparent in the Armenians. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

Contrary to the simple people, the Armenian clergy searched for a certain protection among their German fellow clergymen for reasons of political survival. The Consul of Erzerum at that time, Edgar Anders, reported after a visit to Etchmiadzin that the Catholicos, Kevork V, was already pleased before the war that Germany had set up a consular representation in Erzerum. Anders:

• He has high hopes that this measure will be greatly to the advantage of his – as he expressed it – ”poor, suppressed brothers in faith under the yoke of the Turks”. His Holiness requested that I look after the Armenians in Vilayet Erserum, insofar as my official competence permits. … He hopes that the Imperial government will continue to protect the Armenians, particularly in the area covered by the Baghdad Railway, and hopes that the extension of the railway will bring great advantages in terms of civilisation and culture to the Armenians residing there. [1913-09-26-DE-001]

• The Archbishop spoke to me of his hope that a German representation would be set up in Mezere which could also watch benevolently over the fate of the Armenians. The American consul took an alien attitude towards his parish. [1914-07-10-DE-001]

• to recommend that the Armenian population in the war-torn border provinces be protected by the German military and consuls stationed there. [1915-02-22-DE-001]

• that the war required great sacrifices from all parts of the population and hardships could sometimes not be avoided, particularly in the actual war-zones, but that as far as was feasible the German public authorities would look after the Armenians. I reserved the right for myself to bring up one point or the other with the Sublime Porte. [1915-02-22-DE-001]

• an attempt at complying with this appeal and taking on the role that England after the Berlin Congress, and most recently Russia, have played as protector of the Armenians, would be regarded by the Porte as an unjustified and annoying intervention in their internal political affairs. [1915-04-15-DE-002]

• Furthermore, I believe that if our influence in Turkey succeeds in protecting the Armenian people from being destroyed, we will reap gratitude and valuable collaboration from the largest part of them for the development of Anatolia. ... The Armenians scattered throughout the whole of the East, thanks to their naturally inborn mercantile capabilities, would be in a position to monopolise the whole economic life and, just like the Jews, would play an often useful, but not always desirable role in it. [1915-08-10-DE-001]

From the very beginning, the Germans attempted to hold the Armenians to a loyal attitude towards the Turkish ally. Friedrich Schuchardt, the director and deputy chairman of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient, gives an example in a letter to Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg:

• The Wali from Maouret-ul-Aziz promised the head of our station, Preacher Ehmann, complete impunity for all the Armenians if he managed to induce the Armenians in that area to give up all the weapons in their possession. Mr. Ehmann carried out this task, but nonetheless the population there was also slaughtered or banned. [1915-12-12-DE-002]

• the Germans are still viewed as a complicit party because they had given the Armenian people a false sense of security. A calm-thinking Armenian clergyman (Protestant) once said to me, ”We were willing to remain loyal. Until the deportations began. If we had started at that point to resist the beginning extermination of our people, we would have been in command of the situation and not doomed to ruination as we are today. But all our German friends in Marasch, Haruniye, Urfa, Malatia and Ma’muret-ul-Aziz urgently advised us to submit ourselves and then nothing would happen to us. Believing in them, we followed that advice and the fact that we relied on the German influence proved catastrophic for us.” [1916-01-03-DE-001]

• In December 1914 ... [we] ordered our Ambassador, ... to meet with the Armenian patriarch and to personally point out to him how important it was that Armenia took loyal sides with Turkey and fought for their common cause. From Berlin, an Armenian was finally sent by the German-Armenian Society, to Turkey who, with our support, was commissioned to negotiate with the patriarch and the leaders of the Armenian movement and to persuade them that they should stand loyally on the side of the Turks and thus procure for themselves the gratitude of the Turks and their own safety from now on. [1917-05-09-DE-001]

• With the permission of the Foreign Office, the German-Armenian Society, headed by Dr. Johannes Lepsius, at the same time delegated an Armenian intermediary to Turkey with instructions to influence the Armenian patriarch and the political leaders of the Armenians in Constantinople “in such a way that the Armenian people, in close collaboration with Turkey, should mobilise its national strength for the victory of the Ottoman weapons and in wise recognition of its own interest, should support to the best of their ability the Turkish government in the execution of all measures and war operations in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians.“ [1917-05-09-DE-001]

Even after the deportations began and the first reports arrived on the murder of all the passengers of the deportation trains, the Germans continued their policy of support for Turkey, their ally, even though this policy was occasionally verbally limited. The argument in particular that the deportations were necessary “for military reasons” was accepted even by some of the German consuls who had pronounced themselves against the sanctions.

1) Approval of the Deportations

Ambassador Wangenheim moderated Scheubner-Richter’s request to protest to the Supreme Commander in Erzerum against the deportations:

• if reversal of the measures is inopportune for military reasons, to advocate humane treatment of the deported, defenceless people. [1915-05-19-DE-015]

• great hardship for the Armenian population. But I am of the opinion that we should moderate the measures in their form, but not basically hinder them. [1915-05-31-DE-001]

• the measures mentioned are unavoidable in view of Turkey’s political and military position. [1915-05-31-DE-001]

• have [any] objection to the deportation of the Armenians, as far as this is justified by the state of war. [1915-06-21-DE-012]

• As the repressive measures against the Armenian population of the provinces of East Anatolia, declared by the Imperial Government, were announced for military reasons and constitute a legal means of defence, the German government is far from opposing their being put into effect, as long as these measures fulfil the purpose of strengthening the internal situation in Turkey and protecting it from attempted uprisings. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

• If for military reasons their deportation is unavoidable [1915-07-27-DE-001]

• At the beginning of May, the known incidents in Wan led to the government's and the military's taking drastic disciplinary action against the Armenians. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

• The removal of the Armenians from the war zone around Erserum was legally permissible and is being justified as a military necessity. Indeed, the Armenians in various areas had proven to be unreliable. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

• the earlier deportations of the Armenians could still barely be defended as being justified, taking into account the military situation at that time in the interest of national safety. [1916-09-25-DE-001]