Deutschland Über AllahBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
History
Deutschland Über Allah
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
I have left to the end of this essay the question of Germany's knowledge
of and complicity in the Armenian massacres. From the tribune of the
Reichstag on January 15, 1916, there was made a definite denial of the
existence of such massacres at all; on another subsequent occasion it
was stated that Germany could not interfere in Turkish internal affairs.
In view of the fact that there is no internal affair appertaining
to Turkey in which Germany has not interfered, the second of these
statements may be called insincere. But the denial of the massacres is a
deliberate lie. Germany--official Germany--knew all about them, and she
permitted them to go on. The proofs of this are here shortly stated.
(1) In September, 1915, four months before the denial of the massacres
was made in the Reichstag, Dr. Martin Niepage, higher grade teacher
in the German Technical School at Aleppo, prepared and sent, in his
name and that of several of his colleagues, a report of them to the
German Embassy at Constantinople. In that report he gives a terrible
account of what he has seen with his own eyes, and also states that
the country Turks' explanation with regard to the origination of
those measures is that it is "the teaching of the Germans." The German
Embassy at Constantinople therefore knew of the massacres, and knew
also that the Turks attributed them to orders from Germany. Dr. Niepage
also consulted, before sending his report, with the German Consul at
Aleppo, Herr Hoffman, who told him that the German Embassy had been
already advised in detail about the massacres from the consulates at
Alexandretta, Aleppo, and Mosul, but that he welcomed a further protest
on the subject.
(2) These reports, or others like them, had not gone astray, for in
August, 1915, the German Ambassador in Constantinople made a formal
protest to the Turkish Government about the massacres.
There is, then, no doubt that the German Government, when it officially
denied the massacres, was perfectly cognisant of them. It was also
perfectly capable of stopping them, for they were not local violences,
but wholesale murders organised at Constantinople. Germany had indeed
already given assurances that such massacres should not occur. She had
assured the Armenian Katholikos at Adana that so long as Germany had
any influence in Turkey he need not fear a repetition of the horrors
that had taken place under Abdul Hamid. Had she, then, no influence in
Constantinople, or how was it that she had obtained complete control
over all Turkish branches of government? The same assurance was given by
the German Ambassador in April, 1915, to the Armenian Patriarch and the
President of the Armenian National Council.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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