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ANKARA: Reading Germans Regarding The Armenian Issue

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  • ANKARA: Reading Germans Regarding The Armenian Issue

    READING GERMANS REGARDING THE ARMENIAN ISSUE

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    April 15 2015

    ALÄ° YURTTAGUL
    April 15, 2015, Wednesday

    The 100th anniversary of the Armenian "Meds Yeghern," or genocide,
    has finally arrived.

    The Vatican's characterization of the 1915 incidents as the "first
    genocide" of the 20th century as well as the European Parliament's
    postponement of its Turkey report from April to May and the inclusion
    of the Armenian issue on its April agenda are not coincidental. It is
    no surprise that there are currently numerous conferences, exhibitions
    and publications about the tragic history of Armenians in France,
    Russia and the US, countries with sizable Armenian populations.

    Interestingly enough, Germany is conducting in-depth discussions into
    the matter even though it does not have a sizable Armenian population.

    Berlin seeks to look into this sorrow in depth. I have a book that
    focuses on the role of Germans in the Armenian genocide written by
    Jurgen Gottschlich, a journalist living in Ä°stanbul and Berlin. It
    is titled "Beihilfe zum Völkermord" (Complicity in Genocide). As you
    know, in criminal law, not only is "intention" or "deliberation" to
    kill someone a crime, but so is "assistance" or "complicity." Before
    moving to a discussion of whether Gottschlich sees Germans' role in
    the Armenian genocide as "assistance" or "complicity," I would like to
    touch on why a reading of Germans regarding this matter is imperative.

    A cursory look at Germany's recent past reveals that the country is
    still suffering from the effects of two profound traumas. The world
    sees Adolf Hitler as the German fascism that cast a shadow on the fate
    of Jews. This reading is not necessarily wrong. While the number of
    Russians or Germans who died is way above the 6 million Jews who died,
    the Jewish suffering stands apart. The Nazis targeted Jews because
    they are different and they systematically annihilated them.

    The shadow of history's greatest genocide, which Jews refer to as
    "Shoah" or "Holocaust," can still be felt in Germany. The Holocaust
    Memorial, which spans a 4.7-acre space in downtown Berlin, was built
    a few years ago. There is also a more recent "stolperstein" (stumbling
    block) movement in which "stolpersteine" (the plural of stolperstein)
    -- small, cobblestone-size memorials for individual victims of Nazism
    -- are laid in the sidewalks.

    Actually, "stolperstein" represents the second trauma. Germany
    experienced the 1968 movement differently from France. In Germany,
    revolutionary youth started to question their parents and their recent
    past. They realized that when Jews were taken from their homes to
    gas chambers, their parents weren't ignorant of the process. They
    further understood that some of their neighbors, uncles, writers,
    journalists and politicians were loyal supporters of the Hitler regime,
    were "murderers" or were "complicit" in the genocide. Being "children
    of murderers" is a current trauma that many Germans feel deeply. In
    this context, the "stolpersteine" represent a "refusal to forget,"
    a "renunciation of the past" or a "determination to refrain from
    complicity in crimes."

    Gottschlich's book is a good example of this generation's perspective
    on their country and the world. As it examines the Armenian issue in
    our recent past, the book is interesting. The book is an interesting
    read not only for the Armenian issue, but also for its foray into
    Germany's role in it.

    As you can guess from its title, the book puts Germans in the spotlight
    instead of Turks, the Committee of Union and Progress (Ä°TC) or the
    Ottomans. More precisely, it focuses on the role of Germans in the
    Armenian genocide. The writer not only examines Anatolia and the
    places where the incidents occurred, but also looks at the German
    army's archives that survived World War II. He also tried to study
    a number of private archives as well as the archives of the General
    Staff in Ankara.

    The book contains the biographies of German officers who worked closely
    with Enver PaÅ~_a, Talat PaÅ~_a and Cemal PaÅ~_a, the leading figures
    of the Ä°TC, as well as letters these German officers sent to their
    relatives, which betray their perspective on the Armenian genocide
    as no different from that of Enver PaÅ~_a and Talat PaÅ~_a. The book
    also describes how certain Germans raised objections to the injustices
    done to Armenians and tried to warn Berlin about them.

    Gottschlich examines the biographies and documents like a meticulous
    historian, but he also doesn't renounce his identity as a journalist
    as he takes into consideration the time and circumstances of the
    incidents. "Beihilfe zum Völkermord" is an interesting report in
    terms of the German Reich's responsibility. When you read the book,
    you can decide if Germans' role in the genocide was "assistance"
    or "complicity." I hope the book is translated into Turkish soon so
    that the grandchildren of the Ottomans have a chance to look at their
    parents and grandparents from a different perspective.

    http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/ali-yurttagul/reading-germans-regarding-the-armenian-issue_378051.html

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