I.
Armenian Question in a Historical Context
4. Parliament Resolutions
Germany Parliamentary Resolution - June 15,
2005
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[English Translation from German]
German Bundestag Printed matter 15/5689 15th electoral period June 15, 2005
Motionby the parliamentary groups of SPD, CDU/CSU, BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN and
FDP
Commemorating the expulsion and massacre of the Armenians in 1915 – Germany
must make her contribution to the reconciliation between Turks and
Armenians.
The Bundestag may resolve:
The German Bundestag honors and commemorates the victims of violence, murder
and expulsion among the Armenian people before and during the First World
War. The Bundestag deplores the deeds of the Young Turkish government in the
Ottoman Empire which have resulted in the almost total annihilation of the
Armenians in Anatolia. It also deplores the inglorious role played by the
German Reich which, in spite of a wealth of information on the organized
expulsion and annihilation of Armenians, has made no attempt to intervene
and stop these atrocities.
The German Bundestag honors and commemorates the efforts made both by Turks
and Germans who, working under difficult circumstances and conditions and
against the resistance of their respective governments, have committed
themselves in word and deed to saving Armenian women, men and children. It
is particularly the memory and the work of Dr. Johannes Lepsius, who fought
vigorously and effectively for the survival of the Armenian people, which is
to be redeemed from oblivion and cherished and maintained to improve the
relationship between the Armenian, the German and the Turkish people.
The German Bundestag is painfully aware from its own national experience how
hard it is for every people to face the dark sides of its past. But it also
believes that facing one’s own history fairly and squarely is necessary and
constitutes an important basis for reconciliation. This is true, in
particular, within the European culture of remembrance to which belongs the
open discussion of the dark sides of each national history.
Against this Background, the German Bundestag deplores the fact that a full
discussion of these events of the past in the Ottoman Empire is still not
possible today in Turkey and that scientists and writers who wish to deal
with this aspect of Turkish history are being prosecuted and exposed to
public defamation. However, the German Bundestag also sees positive signs
that Turkey, to an ever-increasing degree, approaches this subject within
the above European culture of remembering. Examples include:
- The Great Turkish Assembly has, for the first time, invited Turkish people
of Armenian descent to discussions involving the crimes committed against
the Armenians and the Turkish-Armenian relationship - A Turkish-Armenian
women’s dialog was held in Vienna - Initial contacts between Turkish and
Armenian historians resulted in a first exchange of documents - Minister
President Erdogan inaugurated Turkey’s first Armenian museum in Istanbul
with the Armenian patriarch Mesrab and publicly suggested the establishment
of a bilateral Turkish-Armenian panel of historians.
However, in this context, the German Bundestag perceives with great concern
that the Armenian Conference of internationally renowned Turkish scientists,
which was to be held in Istanbul from 25-27 May 2005, has been prevented by
the Turkish Minister of Justice and that the positions taken by these
scientists, which diverged from the government’s opinion, were defamed as “a
stab in the back of the Turkish nation”. The proposal by Minister President
Erdogan to set up a joint Turkish-Armenian commission of historians can only
succeed if it is implemented on the basis of a free and public scientific
discourse.
Germany, which has also made its contribution to the crimes against the
Armenian people falling into oblivion, is now obliged to face her own
responsibility. This responsibility involves supporting Turks and Armenians
in seeking reconciliation and mutual understanding over the trenches of the
past.
Both major churches in Germany, in particular, have for many years advocated
the integration of the Armenians from Turkey. The Armenian communities which
have settled here offer the opportunity of reconciliation and remembrance.
Particularly in view of the large number of Turkish Muslims living in
Germany, it is an important task to bring to mind the past and so to make
the first steps toward reconciliation.
But dealing with these historical events also has an immediate significance
for the present. Today, the normalization of the relations between the
Republic of Turkey and the Republic of Armenia is of paramount interest and
importance for the future of the entire region. What is urgently needed is
to establish trust-forming measures on both sides as defined in the OSCE
principles. Turkey opening the borders to Armenia could, for instance, help
to relieve Armenia’s isolation and promote the taking up of diplomatic
relations.
Due to its historic role in the Turkish-Armenian relations, Germany must
assume a special responsibility as part of its neighborhood initiative of
the EU. The aim must be to help normalize and improve the situation between
Armenia and Turkey and so to help stabilize the Caucasus region.
One important contribution toward remembrance can be made by the German
federal states. The duty of the information and education policy involves
actions for facing the expulsion and annihilation of the Armenians as part
of the whole history of ethnic conflicts in the 20th century, also in
Germany.
The German Bundestag requests the Federal Government
- to help the Turks and Armenians to arrive at a settlement by remembering,
reconciliation and forgiving historical guilt
- to ensure that Parliament, Government and society in Turkey deal without
reservation with their role in relation to the Armenian people in the past
and in the present
- to advocate the establishment of a commission of historians including
Turkish, Armenian and international experts
- to ensure that not only the archives of the Ottoman Empire on this issue
are made accessible to the general public, but also the copies of the German
Foreign Office archives given by Germany to Turkey
- to insist on the actual organization of the conference scheduled in
Istanbul but postponed under governmental pressure
- to press for freedom of opinion in Turkey, in particular with respect to
the fate of the Armenians
- to help Turkey and Armenia to normalize their interstate relationships.
Berlin, June 15, 2005
Franz Müntefering and parliamentary group Dr. Angela Merkel, Michael Glos
and parliamentary group Katrin Göring-Eckardt, Krista Sager and
parliamentary group Dr. Wolfgang Gerhard and parliamentary group
Reasons for the motion
Ninety years ago, on April 24, 1915, the Young Turkish movement controlling
the Ottoman Empire ordered the Armenian cultural and political elite in
Istanbul to be arrested, deported inland and for the most part murdered.
This day has become the day of remembrance for Armenians throughout the
world for the expulsion and massacre of the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman
Empire which took place as early as the end of the 19th century and
intensified during the First World War.
When the Ottoman Empire joined the war, the Armenian soldiers drafted into
the Ottoman army were grouped into work battalions and most were murdered.
Beginning in the spring of 1915, women, children and old people were sent on
death marches through the Syrian desert. Those who had not died or been
murdered on the way met this fate at the latest when they reached the
inhuman camps in the desert near Deir ez Zôr. Massacres were also committed
by units specially set up for this purpose. Resistance by high-ranking
Turkish officials against this course of action, as well as criticism from
the Ottoman parliament, was brutally suppressed by the Young Turkish regime.
Many areas from which Christian Armenians had been expelled were later
settled with Kurds and Muslin refugees from the Balkan wars. Members of
other ethnic Christian groups, in particular Arameic/Assyrian and Chaldean
Christians, but also certain Muslim minorities, were also affected by
deportations and massacres.
According to independent estimates, more than 1 million Armenians fell
victim to the deportations and mass murders. Many independent historians,
parliaments and international organizations describe the expulsion and
annihilation of the Armenians as genocide.
Until this day and contrary to the facts, the Turkish Republic as the legal
successor of the Ottoman Empire denies that these atrocities had been well
planned and organized and/or that the mass deaths during the resettlement
treks and the massacres had been desired by the Ottoman government. The
admitted severity of the actions against the Armenians has always been
justified by the fact that many Armenians had fought on Russia’s side
against Turkey both in 1878 and in 1914/1915 and that there had supposedly
been the danger that these Armenians would also have fallen into the back of
the Ottoman Empire during WW I. Other Turkish defenses invoked the acts of
violence committed by Armenians against Turks which occurred during the
armed resistance to the Turkish resettlement measures. The terrorist attacks
by Armenians against Turks perpetrated right into the eighties of the
twentieth century are also used as justification for the Turkish position.
In all, the true extent of the massacres and deportations is still belittled
and largely disputed in Turkey today. This Turkish attitude stands in
opposition to the idea of reconciliation which guides the common values of
the European Union. Even today, historians in Turkey are not free in coming
to terms with the history of deportations and murder of Armenians and, in
spite of some relaxation in the previous criminal liability, still find
themselves under great pressure.
The German Empire as the major military ally of the Ottoman Empire was also
deeply involved in these events. Both the political and the military
leadership of the German Empire had been aware of the persecution and murder
of the Armenians right from the beginning. The files of the German Foreign
Office resting on reports by the German embassy and consulates in the
Ottoman Empire document the planned and organized execution of the massacres
and deportations. In spite of urgent requests by many German personalities
in science, politics and the churches, among these politicians like Philipp
Scheidemann, Karl Liebknecht or Matthias Erzberger, and eminent persons of
the protestant and catholic churches such as Adolf von Harnack and Lorenz
Werthmann, the German Reich government failed to exert pressure on its
Ottoman ally.
When the protestant theologian Dr. Johannes Lepsius presented the outcome of
his research in Istanbul to the German Reichstag on October 5, 1915, the
whole of the subject of the Armenians was censored by the German Reich
government. In 1916, the German military censorship banned and confiscated
Johannes Lepsius’ “Report on the Situation of the Armenian People in
Turkey”. The copies of this documentation which Lepsius had sent directly to
the delegates of the German Reichstag were intercepted by the authorities
and not handed to the delegates until after the war in 1919.
This almost forgotten policy of repression by the German Reich demonstrates
that this chapter of history still waits to be dealt with in a satisfactory
manner here in Germany.
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