German Responsibility Quotes
Germany was the major axis power of which Turkey was a partner in WWI. The Germans could easily have stopped the Turks from their genocidal attacks on the Armenians, but they considered it and chose not to. Likewise, the United States and other neutral nations did not make strong initial protests when the attacks started. Turkey was one of the largest empires of the world then and its Ottoman Empire controlled almost all of the Middle East and its oil.
The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia and WWI, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, and about an equal number were “deported” to special areas. Many died of malnutrition along the forced march of Ethnic Cleansing. Others were murdered as they were deported. No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed with estimates ranging from ½ million to 4 million. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkish leaders however, are in denial about the Armenian deaths. They claim that there was a war and food was scarce; the only Armenians killed, the claimed were proven Russian agents. They further claim that the Armenian behavior was in large part responsible for the forced deportations because of their lack of patriotism and unwillingness to help the Turkish authorities identify the Russian agents. Most Turks today are unaware of the Armenian Genocide as nothing is taught about the massacres in schools or other institutions. It is against the law in Turkey to even have an intellectual study of the Turkish behavior towards the Armenians, much less publish anything about it.
The Germans, having invaded France and other countries in WWI, were determined in the Treaty of Versailles to be responsible for the war. They were to pay reparations to France and other countries to cover the costs to those countries of financing the war and rebuilding what the German invasion destroyed. But Germany too was destitute and needed capital to rebuild and if they paid the reparations whey would have to lay a very heavy tax on all Germans and still would not have enough to rebuild their nation and economy. What made the situation much worse was the fact that most of the wealthy German capitalists—many of whom had profited from supplying military weapons and supplies during the war—took all their money out of Germany, so the wealthiest Germans could not be taxed much at all. Auld, and many others tried to find an equitable solution, but that never happened and German resentment carried over into WWII where the Germans again invaded France.
