Richard Fuchs
In the German Reichstag on September 29, 1916, the diplomat Gottlieb von
Jagow had to give parliament an account of the terrible events in
Turkey, then the Ottoman Empire.
It was about mass displacement and executions taking place in the
eastern region of Anatolia. The German Empire was a colonial power there
at the time and also an ally of the Ottoman government, which had
previously initiated a mass persecution of Christian Armenians before
the onset of World War I. "We did everything we could," stated Jagow in
defense of Germany's passivity.
This silent acquiescence toward the mass murders has been the subject of the International Historians Congress in Berlin.
