World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The German Parliament has voted to recognize the slaughter of Armenians during World War I by Turkish officials as genocide.  At the beginning of the war there were 2 million Armenians living in what was then the Ottoman Empire; at the end of the war there were 400,000.  In the midst of the war, a movement arose led by what were called the “Young Turks” to Turkify the territory where Turks lived–that movement ultimately led to the creation of modern Turkey under the leadership of Ataturk.  Germany was allied with the Ottoman Empire during the war and the Young Turks believed that the Armenians were working with their enemy, the Russians.  No one disputes the fact that many Armenians were slaughtered as a consequence.

Modern Turks deny that a genocide occurred.  Indeed, the word “genocide” was not even used as a word until 1944 and it was coined to describe the horror of the holocaust.  The key disagreement over what happened to the Armenians centers on the question of “intent”.  The Turks insist that there was never any intent to eliminate the Armenian people but that the Armenians represented a national security risk to the insists of the state of Turkey in a war.  It is against the law in Turkey to refer to the Armenian slaughter as “genocide”.

Armenians believe that the policies employed against them during the war could have no other outcome other than their extermination and that the issue of intent was implicit in the pre-ordained outcome.  The Armenian communities all over the world have been lobbying hard to have their suffering recognized as deliberate.  The German Parliament voted to label the atrocities as genocide because Germany was allied with the Young Turks and contributed to their ability to kill Armenians.

The vote undoubtedly complicates the German-Turkish relationship which has emerged as a central issue in the refugee crisis in Europe.  More than 20 countries, including France, have recognized the genocide, but Chancellor Merkel has been working with President Erdogan in regulating the flow of refugees out of Syria.  Turkey has demanded money and visa-free travel for its citizens in Europe for that cooperation, but today it called back its Ambassador to Germany for “consultation”.