The German Response to the Armenian Genocide

After World War I began in the summer of 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the fighting on the side of the Central Powers, led by Germany and Austria-Hungary, who fought against the Allied Powers led by Britain, France, and Russia. Germany and the Ottoman Empire had a special alliance. Germany bolstered the Ottoman military with weapons and trained its soldiers for war. In some cases, German officers also assumed leadership of Turkish forces under the Ottoman minister of war. 

German diplomats stationed in the Ottoman Empire during the war balanced their personal feelings about the treatment of Armenians with their professional duties. Despite intimate knowledge of the Young Turks' intentions, the German Ambassador Baron von Wangenheim pronounced that diplomats had no right to interfere in the Ottoman Empire’s wartime decisions. After being prodded to protest the treatment by the American ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, Wangenheim replied: "I shall do nothing whatever for the Armenians.” ¹ As time went on and the killing escalated, some of the German consular officials were disturbed and tried to find a way to make their disapproval public, without success.  

On October 25, 1915, Wangenheim died and was replaced in November by Count Paul von Wolff-Metternich. Almost immediately Wolff-Metternich looked for ways to protest Turkish treatment of the Armenians. In December 1915, he wrote the reich chancellor (a top government official) in Germany that he would like to take a "firmer stance" against the way the Armenians were being treated:

Our annoyance about the persecution of the Armenians should be clearly expressed in our press and an end be put to our gushings over the Turks. Whatever they are accomplishing is due to our doing; those are our officers, our cannons, our money. Without our help that inflated frog would be slowly deflated. There is no need to be so afraid in dealing with the Turks. It is not easy for them to switch sides and make peace. . . . In order to achieve any success in the Armenian question, we will have to inspire fear in the Turkish government regarding the consequences. ²

The reich chancellor rejected Wolf-Metternich's proposal, objecting, "public reprimand of an ally in the course of a war would be an act which is unprecedented in history. Our only aim is to keep Turkey on our side until the end of the war, no matter whether as a result Armenians do perish or not." ³  German Ambassador Wolff-Metternich was recalled to Germany on October 3, 1916, at the request of Ottoman Minister of War Ismail Enver, who complained about the ambassador's protests about the treatment of the Armenians.

Inside Germany, reports on the genocide were severely censored to portray their ally, the Ottoman Empire, in a favorable light. 

Discussion Questions

1. Who in the German government had the power to act, and what could they have done to stop the atrocities against Armenians? What influence did they have?
2. What factors influenced the German government’s choice not to intervene to stop or prevent the atrocities against the Armenians?
3. How is the concept of sovereignty reflected in some German officials’ responses to the demand they pressure the Turks to stop killing Armenians?
4. To what extent did Germany’s universe of obligation include the Armenians in 1915–1916?

• 1Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Plandome, NY: New Age Publisher, 1975), 370.
• 2From the “Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Reichskanzler (Bethmann Hollweg),” The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.
• 3Ibid.