Armenian allegations and prejudices against Turks

THE PRESENT-DAY SOURCES OF ARMENIAN ALLEGATIONS AND PREJUDICES AGAINST TURKS

Osman GÜN 01.04.2016

In order to overcome criticisms directed against them, those who sympathize with Armenians views on history and politics make a great effort to propagate the image that portrays Armenians as having always been a victimized and downtrodden people. An obsessive hostility towards Turks (who allegedly persecuted Armenians en masse) has been developed during the construction of this image. In turn, this hostility towards Turks has become one of the backbones of the narrative of Armenians being a victimized and downtrodden people. A recent commentary in the Washington Post newspaper and a reply given to it serve as an example of this narrative on the Armenians and the "cruel Turks".

Andrew Bower, a senior researcher at the National Interest Institute in the US wrote, in a letter

 

addressed to the editor of the Washington Post newspaper,[1] that the Russia-Armenia alliance is

threatening Turkey, an indispensable US ally in the fight against ISIS. Russia already has two military bases in Armenia, one of which is situated approximately 40 km from the border with

Turkey.[2] Moreover, Armenia has welcomed and housed new Russian troops and weapons since

December. Considering that this situation is a threat to Turkey, Bower questioned the USs relations with Armenia.

Paul Manoukian, a writer of Armenian origin, sent a letter to the editor of the Washington Post

 

newspaper in response to Andrew Bowers letter.[3] In order to justify Armenias extremely close

relations with Russia, Manoukian referred to the events that took place during World War I. In this context, Manoukian claimed that Turks brutally massacred at least a million Armenians. He further claimed that Russia was the one who ended the massacres and that whereas the US has never recognized the suffering of Armenians so far, nor blamed Turkey. As it can be seen, Manoukian responded to criticism against Armenias state policies by immediately referring to the rhetoric of victimization, downtroddenness, and the Cruel Turks, and in so doing, attempted to defuse the criticisms towards Armenias policies. An interesting fact should be pointed out here: Russia was one of the leading actors who incited Ottoman Armenians to a rebel against the Ottoman Empire, which led to the outbreak of the events of 1915. Considering that it was Russia who prepared the ground for the societal conflict that gripped the Ottoman Empire in its last era, portraying Russia as having been the savior of Armenians is simply incompatible with historical facts.

Another method used against criticisms is to unquestioningly declare those who do not share the views put forward by Armenians as being "anti-Armenian". Taniela Koushakjis article constitutes a good example for this. The vice chairman of Mercury (a public affairs and strategy firm) Adam Ererli wrote in an article in the Forbes magazine about how Armenia is becoming Putins Newest

 

Satellite State.[4] Armenia Agenda[5] editor Taniela Koushakji accused Adam Ereli of having

attacked Armenians for writing such an article. According to Koushakjian, the reason why Adam Ereli wrote his article was due to the fact that the company (Mercury) which he works denies the Armenian genocide and that he is in cooperation with the Turkish Institute of Progress, which Koushakjan considers to be an anti-Armenian organization. Koushakji also accused Brenda Shaffer, who is a political science professor in Haifa University and a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, of attacking Armenians. In 2014 Brenda Shaffer published in the New York Times
 

newspaper a review article stating that Armenia is Russias next land grab.[6] Koushakij, in order to

refute Brenda Shaffers point, stated that Shaffer works as an adviser in an Azerbaijan state oil company.

Koushakjians response illustrates the fact that the criticisms made against Armenia's political decisions are perceived being as attacks on Armenians. The truth is, Koushakji never responded to Brenda Shaffer or Adam Erili with concrete evidence, contented himself with declaring them as being Armenian enemies without providing any explanation, and assumed that being part of an organization is a guilt of its own.

The lists of shame" containing anti-Armenians", prepared by members of the Armenian diaspora, constitute another example to this extreme mindset. For example, Assistant Professor Christopher Gunn of Coastal Carolina University, who does not delve into the dispute over the nature of the events of 1915 but instead focuses his studies on Armenian terrorist groups like ASALA, has

nevertheless been included in such lists.

Authors who accuse those who do not think as they do as being anti-Armenians, do not in any way define what exactly constitutes anti-Armenianness. What is done instead is to attempt to show Armenians as being always right or justified by overlooking the merits of the cases at hand, by using authors personal information, or by making references to unfounded accusations.

Works of academics such as Stefan Ihrig and Lawrence Douglas are also used to support the rhetoric of victimization and downtroddenness. The works of these academics put forth a narration that the Armenians were oppressed by not only the Turks but also by other parties.

The Historian Stefan Ihrig, in his book Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler,establishes a link between the Holocaust and the "Armenian genocide". Ihrig claims that the Germans were enthralled by the post-World War I belief that the Armenian genocide allowed the establishment of the newly born Republic of Turkey. According to Ihrig, the Nazis, during the Holocaust, saw the Armenians as "eastern Jews" and were at the same ranks as the Jews and even claimed that they were a lower race than the Jews (Since they were further mistreated than the

 

Jews, Ihrig calls the Armenians as "Über Jews").[7]

However, this assertion by Ihrig at best reveals his ignorance, and is at worst a distortion of reality.

During World War I, one of the leaders of the Armenian group, Drastamat Kanayan (Dro)[8] was at

the head of the armed struggle against the Ottoman Empire. It is noteworthy to mention his activities during World War II. In this sense, Dro spearheaded the Armenian Nazi Legion consisting of 20,000 soldiers and shared his experiences on the Armenian Insurrection with Adolf Hitler,whom he met on a number of occasions. Due to his actions, the Nazis referred to Dro as the Jew Hunter". There were two main reasons behind Dros cooperation with the Nazis. The first reason was to maintain close relations between Armenia and Germany to ensure that the Nazis would attack Turkey through Armenia. The second reason was to make sure Armenians were considered

as being worthy in Hitlers classification of races.[9]

The relationship between the Nazis and Armenians date back to before World War II. In 1934, Dr. Paul Rohrbach and intellectuals of Armenian origin, such as Artashes Aeghio, in collaboration with

 

Nazi intellectuals, published a book titled Armenian Aryan,[10] demonstrating that Armenians and

Germans came from the same race. Similarly, they also made studies pointing out that the Armenian language is an Indo-European language. Moreover, in 1933, Germanys Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels had formally declared that Armenians were Aryan. These examples reveal how wrong Ihrigs assessments were about Armenians during World War II.

Those who have embraced the Armenians views, like Stefan Ihrig and Lawrence Douglas who has backed Ihrigs opinions, reinforce the "oppressed and victimized identity of Armenians" which constitutes the grounds for hatred and violence. The obsessive desire to keep this identity alive is the main cause behind the increase in extremist thoughts, even in our days. For this reason, it is not surprising that opinion leaders in the Armenian diaspora like the California Courier editor and

Armenian "Artsakh" Fund President Harut Sassounian make calls for violence.[11]

The 10th Armenian Music Awards ceremony, to which Sasunyan also attended, has been instrumental in propagating the use of the Armenian rhetoric. The ceremony, to which 4,500 guests attended, was held on February 27, 2016 in the Kremlin Kevorkiev Hall and was broadcasted live from Armenias public television. Among the special guests and organizers were Armenia Future Magazine representative other prominent names such as Harut Sassounian, Russian MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky, known for his nonsensical declarations, and world-famous violinist and conductor Sergei Smpati. Honorary guests who were unable to attend the ceremony,

 

such as French parliamentarian Valerie Boyer[12] and Serj Tankian,[13] expressed their opinions

through a video call or a representative.

The speech delivered by Zhirinovsky, after receiving his award, was particularly noteworthy. Here are some excerpts from his remarks:

The day will come when Armenians will celebrate their festivals in the territory of liberated Western Armenia. That could be a festival bearing the name of your holy mountain ᐀ Mount Ararat ᐀ and could take place in Kars, Ardahan, Sassoun or Trabzon. After the downing of the Russian jet, I would have ordered a powerful attack on Turkey. Today, very little would have remained of Turkey ☀⸀ I wish the dream of Armenians worldwide would become a reality; that those who committed that horrible genocide on April 1915, during World War I, would be punished.

[14]

Similarly, Zhirinovsky stated that Turks should go back to Central Asia, which he indicated was- their real homeland, and leave Anatolia to Armenians, Kurds, and Greeks. Following Zhirinovskys speech, Sassounian said that although 100 years have passed since the Armenian genocide, they wouldnt give up their rights even after 1000 years. Sassounians understanding of 1000 years of struggle evokes Hitler's dream of a Nazi Germany that would last 1000 years. Both Sassounian and Hitler share the same conception of unquestioned hatred and a mentality that justifies any action no matter how extreme it might be. Extremists like Sassounian and those who pay heed to their words (and unfortunately too many Armenians do pay heed) prepare themselves and their followers for a hatred, hostility and violence that will last 1000 years.

According to Sassounyan, just as the Ottoman Empire did, Turkey will collapse due to internal and external pressures, and when that day comes, Armenians should be prepared to take advantage of this opportunity to liberate their historic lands. For this, Armenia must, according to Sassounyan,

become a strong economic, political, and military power. The broadcast of such dangerous rhetoric by Armenia's official television channel is an extremely worrisome development.

* Photo source: http://http://www.thecaliforniacourier.com/4500-guests-attend-special-armeniangenocide-

program-in-kremlin-hall/7/

 

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-russia-armenia-alliance-is-threatening-turkey-acritical-

us-ally/2016/02/26/18289900-da5f-11e5-8210-f0bd8de915f6_story.html

[2] http://www.bilgesam.org/Images/Dokumanlar/0-66-20141212541170.pdf

  

It has come to a mutual agreement to extend Moscow Erevan Treaty dated March 16, 1995 to 49

years which aims to build a Russian military base in Armenia in 2010 and stay there. Moreover, an

agreement was signed between two governments in August 20, 2010. Within the agreement

effective on July 6, 2011, this base will be deployed in Armenia until 2044

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/armenias-alliance-with-russia-makes-perfectsense/

2016/03/01/1949c322-df0a-11e5-8c00-8aa03741dced_story.html

[4] http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/02/24/putins-newest-satellite-state/#7628a7c13549

[5] Armenian Agenda is the news blog of the Armenian Assembly of America.

http://www.armenianagenda.com/about

[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/opinion/russias-next-land-grab.html?_r=1

[7] Dr. Pat Walsh http://drpatwalsh.com/2016/02/26/were-the-armenians-uber-jews/

[8] Antranig Chalabian, Dro Drastamat Kanayan: Armenias First Defence Minister of the Modern

Era

[9] According to Simon Vratsian (Along Lifes Pathways), an influential wing of the Nazi Party

wanted to classify Armenians as not Indo-European, but listed among the Asiatic peoples, which

meant a race unworthy of living.

[10] Dr. Paul Rohrbachand and Artashes Abeghian, Armenian-Aryan.

[11] http://avim.org.tr/en/Yorum/THERE-MAY-BE-HOPE-LET-S-BE-OPTIMISTIC-ABOUT-THERESOLUTION-

OF-THE-TURKISH-ARMENIAN-CONTROVERSY

http://avim.org.tr/tr/Yorum/BIR-RADIKAL-ERMENI-PORTRESI-SASUNYAN-IN-ACIK-NEFRETI

http://avim.org.tr/tr/Yorum/SASSOUNIAN-IN-ORTUK-NEFRET-VE-SIDDET-RASYONALIZASYONU-Aslan-

Yavuz-SIR

[12] She is the member of the parliament who submitted a bill which did not come into force

because it was found unconstitutional by the French Constitutional Council; yet accepted by the

French Parliament. The aforementioned bill foresaw a one-year-prison sentence and/or a fine of 45

thousand Euros for those who if they deny, humiliate or trivialize the existence of the Armanian

Genocide in the context of Denial Law. http://www.assembleenationale.

fr/13/propositions/pion3842.asp

[13] Serj Tankian is the lead singer of the music group System of a Down. In 2004 they wrote on

concert tickets "Dogs and Turks are forbidden to enter". The group is widely recognized for their

Turkish hostility. http://www.tetedeturc.com/home/spip.php?article4522

[14] http://www.thecaliforniacourier.com/4500-guests-attend-special-armenian-genocide-programin-

kremlin-hall/7/

Kaynak/Source: http://avim.org.tr/en/Yorum/THE-PRESENT-DAY-SOURCES-OF-ARMENIANALLEGATIONS-

AND-PREJUDICES-AGAINST-TURKS

Were the Armenians "uber-Jews" by Pat Walsh

Pat Walsh

Were the Armenians ‘über-Jews’?

Posted on 2016-02-26 by drpatwalsh

In his Irish Times (20/2/16) book review of ‘Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler’ by Stefan Ihrig,  Lawrence Douglas states:
“Ihrig brilliantly lays bare the ‘confluence’ between German anti-Semitic and anti-Armenian stereotypes. Jews and Armenians were treated as ‘Semitic cousins’, with the latter playing the role of ‘quasi-‘ or even ‘über-Jews’.”
The Nazi extermination of the Jews is the ultimate analogy drawn to demonise Ottoman Turkey in relation to the Armenians. The comparison is historically absurd and no historian worthy of the name would make such an analogy. But academia these days is heavily populated by those who substitute feeling and effect for truth and fact. So we are forced to ask the question: were the Armenians really what Stefan Ihrig calls ‘über-Jews’ in Nazi Germany?

Luckily we have a book by an Armenian about a very famous Armenian freedom fighter which helps us answer the question. The book in question is “‘Dro’ Drastamat Kanayan: Armenia’s First Defence Minister of the Modern Era” by Antranig Chalabian. Not only does it reveal that Ihrig’s “brilliant” work is utter nonsense but it also highlights the one actual and irrefutable link between the Armenians and Nazi Germany – and it is not Turkish. The book is published by the Indo-European Publishing House of Los Angeles (the significance of whose name will become apparent).

I first came across ‘Dro’ when writing a book ‘The Armenian Insurrection and the Great War’ which includes reprints of the celebrated Insurrectionary, Garegin Pasdermadjian’s writings in which ‘Dro’ features both in text as well as pictured, at the start of the Insurrection of 1914. Along with the famous General Andranik, ‘Armen Garo’ (Dr. Pasdermadjian) and ‘Dro’ were the most famous Armenian guerrilla leaders. I introduced ‘Dro’ with the initial  information I had learnt about him:

“Another character prominently featured in Pasdermadjian’s 1918 book, was General ‘Dro’ or Drastamat Kanajian. ‘Dro’ (who is pictured with Pasdermadjian on the book cover) went on to head the Armenian Nazi Legion of 22,000 in World War 2, with a large complement of SS in tow. ‘Dro’ apparently put his special skills of massacre learnt in the Armenian Insurrection at the Fuhrer’s disposal, whom he met on a number of occasions. It is said Hitler consulted him on a number of occasions and his nickname was ‘the Jew hunter’. When World War II ended the surviving Nazi Armenian soldiers along with their commander were admitted to the U.S, despite being wanted by the Russians for mass murder. ‘Dro’ lived out the rest of his life there, before dying in Massachusetts in 1956. His body was returned to the Soviet Republic of Armenia and he was given a State funeral.”
The bulk of this character sketch is confirmed in the Armenian biography of ‘Dro’. And there is much more.
Antranig Chalabian writes of ‘Dro’ in his biography of the Armenian Insurectionary:

“World War II changed the course of Dro’s life regardless of his will or intention, linking him to the Russian-German struggle as ‘a collaborator with Nazism’… It is not possible to accuse Dro of sympathising with the Nazi ideology… He was guided solely by the supreme interests of the Armenia and the Armenian nation.” (‘Dro’ Drastamat Kanayan: Armenia’s First Defence Minister of the Modern Era.p. 219)
‘Dro’ went round the German Prisoner of War camps and recruited the captured Armenians who had been drafted into the Red Army  into the Nazi Armenian Legion.  The Armenian 812th Battalion was created in December 1941 growing from 8,000 to 20,000 men. Christopher Walker argues that Dro’s intention was that the Nazi forces should fight for Hitler, culminating in an entrance into Yerevan to finally deal with the Turks.
Chalabian notes that the Armenian National Council published Nazi propaganda from a weekly newspaper, ‘Armenien’ and a radio station in Berlin from 1942. ‘Dro’s’ biographer asks:
“… Why did he collaborate with the Nazis? Simply because he and his comrades perceived the Armenian prisoners of war, the Armenians in the occupied territories, as well as the survival of the Armenians in their homeland to be in grave jeopardy.” (p.221). “Dro and his comrades saved the lives of around 40,000 Armenian prisoners of war by enlisting them in the German army.”(p.227)
Dro’s collaboration is a difficult issue for Armenians and it is a tricky job to write a sympathetic biography of the national hero without attempting to excuse his actions. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks) considered establishing a distance from Dro from his Nazi collaboration but decided against it. Chalabian indeed notes that the Nazi collaborators from Armenia, the Ukraine, and Byelorussia would have been many more “… if Hitler had behaved a little differently… they could have shaken the anti-populist regime of the Kremlin’s dictator and his sycophants from its foundations… They hoped to advance side by side with the Wehrmacht… Toward Moscow, and to topple Stalin’s hated regime.” (p.222)
The Armenian recruits did not just come from captured Red Army soldiers of the Yerevan Republic but also from the large Armenian communities in the Balkans and Ukraine.
Dro and his Dashnak comrades went to Berlin for discussions with the Nazi high command as the invasion of Russia got underway. Chalabian notes:
“They were impressed with everything in the city; law and order was notable everywhere. Berlin was peaceful and life was as if normal.” (P. 243)
From there Dro was taken to Warsaw and then the Crimea. Dro visited the POW camps recruiting Armenians for the German army there. Whilst in the Crimea he witnessed the disposal of the bodies of hundreds of Jews in trenches the SS had had dug by locals. Although “people were not allowed to go anywhere near these trenches” Dro’s group was treaty specially by the Nazis and permitted access, according to Chalabian. (p.245)
However, Hitler never reached Yerevan to deal with the Turks and Dro fled west as the Red Army closed in on Berlin. He was captured in Heidelberg by the Americans. At first the Americans decided to send him back to the Soviets as a collaborator but then “they sent him to Mannheim, to a retention centre for high-ranking German commanders who were not considered Nazis. The retention centre was a former palace/estate, and the accomodation was very comfortable.” (P. 254) US Intelligence had use for him it seems.
It is most probably true that Dro was never an ideological Nazi. However, Armenians did work with the Nazis and attempt to secure a place for the Armenians in the new Hitlerite racial order. According to Simon Vratsian (Along Life’s Pathways), an influential wing of the Nazi Party wanted to classify Armenians as not “Indo-European”, but “listed among the Asiatic peoples, which meant a race unworthy of living. Dro and his comrades were able to recognise the danger… They put forth proofs that Armenians are of Indo-European origin and belong to the Arian race.” (p.224)
Apparently Armenian/Nazi connections had begun a generation before the Final Solution. The German-Armenian Union, formed in 1914, and predating the Nazis, included Artashes Abeghian, Professor of Eastern Studies at the University of Berlin who “conducted propaganda about the Aryan origin of the Armenians.” It was these people, including German academics, who later contacted Dro and decided to collaborate with the Reich from 1940, according to Chalabian (p.232). The German-Armenian Union “was formed by Johannes Lepsius” who is often cited as a “good German” speaking out against Ottoman treatment of the Armenians.
Chalabian also reveals that Dr Paul Rohrbach and Artashes Abeghian published a book in 1934 called ‘Armenian-Aryan’ in collaboration with Nazi intellectuals which “strove to prove that Armenians belong to the Aryan race and the Armenian language to the Indo-European family of languages.” (p.234) The year before, in 1933, “Goebbels had formally declared that the Armenians were Aryan.” (p.248)
These pieces of information revealed by Chalabian were probably only the tip of the iceberg. The author would have no interest in publicising any more details that he had found out about Armenian/Nazi links in his Armenian sources and it is surprising he revealed even these.
To return to the point of this article: How can it be asserted by Stefan Inrig and Lawrence Douglas that the Armenians represented “the role of ‘quasi-‘ or even ‘über-Jews’” in Nazi Germany when Dro and his Legion were welcomed into the ranks of the Third Reich and aspired to be and were accepted as a good racial type by prominent Nazi intellectuals. Could we imagine a Nazi Jewish Legion being accepted by Hitler or the Jews pressing for high racial status and being spoken for by Goebbels?
So what is all this nonsense about the Armenians being ‘über-Jews’? What idiots could write such rubbish if they had bothered to read anything beyond their ideological horizons.
Let us be fairer to the Armenians than Inrig and Douglas are to the Turks. Let us accept that the Armenians who collaborated with Hitler did so from the motivation of self-preservation rather than any ideological affinity with the Nazi philosophy. Let us leave aside the fact that this would have strengthened the Nazi war machine and have fatal consequences for the many minorities that the Nazis chose to exterminate and make them accessories to Genocide through such collaboration. Let us accept Chalabian’s argument that Dro and the Armenian Legion did such things because of their love for one section of humanity over all others and their desire to preserve their people/race, even if it meant legitimising the Nazi racial policy by acquiescence to it and engagement with it.
Let us, however, also take on board the understandings of another Armenian writer, Dr. Manuel Sarkisyanz, given as lectures in Heidelburg University to its South Asia Institute. In these lectures Dr. Sarkisyanz explains that Nazism did not come out of a vacuum. It indeed had substantial ideological forebears in its ant-semitism, expansionism and its Genocide and the practices to demonstrate such statecraft. And no where in the Armenian’s lectures do we read mention of the Ottomans as his inspiration for the Nazi regime. Manuel Sarkisyanz’s lectures have been published in book form by Athol Books. It is called ‘Hitler’s English Inspirers’.