The final discussion of the Armenian Genocide resolution at Bundestag has been postponed for an indefinite period of timе, Der Spiegel reported quoting its sources.
According to the daily, Christian Democratic Union and German Social Democratic Union have agreed to postpone final discussion of the resolution for an indefinite period of time.
Speaking in Yerevan on Thursday, Germany’s Ambassador to Armenia Matthias Kiesler said Bundestag is busy with the problem of refugees, and it is difficult to say when new discussion on Armenian Genocide resolution can take place.
Statement by Michael Hesemann, German Historian and Author, speaker at the International Genocide-Conference organized by the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia in Yerevan (15/16 Oct 2015) on the latest reports that the Bundestag postponed any decision regarding the Armenian Genocide to avoid any provocation of Turkey in the refugee crisis:
Dear Armenians, I am shocked and ashamed by the latest news from my country. I always said and I repeat it here that Germany bears a historical responsibility to fight for the Armenian cause due to our shameful past as Turkey’s closest ally during the years of the Genocide, an ally that was not only well informed about the Turkish plans to annihilate the Armenian population as part of an ethnic and religious homogenization of Anatolia to build up a strong, nified National State, but also witnessed these dreadful events described by so many of our diplomats and soldiers serving in the Ottoman Empire. This is clearly reflected by the famous statement of the German Cancellor of that time, Bethmann-Hollweg: “We must keep Turkey on our side until the war is over, even if Armenians perish.”
After the horrible and shameful events of the holocaust, Germany learned to reflect the dark chapters of its history, take over responsibility for crimes committed in its name, practised reconciliation and paid reparation to the relatives of the victims. In this way, the former ally could very well serve as a role model for Turkey, which never dared to come clean with its dark past.
But instead of helping Turkey to become a respected member of the family of nations and clean its hands still covered with blood, Germany still practises a kind of “Nibelungentreue” to its former ally: being faithful until the very end, as the most reliable partner in crime.
Of course Germany is not directly guilty in the murder of 1,5 million Armenians as well as hundreds of thousands Arameans, Assyrians and Greeks. But it is partially guilty, since it allowed these crimes to happen. And it is even more guilty since it never encouraged its former ally to take over responsibility for those crimes.
Indeed, it is Germany’s responsibility before the history to do everything in its power to move Turkey towards admittance, apology, responsibility and compensation in the Armenian questions. If it avoids this duty, it should at least compensate Armenia for its own unwillingness to stop the Turkish crimes.
The debate at the German Bundestag in April 2015 was a promising sign when some of the greatest and wisest politicians of all parties, from the President to the Chairman of the Bundestag and the CDU/CSU fraction all used the term “Genocide” as the only historically (even if not politically) correct term for the events of 1915/16, so clearly and undeniably documented by historical research and tenthousands of documents in the archives of Germany, Great Britain, France, the US and the Holy See. Irritating was just the refusal of both, the Cancellor and the Foreign Minister, to deal with these facts and fulfill their responsibility to confirm in public what was known by German cancellors and Foreign Ministers already a hundred years ago.
But both, Merkel and Steinhäuser, replied as if their manuscripts were written in Ankara, not in Berlin (as I openly wrote in a letter to the German Freign Ministry in May 2015). At that point, I believed that the votes of the Turkish minority in Germany were more precious to Merkel (CDU) and Steinhäuser (SPD) than the historical truth and the responsibility of their offices. But today, it is obvious, that they were merely put under pressure by the Turkish dictator Erdogan, who blackmails Germany like a sleazy suburbian Mafioso: To assure Turkey’s cooperation in the refugee crisis, which was mainly caused by the Turkish support of terrorist activities in Syria and Erdogans war – in “good old” genocidal tradition – against the Kurdish minority in his country, the Bundestag “postponed” a declaration in this question probably until “the end of the days”.
As a historian who investigated the events of 1915/16 based on the documents of the Vatican Secret Archives – which leave no doubt that it was indeed a planned genocide – I heavily condemn such an opportunistic policy which is a shame and only causes harm to the German name. The nation that has the responsibility to fight against the denial of ANY “holocaust” because of its own past should never act as a complice of genocide deniers if they just shout loud enough or might be “allies forever in good as in bad”.
If for Merkel, the alliance with an unscrupulous dictator like Erdogan is more important than Germany’s historical responsibility, she does not act in my name nor in the name of any honourable German citizen who believes in truth and integrity. I distance myself from her policy and ask for her immediate resignation before her blind alliance with Turkey causes even more damage to the reputation of the German nation, its parliament and its people.
Jerevan, 16 October 2015 – Michael Hesemann
Thank you, for your support for Armenian Genocide,