Edward Kanterian- Mr. Ihrig, we know that Mussolini was truly a model for Hitler. But much less known, Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, was another major source of inspiration for Hitler. You recently published a book that explores this topic. Why Hitler is it interested in Ataturk?

Stefan Ihrig- all goes back to the early 1920s; Germany was still reeling from the lost war and the fear of a punitive treaty imposed by the Agreement. In an atmosphere of nationalist depression, events began to move into Anatolia that inspired passion and dreams to German nationalists. Led by Mustafa Kemal, the Turks resisted “their” particular Versailles Treaty, the Treaty of Sevres. They faced the Agreement and the Greek army up to challenge their own government in Constantinople. What happened in Anatolia was like a dream come true for many in the nationalist Germany, and especially for the Nazis, who thought that Germany should copy what were the Kemalists. Hitler was much inspired by Ataturk and the idea of a ‘government of Ankara’ for its project to create a government against Munich, he would impose his coup of 1923. In retrospect Beerhall in 1933, he recalled Ataturk and the Kemalists as the ‘shining star’ in the dark 1920s the Nazis and Hitler, in a political sense, grew up with Turkey and Ataturk. It was a fascination that will never disappear and that turned into a kind of cult during the Third Reich.

EK: The main attraction was the fact that Ataturk had withstood the Entente?

If yes. Resist the Agreement and revise a peace treaty of Paris fascinated the Nazis. But that was not all. There was also the fact that Turkey was stripped of most of its minorities, first the Armenians during the First World War, and secondly, most Greeks by the population exchange the Treaty of Lausanne . And in the end, to the Nazis, what happened in Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s was a successful restructuring of the country to the nationalist and racial lines. For them it was an example of what a purely national state could succeed with a strong leader.

EK – Turkey who “got rid” of the Armenians was of course Turkey Turkish Young, whose regime ended in 1918 and in which Ataturk played only a minor role, she was going up the Nazi fascination young Turks? Can we think they were impressed by the design centric Turkish Turkish state Turkish Youth and Kemal, an opposite conception to the idea of multi-ethnic society which had hitherto existed in the Ottoman Empire? Is there a direct link between population policies and exclusion of Ataturk and those of the Nazis?

SI- The Young Turks did not matter much to the Nazis. But ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the Armenian Genocide before the War of Independence had been for the Nazis, a major precondition for the success of Ataturk in this war. And the expulsion of the Greeks was the vision of the Nazis, a second prerequisite for further success Turkey reconstruction on a national basis. Wholesale and somehow it was for the Nazis a whole provisions’. For them, it was important that ethnic minorities – those that they and other German nationalists saw as “the Jews” – are eliminated. In the vision of the New Turkey for the Nazis, this would not have been possible if Turkey had not stripped of minorities. In this way, the Nazis and other German nationalists were able to make Nova Turkey Ataturk, the idea of a racial ethnic full-scale reconstruction of a test that allowed them to measure the power of a new national state purged of minorities, a test that not only reaffirmed their own belief in the power of the states after ethnic cleansing, but taught different methods on how to do so.

EK: To what extent the ideology of Kemalist state she was an inspiration for the Nazis? Presumably they ignored the fact that Ataturk was the creation of a republic in which a parliament representing the people, was the main source of power?

The SI-Nazi vision of the New Turkey Ataturk was very selective. Almost everything found himself in conflict with the ideals and objectives Nazis was either mitigated or ignored. The emancipation of women was one of these points; it was mentioned, but it was considered unnecessary to linger. The rather peaceful foreign policy of Ataturk was deliberately misinterpreted. Regarding method of government, under Ataturk, the Nazis saw him as a strong leader supported by a single party, which for them was the only viable alternative to what they perceived as a decadent Western democracy.

EK: What was the position of the Nazis has vis-à-vis the “Armenian Question” in Turkey?

SI- In the discussion of the Turkish war of independence, the Armenians did not take a large square. Again, the Nazis had their own vision of the power and the time of Ataturk. Which exceeded in importance for them everything was Turkey after 1923, they were only to mono-ethnic paradise image. They simply refused to see them still remaining minorities such as the Kurds, and conflicts still existed within the Turkish state. What gave the Armenians, by cons, this importance in the Nazi speech on the New Turkey Ataturk was the specifically German tradition of seeing in them “the Jews of the East”.

EK: Can you give some examples of the manifestations of this vision of Armenians as the Jews of the East in the German discourse? Is that a fact emerged after World War II or were there before?

SI- This German tradition appeared in the late 19th century. At about the same time that appeared modern anti-Semitic racism, the perception of Armenians as racially similar or equivalent to the Jews of Central Europe, as they were described in the antisemitic discourse developed. In this perception, the Armenians were typically described as merchants exploiters enjoying the nice and hardworking Turkish population. This perception portrayed through the parasite, cheater, and non-productive Armenians. Armenians are in all kinds of crafts and trades – many of them, for example, are fermiers- was simply ignored in these speeches. In racial and racist literature increasingly large between the late 19th century until the 1930s, the Armenians were described as a parent or sister race of the Jews, often of them were said to be ” worse than the Jews. “ This creates a particular base course for the German perception of the 1915-1916 events, especially when we know the way things take history in Germany.

EK: That brings us to your last book you just finished, Justifying Genocide, to be published by Harvard University Press later this year. How did you decide to write this book?

SI- During my research on the Nazis and Turkey, I discovered that a great debate took place on the Armenian Genocide. This debate began in the early 1920s and it is totally forgotten today. But it was still one of the biggest debates on the genocide of the twentieth century. It was truly a debate on the “genocide” even before Raphael Lemkin coined the word has, because he was on the intent and scope of the “annihilation of a nation.” I tried to reconstruct this debate and why it lasted so long. Consider a discussion of four and a half years, including the first discussions after the war what had happened, the lively reception given to the Foreign Office documents published on the Armenian Genocide already in 1919, a heated exchange between those condemning what had happened, the “murder of a nation,” and the other denying it. In addition, there were murders, that of Talaat the first in 1921 and then those two prime Young Turks in 1922, all of which took place in Berlin and resumed extensively in the press of the time. Jai held to establish which came from the bottom of critical analysis employed in these discussions, and that is how I explored the German relations Ottoman Armenians since the late 1870. It appears, from the already time of Bismark, that Armenians suffered a foreign policy very cynical Germany [the real politik, already! ndt]. They were regularly sacrificed to allow Germany to obtain political advantages and a more favorable position in the Ottoman Empire. This continual sacrifice of another Christian people led a German discourse that justified the massacres already in the 1890s, and reached the tops with the propaganda of the Great War and the sickening justifications of the early 1920s.

EK: The rhetorical question Hitler “Who after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians”, asked in August 1939 in a speech on the war of annihilation that he would commit to the east, is well known. She suggested that Hitler was at least inspired by the Armenian Genocide. In your new book, you cling to demonstrate that the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide were linked far more than previously thought. Is it correct ?

SI- The ongoing debate on recognition and denial held the Armenian Genocide hostage for almost a century and has also led to reduced often to a footer mark in the history of accounts and analysis European and world of that time. But it was immensely important at this time, also, and perhaps particularly in Germany. Not only Germany was tied there as close as state and ally of the Ottoman, but it was the case of many people, diplomats, officers and soldiers. The fact that the Ottoman Empire had to this point concerned the German public and the German political sphere already before 1915 Germany joined the Armenian Genocide more. And finally the great debate on the genocide in Germany in the early 1920s brings this topic to a single decade of the rise to power of Hitler. The Armenian Genocide was chronologically and geographically closer to Germany and the Third Reich as is usually assumed; my book is an example in many aspects.

EK Few German historians worked on the Armenian Genocide. What could be the reasons?

SI- continuously is attributed to the subject of the difficulties and potential dangers. If you are a historian working on the Turkish and Ottoman history, you do not want to offend the people you need to reach your sources. Another reason is that many sources of German military archives were lost during World War II. Then there was the suspicion that many of the discussions on the Armenian Genocide and its links with Germany might be used to relativize the Holocaust. And finally, the official Turkish denial campaign has created a lasting impression or rather created confusion by suggesting that the subject is too difficult and unapproachable. However, in recent years many have worked on the German side, proposing new studies on particular aspects and also providing new evidence. I am sure that we will reach a critical mass in this area and that soon a broader reassessment of the Armenian Genocide will be made in history, German, European and world.

Edward Kanterian

October 30, 2015

Interview with Stefan Ihrig To Armenian Weekly

Translation Gilbert Béguian