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A book presented in Berlin on the responsibility of Germany in the genocide of the Armenians

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book , Berlin on the responsibility of Germany genocide , ArmeniansAt the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin was presented the book “Das Deutsche Reich und der Völkermord and den Armeniern” (German Reich and the Armenian Genocide), which contains numerous articles on the role of Germany during the genocide of the Armenians. The subject became relevant after the vote of recognition of the genocide of the Armenians by the German Parliament on 2 June 2016 and especially the assertion in the Bundestag text of Germany’s “share of responsibility” during the genocide. Even if the vote created Turkey’s anger, this recognition of Germany’s responsibility as an ally of Turkey during the genocide is of paramount importance and opens up new avenues of study on genocide.

What did Germany know about the crimes of 1915? It turns out from the German and foreign press reports of the time of the facts that Berlin was not ignorant of the mass massacres and the deportation of the Armenians. The historian Kristin Pchikkoltz, who has researched the German archives, asserts that the German government understood the necessity of the deportation of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and knew that these deportations carried out by the Young Turks meant annihilation Of the Armenian people. “Germany had a large network of consulates in the Ottoman Empire, whose agents regularly informed Berlin of the situation of the Armenians and not only during the First World War, but even before that. The German government knew how difficult the Armenians were and how explosive the situation was, “ says the German historian.
At the presentation of the book, Rolf Hosfeld, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, stated that on 7 July 1915 the German Ambassador had returned from Constantinople to Berlin. The diplomat then wrote that the will of the Turkish leaders was the elimination of the Armenian nation in the Ottoman Empire. He also asserted that German diplomats at the time had very fairly presented what was later termed genocide. He recalled that the German parliamentarians had not only described the term “genocide” as having occurred in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1916 but had also accepted the responsibility of Germany, which was the ally of Turkey . The German deputies also considered that Berlin had done nothing to save the Armenians from massacres and deportation.

Krikor Amirzayan

BREAKING NEWS: Berlin Christmas market Truck massacre suspect Anis Amri ‘shot DEAD by police’

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Friday, December 23, 2016 5:16 AM EST
Anis Amri, the chief suspect in the deadly terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin earlier this week, was killed by the police in a shootout outside Milan early Friday morning, Italian officials said.
Law enforcement authorities across Europe have been hunting since Wednesday for Mr. Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian who moved to Italy in 2011 and then relocated to Germany in 2015.

Armenians pay tribute to killed Russian ambassador to Turkey & Berlin Christmas market attack

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Young activists of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) on Tuesday conducted a commemoration march to the Russian Embassy to pay respect to Andrei Karlov, the assassinated Russian ambassador to Turkey.

Simultaneously, another public gathering was organized outside the German Embassy in Yerevan to commemorate the 12 victims of the recent attack at the Berlin Christmas market.

The crowd, led by Karen Avagyan, observed a moment of silence, condemning the tragic shooting that claimed a human life.
Ambassador Karlov was gunned down at an art exhibition in Ankara as he was making a speech in a photography gallery event.
“Turkey is plunging into terrorism, and the recent act is sure to have its impact on the Russia-Turkey relations,” a young Republican said,

Breaking News: Germany 9 dead after truck crashes into Berlin Christmas market

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Local media reporting up to 50 people injured,

A truck plowed into a crowd near a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday evening, killing at least nine people and injuring many others, police said.

The market is  near the fashionable Kurfuerstendamm avenue in the west of Germany’s capital city.

It was not clear why the truck veered off the road into the market, but local media are reporting police have said initial investigations point to an attack.

A German newspaper has also reported that up to 50 people are injured.

Speaking to CBC News from Berlin, freelance journalist Nick Spicer said the truck drove into the crowd around 8 p.m. local time, when the market was crowded with people drinking mulled wine and eating sausages.

“If you wanted to hurt a large number of people with a truck, this is the kind of place you would go to,” Spicer said.

Berlin mayor accuses Turkey of waging war on Gulen supporters in Germany

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berlin-turkeyMayor Michael Müller has accused Ankara of extending its post-coup crackdown to Germany. The Turkish president has accused a US-based activist of initiating the coup.

Müller, who as governing mayor is premier of the state of Berlin, told the Sunday edition of German newspaper “Bild” that Turkish officials had approached him following the attempted coup last month.

“I was approached and asked by a Turkish government official whether we would be prepared to critically confront the Gulen movement in Berlin and, if necessary, to support measures against it,” Müller told the newspaper.

“I rejected the idea and made it very clear that Turkish conflicts could not be waged in our city,” he added.

In Germany, businesses thought to be in support of Gulen have been harrassed by Erdogan supporters. In late July, the western city of Cologne was the scene of a massive demonstration in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Crackdown continues

Erdogan blames the July coup attempt on US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has adamantly denied the claims. On Friday, Gulen penned an editorial in French newspaper “Le Monde,” calling on Erdogan to produce evidence of his guilt.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, Erdogan has purged tens of thousands of academics, journalists, civil servants and military personnel he suspects of supporting Gulen.

Erdogan has also repeatedly called on the US to extradict the cleric.

Berlin rebuffs Turkey in Armenian genocide row after Green MP receives death threats

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Berlin hit backAmid the ongoing row over Germany’s decision to refer to the Armenian massacre as “genocide,” Berlin has hit back at Ankara. German MPs with Turkish roots have called for action from Merkel after receiving death threats.

Steffen Seibert, spokesman to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said on Monday that the Bundestag – Germany’s lower house of parliament – “had reached a sovereign decision.”

“That must be respected,” he added.

The comments from Berlin on Monday came in light of Turkey’s reaction last week to Germany’s decision to pass a resolution which refers to the mass deaths of 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as “genocide.”

As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey officially denies that the events that started in 1915 amounted to genocide. Ankara’s official line is that ethnic Armenians represented a fifth column backed by Russia during World War I, and that the mass deportation and accompanying Armenian deaths were not premeditated or intentional – a key requirement in the legal definition of genocide.

Following the Bundestag’s “overwhelming” vote in favor of the “genocide” resolution, Ankara recalled its ambassador from Berlin, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowing to “never accept the accusations of genocide.”

“First you need to answer for the Holocaust, then for the murder of 100,000 people in Namibia,” Erdogan said.

The Turkish president also accused 11 German MPs with Turkish roots who backed the resolution of supporting “terrorism” by the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), and demanded “blood tests” to see “what kind of Turks they are.”

Ankara’s mayor, Ibrahim Melih Gökcek, later tweeted a collage of the 11 politicians, with the hastag #TheTraitorsMustLoseTheirCitizenship, claiming that they had “stabbed us [Turkey] in the back.”

n response to the allegations, Seibert said on Monday that while Berlin also considers the PKK a terrorist group, “to associate individual members of parliament with terrorism is utterly incomprehensible to us.”

Death threats

Among the 11 MPs was Green party co-leader, Cem Özedemir, who also instigated the vote on the resolution. The politician has since been placed under police protection after receiving anonymous death threats. The 50-year-old from Bad Urach in western Germany is the son of Turkish immigrants.

Speaking on Monday, Özdemir said that he wouldn’t let himself be intimidated by Erdogan’s verbal attacks.

“The votes in the German Bundestag aren’t made depending on which authoritarian leaders are happy and which ones aren’t,” he said.

‘This has gone too far’

During an interview with German news program “Tagesschau” on Monday, fellow Green politicians Özcan Mutlu said he had received “hundreds if not thousands of emails with messages of hate or death threats.”

“As an MP, insults and threats have started to become normal,” he said. “But this takes things to a new level.”

human rights record and worsening press freedom in order to win Ankara’s cooperation in the implementation of the EU refugee deal.

Social Democrat (SPD) and Integration Minister Aydan Özoguz also condemned the threats on Monday.

“The death threats against us MPs are absolutely unacceptable and shock me deeply,” he said.

“I expect parliament to clearly show its solidarity with us and to not leave us here alone,” Özoguz added.

Solidarity from Bundestag and Turkish community

Seemingly in response to the calls for support, Christian Democrat (CDU) and Bundestag President Norbert Lammert said on Monday that he wanted to “reitterate the lower house of parliament’s solidarity with the threatened colleagues.”

Despite broadly opposing the “genocide” vote, Germany’s Turkish community has also criticized Ankara and Erdogan’s supporters for the pressure which has been placed on German lawmakers of Turkish origin.

“We find death threats and demands for blood tests abhorrent,” said chairman of Germany’s Association for the Turkish Community, Gokay Sofuoglu.

“I think the era when people were defined by their blood ended in 1945. This is absolutely out of place,” he added.

GERMANY: Berlin Police Say 13 Officers Injured in Clashes With Protesters

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1039239570At least 13 police officers were injured in clashes with protesters in Berlin on Saturday, the local police said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Earlier in the day, almost 2,000 people protested calling for Chancellor Angela Merkel to step down. A counter-demonstration also took place, with around 7,500 people rallying for tolerance.

“So far, our colleagues carried out more than 40 detentions… So far, 13 colleagues were reported injured. Three vehicles were set on fire,” the central operations division of the Berlin police said on its Twitter account.

According to local media reports, come 1,700 policemen were deployed to ensure the rallies are carried out peacefully. Several activists managed to break through the police cordon, with law enforcers using tear gas.

The Merkel government has been repeatedly criticized for its open-door migration policy, as Europe is struggling to manage an unprecedented refugee crisis with hundreds of thousands fleeing war and violence in the Middle East and North Africa.

More than 1.8 million migrants entered the European Union in 2015, according to the EU border agency Frontex.

Germany: Soghomon Tehlirian to be Commemorated in Berlin

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3f73faa420f84ae8a3fdef4ddad0eb67BERLIN (ArmRadio)–It was on March 15, 1921 that Armenian avenger Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated Talaat Pasha, one of the masterminds of the Armenian Genocide.

On April 2, 120th anniversary of Tehlirian’s birth, representatives of the Armenian community will gather on Hardenbergstraße in Berlin, the site where Talaat was assassinated, to hold an event in memory of Tehlirian

Tehlirian shadowed Talaat as he left his house on Hardenbergstraße on the morning of March 15, 1921. He crossed the street to view him from the opposite sidewalk, then crossed it once more to walk past him to confirm his identity. He then turned around and pointed his gun to shoot him in the nape of the neck.

Talaat was felled with a single 9mm parabellum round from a Luger P08 pistol. The assassination took place in broad daylight and led to Tehlirian’s immediate arrest by German police.

“I killed him, but I am not a murderer,” Tehlirian said of himself.

After a two-day trial, Tehlirian was found not guilty by the German court, and freed. He eventually moved to the United States and lived out his years in San Francisco.