Cem Özgönül

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Cem Özgönül (* 1972 in Sakarya , Turkey) is a German - Turkish publicist who published his first book Der Mythos einer Genölkermordes. In 2006 in Cologne-based Önel Verlag . A critical examination of the Lepsius documents and the German role in the past and present of the "Armenian question" published in which he questioned certain historical sources for the Armenian genocide .

Life

Özgönül studied mathematics , sociology and philosophy. He lives and works as a freelance journalist in Cologne.

debate

In his book, Özgönül deals with the so-called Lepsius documents , a source edition of the original files of the German Foreign Office , which was published by Johannes Lepsius after the First World War in 1919 and was the most important source for the genocide of the Armenians until the 1960s was true. After manipulations in the Lepsius documents were discovered, the journalist Wolfgang Gust published a revised source edition of the original files of the Foreign Office in 2005.

Özgönül tries to prove that the manipulations carried out on the documents (according to Özgönül by Lepsius himself) were not only intended to conceal German participation (as Wolfgang Gust, among others, had previously explained), but goes one step further by claiming, that Lepsius had manipulated the documents not only in favor of the Germans, but also in favor of the Armenians.

Lepsius had corresponding passages in the telegrams of the German ambassadors in the Ottoman Empire, in which they announced that the Ottoman government had ordered the "humane implementation of the resettlement" or the passages that the Armenians massacred the "Muslim population" or the devastation of the " Muslim districts ”by the Armenians and passages about other pre- and post-stories are consistently faded out or manipulated.

According to Özgönül, these claims are understandable for anyone who compares the original documents of the Foreign Office with the source edition by Lepsius himself from 1919. The files of the Foreign Office in Berlin on the topic are microfiche no. 7086 to 7204 ( file: Turkey 183 ) and microfiche no. 7205 to 7270 ( files: Embassy Constantinople - Armenia ).

It is undisputed that there has been manipulation in Lepsius' source edition. Wolfgang Gust has already reported on it. The degree of manipulation is disputed. However, Özgönül writes referring to Gust's book Magisches Viereck : "Anyone who compares the originals with the Lepsius edition will see that it was manipulated not only in favor of the Germans, but also in favor of the Armenians".

The importance and status of the Lepsius edition in previous genocide research is also undisputed. Shortly before the publication of Özgönül's book, Gust wrote the following in his book Magisches Viereck : “Without Lepsius, the German public would have learned little of the atrocities that the Armenians first suffered in the friendly, then even allied Ottoman Empire. And his writings on the tragedies of the Armenians are still considered to be the most important in the German-speaking world. "

The second source edition of the original documents of the Foreign Office has now been published by Wolfgang Gust 86 years after the manipulated Lepsius edition. Özgönül writes that because of the manipulations in the Lepsius documents, “there was a call for a new edition of the German archive material that at first glance seemed independent of Lepsius. Recently, Wolfgang Gust has more or less covered this need with an edition of almost seven hundred pages. More or less because this new edition was also made on the basis of the postulate of a genocide beyond doubt in its factuality and was accordingly designed selectively ”.

Özgönül criticizes this selective approach by Gust in his analysis of the manipulations of Lepsius as incomprehensible. Gust titled one of his writings as "Magical Square", whereby Gust mentions the square that was Lepsius' self-declared life task in a letter, namely: relieving Germany, burdening Turkey, needing reserve office and gaining the trust of the Armenians. Özgönül writes in relation to Gust's way of working in his analysis of the Lepsius manipulations: “How one can, in spite of this, focus on a two-dimensional analysis in the truest sense of the word with regard to the manipulation motives of Lepsius, which focuses on the motives 'Relief for Germany' and The office's need for reserves is, frankly, a mystery. "

At the large three-day conference New Approaches in Turkish-Armenian Relations (2006) in Istanbul , at which, in addition to opponents and questioners of the genocide conception, three scientists who clearly classify the events as genocide took part, Özgönül stepped as the second historian (after Wolfgang Gust) in the history of genocide research, who compared the original German documents of the Foreign Office with the versions in the source edition published by Johannes Lepsius in 1919, and was the first historian to address alleged pro-Armenian manipulations. (Gust had only discussed the pro-German manipulations.) Ara Sarafian , one of the current genocide advocates, promised the Turkish historians during the conference that they would do joint projects in the future. Hilmar Kaiser , another genocide advocate at the conference, did not contradict Özgönül's theses.

Boris Kalnoky spoke in the German daily Die Welt in March 2006 of a possible "turnaround in the debate about the genocide of the Armenians" that Özgönül's book could bring about if it withstood critical examination and called it "probably the best work." in German, which synoptically summarizes the Turkish arguments ”.

Shortly after the conference, Tessa Hofmann and Wolfgang Gust spoke out massively against Özgönül's theses. Gust criticizes his core theses in the journal Armenisch-Deutsche Korrespondenz as scientifically untenable. He states that Özgönül's criticism of the documents from the archives of the German Foreign Office on the Armenian genocide made known by Johannes Lepsius is, firstly, unfounded and, secondly, not even supported by his own source studies. Özgönül evaluates manipulations in the document collection published by Lepsius in 1919, which since the re-edition of all original documents by Wolfgang Gust in 2005, both as a book and on the Internet, have been comprehensible for everyone, as evidence of the falsification of historical evidence; He disregards the fact that the eyewitness accounts of the deportations and massacres to which the German consuls in the Ottoman Empire (war allied with Germany) refer in their internal correspondence with the German embassy in Constantinople, which make up the most important part of the document collection, are from Lepsius could not be influenced in any way, since after the beginning of the war he no longer had any direct connection to the places of the event. Özgönül's attempt to establish Lepsius as a key figure in the Orient policy of the German Empire, who had connections to the interior of the Ottoman Empire during the genocide, appears to be absurd in the critical examination of Gust, who himself problematized Lepsius' role under certain aspects.

In addition, Wolfgang Gust has promised to play “Özgönül's assistant” by renaming the telegrams from the Foreign Office in his internet portal armenocide.de as Özgönül called them in his book. Özgönül criticizes in his book (p. 26) that Gust used incomprehensible source references to the original documents of the AA in his source edition and that such a citation is actually more like a denial of a source than a proof of such . Gust uses so-called "R" numbers as references in his source edition. An "R" number combines three to five microfiche numbers. It is therefore not uncommon for a reference to an “R” number to be a reference to up to 500 pages of AA documents. (A microfiche number usually comprises 98 pages). Özgönül, on the other hand, gives the exact microfiche number as a reference in his book, as given in the original documents of the Foreign Office. However, R-documents can be found in the archive, a microfiche must be purchased.

Tessa Hofman, however, did not get in touch. Shortly after the news about the conference, she spoke up on WDR and described the work as "old hat". However, she then admitted that she hadn't read the book at all. She has not commented on the book since then.

The Turkologist and historian Hans-Lukas Kieser from the Universities of Bamberg and Zurich accused Özgönül of a grave misjudgment with grave consequences. He pointed out "that the main finding of the comparison between the original documents and the Lepsius edition is ignored by Özgönül, namely that the changes were largely made by the Foreign Office," which was interested in blurring the German co-responsibility for the genocide. “In this respect, Özgönül is simply wrong in the addressee.” In addition, contrary to Özgönül's assertions, there are numerous independent primary sources for the extermination of the Armenians.

Wolfgang Gust and Tessa Hofmann have doubted that Özgönül, who formally does not deny the known facts of the genocide of the Armenians , is really about serious scientific work. In Özgönül's opinion, this chapter of Ottoman history has not yet been researched enough to allow a conclusive assessment of the extent to which the description of what is undoubtedly devastating for the Armenians as genocide is historically tenable. In this context, Özgönül tries, with his questioning of the Lepsius documents, to raise doubts that the topic can actually already be clearly classified from a historical-critical point of view.

Özgönül tries mainly by simple comparison with the original documents of the Foreign Office in Berlin to make the assertion that through multiple manipulations and selective procedures on the part of the most radical genocide advocates, a "myth of genocide" has now established in the mind, although the scientific evidence from his point of view has long been established is not so clear. Özgönül claims that it is particularly difficult to fight myths, as myths also form part of the identity of every people and lead the most radical genocide advocates to further selective approaches - even subconsciously.

A perspective on the creation of myths shared by the foreword author Udo Witzens .

criticism

In his book The Myth of a Genocide , Özgönül tries to portray Johannes Lepsius as the head of an alleged conspiracy against the Ottoman Empire at the time, which aimed to simulate the genocide of the Armenians . In this book, Özgönül also denies that the Young Turkish government was responsible for the systematic planning and implementation of the Armenian genocide. Özgönül's book thus follows the tradition of Turkish state policy of denial, which encourages Turkish historians to deny the Armenian genocide in order to “cleanse” Turkish history of incriminating crimes. However, due to its policy of denial, Turkey has been exposed to growing international criticism for several years, which is primarily based on a broad consensus among international historians regarding the factuality of the genocide of the Armenians. Wolfgang Gust emphasizes that the intention of the Ottoman government to exterminate the Armenians is repeatedly proven in the German documents.

swell

  1. ↑ a b Benedict Maria Mülder: Genocide in Armenia? ( Memento of the original from May 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Article for the 3sat broadcast Kulturzeit , April 24, 2006  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.3sat.de
  2. ↑ Germany and Armenia 1914–1918: Collection of diplomatic files
  3. ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Gust: Magical Square. Johannes Lepsius, Germany and Armenia
  4. ↑ Cem Özgönül: The Myth of a Genocide. P. 116
  5. ↑ a b Wolfgang Gust: The genocide of the Armenians 1915/16. Documents from the Political Archive of the German Foreign Office. Verlag zu Klampen, Springe 2005, ISBN 3-934920-59-4 .
  6. ↑ Cem Özgönül: The Myth of a Genocide. P. 25
  7. ↑ Cem Özgönül: The Myth of a Genocide. P. 119
  8. ↑ İstanbul Üniversitesi Türk - Ermeni İlişkilerinde Yeni Yaklaşımlar Konferansı 15 - 17 March 2006 , conference program
  9. ↑ Boris Kalnoky: 1634 Turkish officers sentenced to death In: Die Welt , March 20, 2006
  10. ↑ a b Boris Kalnoky: Art between four fronts . In: Die Welt, March 22, 2006
  11. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Gust: German constitution turned upside down - Cem Özgönül and the genocide of the Armenians . In: Armenisch-Deutsche Korrespondenz , vol. 2006, issue 1 & 2 = No. 131/132, pp. 32–39 ( online ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), PDF; 158 kB).
  12. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.armenocide.de
  13. ↑ a b Wolfgang Gust: “No reason to rewrite history” . Historian criticizes Istanbul conference on genocide against the Armenians, Deutschlandradio , broadcast on March 20, 2006

literature

Web links

Publications

personal data
SURNAME Özgönül, Cem
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Turkish publicist
DATE OF BIRTH 1972
PLACE OF BIRTH Sakarya , Turkey