The Memoirs of Naim Bey

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportation and the Massacres of Armenians are a book published in 1920 by Aram Andonian , one of the survivors of the deportees from April 24, 1915 to Çankırı . It lists documents that are said to be 50 telegrams and two letters from the Young Turkish government of the Ottoman Empire ordering the extermination of the Armenians during the Armenian genocide . Four documents are available as facsimiles in the English edition , 13 are available as facsimiles in the French edition. Considered both editions together, there are 14 facsimiles. The term Andonian documents or Naim Andonian documents is better known . The original Andonian documents were probably transferred to the Armenian SSR in the 1960s from the Nubar library in Paris, which Andonian was director until his death in 1951 . Since then, the originals have been considered lost.

The expert dispute over the Andonian documents is based on the original research of Krieger (Krikor Guérguérian), Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca as well as Vahakn Dadrian . It is a discussion based on expertise that has become very rare: knowledge of the Ottoman language and the cipher system of various ministries during the war . Access to archives that have been destroyed is also necessary. These are general problems of the genocide debate about the Armenian resettlement and massacre. The results of the Andonian documents so far are enough for several experts to make assessments. Klaus Kreiser , Michael M. Gunter and Erik-Jan Zürcher consider these documents to be historical falsifications . Other experts want to wait for further results; Yves Ternon and Vahakn N. Dadrian suspect an authenticity.

Original title of the Andonian Telegrams

history

According to Andonian, these documents were sold to him by a Turkish official in Aleppo named Naim Sefa (Naim Bey). The Andonia documents were bought by the Armenian National Council in Tbilisi and were intended to aid the Armenian statehood efforts in the peace negotiations . Andonian defended his work in a letter from 1937 against the criticism of Walter Rößler , stating that the motivation for his elaboration and publication of the book was propaganda and not the development according to scientific standards, therefore deficiencies are to be expected.

Andonian states that it took Naim Bey several weeks to write his testimony. Andonian goes on to say that verification of the material Naim Bey provided was easy for him, as after the British arrived he had the opportunity to ask surviving Armenians to write down their experiences. The written experiences would have confirmed Naim Bey's statements.

Naim Bey is unknown from other sources. Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca were unable to discover a reference to an official with the name in Aleppo in Ottoman archival sources and cannot make a final judgment on Naim Bey's existence. If Naim Bey was not a fictional person created by Aram Andonian, he must have been a low-ranking official “who could not have been in a position” to “have had access to documents of a secret and delicate nature”. There is also no evidence of the existence of a Naim Bey in the German files. Walter Rößler, the then German consul in Aleppo, stated that he could not remember a Naim Bey, but announced that he would ask Sister Beatrice Rohner and Consul Beatrice Rohner if they knew a Naim Bey. A reply from the two is not recorded in the German files.

The Andonian documents were published in three editions. The editions are facsimiles (photographs) or translations without facsimiles, which represent the Andonian documents that were probably lost in the 1960s. The facsimiles and the translations represent encrypted telegrams assigned to the Young Turkish leadership or decrypted telegrams and two letters. They are scattered in the text. In 1920 the English edition appeared in London under the title The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportation and the Massacres of Armenians . The title is misleading as it is not just about Naim Bey's memoirs as Aram Andonian keeps interrupting the text with his own comments. The English edition is a condensed version of the Armenian original. It was neither corrected nor read by Aram Andonian because he did not speak English. It was published before the Armenian original. Aram Andonian translated the telegrams from Ottoman into Armenian.

The French edition also appeared in Paris in 1920: Documents officiels concernant les massacres arméniens . The French edition is more faithful than the English edition compared to the Armenian original, the editing of which Andonian had mainly completed in June 1919. The original Armenian version, written by Aram Andonian himself, was published in Boston in 1921 under the title Մեծ Ոճիրը ( The Great Crime ).

content

English version

The English edition consists of a 10-page introductory section, a 71-page section depicting Naim Bey 's memories and an open 13-page letter attached to the US by Armin T. Wegner (who is described as an eyewitness to the massacre) President Woodrow Wilson . The introductory part consists of a preface introducing Aram Andonian, an introduction by Viscount Gladstone and an introduction by Andonian.

Gladstone says that in the "bloodstained annals " of the Ottoman Empire there is nothing comparable to the acts of violence that have taken place over the past five years. Through this “significant work of memory” one now not only knows that there were hideous facts, but one also knows how and by whom they were organized and perpetrated. Gladstone also draws attention to the forthcoming negotiations on the Treaty of Sèvres with "the ruling Turk", who "stinks of deeds which, in terms of extent and shamefulness, overtake the most imaginative image of Hell that was ever conceived". Gladstone concludes his preface by stating that this treaty is intended to "save once and for all the survivors of this Christian nation from the unspeakable misdeeds of the Sublime Gate."

A total of four Ottoman facsimiles are listed in the English edition. For this purpose, translations are given in the book:

Use of the documents in court

At the unionist trial in Istanbul, the court confirmed the authenticity of the documents, according to Ternon. The majority of these documents were used by the extraordinary court martial (also known as the Yozgat trial).

Five original documents were presented by the defense at the Tehlirian trial in 1921 , but were not admitted as evidence on the grounds of the prosecutor that the jury did not have to rule on Talât Pasha's guilt . A hearing Tehlirian wanted Andonian before the jury, who according to Rössler was classified as anti-German, had been declared unnecessary by the judge if Tehlirian declared that he held Talat responsible for the massacre.

Question of authenticity

Walter Roessler

Walter Rössler, German consul during the genocide in Aleppo, read Andonian's French publication critically at the request of Johannes Lepsius and found that "the published documents, compared with the course of events, have an inherent probability of their own." The view that "the content of the book makes a credible impression in its individual traits [...]" In the dating of the published documents, errors have occasionally been made that would make the entire document impossible, but they are obviously errors. Rössler said, however: “The documents that are described as original could definitely be genuine. As for those written down from memory, one would have to know Naim Bey's personality in order to be able to judge the degree of reliability. I did not come across anything inwardly improbable among these either. Rather, the facts that I know are well explained by the documents. Their frame also speaks for their authenticity rather than the opposite. "

Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca

In late 1983, two Turkish researchers, Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca, examined the French and English editions of Andonians. They came to the conclusion that the documents published in facsimile and only available in translation must be forgeries because there are inconsistencies in the dates. The date errors were due to the fact that the Rumi calendar was valid in the Ottoman Empire and the year change did not take place on January 1st, but on March 1st. According to Orel / Yuca, the creator of the Andonian documents must not have been familiar with the fact about the turn of the year in March, which was only brought forward to January by the law of February 1917. So it happened that in a letter that supposedly refers to a previous one, the converted date does not follow each other, and that another letter gives a date that was converted after the genocide of the Armenians. Orel and Yuca also stated that there were discrepancies between the official Ottoman original documents from this period and the Andonia documents. The lack of originals of the Andonian documents as well as contradicting information from Andonian in the various editions was also problematized. In addition, Orel and Yuca stated that the Ottoman archives gave no evidence of the existence of an official Naim Sefa.

Orel and Yuca summarize the main problems of the documents available in facsimile at the end of their work in twelve points. Your five most important results are:

  1. The signature of Mustafa Abdülhalik Bey, the governor of Aleppo, which is listed on nine documents, does not match his actual signature.
  2. Andonian was either ignorant of or inadvertently neglecting the computational differences between the Ottoman and European calendars. These mistakes destroy the system of reference numbers and dates that he used for his documents.
  3. A review of the dates and reference numbers found in the Ministry of Interior's Outgoing Encrypted Telegram Register reveals that Andonian's documents bear no relation to the actual reference numbers used on encrypted telegrams sent from Istanbul to Aleppo for the period in question were.
  4. All but two of the documents were written on plain paper with none of the common characters found on official paper used by the Ottoman government during World War I.
  5. The documents contain grammar and language errors that only a non-Turkish writer would make.

Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca fail to compare the Andonian documents with the telegrams deposited in the Mazhar Commission and used in the Yozgat trials, according to Yves Ternon. They are concerned with covering up facts and denying a state crime. However, Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca actually compared Ottoman documents from the Dahiliye Nazareti (Ministry of the Interior) with the Andonian documents and thus demonstrated formal and substantive errata.

Vahakn Dadrian

The Armenian researcher Vahakn N. Dadrian accepted the date discrepancies and explained that even the Turkish researchers made mistakes in some places when converting the dates. Dadrian stated that the inconsistencies in the Andonian documents could largely be explained as journalistic inaccuracies. Dadrian argued that just the easy detection of the errors defused the allegation of forgery, since "no forger would produce such inadequate and blatant imperfections damaged documents".

Historian Taner Akçam pointed out in 1999 that some of the published and unpublished documents contain sentences that correspond verbatim to those in the Andonian documents.

“[A] t least some of the published and unpublished documents in the possession of scholars share the same contents as documents published by Andonian. One authentic cable […] contains sentences identical with those found in the Documents published by Andonian. ”

Yves Ternon

Yves Ternon brings a further aspect with the unpublished Andonian documents, which concern the murder of the member of the Ottoman parliament, Krikor Zohrab . These unpublished documents, also purchased by Naim Bey, are still in place today and are the best evidence of the authenticity of the Andonian documents, according to Ternon. Since the question was different in 1919, Andonian had not found it necessary to publish these documents. At the time, it was not about providing evidence for the authenticity of the documents, but about attempts to grasp the concept behind the crime. This neglected point speaks against the falsification hypothesis of Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca.

So Ternon concluded, "You are probably authentic".

Further assessments

  • Andrew Mango (1994): "Doubtful telegrams assigned to the Ottoman wartime interior minister Talaat Pasha"
  • Klaus Kreiser (1996): “Talat-Paşa-Telegrams. Fake telegrams from the Ottoman. Interior Minister and leading member of the Young Turkish Triumvirate. "
  • Christopher J. Walker (1997): "Doubt must remain until and if the documents or similar documents reappear and are published in a critical edition."
  • Erik-Jan Zürcher (1997): "The Andonian materials were proven to be forgeries."
  • Taner Akçam (1999) does not address authenticity. At the same time, he underlines that at least some published and unpublished documents owned by researchers share the same content as the documents published by Aram Andonian.
  • Hilmar Kaiser (1999): “Some existing Turkish documents from the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior confirm to a certain extent the contents of two telegrams which are ascribed to Talaat in Andonian's book. Orel and Yuca did not use these sources, so their thesis is questionable and further research into the Naim Andonian documents is necessary. "
  • Guenter Lewy (2005): “It is clear that the controversy over the authenticity of the Naim Andonian documents will only be resolved by discovering and publishing relevant Ottoman documents, and this may never happen. Until then, I would argue that Orels and Yuca's extremely careful analysis of these documents has raised enough questions about their authenticity to render their use in any serious academic paper unacceptable. "
  • Jörg Berlin and Adrian Klenner (2006): “The formal discrepancies that they [Orel and Yuca] correctly worked out have largely been cleared up by the historian VN Dadrian. He also worked out the correspondence of the Naim Andonian documents with other sources, in particular with documents submitted by the prosecution during the later war crimes trials against the Young Turks. "

Today's meaning

Today, due to their discrepancies, the Andonian documents are largely no longer used as evidence of genocide. There is still no consensus in science as to whether they are authentic or fakes despite the discrepancies. According to Guenter Lewy , most historians reject them as falsifications at worst , or as unverifiable and problematic at best . Yves Ternon notes that historians are no longer using the Andonian documents as evidence of genocide. The Andonian documents continue to be a subject of research, as Taner Akçam's last announcement in 1999 about a monograph on the subject shows.

Andonian's editions

  • The Memoirs of Naim Bey. Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportation and the Massacres of Armenians, compiled by Aram Andonian , Hodder and Stoughton, London 1920.
  • Documents sur les massacres arméniens , Paris 1920.
  • Մեծ Ոճիրը. Հայկական վերչին կոտորածը և Թալէադ Փաշա [The great crime. The Recent Armenian Massacre and Talat Pasha], Hayrenik, Boston 1921.

literature

  • Türkkaya Ataöv: The Andonian "documents" attributed to Talat Pasha are forgeries. = Les "documents" d'Andonian attribués à Talat Pacha sont des faux. = The Andonian "documents" ascribed to Talat Pasha are forgeries. sn, Ankara 1984 ( Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakanschesi yayınları 538, ZDB -ID 2266200-5 = AUe SBF BYYO Doener sermaye işletmesi yayinlari 12).
  • Vahakn N. Dadrian : The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians. The Anatomy of a Genocide. In: International Journal of Middle East Studies. Vol. 18, 1986, ISSN  0020-7438 , pp. 311-360.
  • Wolfgang Gust : The genocide of the Armenians. The tragedy of the oldest Christian people in the world. Hanser, Munich a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-446-17373-0 .
  • Tessa Hofmann (ed.): The genocide of the Armenians in court. The Talaat Pasha process. Reprint of the Berlin edition, Dt. Verl.-Ges. for politics u. History, 1921, new edition, 3rd supplemented and revised edition. Society for Threatened Peoples, Göttingen 1985, ISBN 3-922197-05-1 ( Pogrom paperbacks 1006).
  • Guenter Lewy : The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey. A Disputed Genocide. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City 2005, ISBN 0-87480-849-9 .
  • Şinasi Orel, Süreyya Yuca: The Talaât Pasha “telegrams”. Historical fact or Armenian fiction? K. Rustem & Brother, Nicosia 1983, ISBN 9963-565-07-7 , PDF ( Memento of March 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
  • Yves Ternon: Enquête sur la négation d'un génocide. Éditions Parenthèses, Marseille 1989, ISBN 2-86364-052-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Armenian Genocide Bibliography on armenians.com.
  2. ^ Vahakn Dadrian The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide , International Journal of Middle East Studies, p. 317, note e; Guenter Lewy The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide , p. 67; Vatche Ghazarian Boghos Nubar's Papers and the Armenian Question 1915-1918: Documents , p. Xvii
  3. ^ Yves Ternon: Enquête sur la négation d'un génocide . éditions parenthèses, Marseille 1989, ISBN 2-86364-052-6 , p. 58.
  4. ↑ Deutsche Welle ( memento of June 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) of April 24, 2008 - [...] It is still controversial today whether this was the intention of the Ottoman government, whether it was a deliberate genocide. [...]
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Gust : The genocide of the Armenians - the tragedy of the oldest Christian people in the world . Munich 1993, p. 245.
  6. ^ A b c d Guenter Lewy: Revisiting the Armenian Genocide . In: Middle East Quarterly , Fall 2005, pp. 3–12.
  7. ^ Aram Andonian: The Memoirs of Naim Bey. Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportation and the Massacres of Armenians .
  8. ^ Aram Andonian to Mary Terzian July 26, 1937, in: ARF: Justicier du génocide arménien. Le procès de Tehlerian . Paris 1981, p. 232: «  Il oubliait seulement que mon ouvrage n'était pas un travail historique, mais un but de propagande et, naturellement, il ne pouvait pas être exempt des imperfections inherentes à cette sorte de publications.  »
  9. ↑ Aram Andonian: The Memoirs of Naim Bey , pp. Xii f.
  10. ↑ Şinasi Orel, Süreyya Yuca: The Talaât Pasha “telegrams”: Historical fact or Armenian fiction? P. 25 f.
  11. ↑ Rössler's letter to Lepsius, April 25, 1921 ( Memento of the original of September 29, 2007 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. - […] I also do not remember the name Naim Bey […] I devote myself to asking Sister Beatrice Rohner to say something. She probably had to negotiate directly with the deportation officers several times. Eyub Bey knows them personally. I can't say whether she also knows Naim Bey or Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey. In any case, your utterance will be of value. Consul Hoffmann at the passport office of the Foreign Office at Behrenstrasse 21 may also be able to give a reasoned judgment. [...] @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.armenocide.de
  12. ^ A b Yves Ternon: Enquête sur la négation d'un génocide . éditions parenthèses, Marseille 1989, ISBN 2-86364-052-6 , p. 49.
  13. ↑ in four parts online: Part I (PDF; 15 MB); Part II (PDF; 16 MB); Part III (PDF); Part IV (PDF)
  14. ^ Aram Andonian The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportation and the Massacres of Armenians , pp. Vii, viii
  15. ^ Yves Ternon: Taboo Armenia. Story of genocide . Frankfurt a. M., Berlin 1988, p. 165. Ternon refers as evidence to microfilm recordings of the Turkish-language trial protocols in the Washington Library of Congress.
  16. ↑ Yves Ternon here quotes warriors (Krikor Guerguerian): La plupart de ces documents ont été utilisés par la Cour martiale extraordinaire lors du procès de Yozgad.
  17. ^ Yves Ternon: Les Arméniens. Histoire d'un génocide. Edition revue et mise à jour par l'auteur. Editions du Seuil, 1996, ISBN 2-02-025685-1 , p. 335.
  18. ^ The letter from Lepsius to Rössler, April 13, 1921 ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ The letter from Rössler to Lepsius, April 25, 1921 ( Memento of the original of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been 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
  20. ↑ Şinasi Orel, Süreyya Yuca The Talat Pasha "telegrams" ( Memento from March 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  21. ↑ Wolfgang Gust: The genocide of the Armenians - the tragedy of the oldest Christian people in the world . Munich 1993, p. 246ff.
  22. ^ Guenter Lewy: The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide , p. 68; Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca: The Talaât Pasha "telegrams". Historical fact or Armenian fiction? , P. 143f. S. 114f in the PDF ( Memento from March 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ^ Yves Ternon: Enquête sur la négation d'un génocide . éditions parenthèses, Marseille 1989, ISBN 2-86364-052-6 , p. 73.
  24. ^ Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca: The Talaât Pasha "telegrams". Historical fact or Armenian fiction? . Nicosia 1983, ISBN 9963-565-07-7 , ISBN 2-85809-139-0 . - Document Annex I .
  25. ↑ Wolfgang Gust: The genocide of the Armenians - the tragedy of the oldest Christian people in the world . Munich 1993, p. 248.
  26. ^ Vahakn Dadrian: The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide , International Journal of Middle East Studies, Cambridge University Press. Vol. 18. 1986, section Conclusion .
  27. ↑ Taner Akçam: A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility , London 2007, p. 427. Akçam refers here to his forthcoming work Denial and Rewriting History ; Translated into English by Paul Bessemer, Turkish original İnsan Hakları ve Ermeni Sorunu , Ankara 1999.
  28. ^ Yves Ternon: Enquête sur la négation d'un génocide . éditions parenthèses, Marseille 1989, ISBN 2-86364-052-6 , p. 199.
  29. ^ A b Yves Ternon: Enquête sur la négation d'un génocide . éditions parenthèses, Marseille 1989, ISBN 2-86364-052-6 , chapter La qualité de la preuve - A propos des documents Andonian et de la petite phrase d'Hitler on imprescriptible.fr: “  Les historiens du génocide arménien ne présentent plus ces documents comme des preuves du génocide, mais il est important de dire pourquoi ils ne sont pas recevables alors qu'ils sont probablement authentiques.  »
  30. ↑ Andrew Mango: Turks and Kurds . In: Middle Eastern Studies , 30, 1994, p. 985
  31. ^ Klaus Kreiser: Small Turkey Lexicon. Munich 1996, SW Talat-Paşa telegrams
  32. ^ Christopher J. Walker World War I and the Armenian Genocide , in The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times . New York 1997, p. 247
  33. ^ Erik-Jan Zürcher Turkey: A Modern History . London 1997, p. 121
  34. ↑ Taner Akçam: A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility . London 2007, p. 426; Translated into English by Paul Bessemer, Turkish original: İnsan Hakları ve Ermeni Sorunu , Ankara 1999
  35. ^ Hilmar Kaiser The Baghdad Railway and the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1916: A Case Study of German Resistance and Complicity . In: Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide , Detroit 1999, p. 108
  36. ^ Guenter Lewy The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide . Salt Lake City 2005, p. 73
  37. ↑ Jörg Berlin, Adrian Klenner (ed.): Genocide or resettlement. The fate of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Presentation and documents. Cologne 2006, p. 52f.
  38. ↑ Taner Akçam: A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility . Metropolitan Books, New York 2006, ISBN 978-0-8050-7932-6 , p. 378; Translated into English by Paul Bessemer, Turkish original İnsan Hakları ve Ermeni Sorunu , Ankara 1999.