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On issues related to the Armenian Genocide recognition, and particularly on the Armenian Genocide recognition bill that is still outstanding in the German Bundestag Panorama.am has spoken with Dr. Tessa Hofmann – renowned German scholar of Armenian studies (author of over a dozen books on Armenian history, culture and genocide) and a human rights activist.

Nvard Chalikyan: Dr. Hofmann, in your view what was the main significance of Pope Francis’ message of 12 April 2015 by which he acknowledged the Armenian Genocide using the legal term?

Tessa Hofmann: His Holiness’ message of was certainly a powerful and significant signal for European and American state politicians, in particular for those intending to follow suit. Francis is the head of a universal church that represents 1.214.000.000 faithful. Personally, I liked that the Pope included into his commemoration the co-sufferers of the late Ottoman genocide(s), i.e. Greek Orthodox and Aramaic speaking Christians of various denominations.

The US-genocide scholar Norman Naimark rightly noted in an interview with a German daily, that the Pope’s only flaw in his address was to qualify the genocide against the Ottoman Armenian as the first genocide of the 20th century. As a German, I am well aware of the fact that the first genocide of the 20th century was committed by German colonial forces against the indigenous tribes of Herero and Nama in Namibia (1904-1908). It is interesting that the descendants of Herero and Nama survivors, as the Armenians until this day wait for a formal parliamentary recognition of their genocides by the German legislation. Could it be that in both cases demands for material/financial restitution against Germany play a role? In the Namibian case, we speak about the farmland confiscated for and by German settlers, whose descendants still own it. In the Armenian case, restitution concerns mainly deposits of Armenian deportees at German banks.

N.C.: Could you comment on the resolution by the European Parliament approved on 15 April 2015 that urges Turkey to Recognize the Armenian Genocide? Do you think it can help facilitate further international recognition of the Genocide? 

Tessa Hofmann: The nonbinding EP motion is the fifth consecutive resolution and repeats much earlier demands on Turkey: Already in its first resolution of 1987, the EP had called on Turkey to recognize the genocide against the Armenians and had named this acknowledgment as a pre-condition of Turkey’s admission to the EU. However, the more influential European Commission has never shared this point of view. And this seems to be an integral part of a more general problem: legislative recognition of genocides, committed before 1948 are counteracted or even blocked (as in the German case) by stronger executive bodies.  

N. C.: How would you evaluate Turkey’s response to Pope’s message as well as to the EP resolution?

Tessa Hofmann: Psychologically seen, the responses of official Turkey in both cases are over-reactions. President Erdogan blamed the MEPs for “religious and cultural fanaticism” and protested against Francis’ message as “nonsense”, warning at the same time the head of the largest Christian church not “to repeat his mistake”. The reason behind Erdogan’s entirely undiplomatic and offensive behavior, however, is perhaps the expectation that such aggressiveness makes an impression. 

N. C.: What are your observations of the process that the Armenian Genocide recognition bill has been going through in the German Bundestag?

Tessa Hofmann: The Bundestag has not yet made any decision, although our legislator is officially confronted with petitions and demands for recognition since the year 2000, when representatives of the Turkish and Kurdish communities in Germany, the Armenian Central Council of Germany and German human rights NGOs jointly forwarded a massive petition, signed by approximately 14,000 residents of Germany. 

In 2005, the Bundestag approved an own non-legislative resolution that, under the pressure of the executive and in particular the Foreign Office circumscribed the genocide against the Armenians as ‘expulsion’ and ‘massacres’ and avoided any own legal opinion about these crimes. Due to continuing criticism against the evasiveness of the German Federal Government and the Bundestag, another attempt was made in early 2015 to adopt a motion which evaluates the ‘expulsion’ and ‘massacres’ as genocide, albeit in the German version of this word. As in 2005, the German Foreign Office and the Chancellery interfered and censored the term ‘genocide’. Only under the impression of an extraordinary media and public interest in the Armenian genocide and its recognition, as well as under the impression of the Pope’s message and the EP resolution, appeals of German human rights NGOs, scholars and various associations such as the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the Federal Government gave up its resistance, and the term genocide was restituted in the draft motion of the ruling coalition, although nearly hidden away in the third paragraph of the text; the motion’s headline still bears the previous terminology of ‘expulsion’ and ‘massacres.’ 

However, meanwhile the two minor opposition fractions of the Bundestag had forwarded their own, farer reaching draft motions, and it was too late to agree on a joint motion that all fractions in the Bundestag would agree with. 24 April 2015 saw only a 70 minutes debate in the Bundestag, during which all speakers, representing all parliamentary fraction expressed their personal opinion that the crimes committed against the Ottoman Armenians represent genocide. Impressive, as the statements were, they do, however, not represent a formal parliamentary recognition.

The three competing draft motions were forwarded to the Bundestag Commission for Foreign Affairs and are on the Commission’s agenda for the 6th of May, 2015, when rapporteurs will be nominated. However, there remains strong fear that the parliamentary German recognition of the Armenian genocide may ooze away, once the speeches and statements of April 2015 fell into oblivion after the parliamentary recess.  

But I hope that this prognosis fails, and that many citizens of this country will raise their voices to maintain the awareness of our MPs. They still owe the Armenians, and more so the increasingly multicultural society of Germany a service. 

N.C.: Dr. Hofmann, why do you think it is important that Germany recognizes the Armenian Genocide? 

Tessa Hofmann: During WW1 Germany was not only an all too well knowing ally of the criminal chauvinist Ottoman regime – the Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, alias Young Turks – but benefitted from Armenian slave labor at the Baghdad railway construction sites. Individual, high-ranking German servicemen demanded or ordered deportation in the Ottoman Eastern provinces. It is indicative for the situation that during one century no academic German research was conducted or published on Germany’s precise share of responsibility in the Armenian genocide. Everything that has been done in this field has been written and published by investigative journalists.

Not only has Turkey to face its criminal past of the WW1 period and afterwards, but Germany as well has to come to terms with its complicity in the late Ottoman crimes. I believe that the German legislator is well aware of the fact that we as Germans have no moral right to demand Turkish recognition if we ourselves are not prepared to face our own role and attitude in the genocide committed against the Ottoman Armenians.

 Interview by Nvard Chalikyan

Related interviews:

EP Vice-President Ryszard Czarnecki on Genocide recognition: Silence means support

MEP Massimo Castaldo on Armenian Genocide Resolution: We cannot sacrifice human rights to commercial interests