100 Years Later: The Legacy of the Armenian Genocide


The Armenian Genocide leaves a long and disturbing legacy in its wake. The genocide had a profound influence onAdolfHitler and his systematic extermination of the Jews duringWorldWar II in the genocide known as theHolocaust.On August 22, 1939, asHitler prepared his generals for the invasion of Poland, he said:


“Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter –with premeditation and a happy heart.History sees in himsolely the founder of a state. It's amatter of indifference tomewhat aweakwestern European civilizationwill say aboutme. I have issued the command – and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticismexecuted by a firing squad – that our war aimdoes not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placedmy death-head formations in readiness – for the present only in the East – with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men,women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shallwe gain the living space which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”


Fundamentally, both the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust were systematic massacres intended to eliminate an entire ethnic group. TheTurkish government andHitler both usedmethods of deportation and mass slaughter to achieve their ends.While the Armenianmassacres received extensive news coverage in theWest duringWorldWar I,Hitler sawby his time that the events had been essentially forgotten. The charges against the Young Turk leaders were dropped after only a few months, and Armenian refugees were not permitted to return to their homes, so it seemed to him as if the incident had never occurred.Hitler believed that theworldwide oversight would happen again, allowing him to commit the same crimes and repeat history.


To this day, the Turkish government denies that genocide is the correct term to describe what happened to theArmenians during the FirstWorld War. Tactics of denial have varied over the last century. Initially, the Turkish government claimed that killing the Armenians had been a security measure during thewar, and that it spiraled out of control due to poor control over soldiers and the general Turkish population. Later, the government attempted to avoid the issue altogether, and then to blame the Armenians for the conflict. The Turkish government still claims thatwhile the Turks did slaughter theArmenian population, itwas not a systematic or planned action but rather a side effect ofwar, and therefore cannot be called genocide. Some historians have theorized that the Western world’s sympathy for the Armenian population is informed by pro- Christian bias; they claim that many Muslims also suffered and died during the early part of the 20th century.While the events are controversial and remain partially obscured by history,mostworld scholars recognize the series of massacres as a systematic extermination of the Armenian population by the Ottoman government.


“When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, theyweremerely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact. … I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.”


Henry Morgenthau Sr., U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Ambassador, “Morgenthau's Story,” 1919.


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