Germany puts 700,000 WWI docs online

The Local ^ | 07/23/2014 | Staff Writers

[fso301]

More than 700,000 records relating to WWI, as well as photos, films and audio recordings were made accessible on a new portal on the Federal Archive's website.

The collection includes private material as well as files of military and civilian authorities, records left by politicians and military officers, documentaries and propaganda films. Access to the complete archive is free.

The archive will also help people compiling family histories, say curators, since it has extensive information about locations where individual soldiers served. It also contains letters written to and by combatants in the war, which began on July 28, 1914, and ended on November 11, 1918.

[MNJohnnie]

Thank you!

[SunkenCiv]

The book sounds like an effort to shift responsibility away from the Turkish regime that indisputably masterminded and carried out the genocide. The number of German military in Turkey during wwi was pretty small (they had a lot on their plate during that little two and a half front war they were fighting in Europe at the time) and mostly their duties pertained to the efforts to blockade seagoing traffic to and from the Russian Empire. Germany and Austria joined the UK, France, and Russia, and the United States, in the condemnation of the genocide, and did so at the time it was going on. Sounds like the author either has an axe to grind, or wants his fifteen minutes.

https://www.umdearborn.edu/dept/armenian/facts/genocide.html

http://www.genocide1915.org/ogonvittnen_diplomater.html

interesting sidebar:

http://www.worldwar1.com/sfgb.htm

[fso301]

I predict, in the future they will not be taught as "World War One" and "World War Two", but as just one war -- perhaps "The Great War" -- or maybe "the 75-Years War", including the "Cold War", beginning in 1914, ending 75 years later, in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

That is an interesting point you make.

So Homer, there's no way to finish your work in this lifetime. You might need some staff... ;-)

LOL!

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Thank you for the links. I am of course very familiar with the charges.

This is no attempt to mitigate the horror. Even the modern constitutional democratic Republic of Turkey acknowledges that atrocities were committed -- not all by the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire BTW.

IMO the issue seems to be the word genocide. Here's something on that.

Recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey is a secondary issue – interview with Harut Sassounian. [An Armenian living in southern California.]

[Excerpt ]"The real purpose of the resolution is not recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but a political struggle – the issue of which side has a larger political capital in Washington. . . . [T]he admission of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey is an issue of secondary importance for us. . . . our lands were seized and our 3,000-year-old culture was destroyed. . . . Therefore, our true demand is compensation for this injustice. . . . Now specialists must study the lawyers’ advice and decide which issue should be submitted to which court, as there is the International Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights, US Federal Courts, etc. This is a most important issue. It must be studied with all seriousness, because, if we lose in court, Turkey will claim that Armenians have no legal demands."

BTW, I don't like it that it's our Congress / government that Turkey and Armenia are fighting over to get/not get resolutions monthly (almost it seems to me).

IMO a question is not how to put the blame on Germany or excuse the horror but, was Germany's involvement with the Young Turks the reason that virtually nothing was done about it at the time? Even though Germany was the enemy in W.W.I.

I've been curious about that. (from my reply #18)

The American, British, and German governments sponsored the preparation of reports on the atrocities and numerous accounts were published. On the other hand, despite the moral outrage of the international community, no strong actions were taken against the Ottoman Empire.