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Hamburg: Aghet – commemoration of the genocide

Between 1915 and 1918, soldiers of the Ottoman Empire deliberately murdered hundreds of thousands of Armenians through massacres and death marches. On the occasion of the Genocide Remembrance Day on April 24th, various organizations in Hamburg called for an event on Hamburg’s Rathausmarkt. The commemoration took place at the monument to the fallen soldiers of both world wars.

The deportations and massacres ordered by the Young Turkish government during the First World War are estimated to have killed 1.5 million Armenians. In addition, 750,000 Assyrians, 500,000 Pontus Greeks and other non-Sunni population groups such as the Yazidis fell victim to the genocide.

The memorial was opened by the lawyer Mahmut Erdem. The lawyer demanded a memorial plaque “here in this place” because Germany also had “blood on its hands.” He also criticized the Turkish state as the successor to the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I. , to this day does not recognize the genocide of the Christian peoples of Anatolia. Although the federal government named the genocide of 1915 as such three years ago, Erdem continued. “But Germany does not accept its shared responsibility.” With a view to the repression against the Kurdish population, the lawyer called for solidarity from the people of Hamburg. German politics was lying, this hypocrisy towards the fascist politics of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had to stop. This is the only way to ultimately achieve Turkish recognition of the murders from 106 years ago.

High German military such as Chief of Staff Fritz Bronsart von Schellendorf, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon and Naval Attache Hans Humann, who played a decisive role in the planning of the war in the General Staff of the Ottoman Army, expressly supported the Young Turks in the annihilation of the Armenian people. Von Schellendorf, for example, called the Armenians “bloodsuckers on the Turkish national body”, who are worse than the Jews. Souchon noted in his diary, “It would be a salvation for Turkey if it killed the last Armenian”. Humann, who was close friends with War Minister Enver Pascha, one of three main people responsible for the genocide, wrote on a report by the German consul in Mosul, who complained about the massacre of the Armenians, that it was “hard but useful”.

Genocide continues

Then Metin Kaya, a member of the Left Party in the Hamburg Parliament, spoke. The politician reiterated the demand for a plaque for the port city. “You would be in exactly the right place here, at the memorial to the fallen soldiers of both world wars, because soldiers from Hamburg also contributed to the murder and misery of millions”. Kaya emphasized that the genocide against the Armenians was systematically committed and that Turkey is continuing to do so. Despite the crimes of 1915, the country took part in the war against the Armenians in Arzach (Nagorno-Karabakh).

Sexualized violence against Armenian women

A representative of the Alliance against Femicides said that the violence and sexual torture that women in particular suffered at that time are still an instrument of the war in Turkey, including against the Yazidis, to this day. Turkey’s policy is no different from that of IS then and now. The memorial event ended with a performance by a music group and the singer Leman Stehn.

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