I have left to the end of this chapter the question of Germany's knowledge of, and complicity in the Armenian massacres. From the tribune of the Reichstag, on January 15, 1916, there was made a definite denial of the existence of such massacres at all; on another subsequent occasion it was stated that Germany could not interfere in Turkish internal affairs.
In view of the fact that there is no internal affair appertaining to Turkey in which Germany has not interfered, the second of these statements may be called insincere. But the denial of the massacres is a deliberate lie. Germany--official Germany--knew all about them, and she permitted them to go on. A few proofs of this are here shortly stated.
(1) In September 1915, four months before the denial of the massacres was made in the Reichstag, Dr. Martin Niepage, higher grade teacher in the German Technical School at Aleppo, prepared and sent, as we have seen, in his name, and that of several of his colleagues, a report of the massacres to the German Embassy at Constantinople. In that report he gives a terrible account of what he has seen with his own eyes, and also states that the country Turks' explanation with regard to the origin of these measures is that it was 'the teaching of the Germans.' The German Embassy at Constantinople therefore knew of the massacres, and knew also that the Turks attributed them to orders from Germany. Dr. Niepage also consulted, before sending his report, with the German Consul at Aleppo, Herr Hoffman, who told him that the German Embassy had been already advised in detail about the massacres from the consulates at Alexandretta, Aleppo, and Mosul, but that he welcomed a further protest on the subject.
(2) These reports, or others like them, had not gone astray, for in August 1915, the German Ambassador in Constantinople, Baron Wangenheim, made a formal protest to the Turkish Government about the massacres.
There is, then, no doubt that the German Government, when it officially denied the massacres, was perfectly cognisant of them. It was also perfectly capable of stopping them, for they were not local violences, but wholesale murders organised at Constantinople. In support of this view I find an independent witness stating that 'there is no Turk of standing who will not readily declare that it would have been perfectly possible for Germany to have vetoed the massacres had she chosen.' Germany had indeed already given assurances that such massacres should not occur. She had assured the Armenian Katholikos at Adana that so long as Germany has any influence in Turkey he need not fear a repetition of the horrors that had taken place under Abdul Hamid. Had she, then, no influence in Constantinople, or how was it that she had obtained complete control over all Turkish branches of government? The same assurance was given by the German Ambassador in April 1915, to the Armenian Patriarch and the President of the Armenian National Council.