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1895 - Laying the Foundations for Distrust (Armenian Genocide) 

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1895 - Laying the Foundations for Distrust (Armenian Genocide) 

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"The Ottoman Empire absorbed Armenia… in the late 1800s, some Armenians formed political organizations seeking greater autonomy, reinforcing Ottoman doubts about the loyalty of the wider Armenian community within its borders. On October 17, 1895, Armenian revolutionaries seized the National Bank in Constantinople, threatening to blow it up…unless the authorities granted Armenian regional autonomy…the Ottomans conducted a series of massacres. In all, at least 80,000 Armenians were killed between 1894 and 1896."( Primary Source Citation #(6): The Armenian Genocide( 1915-16)- In Depth)

This gives context as to how Armenians were treated when Armenia was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire and how desperate they were to isolate themselves from the Muslim majority. While radical threats were made, they were subdued by French intervention, and 80,000 Armenians were killed during that time period. This sets the context for our claim and gives way to argue that minorities are often made to be scapegoats as a justification for a country's struggles.

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Armenian National Institute. 1915. Ottoman Military Forces March Armenians to an Execution Site. Online Image. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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This image takes place during the Armenian Genocide, March to June of 1915, and pictures Armenian men being marched by Ottoman military forces to an execution site outside of Kharput.

Armenians were a minority within the Ottoman empire and were targeted for not conforming to Ottoman Muslim society. They were Christian, which did not align with religious Turkish beliefs. They feared that they would betray their country, which caused the Young Turks to target Armenians as a means of dealing with the perceived threat. In this instance, the Turks committed mass genocide against the Armenians in an effort to eliminate them altogether. The photo displays a ‘march to the death’, in which Armenian men are being escorted to an execution site by Ottoman military forces.

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Tales Of Armenian Horrors Confirmed- New York Times(1915) 

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The mass of deaths that was calculated throughout this time was significantly high for an alleged “ deportation”. The Ottoman Empire’s motivations were clear to the US and other European powers, but since Armenians had no outside alliances, there was little room to interfere. The reported 500,000 in this news article is significant because most of the casualties are civilians, not soldiers. A true war would have a majority of casualties belonging to the army on either side, yet the death toll here is completely one-sided along with mostly common folk to fill up the death count.

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This is an excerpt from the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed in 1919 after World War I. It was drafted by US President Woodrow Wilson, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and French Premier Georges Clemenceau. It was signed by the German government because Germany had lost the war to the opposing side,  hence why they paid all the war reparations.

This gives background information as to why Germany was in such a dire situation. This applies to the first part of our claim and why they turned to a group of people to vent their frustrations on.  More than to vent they blamed the nation’s issues and losses on a group of people who were suffering alongside the German people. This treaty is what ultimately broke Germany and why a tyrant like Hitler was easily able to infiltrate.

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September 1st 1939 - World War II Begins

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September 1st 1939 - World War II Begins

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1939-Reichstag Speech(Hitler Admitted Intentions For Genocide) 

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1939-Reichstag Speech(Hitler Admitted Intentions For Genocide) 

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Transcript- "The peoples [of the earth] will soon realize that Germany under National Socialism does not desire the enmity of other peoples. ... I want once again to be a prophet. If the international Finance-Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed in plunging the peoples of the earth once again into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of earth, and thus a Jewish victory, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."

This shows a prominent leader (Hitler) at the time telling the German people, and really the rest of the world, that he will be committing genocide against millions of people. He gives reasons and justifications, which are all false and promises that Germany will rise from the ashes once the Jewish are gone. By now if a person was Jewish at the time and living in Germany, there was no escape. But the abruptness of the speech is met with wild cheering which shows that an entire nation turned against a group with a need for answers and revenge.

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January 30, 1939

Amid rising international tensions Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler tells the German public and the world that the outbreak of war would mean the end of European Jewry.

Inspired by Hitler's theories of racial struggle and the supposed "intent" of the Jews to survive and expand at the expense of Germans, the Nazis ordered anti-Jewish boycotts, staged book burnings, and enacted anti-Jewish legislation. But it was the nationwide pogroms ( Kristallnacht) in 1938 and the outbreak of war in 1939 that marked the transition in Nazi racial antisemitism toward genocide. To justify the murder of the Jews both to the perpetrators and to bystanders in Germany and Europe, the Nazis used not only racist arguments but also arguments derived from older negative stereotypes, including Jews as communist subversives, as war profiteers and hoarders, and as a danger to internal security because of their inherent disloyalty and opposition to Germany.

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Amid rising international tensions Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler tells the German public and the world that the outbreak of war would mean the end of European Jewry. Inspired by Hitler's theories of racial struggle and the supposed "intent" of the Jews to survive and expand at the expense of Germans, the Nazis ordered anti-Jewish boycotts, staged book burnings, and enacted anti-Jewish legislation.

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1945 - "Wandering Hordes in Reich Alarming.."

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1945 - "Wandering Hordes in Reich Alarming.."

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“The Army promises the freed laborers that the Germans will be forced to feed and clothe them, and Allied war prisoners that they will receive the same rations as the Allied armies. When the opportunity offers those from western Europe will be transported back to their homes while the Russians will be shipped eastward after a junction has been made with the Red Army. The plan, though it may be sound, is not working well. The reasons seem to be first, it is contrary to human nature to stay put in a place where one has starved and shamed, and second, most of the millions concerned in the Army’s place don’t know what is expected of them and proper preparations have not been made to tell them. Part of the Army’s plan was supposed to be the printing of poly-lingual posters instructing the displaced persons and war prisoners what to do. This was necessary, most of all, for the information of the liberated Russians who form the largest proportion of the displaced persons and with whom few American officers can communicate in their native tongue. A high officer in the Ninth Army’s civil affairs branch, explained, however, that although it had printed 100,000 posters in Polish, German, French and English and had been ordered another 100,000, it had printed none in Russian since it was found impossible to obtain any Russian type. As a matter of fact in a sixty-mile-journey toward the front from Army headquarters this correspondent did not see a single affixed poster anywhere in any language. But he did see—under the streaming skies—the same westward flow of Russians, Poles, Frenchmen, Belgians and Netherlanders as he had noted during the three days previous.” MacCormac, John. 1945. “Wandering Hordes in Reich Alarming.” The New York Times, April 7, 1945.

This excerpt is from April 1945 in Germany regarding displaced persons from concentration camps, which shows the aftereffects of the Holocaust on those who were released from concentration camps and how the plan put in place to aid them was partially ineffective.

These groups of people had been placed in concentration camps by the Germans, after being blamed for the problems that the country was currently facing. Yet, even after they were liberated from these camps, they were still being “held hostage” in the places where they had been tortured. Although the American military had good intentions to feed and repatriate these displaced persons, their plan was enacted poorly, leading to more confusion and hostility. There were two problems for now with the execution of the plan. One was that it was unreasonable to expect people to remain in places where they had been treated so horrendously. Secondly, there was inadequate communication of the plan to those who faced a language barrier, namely the Russians. Although the army had distributed lots of posters to inform of the plan, there were no posters in Russian despite a large percentage of the displaced being from Russia.