Falsifications in respect to the "Armenian question" are not confined to the Andonian “telegrams”. Another falsification concerns a "statement" wrongly attributed to Adolf Hitler. While talking to his generals in Obersalzburg a week before (22 August 1939) the attack on Poland, the German dictator is supposed to have said: "I have given orders to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy or pity men, women and children belonging to the Polish-speaking race...After all, who remembers today the extermination of the Armenians?"

This quotation has appeared in hundreds of publications. Dadrian also asserts that Armenian-Turkish relations during the First World War "served to stimulate Hitler to embark upon his own initiatives of genocide”. Although even this forged statement makes reference to Poles, and not the Jews, Dadrian frequently uses terminology of the Jewish genocide. In Dadrian’s choice of words, even the "responsible secretary" of the ruling Ottoman party is comparable to the Nazi Gauleiter.

This is an attempt to link the planned extermination of European Jewry in the course of the Second World War to the events connected with Armenians. First of all, there is no historical basis for attributing such a statement to Hitler.

I have traced in a booklet that the Nuremberg Tribunal accepted two versions of this Hitler talk, initially numbered as USA-29 and USA-30, refusing to approve a third one. None of these texts contains such a statement....

The Nuremberg trials were inevitable. Hundreds of thousands of captured Nazi documents were assembled as evidence in the trial of the major Nazi war criminals. One cannot find the oft-repeated Hitler "statement" among these documents.

Even then, some Armenians and their like-minded colleagues cling to this so-called 'statement" because they wanted to set it into motion as a “connecting link” with the Jewish genocide. Reliable methodology in historiography contradicts such a pursuit. It is tremendous injustice to the Jews and the Turks alike. The Jews have gone through a genocide another example of which is very difficult to find. Moreover, apart from the extraordinarily good relations between the Jews and the Turks since the Middle Ages, Turkey’s role in helping European Jews during the Holocaust has been largely ignored. As Professor Shaw notes, the world does not realize the extent to which Turkey, and the Ottoman Empire which preceded it, over the centuries served as major places of refuge for people suffering from persecution, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Turkey was a haven, not only for those who escaped the Inquisition, but also hundreds of well-known intellectuals during the 1930s and thousands of other less well known persons were rescued.

Extreme right-wing political movements in Western Europe, previously fringe phenomena, have once again become much more significant. The Jews and the Turks are among the victims of present-day racism, xenophobia, and intolerance. Some Westerners, apparently, externalize and project their own unwanted “bad” parts onto the Jews, Turks and others to make themselves appear “good."

Still another falsification is a so-called “statement” attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. This founder of the Turkish Republic is supposed to have confessed Ottoman state responsibility for the “Armenian genocide.” This statement is false, probably initially stemming from confusing the celebrated Turk with someone from the Istanbul military court bearing the same first name. This error, which might have started as an oversight, a mere misunderstanding or a simple lapsus linguae, is repeated in print and in word, with the hope of strengthening a case by “quoting” against the Turks no less an authority than the founder of their state. While fancy escalates, falsity itself develops from misapprehension to fraud and trickery. Some Armenian authors have already printed articles calling the story a "fiction", and requesting that "this fable die." I offered in a booklet a summary of the origins of this apocryphal episode, tracing its growth through some Armenian and foreign sources, quoting Atatürk as well as the Armenian writers who have established this fallacy. I reproduced three genuine Mustafa Kemal letters, among other evidence, to clarify several points surrounding the untruth in question.

Article written by James Tashjian and published by the Armenian Weekly in 1982, stating the fact that Ataturk never made such a statement. The author James Tashjian was reportedly forced to leave the publication shortly afterwards:

A separate booklet of mine aims to expose yet another Armenian falsification, which attempts to use the name of the same statesman. The Los Angeles Examiner published (1 August 1926) an article, announcing simultaneously that it was written “by” “Mustafa Kemal Pasha”, and that it was also “an interview with Emile Hilderbrand, a Swiss artist and journalist.” Some Armenian circles have been using this article, expecting others to believe that the words have fallen from the mouth of the Turkish leader. In view of the evidence I presented in the booklet, I conclude that no such interview has ever taken place with Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal. (Holdwater: Please see more below)

There are also a number of works by Turks, available in foreign Ianguages, which compare authentic documents with forged ones. Several forged “documents” were presented to the world public at a time when schemes to dismember Turkey had reached its climax. There are enough authentic documents in print now, whose numbers will increase, shedding light to the issue in conflict. These are all contributions to the study of Armenian-Turkish relations and not "muddling the waters of truth."

Exposure of forgeries and falsifications, such as the one connected with a well-known Vereshchagin painting presented as a massacre photograph cannot be briskly described in a few phrases as "shoddy propaganda" or “inept or disingenuous scholarship.”

Groups need others to define themselves, in the process of which they learn how to hate out-groups. Vamyk D. Volkan introduced the subject of the human need for enemies and allies. He underlined that people sometimes have a psychological investment in the continuation of a given conflict, and that they actually use them as external stabilizers of their sense of identity and inner control. Not only they do have an investment in the continuation of this enmity, but their militancy partly marks their internal conflicts.

Since they need the enemy, they are afraid to lose it.

 

(Holdwater comments: This is the best description I have run into, psychologically explaining the irrational hatred en masse, of the Turks, by most Orthodox peoples. The full version of the foregoing essay may be accessed here, and you can visit this page to get other views on what lies behind Armenians' hatred in a psychological sense.)

ADDENDUM, April 2007: The English language version of the following may now be accessed at TAT.

Holdwater, again: Regarding The Los Angeles Herald Examiner article... I couldn't find the professor's booklet on the Internet, except in Turkish; let me give the gist of it (as far as I can grasp): "I haven't encountered Atatürk's having spoken with such a reporter on June 22, 1926." (The date the article claimed the interview took place, and not the August 1, 1926 publication date.) It appears the professor looked into Atatürk's schedule and found several activities that occupied the Turkish leader, but there was nothing on being interviewed by a Swiss reporter. The closest thing to newspaper-related business was on June 17th.

The Professor apparently has researched interviews? Atatürk conducted with many different publications, such as The Christian Science Monitor, Le Matin, The Chicago Tribune, Le Figaro and The New York Herald, but nothing on this. In his talks, Ataturk made reference to Harbourd, Ellison, Herriot, MacArthur, Antonescu, Pernot and others, but nothing on Emile Hilderbrand. No pictures with him, either, although there are plenty with the others. The professor also checked the relevant "Who's Who" types of reference books from the period in Switzerland, in different categories, but there was no mention of Emile Hilderbrand.

Before making his paper public, the professor contacted Switzerland's relevant sources and explored all conceivable options without getting a clue as to who the writer in question could have been. He consulted a friend who was part of the diplomatic mission to Switzerland for twelve years, having a good idea on Turkish-Swiss matters, but this turned into a dead-end, as well.

Journalist Clarence Streit

Holdwater ran a comprehensive Internet search on Emile Hilderbrand, and the only sources that came up were related to the Atatürk interview. Professor Ataöv gives an example of a real interview with Atatürk, from the March 27, 1921 issue of Pennsylvania's The Public Ledger, conducted by Clarence Streit. (From another of his papers, entitled, "A 'Statement' Wrongly Attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.") Here, Atatürk focuses on the "conspiratorial nature of Armenian armed attacks, the bloodshed and massacre caused by them, endorsed by General Harbord as well." [Read More]

In his interview with columnist Clarence K. Streit, Ataturk said: “The Armenian Dashnak Committee, then in the service of the Czar, had caused the Armenian population behind our troops to revolt when the Russian army began its great 1915 offensive against us… We found ourselves between two fires. Our convoys of supplies and the wounded were pitilessly massacred, roads and bridges destroyed behind us and terror reigned the Turkish countryside. The bands which committed these crimes and which included in the ranks of Armenians were able to bear arms, supplied with munitions and provisions in Armenian villages where, thanks to the immunities accorded at Sèvres, certain foreign powers had succeeded during peace time in establishing enormous stocks for this purpose. The massacres and devastations caused by Armenian bands are sufficiently known. The World that watched in comfort, the ill-treatment of the Irish in the hands of the British at peacetime can not in all fairness complain of the resolution we were obliged to take relative to the transfer of the Armenian population. Contrary to allegations they are alive and if the Allies had not drawn us into war again, most of them would have come back.” (The Public Ledger, Philadelphia, USA., March 27, 1921).

NOTE: This article was perhaps translated from English to Turkish, and back to English again. "The Armenian File" gives a different translation; same meaning, different words. Here it is:

Aside from the exaggerations claimed by those who are making antagonistic accusations, the question of the relocation of the Armenians actually consists of this.

When the Russian Army had begun its great offensive against us in 1915, the Armenian Tashnak Committee, which was at the service of the Czarist regime, drove the Armenian community, which was behind our military units, to rebellion. Because we were forced to retreat, in face of the superiority in numbers and equipment of the enemy, we considered ourselves constantly as being between two fires. Our convoys of supply and wounded were massacred without mercy, the bridges and roads behind us were destroyed, and in the Turkish villages terror reigned.

The bands who committed these murders, and who took all the Armenians capable of bearing arms into their ranks, took advantage of the immunities given to them since peace time, though the capitulations, by some great powers, and they made all their transfers of arms, ammunition, and supplies, of which they had been successful in collecting large stocks, through the Armenian villages.

World public opinion, which was quite indifferent to the treatment of Ireland by Great Britain during peace time, and away from the war area, cannot make a justifiable accusation against us concerning the decision we were obliged to take regarding the relocation of the Armenian community.

In refutation of the accusations directed to us, those who were relocated are alive, and most of them would have returned to their homes, if the Allied Powers had not forced us to engage in war again.

[Close]

A far cry from what was said in the article in question, which had a smaller subtitle, " The Dictator of Turkey, in an interview with Emile Hilderbrand, a Swiss artist and journalist, on June 22." The "genocide" quote is: "These left-overs from the former Young Turkey Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the Republican rule. They have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery and become inimical to any idea or suggestion to enlist in useful labor and earn their living by the honest sweat of their brow."

The definitive biographies on Ataturk (by Kinross and Mango) have ignored this sensational Hilderbrand interview, which provides supplementary evidence that it most likely never took place... and was built on the general anti-Turkish propaganda effort. In addition, the bombastic style sounds out of character. Ataturk was a very polite man who referred even to his enemies with reverence, and would not have referred to his compatriots in the manner he was quoted in the spurious interview.

A document stating neither father nor grandfather set foot on Turkey in 1926:

 

Armenian Forger Aram Andonian got a lot of mileage from his fraudulent work. He came up with The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportations and Massacres of Armenians (London, 1920, reprinted Newton Square, Pa.: Armenians Historical Research Association, 1964)... and in three different languages, yet. 

The following has not been presented in its entirety... the full work may be read here. (Thanks to www.ataa.org.) The highlights were from the article.

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The Andonian "Documents" Attributed to Talat Pasha Are Forgeries!  

Prof. Türkkaya Ataöv

Andonian’s "documents" are full of various factual mistakes, omissions and contradictions that give him away. One of such blunders stems from his ignorance concerning the difference between the Rumi (Julian) and the Miladi (Gregorian) calendars. To change from the former to the latter, one adds 584 to the years and 13 to the days, so that Rumi September 3, 1331 becomes Miladi September 16, 1 915. (Up until 1316 or 1900 only 12 days were added). The Rumi year starts on the 1^st of March. Since January and February are the last two months can only be found by adding 584+1 or 585, so that, for instance, January 5, 1331 becomes January 18, 1916. In the Ottoman Empire, New Year was the 1^st of March -until 1917. A law, adopted on February 1917, did away with the 13 days of difference, but kept the difference between the years. The Miladi year system was adopted in 1925 during the Republican ear, and 1341 became 1925. Not knowing the intricacies of this system, Andonian committed serious errors in putting "appropriate" dates on the "documents". His first "document" bears the date of "February 18, 1331". But in the Miladi calendar, it is not February 18, 1915, the Rumi date needed to be February 18, 1330. The "document" with February 18 or March 2, 1916 as the date fails to serve Andonian’s purpose since he quotes this "document" to prove premeditation or a government pre-plan of the transfer of the Armenian population. To serve Andonian’s purpose, the letter ought to have been written before the transfer, but with the date it has on it, it looks as if it was written nine months after the transfer had begun. One is led to think that if Andonian or his helpers had known such complexities, they would have put a much earlier date.

The second "document" bears the date of March 25, 1331. But since the first "document" is dated February 18, 1331, it can only be March 25, 1332. While referring to the first "document", the date is "corrected" as February 18, 1330, but Andonian has already given himself away. This must be the reason why Andonian leaves out the "original" of the first "document" from the English edition of the book and mentions only November 15, 1915, as the date of the second "document". No Ottoman official ever commits such mistakes, especially in the higher echelons.

In an attempt to attribute pre-planning to the Ottoman Government, Andonian asserts that the Armenians never thought of insurrection. He emphasizes that such a thought never passed through their heads. But abundant genuine Turkish documents and many Armenian sources show the contrary. For instance, Bogos Nubar Pasha, the Head of the Armenian Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, in a letter dated November 30, 1918 to the French Foreign Minister S. Pichon, simply states that the Armenian military detachments fought against the Ottomans as belligerents

In both documents, a besmele (in the name of Allah) sign appears on the top. This was customary in those days. But the first "document" misses the long letter of "sin" and the dot for the "b" ought to be on the right, not in the middle. Both signs are bigger than usual, and the sign depicting "Allah" is falsely written. It is of course not unusual for an Armenian, who is Christian, to write out such a clumsy besmele, not having written it before.

The English and the French texts of the same "documents" have conspicuous differences in wording, with several omissions or additions. For one, dates differ. A paragraph that starts with "Dr. Nazim Bey writes" in the French version cannot be found in the English publication. Some sentences change places, for instance, going from the sixth paragraph to the second. Omissions or additions are too many to be considered typographical errors. The "documents" are poor in Turkish grammar and language. They are full of expressions referring to the Turks as if they are blaming themselves. In some cases, the English of French version of a "document" is printed with no "original". The copies of these "telegrams" do not exist in the Prime Minister’s Archives in Istanbul. One may suggest that the copies might have been destroyed.

The matter is not as simple as that. Signatures on the "documents" are also fake. For instance, the genuine signature of Mustafa Abdülhalik Bey is different from his supposed signatures in the Andonian books. Further, the Cipher Books at the official archives disclose that no such telegrams were sent on such prescribed dates. In some cases, two fake "telegrams" bear the same number, which is impossible. In one of the French "documents" the number of the dead Armenians is quoted as 95,000; in its English translation, the number goes up to 100,000. Some of the "documents" could not be signed by Mustafa Abdülhalik as the Governor of Aleppo, simply because he was not the Governor then. The Governor was Bekir Sami Bey, the former starting duty on September 27, 1331 (or October 10, 1915). Not knowing this, Andonian apparently had Mustafa Abdülhalik "signing" many "documents" previous to his taking up duties in Aleppo. There are genuine documents, for instance the one dated September 22, 1331, in the Turkish archives signed by Bekir Sami as the Governor of Aleppo. Mustafa Abdülhalik could not have signed a fake document, dated September 3, 1331, as the Governor of the same city, 19 days prior to that date (that is, September 22, 1331). There are also cases, in which Andonian’s "documents" match the copies in the archives only in terms of dates, but not the number, nor the subject matter. For instance, the cipher telegram dated September 3, 1331 ought to have been numbered 78 and not 502. And its subject matter is the need to dig artesian wells in several places on the Sinai. Some of the writings are on the kind of paper used in foreign schools or easily available from the local P.T.T. offices; such papers were never used as official records. Andonian also forgets that with each 1^st of March as the New Year, official correspondence began to be numbered from 1; Andonian’s numbering, however, continues, frequently adding to these further blunders of date. One of his common errors is that he never adds 13 to the days of the month to find the miladi dates. Not knowing the actual cipher used by the Ottoman Government, he frequently made up his own, which does not correspond to the cipher system available in the archives.

The two "telegrams" that are frequently referred to and attributed to Talat Pasha are the ones numbered 819 and 1181 in Andonian’s book. The former is dated March, 7, 1332 (or March 20, 1916). No such telegram was sent from the Ministry of Interior to the Governor ship of Aleppo on that day. The only telegraph which bears this date is nevertheless numbered 9, and its subject matter is the Armenians in Antep. Andonian has again erred, having forgotten that documents begin being numbered with 1 starting with the 1^st of March. It is unreasonable to think that 819 telegrams might have been sent from Istanbul to Aleppo within a short span of 7 days. Moreover, on that very day, a different kind of cipher was being used for official correspondence than the one apparently made up by Andonian.

As to the second "notorious telegram" it is suspicious that number 1181 does not appear in the French and the English "texts". The Turkish and the English "texts" bear September 16, 1915 as the date while the French version is dated September 15, 1915. Here, Talat Pasha "refers" to the total destruction of all Armenians and "uses" a style of language that is meant to be a "confession". On that day, a telegram was indeed sent, but it was numbered 84, not 1181, and its subject was the postponement of the transfers of the Armenians working on the railroads. Andonian’s cipher system again fails to correspond with the system used then. Andonian was slanderously careless with the numbers of his "documents". The one we are dealing with now bears "1181", but his other "document" dated September 3, 1331 is numbered 502, and still a third dated September 29, 1331 is identified as 537. How can a document, squeezed in between these two dates, namely allegedly written on September 16, 1331 be registered as 1181?

Gérard Chaliand and Yves Ternon in their book entitled Le Génocide des Arméniens, state (on p. 136) that the Andonian "documents," if authentic, have particular importance. This is how authentic they are! Incidentally, the first photograph that these two French writers offer their readers (on p. 147) as depicting Enver Pasha is of course incorrect; the picture is of Djemal Pasha -just to give an idea how reliable some documentations may be!

The Governor of Aleppo, who seems to figure out prominently in Andonian’s book, was exiled to Malta by Britain on June 7, 1920; his exile number was 2800. The British searched the Ottoman archives, used the Armenian Church reports, resorted to witness accounts and finally applied to the Government of the United States requesting the latter to provide them with evidence, if any. Official replies on June 1, 1921 and July 23, 1921 expressed regret that they could not find proof to convict any of the detainees at Malta.

But these momentous developments did not prevent the Daily Telegraph for instance, from publishing in its May 29 1922, issue some of the Andonian "documents". After all, Turkey was then in the midst of a national liberation movement.

Had these "documents" not been concerned with the Turks and the Armenians, no historian, writer, correspondent, politician, or any commentator would have even touched them. It is obvious that, objectively speaking, there is enough doubt, to say the least, as to their authenticity. Authors Orel and Yuca have reproduced several authentic documents, which further destroy whatever remains of Andonian’s made-up telegrams.

 

From an Armenian web site. The skeletons are said to be those of massacred Armenians. How did they get the skulls to stand up  like that? I get the sneaking suspicion the pile of bones originated from another image. It's hard to tell, because the photo is fuzzy... but aren't the foreground details different-looking than the people in the back?

And who ARE those people? If they're supposed to be Armenians, are we to believe they re-visited the killing fields so soon afterwards (judging by their costumes)..? Because the last thing I'd want to do is to relive the nightmares, if you listen to the unimaginable horror stories, where it would have been a miracle for anyone to have survived.  (This photo is straight from the Armenian web site... somebody has already "worked" on it, at least in terms of putting in the writing.)

By the way, what happened to at least some of the Armenians at Zor? According to Ambassador Henry Morgenthau himself (from an actual September 1915 diary entry, and not from his phony book — as researched by Dr. Heath Lowry, in "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story"):

Zenop Bezjian, Vekil (representative of the Armenian Protestants in the Ottoman Empire)... told me a great deal about conditions [in the interior). I was surprised to hear him report that Armenians at Zor were fairly well satisfied; that they have already settled down to business and are earning their livings; those were the first ones that were sent away and seem to have gotten there without being massacred...

(Holdwater, returning: And once they got there, there is no reliable evidence that says they did not happily continue with their lives; this is why the majority of Armenians survived.)

Ugh. Definitely an example of two heads not being better than one. (Sorry.)

From another Armenian web site. (This photo is very popular, featured in numerous Armenian sites.) The victims are said to be Armenians, naturally. However, this is the problem with such undocumented photographs. The victims could be anyone.

There is another story behind this "Two Heads" photo, from a Turkish web site. Turkish control over the Balkan territories were coming to an end at the time this photo was taken, in 1905. The Serbs and the Bulgarians were at each others' throats. The Serbs got the upper hand, and beheaded the leaders of the Bulgarian band. The Turkish gendarmes arrived too late to intervene; a photographer was present and suggested the gendarmes pose with the heads. The intended message? Good thing the "Law" arrived, preventing more violence from occurring. 

If the Turkish story is true, it sounds like documentation should exist... especially since the given date is from a decade before the massacres had taken place. It sounds sensible;. besides, is it really believable for officials to pose with their victims, to gloat? Only psychotics would do such a thing. (Of course, hate-filled massacring murderers must have a quotient of madness, so posing with victims for gloating purposes isn't out of the realm of possibility. I'd just think a criminally-minded law officer would at least have the smarts not to provide photographic evidence... especially since the Ottoman Empire was under the European microscope, and already had a negative image regarding barbaric acts, such as Gladstone's wildly exaggerated Bulgarian atrocities.

None of us were there, so until either version is authenticated, we don't know which tale is truthful. However, that's just the point. Armenians play fast and loose with the facts, and don't hesitate to make use of any kind of support they can get their hands on... regardless of whether the evidence has anything to do with their actual suffering.

Caption by Erich Feigl, "The Myth of Terror."

Son of a gun! Now we know where this photo... this utterly overexposed photo that is in practically every Armenian genocide-related site... originated from. It came from Armenians Harry S. Nakashian and John K. Garabedian, apparently provided for the usage of Abraham H. Hartunian's "Neither to Laugh Nor to Weep."

Now there is no way to fake this photo; what image can present a greater picture of human wretchedness and misery? And that is what makes it perfect as an illustration for the many Armenians who died from famine and disease, just like the 2.5 million Turks who died mostly from the same causes. But take a closer look at the action here. The background is indecipherable. The woman is posing, with her hand out. The woman has no clothing on whatsoever. Does this look like a "documentary" shot, as the ones Armin Wegner took? Or was it orchestrated, for maximum sympathy value? Since the photograph came from two Armenians, already one begins to wonder. We don't know where it was taken, we don't even know the ethnic identities of these two poor souls.

We're all familiar with the famous "Genocide Poster Boy."
Please click here for an analysis.



You've probably come across this one as well, plastered all over "Armenian Genocide" web sites. The version above made an appearance in some Armenian's "You Tube" video, which so many Armenians have made sure to exploit as a venue for their relentless propaganda. ("Turks posing with Armenians they killed" is the caption.) The trouble is, the "Turks" are wearing Russian uniforms, and the close-up version of the photograph reveals that the naked corpses have been circumcised. This is not the first example of its kind, where Armenians have used any atrocity photo that is handy, regardless of origin, even when the victims are Muslims — as the one above almost certainly features. Incredible.

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Related:

Justin McCarthy on Armenian Lies