Johannes Lepsius - The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide

Lepsius is known for his documentation of the Armenian Genocide. His work, "Report on the situation of the Armenian people in Turkey", was censored on August 7, 1916, however 20,000 copies were sent throughout Germany before the censorship was enforced. Another edition of the documentation is an interview with Enver Pasha in 1915 that bears the title "The death corridor of the Armenian people".

In 1909 the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire had high expectations from the Young Turk movement which brought Abdul Hamid's regime to an end. Yet during the opening months of the First World War, there were mass arrests, deportations, and massacres of Armenians living in Eastern Anatolia. During this time, Lepsius founded humanitarian relief activities, and tried(unsuccessfully) to influence Germany, the Ottoman Empire's ally, which had thousands of soldiers and officers stationed throughout the Ottoman Empire. According to Ernst Jaeckh "At the time of World War I he introduced the Armenian protagonist. Dr. Lepsius, to the Turkish Generalissimo Enver Pasha, and through the author's intervention the lives of many Armenians, particularly women and children, were saved."

One of Lepsius' most important works is, Germany and Armenia 1914-1918: Collection of Diplomatic documents, which later became considered as "the main document on the Armenian Genocide." Later, in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel attributes two chapters to the description of Lepsius' struggle and his negotiations with Enver Pasha.