Justifying Genocide

In Justifying Genocide, Stefan Ihrig provides the most detailed and wide ranging analysis to date of the evolution of German representations of the Armenians and responses to the Armenian Genocide of 1915. At the core of his analysis is an examination of the legacies of these responses and their implications for our understanding of the Holocaust. Ihrig’s analysis is divided into four sections. The first examines German perceptions of Armenians from the response to the ‘hamidian’ massacres of the late nineteenth century to the eve of the First World War. The second provides clear evidence of the extent of German knowledge of the Genocide and accounts for the reasons for Germany’s failure to intervene decisively. The third section shifts the focus to the post-genocide period, challenging notions of straightforward ‘forgetting’ by charting a shift from denial, through acceptance, to ‘justificationalism’ (Ihrig’s own term for development and popularisation of the thesis that that the Armenians were a real threat to the future of the Empire, and the Young Turks had no choice but to act as they did). In doing so, he highlights the surprising effects of the 1921 trial of Soghomon Tehlirian for the murder of Talat Pasha on German society. Finally, Ihrig considers the impact of the Armenian Genocide on the Nazis and its possible relationship to their development of Genocidal policies during the Second World War.

Ancient history · Armenian · Denial · Genocide · German · Nazism · Political science · Psychoanalysis · The Holocaust · History · Law · Psychology · Turkey's Politics and Society

• Mass Violence as Tragedy

  Open Access•Juliane Prade-Weiss, Juliane Prade‐Weiss et al.•Journal of Perpetrator Research•2023

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