Compiled by Wolfgang Gust

In 1915 the Armenians were exiled from their land, and in the process of deportation, 1.5 million were killed. The 1915-1916 annihilation of the Armenians was the archetype of modem genocide, in which a state adopts a specific scheme geared to the destruction of an identifiable group of its own citizens. Official German diplomatic documents are of great importance in understanding the genocide, as only Germany had the right to report day-by-day in secret code about the ongoing genocide. The motives, methods and after-effects of the Armenian Genocide echoed strongly in subsequent cases of state-sponsored genocide. Studying the factors that went into the Armenian Genocide not only gives us an understanding of historical genocide, but also provides us with crucial information for the anticipation and possible prevention of future genocides.

Wolfgang Gust is an independent scholar based in Germany. For many years he was Foreign News Editor and Correspondent with the highly respected German news magazine Der Spiegel. He is the author of two previous books about the Armenian Genocide and the Ottoman Empire, as well as several articles related to the subject.

åÊ"The documents collected here illustrate clearly the shared responsibility of the Kaiserreich, the most important ally of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The documents were not intended for public use. They are therefore largely undisguised and so vivid that the reader often shudders when reading them." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"Wolfgang Gust documents, in this excellent political-historical edition from contemporary German sources and the Foreign Office of the Reich government, the murderous events themselves... as well as the political co-responsibility of the German state." Forum Wissenschaft

"With the publication of the German diplomatic records on the Armenian Genocide, a dark chapter of German history during the First World War - suppressed for a long time - has been revealed to a broad public. ...But this volume also represents an important contribution to genocide research in general." ORIENT: German Journal for Politics, Economics and Culture of the Middle East