1918-07-20-DE-001-M

Source: DE/PA-AA/R14103.
Publication: DuA doc. 417/2 (rev. abbr.)
Translator: Vera Draack

From the Head of the German Delegation in the Caucasus (Kress von Kressenstein) to the Foreign Office

No. 26

Tiflis, 20 July 1918

Radio message SS 2013 from the “General“ to Constanza for Bertha is passed on as follows:

For the Foreign Office (24) and Supreme Army Command (7).

I consider it my duty to ...^[1] Your Excellency once again that we must ensure under all circumstances that the Turks permit those Armenians who have fled to return immediately and harvest their crops.

Apart from the precept of humanity, we would suffer great loss to our reputation and our influence in the Middle East if we were to prove to be so weak that we could not ensure that half a million Christians be saved by Turkey from a sure death by starvation.

Public opinion and history would attribute the blame for the extermination of the Armenians to us, and there would be new fuel for the view that we were partly responsible for the atrocities to the Armenians in 1915.

[Kress,

via Naval Department Constanza]

^[1] Group is missing.