Lepsius, Johannes

[DECEMBER 15, 1858–FEBRUARY 3, 1926]

German pastor, historical archivist

Johannes Lepsius is widely recognized as one of the most important opponents of the Turkish genocide of Armenians and as an early campaigner for modern concepts of human rights. Lepsius's work among Armenians during World War I, more so than that of any other individual, helped to document genocide and place it on the public agenda.

As a young man, Lepsius trained as a German evangelical church (Lutheran) pastor and became a missionary in Turkey during the mid-1890s. He came to public attention when he traveled in disguise to gather evidence on the Turkish massacres of tens of thousands of Armenians. Lepsius's report on the pogroms, Armenian und Europa (1896, 1897), stirred considerable controversy and significantly affected international relations with the Turkish sultanate. He also helped found the Deutsche Orient Mission to operate orphanages and schools for Armenian children.

New massacres of Armenians began in late 1914 and early 1915. The Young Turk military junta moved secretly and with extraordinary violence to exterminate Armenians. Protestant missionaries deep inside Turkey were among the few outsiders who witnessed the first months of the unfolding genocide. Lepsius compiled eyewitness accounts of the killings and deportations and, at some risk to his life, formally appealed to Turkish authorities to end the deadly deportations of Armenian women and children. The Young Turk war minister, Enver Pasha, refused this request.

Lepsius turned to publicity in an effort to bring pressure on the German government and, though it, the Young Turks. To avoid wartime censorship, in 1916 he privately published and distributed a report on the killings. Lepsius secretly collaborated with then U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, to document the Armenian genocide for English-speaking audiences.

Later, Lepsius also testified for the defense in the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian, the assassin of Turkish Interior Minister Tal'aat Pasha. Tehlirian was acquitted.

In the first months following the defeat of Germany and Turkey in World War I, the German foreign ministry perpetrated a deception on Lepsius that went undiscovered for the next seventy years. The post-war Turkish government rightly accused Germany of helping to mastermind the Armenian massacres. Germany was already facing allegations of committing atrocities in Europe and sought to avoid responsibility for crimes inside Turkey. For his part, Lepsius was committed to unearthing the most comprehensive record possible of the genocide of Armenians. Thus, he readily agreed to the foreign ministry's offer to let him prepare a series of books based on formerly secret German diplomatic records, beginning with a volume documenting German activities in Turkey and Armenia between 1914 and 1918.

German officials claimed that they were releasing a copy of the complete record to Lepsius, but they actually supplied him with censored versions of dozens of documents in order to conceal German complicity in the killings. In the end, Lepsius's published collection presented unusually frank and detailed evidence of the Young Turks's campaign of genocide, but tended to absolve Germany of any responsibility for those acts. The foreign ministry then used Lepsius's account in publicity and in international negotiations concerning German reparations for war crimes.

Lepsius went on to help prepare further volumes of previously secret German records concerning German-Turkish-Armenian relations. It was not until the 1990s that the ministry's true tactics were clearly documented, when scholars compared the published records with those captured after the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945 and with edited copies discovered in Lepsius's personal archives.

SEE ALSO Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and the Armenian Genocide; Germany; Morgenthau, Henry

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alexander, Edward (1986). "The Lepsius Symposium: A Report in Summary." Armenian Review 39(4):95–99.

Dadrian, Vahakn (1995). The History of the Armenian Genocide. New York: Berghan Books.

Gust, Wolfgang, and Sigrid Gust, eds. (2003). Armenian Genocide during the First World War: Documents from German State Archives, Revised and Extended Collection of Diplomatic Documents published by Johannes Lepsius in 1919 under the title, "Germany and Armenia." Available from http://www.armenocide.net.

Christopher Simpson