131) Armenian-Nazi Collaboration

 

Yet another historical fact: a fact that for years has been deliberately forgotten, concealed, and wiped from memory — the fact of Armenian-Nazi collaboration. A magazine called Mitteilungsblatt der Deutsch-Armenischen Gesselschaft is the clearest and most definite proof of this collaboration.

 

The magazine was first published in Berlin in 1938 during Nazi rule of Germany and continued publication until the end of 1944. Even the name of the magazine, which implies a declaration of Armenian-Nazi cooperation, is attention-getting. This magazine, every issue of which proves the collaboration, is historically important as documentary evidence. It is a heap of writing that should be an admonition to world opinion and to all mankind.

 

To give specific examples of actions; In May 1935 the Armenians of Bucharest attacked the Jews of that city, while the Greeks of Salonika attacked the Jews in the August of the same year. During World War II, Armenian volunteers, under the wings of Hitler's Germany, were used in rounding up Jews and other ''undesirables'' destined for the Nazi concentration camps. The Armenians also published a German-language magazine, with fascist and anti-Semitic tendencies, supporting Nazi doctrines directed to the extermination of 'inferior' races [1]. This is confirmed by Armenophile Christopher J. Walker, who admits that the Armenians collaborated with the Nazis. According to him, members of the Dashnak Party, then living in the occupied areas, including a number of prominent persons, entertained pro-Axis sympathies.

 

A report in an American magazine went so far as to claim that the Nazis had picked on the Dashnaktsutiun to do fifth-column work, promising the party an autonomous state for its cooperation. Walker goes on to claim that relations between the Nazis and the Dashnaks living in the occupied areas were close and active.

 

On 30 December 1941 an Armenian battalion was formed by a decision of the Army Command (Wehrmacht), known as the 'Armenian 812th Battalion'. It was commanded by Dro, and was made up of a small number of committed recruits, and a larger number of Armenians. Early on, the total number of recruits was 8,000; this number later grew to 20,000. The 812th Battalion was operational in Crimea and the North Caucasus. (These are the dates and numbers given by Walker).

 

A year later, on 15 December 1942, an Armenian National Council was granted official recognition by Alfred Rosenberg, the German Minister of the occupied areas. The Council's president was Professor Ardashes Abeghian, its vice-president Abraham Giulkhandanian, and it numbered among its members Nzhdeh and Vahan Papazian. From that date until the end of 1944 it published a weekly journal, Armenien, edited by Viken Shant (the son of Levon), who also broadcast on Radio Berlin.

 

The whole idea was to prove to the Germans that the Armenians were 'Aryans'. With the aid of Dr. Paul Rohrbach, they seemed to have achieved this as the Nazis did not persecute the Armenians in the occupied lands [2]. "Members of the Dashnak party living in the occupied areas, including a number of names famous from the period of the republic, adopted a pro-Nazi stance." [2]

 

"Wholly opportunistic the Armenians have been variously pro-Nazi, pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet - whichever was expedient." [3] Sources: [1] Turkkaya Ataov: Armenian Extermination of the Jews and Muslims, 1984, p. 91. [2] C.J. Walker: _Armenia_ London, 1980, pp. 356-8. [3] John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian), _Cairo to Damascus_ Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1951, p. 438.

 

 The preceding was published in a guestbook of an Armenian web site, 1999-05-27 04:27:00; the author is unknown.

  
The Armenian-Nazi Collaboration in WW II  

 

By: Ayhan Ozer

 

To validate a spurious genocide allegations, the Armenians curry favor with the Jewish people, and manipulate the Holocaust tragedy to gain some undeserved recognition from this uniquely Jewish experience. Historical evidences point to a devious Armenian collusion with Hitler to exterminate the Jews during WW II. Today, no matter how much the Armenians try to conceal this heinous episode from the public knowledge the Armenian conspiracy with Hitler is in the history books-- indelibly. Soon it will be in the public conscience too.

 

In early 1930s, when Hitler ascended to power, he began cultivating the Armenians to use their long-standing and strong anti-semitic feelings in his plans and policy. The Armenians, through their publications, radio broadcasts and meetings supported and cheered the Nazis on their attacks on Jews. Alfred Rosenberg, who was to become later Hitler's Minister of the Occupied Territories, declared that the Armenians were Indo-European, or Aryans, which honored them and put them in the same league with the Nazis. In Hitler's foreign policy the Armenians fitted very nicely too. Hitler's future invasion plans of Russia provided a golden opportunity for the Armenians to liberate what they considered to be "Historic Armenia" from the Soviet as well as the Turkish rule. 
 

 

Mr. Dro, in his pre-Nazi days

 

 The short-lived Armenian Republic established in 1918 in the southern Caucasus by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (The Dashnaks) was conquered by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1920, and ceased to exist. This time, the Dashnaks saw a good opportunity in the collaboration with the Nazis to regain those territories. To that end, on December 30, 1941 they formed a battalion of 8,000-strong known as the "812th Armenian Battalion of Wehrmacht" under the command of Dro (Drastamat Kanayan), a seasoned guerilla leader who had fought against the Turks in the Eastern Turkey before and during the Turkish War of Independence following World War I. Later, he became the supreme commandant of the Armenian army in the short lived Armenian Republic, and in 1920-1921 he organized a wide-spread genocide against the Azeri and the Turkish populations in the region. This is documented in the book World Alive by the U.S. Naval officer Robert Steed Dunn who was an eye-witness to those Armenian atrocities.

 

Lieutenant Dunn was the Intelligence officer of Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, the American High-Commissioner in the region and also a de facto American Ambassador in Turkey. Between 1919-1921 lieutenant Dunn travelled extensively with Dro and his army in the region, and both made several contacts with the Russian Bolsheviks, the Turkish and the Armenian National forces. With this historical perspective, this new task assigned to Dro by the Nazi leadership after a quarter of century later seemed to be a break to fulfill his dream of conquest.

 

This alliance alarmed Turkey and the Turkish Jews. The British Ambassador in Ankara reported to London that "The Armenians [in Turkey] are extremely fruitful ground for German activities, and these non-Muslim elements with their pre-Kemalist [i.e. Ottoman period] mentality are always viewed with mistrust by the Turkish authorities."
(Public Record Office, Foreign Office document: F.O 371/ 30031/ R5337)

 

 

The Armenians loved this man

 

     This infamous 812th Battalion later developed into a so-called "Armenian Legion" of 20,000-strong with the efforts of Alfred Muradian, a German-Armenian, and by Armik Jamalian, the son of the Arshak Jamalian, the Foreign Minister of the short-lived Armenian Republic. The troops of this Legion were trained and led by the SS and its Security Division S.D., and they joined the Nazi Einsatz Gruppen in the invasion of the Crimea and the North Caucasus. These Armenian Battalions rendered valuable services to the Nazis as police units for internal security duties in the occupied territories. It was their duties to round up the Jews and the other "undesirable" elements, and organize the death marches to the concentration camps.

 

Pursuing those familiar utopic dreams, and shrewdly manipulated by the Nazis, the Armenians foolishly tied their lot to Hitler, and praised him lavishly in the Armenian-language daily Hairenik on September 17, 1936:
"... and came [to power] Adolph Hitler after herculean struggles. He spoke to the racial heart strings of the German, opened the fountain of his national genius..."

 

Then, in August 19, 1936 the same daily Hairenik published the following:
"Sometimes it is difficult to eradicate these poisonous elements (the Jews) when they have struck deep root like a chronic disease, and when it becomes necessary for a people (the Nazis) to eradicate them in an uncommon method these attempts are regarded as revolutionary. During a surgical operation the flow of blood is a natural thing. Under such conditions dictatorship seems to have the role of a savior."

 

The daily Hairenik dated August 20 exposed the following bigotry:
"Jews being the most fanatical nationalists and race-worshippers, are compelled to create an atmosphere of internationalism and world-citizenship in order to preserve their race. As the British use battleships to occupy lands, the Jews use internationalism or communism as a weapon..."

 

The September 25, 1936, Hairenik Weekly, an English language organ of the Armenians (edited in Boston) denounced Zionist aims, and adopted a strong anti-Jewish and pro-Arab view, and printed the following:
".. the type of Jews who are imported to Palestine is not anything to be proud about. Their loose morals, and their vices... and on top of all, their communist activities were the cause of most of the Arab criticism."

 

The August 9, 1935 issue of the Hairenik Weekly published a vitriol about "the Jewish controlled film industry", then ascribed the massacres of the Jews by the Greeks and Armenians in Salonica to the Jewish love of gain.

 

The May 10, 1935 issue of the Hairenik Weekly quoted the vice-Mayor of Bucharest, Romania as saying: "The Armenians have helped us Romanians not to become slaves of the Jewish elements." Romania was one of the foremost anti-Semitic country where the hatred for the Jews reached hyperbolic dimensions.

 

Starting in the summer of 1942, a twenty-five year old Armenian by the name Suren Begzadian Paikhar organized and led the Armenian National Socialist (Nazi) movement called Hossank (Lightening), which gained a considerable following among Armenian youth in German-occupied Europe and to some degree in Turkey too. On December 15, 1942, these Armenian-Nazis and their supporters in Germany coalesced into the Armenian National Council under the direction of professor Ardeshir Abegian, and the vice-president Abraham Chulkandanian, and several old Dashnak guerillas, like Vahan Papazian and Karakin Nezhdeh, who were the veterans of the Turkish wars in the Eastern Anatolia after the World War I. Blessed by Alfred Rosenberg, this organization spew forth anti-Semitic and racist vituperations through the broadcasts of the Radio Berlin, and their weekly journal Armenian, published until the end of 1944, and edited by Viken Shant, son of the another well-known Dashnak leader Levon Shant. Suren Begzadian Paikhar and some Hossank followers worked as commentators/ announcers in the French and Armenian radio services of the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda under Goebbels. In those programs Paikhar was usually introduced as the Fuhrer of the Armenian people. (Patrik von zur Muhlen, Zwischen Hakenkreuz und Sowjetstern - Dusseldorf, Droste, 1971, pp. 105-106)

 

The Armenian general Karekin Nezhdeh also founded the racist Armenian Tseghagron movement, through which the Armenian youths flocked to the SS and the other elite Nazi military forces. (Karekin Nazhdeh by James Mandalian - The Armenian Review I, 1958)

 

Other Armenians living in France and Germany joined the 58th Panzer Corps, and the Ostlegion of the Wehrmacht's 19th Army, based in Lyon, France. The Dashnaks and the Hossank Armenian-Nazis worked closely with Admiral Canaris, who was the chief of the the German Military Intelligence (Abwehr), and his principal agent Hans Pickenbrock, the chief of the Branch No: 1, who was in charge of spying to obtain military information, as well as with Dr. Paul Leverkuhn, a key agent in Istanbul and the Director of the Istanbul Substation (KO-Nebenstelle) of the "War Organization Middle East" (Kriegsorganisation Naher Osten) from July 1941 until August 1944. This organization administered a major Nazi intelligence network, not only in Turkey but throughout the Middle East. The Armenian nationalists actively worked in those Nazi organizations to hunt down the Jews, and cooperated with Reichspropagandaleiter in spreading the Nazi propaganda in Turkey and in the Middle East. In these efforts they enlisted the support of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was a close ally of Hitler.

 

During the early years of World War II, Germany was sweeping through the Western Europe, and all the prognosis for the outcome of the war were in favor of Germany. As the Armenian ethics always dictate fawning on the victor, they calculated — or, miscalculated — that it was about time to commit themselves entirely to Hitler's victory. They summarily formed a "provisional" Armenian government as a dress rehearsal for their soon-to-be-realized aspirations. However, in 1943 the fate of the war began shifting from Hitler to the Allies. The Armenians, the perennial political chameleons, summarily renounced their allegiance to Germany, and did an about-face, this time groveling before the Allies.

 

  From Armenophile Christopher J. Walker

 

 

If one can't trust Mr. Walker, whom can you?

 

     "...Nevertheless there remains the incontestable fact that relations between the Nazis and Daschnaks living in occupied areas were close and active. On 30 december 1941 an Armenian batallion was created by a decision of the Wehrmacht, known as the Armenian 812th Battalion. It was commanded by Dro, and was made up of a small number of committed recruits, and a larger number of Armenians from the prisoners of war taken by the Nazis in their sweep eastwards. Early on the total number was 8000; this number later grew to 20,000. The 812 th Batallion was operational in the Crimea and the North Caucasus. A year later, on 15 December 1942, an Armenian National Council was granted official recognition by Alfred Rosenberg, the German minister of the occupied areas. The Council president was Professor Ardasher Abeghian, its vice-president Abraham Guilkhandanian and it numbered among its members Nzhdeh and Vahan Papazian. From that date until thje end of 1944 it published a weekly journal, Armenian, edited by Viken Shantn (the son of Levon) who also broadcast on Radio Berlin... What was the motive for the collaboration in the occupied areas ? It is possible to see it as a purely vengeful desire to retake Armenia from the Bolsheviks..... There is in the untutored mind a tendency to class Armenians and Jews together (offensive to both peoples); and the malevolent paranoia of the Nazis might have manifested itself against Armenians as well as Jews. Hence it was important to prove to the Nazis that the Armenians were Aryans. With the aid of Dr. Paul Rohrbach they seem to have achieved this. The Nazis did not persecute Armenians, just for being Armenians, in the occupied lands..."

 

The preceding is from Christopher J. Walker's "Armenia —The Survival of a Nation," page 357, para 2.

 

Holdwater: That's funny. There was no mention of the Armenian-Nazi connection in the PBS program adapted from this book. Oh, there must have been some innocent oversight... it's not like the program desired to be intentionally misleading, or anything.

 

 

Prof. Richard Hovannisian:
"(Dro) was not a Nazi"

 

In "Armenian hero's wish is honored" (Boston Herald; Boston, Mass.; May 4, 2000; Jules Crittenden), Prof. Hovannisian actually denied Dro was a Nazi.

 

"He remains an idealized figure," Hovannisian was also quoted as saying about the mass murderer. "His main concern was the support and rescue of the Armenian people."

 

The article reports Robert Najarian of the General Dro Memorial Committee (in Armenian-friendly Massachusetts) as saying if Dro were not successful in defeating the Turks ("in a decisive battle at Bash Abaran in 1918, stopping what Armenians say was a systematic effort to destroy the Armenian people," as the article reports elsewhere) there would be "a good chance many of us would not be alive today."

 

Uhhhh... but I thought the "genocide" covered the years 1915-1916. If Dro engaged in his blood-spilling during 1918 ("In the brief First Republic of Armenia from 1918 to 1920, he served as minister of war"), what exactly was Dro rescuing the Armenian people from?

 

These were, after all, the years when the Ottoman Empire was gutted, and the Armenians who were in charge of Ottoman lands were busily massacring Turkish villagers. These were the years when Armenia felt free to wage war against neighbors Georgia and Azerbaijan.

 

"After the Turks and Soviet Russians invaded again in 1920 and divided Armenia between them, Dro fled to Romania, where he lived until the end of World War II." The article sure makes poor little Armenia out to be a victim, doesn't it? The fact of the matter is the well armed Armenian military was preparing its own attack against Turkey, but was caught with her pants down when Ataturk's forces first attacked the Armenians, instead of the invading Greeks to the west. According to the first prime minister of Armenia and American officers who accompanied Dro, the cowardly Armenians simply would not fight. And the Armenians then willingly hooked up with the Soviets.

 

Where was the Armenian "hero" Dro during this decisive period, the general who proved so effective in mass-murdering unarmed Turkish women and children? The hero bravely "fled to Romania, where he lived until the end of World War II... After the war, Dro lived in Beirut and then Watertown, remaining active as an Armenian nationalist until his death in 1956."

 

Leave it to Richard Hovannisian to give an accurate portrayal of the facts, as usual.

 

The Boston Herald gushingly devoted ten one-sided articles to this notorious killer of innocents and Nazi war criminal in only one month (May) of 2000, all written by Jules Crittenden.

 

Armenian Nazi Tidbits, from an Unknown Writer 

 

 

Altogether 30,000 Nazi Armenians served in various units in
the German Wehrmacht, according to Ara J. Berkian. 14,000
in predominantly Armenian army units, 6,000 in German army
units, 8,000 in various working units and 2,000 in the
Waffen-SS.[1]

 

A number of these Nazi Armenians were volunteers from France and Greece who had chosen to commit themselves to the extermination of the European Jewry. Derounian says that

 

_Nazi Armenians from France bore the mark 'Legion Armenienne.'_[2]

 

That Nazi Armenians like Dro 'the Butcher', Armenian architect
of the genocide of 2.5 million Muslim people, and Nezhdeh sided
with the Germans probably had an impact on the decision of
Armenians who overwhelmingly opted for armed service.

 

[1] Enno Meyer, A. J. Berkian, _Zwischen Rhein und Arax, 900
Jahre Deutsch-Armenische beziehungen_ (Heinz Holzberg
Verlag-Oldenburg 1988), pp. 118/119.
[2] John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian), ibid., p. 19.

 

In fall 1942, the Armenian infantry battalions 808 and 809 were formed, to be followed by battalions 810, 812 and 813 in spring 1943. In the second half of 1943 infantry battalions 814, 815 and 816 were created. These battalions together with other indigenous Caucasian units were attached to the infantry division 162. Also attached to ID 162 were the field battalions II/9, I/125 and I/198 which were formed between May 1942 and May 1943. Altogether twelve Armenian battalions served the Nazi army, if battalion II/73, which was not employed at any time, is to be included.[1] Most battalions were commanded by Nazi Armenian officers. Armenians wore German uniforms with an armband in the Dashnag
colours red-blue-orange and the inscription _Armenien._

 

[1] Joachim Hoffmann, _Dies Ostlegionen 1941-1943, Turkotataren, Kaukasier und Wolgafinned im deutschen Heer_ (Verlag Rombach Freiburg 1976), p. 172.

 

The Armenian SS unit was formed following a directive of Himmler in the beginning of December 1944.[1] The Armenian Liaison Staff actively recruited volunteers[2] and by February 1945 a cavalry formation of twenty thousand Armenians was integrated into the larger Caucasian Waffen-SS unit. The Armenian SS formation was employed last in Klagenfurt.[3] In addition to this exclusively Armenian unit, Nazi Armenians also served in the thirty eight other SS divisions, one of them even in the elite _Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler._[4]

 

[1] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., pp. 136-137.
[2] United States National Archives, T-175, Roll 167, pp 2700157/2700158, SS-Headquarters, Amtsgruppe D - Oststelle,
see _Documents 3 and 4._
[3] Georg Tessin, _Verbaende und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945,_ (Frankfurt am Main 1965-1980), Volume 14, Armenian Legion/Waffen SS.
[4] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., p. 119.

 

Derounian says that

 

"Greece was honeycombed with Armenians serving as Nazi spies." [1]

 

Many Nazi Armenians were arrested by the British and sentenced by the Greek government as collaborators in espionage.[2] In Rumania many Nazi Armenians were found in Antonescu's Iron Guard during arrest of members after the war. Bulgaria was the operational base of Tzeghagrons-founder Garagin Nezhdeh, who commanded a network of espionage from there.

 

[1] John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian), ibid., p. 20.
[2] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., p. 150.

 

In Russia General Dro (the Butcher), the architect of the Muslim
Holocaust in ex-Soviet/Russian Armenia and Eastern Anatolia, was
working closely with the German Secret Service. He entered the war zone with his own men and acquired important intelligence about the Soviets. His experience with the Muslim Holocaust in ex-Soviet/Russian Armenia and Eastern Anatolia made him an invaluable source for the Germans.[1]

 

[1] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., p. 113; Patrick von zur Muehlen,
ibid., p. 84.

 

 

Numerous articles in major newspapers (London Times) and periodicals (Newsweek) during the war, had suggested the existence of a significant collaboration between Armenians and the Nazis. Arthur Derounian deserves credit for being the first person to deal with this issue extensively. Derounian's motives were twofold: his deeply held democratic convictions gave him a sense of duty and he felt obliged to shed light on this yet another dark chapter of Armenian history. Concurrently, Derounian embarked on what one would call "crisis control" or face-saving. In order to
forestall any potential attacks on the larger Armenian community in
the United States, he marginalized collaboration as deplorable but
insignificant.[1]

 

[1] John Roy Carlson (real name Arthur Derounian), _The Plotters_
E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc., New York 1946, p. 182.

 

Also, it is not surprising that the Armenians collaborated with the Nazis.

 

"Wholly opportunistic the Armenians have been variously pro-Nazi,
pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as
anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet - whichever was expedient." [1]

 

[1] John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian), Cairo to Damascus
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1951, p. 438.

 

 

 

Outside Reading:

 

An Armenian forum claiming the Swastika for their own:

 

usanogh.com/articles/article.php?story_id=68

 

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© Holdwater 

tallarmeniantale.com/Nazi-Collaboration.htm

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