1250) DEUTSCHE BANK’s stealing of (old) $20 M and the “Genocide Fanfaronade”!

Dear All,

1. Received below Press Release dated Nov.22, of European Armenian Federation. Seems the Diaspora “Treasure Hunters” hitting another jackpot, based on “fabricated deposits”. . .

2. I have no idea how many branches Deutsche Bank had in the Ottoman Empire and how much savings were deposited there, and by whom. The strong banks in those days, should have been the “Ottoman Bank” and “Bank of Salonica”. I am not an expert on this subject.

3. I give below, eleven “excerpts” from my research, contents telling the “financial situation”.

4. The financial loan – credit for Berlin – Baghdad Railway project was indeed given by Deutsche Bank and it is also known that “many educated Turkish Armenians were employed in the project and were exempted from relocation.

5. I have not read a single line about “slave workers”, although it is known that “some of the relocated people, depending on locations, were offered jobs at some portions against payment”. Many Armenian soldier conscripts, were disarmed after the VAN revolution and turned into “labor groups” and several of these might have worked on the project or others, as part of their military service.

6. Some of my findings are given below. Scholars who have other “evidences” should submit them before drawing a parallelism, again, with Jewish workers or holocaust. I really don’t care who pays whom and how much, but here we have another “proof as regards why the Genocide show and compensation hunting” must go on.

Sukru S. Aya - Istanbul 23.11.2006

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From: PART_EN-owner@eafjd.org On Behalf Of EUROPEAN ARMENIAN FEDERATION
Sent:November 22, 2006
Subject: ACTION ALERT / CALL ON DEUTSCHE BANK TO RETURN ASSETS TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS

EUROPEAN ARMENIAN FEDERATION
for Justice and Democracy
Avenue de la Renaissance 10
B-1000 Bruxelles

Tel: +322 732 70 26
Tel/Fax: +322 732 70 27
Email: contact@eafjd.org


PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
November 22, 2006
Contact: Vartenie ECHO
Tel: +322 732 70 26

Call On Deutsche Bank To Return Assets To Armenian Genocide Victims

More than $20,000,000 stolen by the German firm during Genocide era

Legal proceedings under way to seek justice for heirs of those who assets were stolen

Thousands of Armenian deportees were reduced to slavery on Deutsche Bank's road works

The European Armenian Federation calls the descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors, defenders of human rights, European leaders, and all Euro citizens to protest Deutsche Bank's refusal to accept responsibility for the crimes it committed in 1915 and continues to profit from today.

In a manner consistent with the U.S-based New York Life Insurance Company and the French AXA Life Insurance Company, Deutsche Bank illegally appropriated funds and property from genocide victims and, as such, played a unconscionable role in Ottoman Turkey's destruction of the Armenian population between 1915 and 1923.

Recent estimates by experts in the field show that Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were, at the time of the Genocide, owned more than 20 million dollars that were held in trust by the German company. Deutsche Bank never returned these amounts to the heirs of genocide victims.

Compounding Deutsche Bank's intransigence was its use of Armenian deportees as slave workers on the construction of its Berlin-Baghdad road works. In similar fashion, nearly 30 years later, IG Farben exploited the forced labour of Jewish deportees from Birkenau-Monowicz. Following their slave labor, these Armenians were exterminated during deportations into deserts of Syria.

The Federation notes that the current president of Deutsche Bank congratulates his company for fulfilling "its social responsibilities," a statement that stands in sharp contrast to both its genocidal complicity in 1915 and its refusal to accept responsibility for its crimes today.

The European Armenian Federation, noting that New York Life and AXA have been condemned for their crimes, welcomes the fact that similar proceedings are under way against Deutsche Bank.

Consequently, the Federation calls on all EU citizens to call on Deutsche Bank to live up to its own standards by accepting responsibility for its wrongdoing and fairly compensating those whose families it has stolen from.

You could fax the letter below by clicking on this link www.deutschebankprotest.eu , or you could send it at the following address: Dr. Josef Ackermann Deutsche Bank AG Taunusanlage 12 60262 Frankfurt am Main Germany

November 22, 2006

Dr. Josef Ackermann
Deutsche Bank AG
Taunusanlage 12
60262 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

Dear Dr. Ackermann,

I am writing this letter because I am outraged by Deutsche Bank’s conduct towards the Armenian people in specific and to humanity in general. Particularly, I am shocked at how your bank has looted the assets of Armenians murdered during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. I am also shocked that Deutsche Bank used the Armenian deportees as slave workers for the Bagdad Bahn from 1915 to 1917. It is reprehensible that a financial institution which is trusted by its patrons with their livelihood would breach that trust. On your website you specifically state that nobody can or should neglect social responsibilities. However, how can you state this when your company has done just the opposite by neglecting its social responsibilities to its own depositors.

I ask you to fulfil your obligation by returning the looted Armenian assets and thereby making right Deutsche Bank’s historic wrong. Now is the time for Deutsche Bank to follow the example of New York Life Insurance Company and AXA Life Insurance Company and to return what it has wrongfully withheld for nearly a century.

Sincerely,

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VARIOUS EXCERPTS - Self explanatory :

“ Under a five percent tariff, the merchant often paid fifty per cent on the cost of his goods. Turkish industries flourished, for they were really and powerfully protected. When at length this policy of the government was completely overthrown, by England chiefly, the industries of Turkey perished and her rapid impoverishment began.”
Cyrus Hamlin, MY LIFE AND TIMES, Boston 1893, p. 305

“… English goods poured in vast abundance, the quality generally wretched, but the prices low, and then this store in Koorchoon Khan completely changed its character. It began to have cheap goods, cheap and shabby.”
Cyrus Hamlin, MY LIFE AND TIMES, Boston 1893, p. 212

“ The Porte ran up huge budget deficits during wartime years, and helplessly ran paper money off the printing presses to pay for them. During the war, prices rose 1575 percent. Before long, the war had brought the Ottoman economy almost to its knees, and the Young Turk government had no idea what to do about it”
David Fromkin, A PEACE TO END ALL PEACE, Henry Holt and Co. NY, (ISBN 0-8050-6884-8) p. 123

“ Even France the foremost champion of nationalism, showed little sympathy for the insurgents. Istanbul was up to its neck in debt - £ 200 million bearing an annual interest of £ 12 million as against £ 22 million in annual revenues. On Oct. 6, 1875 the Porte declared that it was no longer able to meet its financial obligations. As Turkey’s primary creditor, France was far more interested in salvaging its financial investments in the ailing empire.”
Efraim & Inari Karsh, EMPIRES OF THE SAND, (ISBN 0-674-00541-4), Harvard Univ.Press p. 85

“On his accession Ismail (Egypt) had inherited a public debt of £ 3 million by the mid 1870s this had risen to £ 90-100 million at the terrifying rate of £ 7 million per year .”
Efraim & Inari Karsh, EMPIRES OF THE SAND, (ISBN 0-674-00541-4), Harvard Univ.Press p. 48

“Until April 1907 the Turkish customs duties had been 8%. The powers had assented to an increase of 3%, namely to 11%, but not a further increase of 4%, as asked by the Turkish government… In 1879 the Ottoman government was forced, through bankruptcy and financial chaos, to assign six sources of revenue to the service of national debt; and hand over their collection to the Public Dept Administration, managed by foreign, European representatives. Sir Ernest Cassel founded and controlled the National Bank of Turkey. 75% of the shares in the Turkish Petroleum Company, which had exclusive rights over the oil deposits in the vilayets of Baghdad and Mousul, were held by British interests.”
Akaby Nassibian, BRİTAİN & THE ARMENIAN QUESTION 1915-1923, Croom Helm, London (ISBN0-7099-1820-8) p. 26

“French capital investments in Turkey surpassed those of any other country, including British and German. Within the territorial limits of present-day Turkey, they amounted in 1914 to about 900 million gold francs or approximately 4.5 million paper francs. Of the Ottoman Public Dept 62.9 % was due to France and 22.3% to Britain…”
Akaby Nassibian, BRİTAİN & THE ARMENIAN QUESTION 1915-1923, Croom Helm, London (ISBN0-7099-1820-8) p. 27

“The Entente Powers were caught off guard by the Ottomans’ Sep. 9, announcement of abolition of capitulations.”
Efraim & Inari Karsh, EMPIRES OF THE SAND, (ISBN 0-674-00541-4), Harvard Univ.Press p. 131

“As late as Oct. 9, Grey was still willing to offer a compromise to the Ottoman Empire on custom tariffs.”
Efraim & Inari Karsh, EMPIRES OF THE SAND, (ISBN 0-674-00541-4), Harvard Univ.Press p. 133

“… Grey, the British foreign secretary, thought military action might provoke a coup d’etat in the Ottoman capital: given the instability of Turkish politics in the years preceding the war, as well as the divisions on the issue of entry to the war itself, this was hardly an unreasonable expectation. British intelligence offered a bribe of £4 million. Offering cash was not in itself misplaced: the Ottoman public debt was evidence of that. The real difficulty was that the Germans had just handed over £5 million…Moreover, success at Gallipoli might have repercussions in two directions. Both the Central Powers and the Entente were actively competing for allies in the Balkans. Indeed, the possibility that Greece might side with the British in August 1914, and that therefore its army would be available for use against Turkey, was what had first triggered the Gallipoli idea in Churchill’s mind …”
Hew Starchan, THE FIRST WORLD WAR, Penguin, 2004, (ISBN 0 14 30.3518 5) p. 118

“The mobilization had placed an unbearable strain on the crumbling Ottoman economy, and on Sept.30 the Porte appealed to Germany for a loan of 5 million TL in gold, only to be thoroughly disappointed. Berlin was willing to lend Turkey the requested sum, under secretary Zimmerman told the Ottoman ambassador in Berlin, Muhktar Pasha, but only after the Ottomans entered the war; until then, Turkey would have to content itself with an advance payment of 250.000 gold TL. - Two days later Enver paid yet another visit to the German ambassador, this time with Talaat, Djemal and Halil. The four reaffirmed their commitment to war and promised to allow Souchon to attack Russian targets the moment the German government deposited 2 million gold TL in Istanbul . These meetings did the trick. On Oct 12, a shipment of TL 1.000.000 in gold left Germany on its way to Istanbul to be followed five days later by a second shipment of TL.900.000. This was manna from heaven to Enver. With German credit he could immediately see to the upkeep of the army and have forces ready to go into action,
Efraim & Inari Karsh, EMPIRES OF THE SAND, (ISBN 0-674-00541-4), Harvard Univ.Press p. 116 )

Result: I would like to “correct my research” if any reliable information is submitted about source of $20 M.