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On the Freedom of Access to the Ottoman Archives: An Interview with Hilmar
Kaiser
By Khatchig Mouradian
Saturday, 24 September, 2005

In recent years, the Turkish government has repeatedly stated that the
Ottoman archives are fully open to researchers studying the Armenian
genocide of 1915. As recently as 16 September, 2005, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, answering a question regarding two
recent resolutions adopted by the Committee on International Relations
of the US House of Representatives, said: ‘We clearly say that
Turkey’s archives are open and Armenia should open its archives, if it
has. We shall speak on the basis of documents and information. I do
not understand on which basis unrelated countries take decisions about
the so-called Armenian genocide. These decisions are all political in
nature and do not serve world peace.’

To find out about how open the Ottoman archives are at the moment, I
recently spoke to Hilmar Kaiser, a historian who was banned from the
archives in 1996, but was admitted back in July 2005 and was provided
access to archival material he had repeatedly been denied a decade
ago. As the interview reveals, assertions that the Ottoman archives
are open are partly true at most.

Hilmar Kaiser received his Ph.D. from the European University
Institute, Florence. He specializes in Ottoman social and economic
history as well as the Armenian Genocide. He has done research in more
than 60 archives worldwide, including the Ottoman Archives in
Istanbul. His published works – monographs, edited volumes, and
articles- include `Imperialism, Racism, and Development Theories: The
Construction of a Dominant Paradigm on Ottoman Armenians’, `At the
Crossroads of Der Zor: Death Survival and Humanitarian Resistance in
Aleppo, 1915-1917′, `The Baghdad Railway and the Armenian Genocide,
1915-1916: A Case Study in German Resistance and Complicity’,
`1915-1916 Ermeni Soykirimi Sirasinda Ermeni Mulkleri, Osmanli Hukuku
ve Milliyet Politikalari’, `Le genocide armenien: negation a
`l’allemande” and `From Empire to Republic: The Continuities for
Turkish Denial’.

Khatchig Mouradian – In July 2005, almost a decade after being banned
from the Ottoman State Archives, you were given access to the archives
once again. How did you get in?

Hilmar Kaiser- I got to Istanbul on a Sunday. I went to the archives
the next morning. At the entrance, they asked me whether I have a
reader ticket, I said `no’. I was asked to go to the application
office and fill out the usual application form. They scanned in my
data from the passport, when they entered the data I was asked if I
was at the archives before, because they saw there was entry; I
confirmed. Then I was issued my new reader ticket. After a few
minutes, I was in the reading room with the catalogs and the
documents.

It was basically the same procedure as in any archive I worked in.

K.M. – Some scholars who have worked in the Ottoman State Archives
have repeatedly complained that the documents they ask for are first
`cleared’ by a control commission and only then provided to them. Did
you encounter such a problem?

H.K.- In the early nineties when I was there, there existed an
unofficial – not acknowledged, even denied – so called `control
commission’ that read everything I got. I don’t have any evidence that
this happened this time.

K.M. – The media, especially the Turkish and Armenians news sources,
often speak about the Ottoman archives being open or closed. However,
what is meant by Ottoman archives is rarely explained. Can you shed
some light on this issue?

H.K. – The Ottoman archives are the abbreviation of `the Turkish Prime
Minister’s Ottoman Archives’ located in Istanbul. The Turkish national
archives (devlet arshivleri) have 2 main branches: the Ottoman
archives (until 1923) and the republican archives (after 1923), but of
course there is some overlap.

K.M. – What about the military archives?

There are the military archives that are attached to an institution of
the General staff.

K.M. – And these archives aren’t open, are they?

H.K. – I don’t know. I applied once in 1991s and I was not allowed in,
so my experience is limited to the Ottoman archives, as explained
earlier, not to the republican archives or the military archives.

K.M. – What about the archives of The Committee of Union and Progress
(CUP)?

H.K. – I do not think the archives of CUP have been cataloged anywhere
as such.

K.M. – Were they destroyed?

H.K. – I doubt it. I do not know. We should be really careful about
not mixing information. Anything about the CUP archives is sheer
speculation. We don’t have any indication that they have been
destroyed.

K.M. – Can you comfortably say that the Ottoman archives are open?

H.K. – I can go to the archives, I can see the catalogs and get the
documents that are in the catalogues. I don’t get documents that
aren’t catalogued; this isn’t something special. In all archives,
there’s a constant cataloguing process as long as the archives take in
new material and it’s working on files that have been
processed. However, I know of some important collections at the
Turkish Prime Minister’s Ottoman Archives that have been cataloged but
these catalogs are not at the reading room. So there are material that
have been processed and catalogued but are still withheld. One such
collection is the Armenian collection of the Ottoman Directorate for
Public Security (2nd Division), which is a subdivision of the Ministry
of the Interior.

What is available, for instance, are the Ottoman Ministry of Interior
Cipher Bureau files which contain a large number of deportation orders
and other orders connected to the deportation of Armenians. For
example, direct orders concerning the deportation of Zohrab and
Vartkes Efendis, and direct orders concerning individual ARF (Armenian
Revolutionary federation) members. However, the responses to these
orders, are, as far as I can see, contained in the second Division
(see above) of the Ministry of the Interior and we don’t have those
documents available. So we know what the orders were, but we don’t
know the response. Other orders are contained in the Ministry of the
Military archives. To get the whole picture, we need the cipher
department, second department, plus the military archives. This is
what we know now. According to some sources, there are other
collections in these archives which are not available yet and are very
important, but since I don’t have any printed information on this, I
cannot say anything.

We want now to have access to those documents that have been
catalogued but are not available. To put it in the political
perspective, PM Tayyip Erdogan said the Archives are open. Yes, they
are open, and he made a true statement, but the further implication,
what people assume that everything they have you can see, doesn’t
apply. So Mr. Erdogan made a true statement, I hope other documents
will also be made available. The Turkish government is on an excellent
path now.

K.M. – Taking into consideration the denial policy of the Turkish
government, how realistic is the hope that some documents that shed
light on the `sensitive’ aspects of the Armenian genocide will be made
available?

H.K. – I cannot comment on documents I haven’t seen. Some people ask
me if there are documents that have been cleansed. That would mean
there are materials I have seen before, but they have
disappeared. What I can say is this: I was there; I got material I had
been repeatedly denied ten years ago. So this is a major step
forward. I can also say that back then I had troubles with
photocopying. There was a file with 54 pages I got 36 back and 18
pages had disappeared in the process. This time, I got my photocopies
very quickly and there was not the slightest reason for any kind of
complaint; they did a very professional job. Obviously, the Turkish
government has enough control over the archives to enforce its
political will over the administration, which is very important, if we
keep in mind that the Turkish government represents the political
movement that has been in the opposition for decades and now for the
first time it is in power.

I do not expect Mr. Erdogan to look at all the items in the archives,
this is a process that has to be brought to his attention and after
that, no doubt things will improve. Will they make material available
that will damage their position? I think the Turkish position is
evolving now; I spoke to people who were accepting that there were
massacres of Armenians including participation orders by government
officials, but not officials at the central government. So the
position has evolved to acknowledge the participation of local and
provincial authorities, but also to stress that the central government
was not in line with those authorities. This makes there position more
defendable; it means the Turkish position and the Armenian position
become closer, but it means also that people who would deny the
Armenian genocide are in a much more comfortable position
themselves. While applauding Turkey for becoming open, it means also
that the political debate becomes more complicated.

K.M. – You said you spoke to `people’. Were they government officials?

H.K. – I talked to very high ranking officials who turned up at a tea
house; these include leaders from the ruling AK party, people who are
concerned with security in Turkey, and also academics.

K.M. – Is this evolution you are talking about regarding the Turkish
government’s position a new strategy of denial or is it a step towards
facing past?

H.K. – It’s both. We have to understand that the Turkish government
has to represent Turkish interests; that’s what their job is. What’s
happening right now is that we see a policy which is more of the
making of Mr. Erdogan’s government. Definitely, it’s part of a
strategy that has to do with Europe. Obviously, if you want to join
the European Union you need to have open archives. The Ottoman
Archives contain other issues like Lebanon and Macedonia; the Armenian
issue is only one part of the whole thing.

There’s a discussion going on in Turkey. As I talked, I was quite
clear with government officials, but while in previous years they
responded with a personal attack, this time around, they made their
point clear and also asked questions. I also published an article in
Turkey on Armenian abandoned property –the headline of the article
reads `Armenian genocide’– I was surprised to hear that the article
was read and discussed in various universities. I also received a call
for paper from the Turkish Historical Society and they asked me to
send an application for next year. Which is also remarkable because it
means the Turkish Historical Society believes now that I’m a scholar
and not just a propagandist. These are all steps in the right
direction.

Nowadays, there is a very strong interest in Turkey towards the other
position. The number of publications in Turkey has increased
tremendously and there are a number of publications which I find very
helpful. I mean its not just crap they produce now. The printed books
used to be a waste of trees, just reiterations, recycling of the
recycled.

Where all this will end, I don’t know. But at the moment I’m pleased
by what’s going on.

K.M. – You mentioned the issue of `abandoned property’. Some scholars
who have studied that aspect of the Armenian genocide consider the
theft of fixed and moveable assets as an integral part of the genocide
and maintain that that theft was organized by the leadership of the
CUP.

H.K. – It was the state. It was from the top of the government, from
Talat and Ali Munif Bey. The Armenian genocide is the Ottoman
government’s answer to the Armenian Question: Deportations can only be
analyzed in terms of expropriation. It was grand theft. It was the
surgical separation of Armenians from their movable and immovable
property. The Ottoman government was very careful of not wasting any
assets while being not concerned about the fate of the Armenians.

To make the expropriation permanent, you have to replace the
Armenians. The expropriation was part of a settlement program; this
process created a surplus population and this surplus population was
taken care of. The Armenians were mathematically a surplus
population. Killing or, in the case of children and women,
assimilating them solved that problem. What took place was genocide,
not massacres.

In 1990, I spoke about the `so-called Armenian genocide.’ I was a
student in Germany and the library wasn’t good enough and for that
reason, I wasn’t good enough myself. After I started my archival
work, in one month, I spoke about the genocide, not the `so- called
genocide’. I’m not just a believer in the Armenian genocide; I’m
someone who has acquired that knowledge from his own work. No one
taught me the Armenian genocide and no one taught me to use the
word. It’s a result of my own work. I use the word because it’s the
appropriate term that covers the phenomenon. The more I study the
Armenian genocide, its various aspects and its systematic nature, the
more it becomes evident that there is only one word. It’s not a
question of having preferences; if you want to present yourself as a
scholar, you have to use the word. If you want to talk about the
massacres of Armenians in one village or the deportations in another
village, you don’t have to use genocide, but the moment you want to
put the wider perspective, you have to use the word. And every scholar
that wants to play games, like some people going to Yerevan and
telling everyone `don’t use the `G’ word’, have a political agenda.

K.M. – Some Turkish scholars refrain from using the `G’ word because
they say that it’s highly politicized and that they do not want to get
involved in the war between Turkish and Armenian nationalists.

H.K. – I don’t care about the Armenian and Turkish nationalist, no
matter who my friends are and who are not my friends. I use the word
`genocide’ because it adequately describes the phenomenon. It’s the
only term we have that describes it. If one day we have a better word,
fine. The English, German, and Turkish languages have only one word to
describe. That this has a negative consequence on the Turkish
government is something I can’t change; I can’t change history. I’m
not prepared to haggle over it. If a Turkish scholar says it too
politicized and he or she doesn’t want to use the word, then let
him/her take a different subject. If you want to be part of this
debate, apply proper terminology and if you don’t want to do it, you
aren’t a scholar. I don’t like the fact that I get trouble from some
Turkish quarters because I use proper terminology; but you have to
face the music. If you don’t want to face the music then don’t
play. That certain people living in Turkey had to take certain
precautions at least in the past is unfortunate, that’s why I don’t
provoke them, but I’m not dealing with people who have no academic
knowledge on the issue suddenly turning up and trying to renegotiate
academic terminology.

K.M. – You have published a number of papers on the German role in the
Armenian genocide. What is reflected in your papers is that talking
about a `German complicity’ is going too far.

H.K. – Our knowledge of the German role is still limited because
allied bombing destroyed the military archives in 1945. At least 99
percent of the chunk is gone. To make it worse, quite a bit of the
German embassy archives were also lost. Fortunately, most of the
Armenian files of the embassy have survived. Having said this, we have
a pretty good idea what the German Foreign Office was doing and I have
just described this in a new publication. The policy was helping
Armenians when it wouldn’t hurt their interests and at the same time
deeply resenting the Turks. That’s what they did. Their hands were
tied, because the Turkish alliance was important. The private
companies like the Baghdad railway company assisted the Armenians.
Then you have the missionaries, some very good, and some, like
Lepsius, making themselves more shiny afterwards. Not everything was
as nice as certain researchers recently claimed. Then you have the
officers; there was an officer, Boettrich, who actively assisted the
deportation, there was another officer, Wolffskeel, who killed
Armenians with his own hands, but he was recalled in punishment.

I have no evidence that the German government was supporting the
Armenian genocide or even taking part in the killing, The evidence
points more directly to the contrary. To get to a better
understanding, we need to access the Turkish military archives which
also contain German files. That’s why I’m saying that at the present
moment everything is preliminary. But the real debate about Germans,
especially the assumption that the Ottoman government was too stupid
to know how to commit genocide and had to get Germans to tell them how
to pull it off, and the attempts of comparing the role of the Germans
in the Armenian genocide with the role of the Germans in the Holocaust
is a kind of inferiority complex. The Armenian genocide can stand on
its own. It doesn’t have to match the Holocaust to be validated.
There are major and structural differences. The whole issue of German
involvement is a kind of sidetrack. The real way forward is access to
the Turkish archives.

The complicity of the Germans in the Armenian genocide is a political
invention and does not withstand scrutiny.