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The Armenian Legion ( German : Armenische Legion ; Armenian : Հայկական լեգիոն , romanized :  Haykakan legion ) was a military unit in the German Army during World War II . It primarily consisted of Soviet Armenians , who wanted to fight the Soviets for an independent Armenia and commanded by General Drastamat Kanayan .

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164-748: The short-lived Republic of Armenia , established in 1918, was occupied by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1920 and incorporated shortly after into the Soviet Union. This was something which members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF; Dashnaks) political party never reconciled themselves with, as many of them were imprisoned, killed, or expelled by Soviet authorities following the Soviet takeover. In 1942, in order to fight Turkey's anti-Armenian politicking,

328-695: A Reichsleiter , the second highest political rank in the Nazi Party. In May 1933 Rosenberg visited Britain, to give the impression that the Nazis would not be a threat and to encourage links between the new regime and the British Empire . It was a notable failure. When Rosenberg laid a wreath bearing a swastika at the Cenotaph , a Labour Party candidate slashed it, later threw it in the Thames and

492-695: A buffer state to ease the pressure on the German eastern frontier, while agreeing with the notion that Russia could be exploited for the benefit of Germany. During the war, Rosenberg was in favour of collaboration with the East Slavs against Bolshevism and offering them national independence unlike other Nazis such as Hitler and Himmler who dismissed such ideas. Rosenberg criticised those who did not subscribe to his racial theories. For example, he attacked Fascist Italy for what he perceived as its incorrect and improper stance on race and Jewishness. Rosenberg

656-539: A 1961 Soviet encyclopedia that places the death toll at 198 thousand. An estimate by historian Christopher J. Walker places the number of Armenians massacred between 1919 and 1922 at "probably" 250 thousand. According to Soviet historian Zaven Korkotyan, the territory of present-day Armenia had a population of 961,677 in 1919, indicating that Armenia lost 241,677 or 25 percent of its population from 1919 to its sovietisation in late 1920. With Sergo Ordzhonikidze 's approval, Revkom units advanced into Armenia from Qazax on

820-516: A Western Armenian fedayee, Sebouh Nersesian , with the directive to suppress the uprising. On 13 May, Sebouh's unit reached Alexandropol; by the next day the rebels fled the city whilst government forces entered and established order. The leaders of the revolt, including Sargis Musayelyan and Ghukas Ghukasyan, were initially imprisoned as the Soviet government on 4 June warned the Armenian government that diplomatic relations would be "detrimented" if

984-460: A bridge between themselves". Gevorg Varshamyan  [ hy ] was appointed to become the civil governor of the district. Armenia's annexation of Nakhchivan was announced on 3 May 1919, after which Armenian forces commanded by Drastamat Kanayan advanced southward into the district along the railway. On 13 May 1919, Khatisian arrived in Nakhchivan to discuss terms of capitulation with

1148-582: A fate suffered by nearly all of the former Soviet prisoners of the war. Several Jewish Red Army POWs were saved by some of the Armenians in the Legion and there were several instances of Jews being sent to the battalion to evade detection by the Nazis. Josef Moisevich Kogan, a Red Army soldier captured by the Germans, for example, stated that he received help by an Armenian doctor in the 812th Battalion when he

1312-723: A hindrance to the expansion of the Nordic population. Rosenberg's attitude towards Slavs was flexible because it depended on the particular nation which he referred to. As a result of the ideology of " Drang nach Osten " ("Drive to the East"), Rosenberg saw his mission as the conquest and colonization of the Slavic East. In The Myth of the Twentieth Century , Rosenberg describes Russian Slavs as being overwhelmed by Bolshevism. Regarding Ukrainians , he favoured setting up

1476-657: A horse and almost half deprived of a cow or ox. In the Akhalkalaki uezd , which was claimed by Armenia, 60,000 of 110,000 inhabitants had survived, over seventy villages were completely destroyed by the Turkish army in 1918. On 18 October 1918, as the Ottoman Empire was preparing itself to capitulate to the Allies, Armenian forces entered southern Lori and came into contact with German–Georgian forces. In response,

1640-540: A medical and psychiatric report on him in prison to evaluate him as a suicide risk: He gave the impression of clinging to his own theories in a fanatical and unyielding fashion and to have been little influenced by the unfolding during the trial of the cruelty and crimes of the party. Summarizing the unresolved conflict between the personal views of Rosenberg and the pragmatism of the Nazi elite: The ruthless pursuit of Nazi aims turned out to mean not, as Rosenberg had hoped,

1804-621: A mentor to Rosenberg and to his ideology. Arriving in Munich , he contributed to Dietrich Eckart 's publication, the Völkischer Beobachter ( Ethnic/Nationalist Observer ). By this time, he was both an antisemite – influenced by Houston Stewart Chamberlain 's book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century , one of the key proto-Nazi books of racial theory – and an anti-Bolshevik . Rosenberg became one of

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1968-519: A nation with a distinct and distinguished history was spread by patriots, teachers, writers, and revolutionaries". The Russian offensive during the Caucasus campaign of World War I , the subsequent occupation and creation of a provisional administrative government gave hope for ending Ottoman Turkish rule in Western Armenia. With the help of several battalions of Armenians recruited from

2132-537: A number of Dashnaks entered into negotiations with Berlin, and reluctantly agreed to participate in the formation of a military legion. This was a move, however, that was officially repudiated by ARF party organs. The majority of the soldiers in the 812th Battalion legion were drawn from the ranks of the Red Army , prisoners of war who had opted to fight for the German Army rather than face the brutal conditions of

2296-663: A result of his open letter, Szell was deported by Lithuanian authorities on 15 September 1936. His claims were repeated in the 15 September 1937 issue of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano . The young Rosenberg graduated from the Petri-Realschule (currently Tallinna Reaalkool ) and enrolled in architecture studies at the Riga Polytechnical Institute in the Autumn of 1910. In 1915, as

2460-565: A result of the uprising, leaving 25,000 homeless (including nearly 6,000 refugees from Shusha). On 5 April 1920, to relieve pressure in Karabakh, Azerbaijani forces in Qazax initiated border clashes with Armenia. During the following two weeks, they occupied strategic heights and occupied and burned Armenian villages. On 9 April, a short-lived ceasefire was reached, however, it was broken by Azerbaijani forces occupied several other villages – this

2624-633: A specific foreign power". Despite the US sending $ 11 million (equivalent to $ 167,302,326 in 2023) in aid to Armenia, the vote for an American mandate over Armenia was rejected by the Senate on 1 June 1920. At the Paris Peace Conference, the delegation led by Avetis Aharonian from the Armenian republic united with the delegation from the Armenian diaspora , headed by Boghos Nubar , forming

2788-625: A wealthy merchant from Reval, in the Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (St-Petersburg) in 1886. His paternal grandfather, Martin Rosenberg, was a master shoemaker and elder of his guild . Born in Riga in 1820, and probably partly of Latvian descent, he had moved to Reval in the 1850s, where he met Julie Elisabeth Stramm, born in Jörden (now Estonia) in 1835. The two married in

2952-693: The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce) developed for the purpose of looting art and cultural goods . The ERR were especially active in Paris in looting art stolen from famous Jewish families such as the Rothschilds and that of Paul Rosenberg . Hermann Göring used the ERR to collect art for his own personal gratification. He created a "Special Task Force for Music" ( Sonderstab Musik ) to collect

3116-541: The Völkischer Beobachter became the Nazi party newspaper in December 1920, Rosenberg became its editor in 1923. Rosenberg was a leading member of Aufbau Vereinigung , Reconstruction Organisation, a conspiratorial organisation of White Russian émigrés which had a critical influence on early Nazi policy. Rosenberg sympathized and identified with Talaat Pasha and the Committee of Union and Progress that carried out

3280-613: The Armenian genocide , also claiming that there was "a deliberately Jewish policy which had always protected the Armenians" and that "during the world war, the Armenians have led the espionage against the Turks, similar to the Jews against Germany". In 1923, after the failed Beer Hall Putsch , Hitler, who had been imprisoned for treason , appointed Rosenberg as the leader of the Nazi movement. Hitler remarked privately in later years that his choice of Rosenberg, whom he regarded as weak and lazy,

3444-899: The Armenian genocide . in Baku , Ottoman –Azerbaijani forces slew some 15,000 Armenians in the September Days massacre, in retribution for the March Days massacre of thousands of Azerbaijanis. Despite these atrocities, a peace agreement was signed in Tiflis under the auspices of Georgia and the United States in order to end the Azerbaijani campaign against Zangezur. In the areas claimed by Armenia and disputed with Azerbaijan and Georgia, there were 410,000 Armenians, 460,000 Muslims, and 36,000 others, totalling 906,000. Despite

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3608-494: The Erivan Governorate regained an Armenian majority for the first time in several hundred years, and these regions would later "form the nucleus" of an independent Armenia. Armenian nationalism was rooted in the "long textual tradition" of clerics and scholars. According to historians Edmund Herzig and Marina Kurkchiyan, "in the late eighteenth and through the nineteenth centuries a coherent sense of Armenians as

3772-550: The Georgian army bolstered its presence in the region. These manoeuvres set the scene for an Armeno-Georgian military confrontation. The territorial conflict with Georgia was rooted in the contention over the counties of Akhalkalaki and Borchaly , particularly, the Lori subdistrict of the latter—both sectors possessed an Armenian ethnic majority . Under Georgian control, the Armenians of Lori were discontent due to their treatment by

3936-780: The German occupation of Estonia in 1918, Rosenberg served as a drawing teacher at the Gustav Adolf Gymnasium and Tallinna Reaalkool (current Tallinn Polytechnic School ). He gave his first speech on Jewish Marxism on 30 November, at the House of the Blackheads , after the 28 November 1918 outbreak of the Estonian War of Independence . He emigrated to Germany with the retreating Imperial German army , along with Max Scheubner-Richter , who served as something of

4100-602: The Nuremberg trials in 1946. He was sentenced to death by hanging and executed on 16 October 1946. The author of a seminal work of Nazi ideology , The Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930), Rosenberg is considered one of the main authors of key Nazi ideological creeds, including its racial theory and its hatred of the Jewish people, the need for Lebensraum , abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles , and opposition to what

4264-604: The Ottoman Empire during the Caucasus campaign . Following the Armistice of Mudros , Armenia expanded its borders in the wake of the Ottoman withdrawal, leading to a brief border war with neighbouring Georgia . During its first winter, hundreds of thousands of refugees in the country who had fled the Armenian genocide died from starvation or exposure. In the spring of 1919, Armenia, with British support, incorporated

4428-534: The Paris Peace Conference 's decision on the inter-Caucasian borders. Before Nagorno-Karabakh's capitulation, Azerbaijani forces carried out a massacre of 600 Armenians in villages nearby Shusha to pressure the region's inhabitants into submission. Andranik, who had been tasked with the defence of Erzurum, denounced the Dashnaks and Armenia for their treachery in seeking peace after gaining

4592-759: The Pontic Greeks were unhappy with the decision to assign Pontus to Armenia, "Greek and Armenian officials were confident that the issue could be resolved through adequate guarantees for an autonomous administration in the Pontus". On 10 August 1920, Armenian representatives in Paris signed the Treaty of Sèvres, thereby granting it de jure recognition and assigning it 103,599 square kilometres (40,000 square miles), thus expanding Armenia's borders to "60,000 square miles or 155,000 square kilometers, roughly equivalent to

4756-692: The Russian Empire . His mother Elfriede (née Siré), who had French and German ancestry, was the daughter of Louise Rosalie (née Fabricius), born near Leal (modern Lihula , Estonia) in 1842, and of the railway official Friedrich August Siré, born in Saint Petersburg , Russia, in 1843. Born in the same city in 1868, Elfriede Siré received the Christian sacrament of Confirmation in Reval at 17 in 1885. She married Woldemar Wilhelm Rosenberg,

4920-520: The Russian annexation of the Karabakh Khanate in 1801 and the khanates of Erivan and Nakhichevan in 1828. Due to Russian colonial policies, large numbers of Armenians from Persia and the Ottoman Empire repatriated to Russian Armenia. Armenians had already formed a majority in some regions, such as Nagorno-Karabakh, and this migration bolstered their numbers in the area. In particular,

5084-667: The Transcaucasian Commissariat on 28 November 1917, which would later form the nucleus of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR). As Russian and Ottoman armies, despite the revolution, were still engaged in combat, the Transcaucasian Commissariat signed the Armistice of Erzincan with the Ottoman Empire on 18 December. On 30 January 1918, the Ottoman Empire in violation of

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5248-629: The Volta Conference about Europe. British historian Sir Charles Petrie met him there and regarded him with great distaste; Petrie was a Catholic and strongly objected to Rosenberg's anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic sentiments. The following year, following the Nazi seizure of power , Rosenberg was named leader of the Nazi Party's Foreign Policy Office in April, and on 2 June 1933 he was named

5412-415: The immortality of the soul , saying, "indeed, absorbing Christianity enfeebled our people." Publicly, Rosenberg affected to deplore Christianity's degeneration owing to its Jewish influence. He took inspiration from Houston Stewart Chamberlain 's ideas and condemned what he called "Negative Christianity" (which was conventional Christianity preached by Protestantism and Catholicism ), instead Rosenberg

5576-631: The " Lebensraum " idea in Germany during the war; facilitating the persecution of Christian churches and the Jews in particular; and opposition to the Versailles Treaty . According to Joseph Kingsbury-Smith, who covered the executions for the International News Service , Rosenberg was the only condemned man who, when asked at the gallows if he had any last statement to make, replied with only one word: "No". Hitler

5740-479: The "Delegation of Integral Armenia". With Greek and Russian backing, Armenia claimed territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire covering the Six Vilayets and Cilicia . The White Russian delegation, whilst refusing to tolerate the independence of Azerbaijan and Georgia, was willing to allow Russian Armenia to unite with Turkish Armenia, believing that "such a united Armenia will be our friend and even ally in

5904-551: The "persecution of Communists continued" and due to the fact that several notable Dashnaks were imprisoned in Russia and Azerbaijan at the time. Moreover, Armenia's domestic situation deteriorated as the government lost its prestige. In Soviet historiography, the uprising was "extensively glorified and sharply criticized", the latter due to its poor organisation and irresolution—critics agreed that "Bolshevism in Armenia existed only in

6068-816: The Armenian Bolsheviks headed by Avis Nurijanyan staged a revolt in May. The events preceding the revolt started on 1 May 1920, International Workers' Day , with the Bolsheviks demonstrating against the Dashnak government in various cities. The revolt escalated after the armoured train Vardan Zoravar ( Վարդան Զորավար , ' General Vardan ') and its crew under the command of Captain Sargis Musayelyan  [ hy ] joined

6232-416: The Armenian republic organised an "abortive" rebellion in Karabakh that led to the massacre and displacement of Shusha's Armenian population. Even though the Armenian rebels failed to oust Azerbaijani garrisons in Khankend and Shusha, the countryside of Nagorno-Karabakh was under local control. The Azerbaijani army, despite the Red Army being stationed on its frontiers, moved towards Karabakh to put down

6396-477: The Armenian victories at Abaran, Karakilisa, and Sardarabad reached the conference, the Ottomans agreed to a "minor territorial rectification" whereby an additional 400 square miles (1,000 square kilometres) in the Alexandropol uezd were relinquished "for the sake of the friendly relations that have begun". The Treaty of Batum was thereafter signed on 4 June. In June 1918, German officials informed Armenian representatives in Istanbul that Germany would not recognise

6560-440: The Armenian-populated territories of the former Russian Empire known as Eastern or Russian Armenia . The republic was established in May 1918, with its capital in the city of Yerevan , after the dissolution of the short-lived Transcaucasian Federation . It was the first Armenian state since the Middle Ages . In its first year of independence, Armenia was confined to a small territory around Lake Sevan after its invasion by

6724-410: The Armenians as an Aryan people, Adolf Hitler personally did not trust them, and as a result the Armenian battalion was mainly stationed in the Netherlands . Speaking about military units from Soviet peoples, Hitler said: "I don't know about these Georgians. They do not belong to the Turkic peoples...I consider only the Muslims to be reliable...All others I deem unreliable. For the time being I consider

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6888-413: The Armenians. On 24 October, a concerted Turkish attack began on Surmalu, however, Dro's forces repelled the attack 2 days later. By 29 October, Kars was surrounded on three sides, however, was well armed and prepared to withstand an assault. The military council of Kars prohibited the 40 thousand inhabitants of the city from evacuating "not to undermine troop morale or give cause for panic". On 30 October,

7052-418: The Bolshevik rebels who had formed a revolutionary committee and proclaimed Armenia a Soviet state in Alexandropol on 10 May. The Bolshevik rebels also seized control in Kars and Sarıkamış . On 5 May 1920, Khatisian's cabinet resigned and a new one was formed under the leadership of Hamo Ohanjanyan , made up entirely of Dashnaks. The parliament then declared a state of emergency , appointing to commander

7216-451: The Christian denominations in favor of "positive Christianity". Hitler privately condemned mystical and pseudoreligious interests as "nonsense", and maintained that National Socialism was based on science and should avoid mystic and cultic practices. However, he and Joseph Goebbels agreed that after the Endsieg (Final Victory) the Reich Church should be pressed into evolving into a German social evolutionist organisation proclaiming

7380-476: The Dashnaks for "dislocation and ruin" that came as a result of the uprising. As a result of "Turkish–Azerbaijani aggression", Nagorno-Karabakh's population had declined by 20 percent in 1918–1920. Since 1920, Azerbaijani forces carried out massacres against Armenians in Khankend on 22 February 1920 leaving 400 dead, and Shusha from 22 to 26 March 1920 leaving 500 dead. By 11 April 1920, 30 villages in Nagorno-Karabakh had been "devastated" by Azerbaijani forces as

7544-501: The East". Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos was a "staunch champion of the Armenians" and constantly kept their delegation apprised of developments. Armenian relations with Azerbaijan were strained by overlapping territorial claims coupled with ethnic cleansing conducted by both sides. Throughout August 1919, Armenian militias were exacting "retribution from the most vulnerable Muslim settlements", sacking large Muslim villages, and according to Azerbaijani diplomats, massacring

7708-421: The First Republic for short. Other names of the state include the Araratian Republic ( Արարատյան հանրապետություն , 'Ararat Republic'), as the republic was largely based around Mount Ararat ; Further names include the Republic of Erivan, and the Erivan Republic, as Yerevan was the principal city of the republic. These terms were often used by Ottoman Armenians and the Armenian diaspora who regarded

7872-493: The Georgian delegates of the Seim declared the independence of Georgia ; Azerbaijan followed suit two days later. With the collapse of the TDFR, the Armenian National Council , based in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi ) and led by Russian Armenian intellectuals representing Armenian interests in the Caucasus, declared Armenia's independence on 28 May 1918. The council dispatched Hovhannes Kajaznuni and Alexander Khatisian , both Dashnaks, to Yerevan to assume power, and issued

8036-589: The German St. Nicholas parish of Reval in 1856. His mother died two months after his birth. The Hungarian-Jewish journalist Franz Szell, who was apparently residing in Tilsit , Prussia , Germany , spent a year researching in Latvian and Estonian archives before publishing an open letter in 1936, with copies to Hermann Göring , Joseph Goebbels , Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath and others, accusing Rosenberg of having "no drop of German blood" flowing in his veins. Szell wrote that among Rosenberg's ancestors were only "Latvians, Jews, Mongols, and French." As

8200-409: The German army was approaching Riga, the entire school evacuated to the Moscow Imperial Higher Technical School ( Russian : Императорское Московское техническое училище (ИМТУ) ), where he completed his PhD studies in 1917. During his stays at home in Reval, he attended the art studio of the famed painter Ants Laikmaa - though he showed promise, there are no records that he ever exhibited. During

8364-688: The German eagle. Neither German military ranks, nor German rank insignia were, however, to be used. Members of the Eastern Legions were given positional insignia, denoting which position in the command hierarchy held. The following positions were used in the Eastern Legions: stellvertretender Gruppenführer (assistant squad leader), Gruppenführer (squad leader), stellvertretender Zugführer (assistant platoon leader), Zugführer (platoon leader), stellvertretender Kompanieführer (assistant company commander), Kompanieführer (company commander). According to OKH Instruction 8a/3 29.4.1943, all in closed formations or as Hilfswilliger employed Armenian soldiers in

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8528-413: The Kars Oblast. The Ottoman Empire also sponsored the creation of the Republic of Aras in the Muslim-dominated southern districts of the Erivan Governorate corresponding to Nakhchivan. Following the conclusion of the Armeno-Georgian War in late 1918, Armenia repositioned its forces to annex the Republic of Aras. Their advance into the district was halted by the establishment of a British governorship in

8692-457: The Lutheran chaplain who communed with some of the Nuremberg prisoners with Lutheran backgrounds, like Joachim von Ribbentrop and Wilhelm Keitel . Due to his criticism of Christianity, some polemical texts have called him a neo-pagan . In 1940 Rosenberg was made head of the Hohe Schule (literally "high school", but the German phrase refers to a college), the Centre of National Socialist Ideological and Educational Research, out of which

8856-399: The Nazi POW camps, though a number of Armenian veterans who had escaped to the United States after World War I also came back to Europe to join it. Command of the unit was given to a former Defense Minister of Armenia , General Drastamat Kanayan (Dro). Kanayan was among the minority in the legion who volunteered, under the hope of freeing Soviet Armenia from the control of Moscow. Through

9020-580: The Nazi Party is controversial. He was perceived as lacking the charisma and political skills of the other Nazi leaders, and was somewhat isolated. In some of his speeches Hitler appeared to be close to Rosenberg's views, rejecting traditional Christianity as a religion based on Jewish culture, preferring an ethnically and culturally pure "Race" whose destiny was supposed to be assigned to the German people by "Providence". But Hitler rejected Rosenberg's spiritual views on race but instead based his views on biology. After Hitler's assumption of power he moved to unify

9184-415: The Nazi Party's chief racial theorist , Rosenberg oversaw the construction of a human racial "ladder" that justified Hitler's racial and ethnic policies . Rosenberg built on the works of Arthur de Gobineau , Houston Stewart Chamberlain , Madison Grant and the Klansman Lothrop Stoddard as well as on the beliefs of Hitler. Rosenberg placed Blacks and Jews at the very bottom of the ladder, while at

9348-417: The Old Testament as well as the notion of Christ as the Jewish Messiah) and the Manichaean-inspired, "Aryo-Iranian" Cathari , as being the more authentic interpreters of Christianity versus historically dominant Judaeo-Christianity; moreover these ancient, externally Christian metaphysical forms were more "organically compatible with the Nordic sense of the spiritual and the Nordic 'blood-soul'." For Rosenberg,

9512-428: The Oltu river. The voices of the militaristic factions in the Armenian government were strengthened by the successes in Zangibasar and Penek, therefore, the army prepared to retake the districts of Vedibasar and Nakhchivan; the advance into the former began on 11 July and by the next day, Armenian forces had recaptured the district and Boyuk Vedi, reaching the boundary of the Erivan and Sharur-Daralayaz districts at

9676-514: The Ottoman delegation at Batum that Armenia would accept Turkish conditions for peace, thereby initiating the Batum Conference between Armenia and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans, in refusing to countenance Armenian pretensions to the highland portion of the Elizavetpol Governorate , offered Armenia the entirety of the Nor Bayazet uezd , and parts of the Erivan , Etchmiadzin , and Alexandropol counties, essentially confining it to an area of 4,000 square miles (10,000 square kilometres). When news of

9840-446: The Ottoman territory awarded to Armenian totalled 16,216 square miles (42,000 square kilometres). According to reporter Tatul Hakobyan , a total of 87,000 square kilometres (34,000 square miles) were awarded. For the Armenia–Azerbaijan–Georgia territorial disputes, Article 92 of the treaty provided for the arbitration of frontiers by the "Principal Allied Powers" if the states couldn't determine it themselves through "direct agreement" by

10004-618: The Paris Peace Conference was inconclusive on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the governor-general, Khosrov bey Sultanov , dissolved the Armenians' autonomy and issued an ultimatum on 19 February 1920; thereby the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were being coerced into permanently becoming part of Azerbaijan. The ultimatum was accepted by 45 Armenian representatives in Shusha , but was rejected by representatives who had gathered in Shosh who "categorically rejected any possibility of union with Azerbaijan". Receiving news that Azerbaijan intended to "move against Zangezur" again on 25 March, agents from

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10168-412: The Reich. The Sanctum Officium in Rome recommended that Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century be put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (list of books forbidden by the Catholic Church) for scorning and rejecting "all dogmas of the Catholic Church, and the very fundamentals of the Christian religion". Rosenberg has been described as an atheist by some people, including Henry F. Gerecke ,

10332-419: The Russian Empire, the Russian Imperial Army advanced as far as the city of Erzurum in 1916, continuing to make considerable advances even after the toppling of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. Following news of the Bolshevik coup in Russia , the Ozakom (a committee formed in February by the Russian Provisional Government to oversee the Caucasus ) was superseded by a caretaker government known as

10496-414: The Southwest Caucasus Republic dissipated when it defied British directives by backing Muslim insurgents in the counties of Akhalkalaki and Akhaltsikhe to resist Georgia. This prompted the Georgian government to unite with Armenia's in opposing the Southwest Caucasus Republic's existence. Consequently, the Kars Oblast (excluding western Olti and northern Ardahan ) was annexed to Armenia, falling under

10660-501: The TDFR would be also obligated to cede western sectors of the Erivan and Tiflis governorates . Without awaiting the TDFR's consent to the new terms, the Ottomans resumed their offensive in Armenia on 21 May, leading to the battles of Abaran , Karakilisa , and Sardarabad , whereby local Armenian forces emerged victorious. In retaliation for their losses, the Turkish divisions defeated by Armenians massacred several thousand villagers. On 26 May, after secret negotiations with Germany ,

10824-489: The Treaty of Batum. Though denying Armenia official recognition, Germany promised a conference whereby the treaties would be "revised". Armenian representatives in the Ottoman capital humbled themselves as to "expressing gratitude" to the unsympathetic Enver Pasha for tolerating the Armenian republic's establishment. Enver rejected any notion of the Armenian republic expanding its borders, observing that he had consented to "a small Armenian state that could never in any way affect

10988-526: The Turkish army occupied the city of Kars, "which was supposed to be impregnable", "it was to be the last day the Armenian flag would fly over the citadel of Kars". According to a French source, "fatigue, starvation, lack of clothing and equipment" disorganised the 25 thousand men defending Kars, enabling its capture by 12 thousand Turks. The fall of Kars led to the capture of thousands of officers, 2 thousand of whom were taken to Erzurum for forced labour and internment. There were 1,500 Armenian casualties after

11152-454: The Turkish invasion of May–September 1918, including 25,000 in the Kars Oblast. In the six-months of Turkish occupation of Eastern Armenia, particularly in the region of Pambak , Armenians were used as "bayonet practice" by Turkish soldiers. Hovannisian estimates that at least 8,000 young men were taken to Erzurum for slave labour, and 125,000 livestock, 30,000 agricultural equipment, 6,000 carts and 18,000 tons of foodstuffs were confiscated by

11316-400: The Turkish invasion, Georgia was averse to "tie its fate with that of the beleaguered Armenians". Turkish envoys assured the Georgian government that Turkey would present no threat to them, and wouldn't object to Georgia occupying "certain territories in contention with Armenia". Georgia had already attempted to assert its authority in Armenian-held Ardahan, though with limited success. During

11480-415: The Turkish resistance movement and overestimated their own strength and potential". On 30 September, Armenia mobilised men up to 35-years-old. The Turkish attacks on Merdenek , Sarıkamış, and Kağızman displaced some 50 thousand Armenians. According to American High Commissioner Mark Bristol , "the Armenians had started the trouble by moving into Olti in the summer". Though the Georgian press had denounced

11644-450: The Turks whilst they were on the run, however, Silikian refused and ordered his forces to halt. This is due to the fact that the Armenian forces' ammunition were nearly exhausted, and the Turks' reinforcements were close. According to the UCLA historian Richard G. Hovannisian , "If peace were not concluded and the tide of victory turned in favor of the Ottomans, the consequences would be disastrous". Armenian negotiators on 30 May informed

11808-509: The Twentieth Century ( Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts ) which deals with key issues in the Nazi ideology, such as the "Jewish question." Rosenberg intended his book as a sequel to Houston Stewart Chamberlain 's above-cited book. Despite selling more than a million copies by 1945, its influence within Nazism remains doubtful. It is often said to have been a book that was officially venerated within Nazism, but one that few had actually read beyond

11972-723: The Volunteer Army was defeated in the North Caucasus region by the victorious Bolsheviks; in light of this, the League of Nations and the Supreme Allied Council formally recognised Georgia and Azerbaijan as de facto governments over the region. Armenia's recognition followed on 19 January; the recognition was used as a last-ditch effort to prevent the sovietisation of the South Caucasus. As

12136-654: The Wehrmacht/Heer would collectively be known as the Armenian Legion. In May 1943 rank insignia of Czarist Russian type were introduced, followed in December 1943 by those shown in the tables below. First Republic of Armenia The First Republic of Armenia , officially known at the time of its existence as the Republic of Armenia , was an independent Armenian state that existed from May (28th de jure , 30th de facto ) 1918 to 2 December 1920 in

12300-592: The anti-intellectual, religious doctrine was inseparable from serving the interests of the Nordic race, connecting the individual to his racial nature. Rosenberg stated that "The general ideas of the Roman and of the Protestant churches are negative Christianity and do not, therefore, accord with our (German) soul." His support for Luther as a great German figure was always ambivalent. In January 1934, Hitler appointed Rosenberg cultural and educational leader of

12464-797: The armistice, launched an offensive to recapture Western Armenia. Delegates of the major South Caucasian political parties established the Transcaucasian Seim —the representative and legislative body of the TDFR —on 23 February, with the Dashnaks representing the Armenians, the Musavat the Muslims and Caucasian Tatars, and the Mensheviks the Georgians . On 2 March, a delegation from the Seim

12628-442: The attack, of whom 500 were killed. Another source writes that 6,000 Armenians were massacred by the Turks following the capture of Kars. In the span of two months, Armenia "lay prostrate in defeat"; Karabekir imposed on Armenia the Treaty of Alexandropol on 3 December 1920, whereby the latter denounced the Treaty of Sèvres and was confined to the province of Yerevan, thereby ceding Kars, Nakhchivan, and Surmalu. The other terms of

12792-461: The benefit of future Aryan generations, in accord with geopolitical " Lebensraum im Osten" plans. They would provide a buffer against Soviet expansion in preparation for the total eradication of Communism and Bolshevism by decisive pre-emptive military action. Following these plans, when Wehrmacht forces invaded Soviet-controlled territory, they immediately implemented the first of the proposed Reichskommissariats of Ostland and Ukraine , under

12956-586: The best musical instruments and scores for use in a university to be built in Hitler's home town of Linz , Austria . The orders given to the Sonderstab Musik were to loot all forms of Jewish property in Germany and of those found in any country taken over by the German army, and any musical instruments or scores were to be immediately shipped to Berlin . Following the invasion of the USSR , Rosenberg

13120-617: The broad Armenian Revolutionary Federation party (commonly referred to as the Dashnaks), however, the cabinet posts were initially shared with the "bourgeois" Armenian Populist Party and later, Social Revolutionaries . Since Armenia's gaining of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, in Armenia and modern historiography, the state is referred to as the First Republic of Armenia ( Հայաստանի Առաջին Հանրապետություն ) or

13284-648: The churches into a national church which could be manipulated and controlled. He placed himself in the position of being the man to save Positive Christianity from utter destruction at the hands of the atheistic antitheist Communists of the Soviet Union . This was especially true immediately before and after the elections of 1932; Hitler wanted to appear non-threatening to major Christian faiths and consolidate his power. Some Nazi leaders, such as Martin Bormann , were anti-Christian and sympathetic to Rosenberg. Once in power, Hitler and most Nazi leaders sought to unify

13448-468: The city. In discussions of a territorial settlement, the Armenian negotiators ultimately offered to drop their claim on the Akhalkalaki district in return for the entirety of the Lori neutral zone, however, Georgia was only willing to drop its claims on the districts of Olti and southern Lori. During its independence, Armenia established diplomatic relations with 40 countries. By 10 January 1920,

13612-455: The civil governorship of Stepan Ghorghanyan  [ hy ] —this allowed for the repatriation of 60,000 Armenians (out of more than 100,000 had fled in April 1918). As a result of the annexation, Armenia increased its territory to "more than 17,000 square miles (44,000 square kilometres)". In an announcement to parliament, Armenian prime minister Alexander Khatisian announced that as of 3 June 1919, 300,000 Armenians had been resettled in

13776-609: The commander of the "united troops of the Soviet Russia and Red Turkey in Nakhichevan" addressed the Armenian army in Şahtaxtı, proclaiming Soviet rule over the rest of Nakhchivan, thereby ending the Armenian campaign. As no country was willing to assume the mandate over Armenia, the peace conference decided to only assign it the vilayets of Erzurum , Van , Bitlis , and Trebizond , with the precise boundary to be arbitrated by American president Woodrow Wilson . Although

13940-448: The conquered Eastern territories, suggesting the establishment of new administrative districts, to replace the previously Soviet -controlled territories with new Reichskommissariats . These would be: Although Rosenberg believed that all of the peoples of the Soviet Union were subhumans because of their communist beliefs, such suggestions were intended to encourage certain non-Russian forms of nationalism and promote German interests for

14104-741: The country as "only a dusty province without Ottoman Armenia whose salvation Armenians had been seeking for 40 years". It has also been known as the Dashnak Republic due to the fact that the Dashnaks were the dominant political force in the country . During the Soviet-era , the Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia referred to the state as the Bourgeois Republic of Armenia ( Հայաստանի Բուրժուական Հանրապետություն ). Sources vary on when Armenian statehood

14268-481: The country of Czecho-Slovakia or the state of Illinois ". During the League of Nations's discussions regarding Armenia's application to join the organisation, it was stated that "Wilson's award might expand the territory from the existing 70,551 square kilometers, or 26,305 (actually 27,232) square miles, to as much as 214,000 square kilometers, or 80,000 (actually 82,604) square miles". According to Hewsen and Walker,

14432-522: The creation of buffer satellite states made out of Greater Finland, Baltica, Ukraine, and Caucasus. During an 18 November 1941 press conference , he made the following statements about the Jewish question : Some six million Jews still live in the East, and this question can only be solved by a biological extermination of the whole of Jewry in Europe. The Jewish Question will only be solved for Germany when

14596-585: The cult of race, blood and battle, instead of Redemption and the Ten Commandments of Moses , which they deemed outdated and Jewish. Heinrich Himmler 's views were among the closest to Rosenberg's, and their estrangement was perhaps created by Himmler's abilities to put into action what Rosenberg had only written. Also, while Rosenberg thought Christianity should be allowed to die out, Himmler actively set out to create countering pagan rituals. Lieutenant Colonel William Harold Dunn (1898–1955) wrote

14760-643: The data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 192,000 people died due to the typhus epidemic and famine by the summer of 1919. The Ninth Army of the Ottoman Empire occupied the Kars Oblast at the time of the Armistice of Mudros, being permitted to winter in the district until early 1919; on 7 January 1919, the British ordered their complete withdrawal to the pre-war Russo-Ottoman border. Intended to hinder

14924-516: The district of Sardarapat had died. By April 1919, 40 percent of the inhabitants of eight villages near Etchmiadzin and 25 percent of the sixteen villages in Ashtarak perished. During the winter, the population of the district of Talin declined by 50 percent, and nearly 60 percent of Armenians in Surmalu died of starvation. American historian Richard Pipes writes that Soviet estimates place

15088-548: The district, formed as a means to prevent clashes between Armenian soldiers and local Muslims of up to 10,000 armed men. British sympathy to the Aras Republic was reversed under the authority of Major-General William Montgomerie Thomson who suspected Pan-Turkic influence in Nakhchivan due to the presence of Azerbaijani and Ottoman envoys. Thomson believed that Azerbaijan and the Ottoman Empire were scheming to "forge

15252-754: The earliest members of the German Workers' Party – later renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party , better known as the Nazi Party – joining in January 1919, eight months before Adolf Hitler joined in September. According to some historians, Rosenberg had also been a member of the Thule Society , along with Eckart, although Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke contends that they were only guests. After

15416-507: The effect of adding to their problems. Posters for "volunteer" labour, with inscriptions such as "Come work with us to shorten the war", hid the appalling realities faced by Russian workers in Germany . Rosenberg noted that many joined the partisans when volunteers for work details declined and the Germans resorted to force to acquire workers from the East. Rosenberg was captured by Allied troops on 19 May 1945 in Flensburg - Mürwik . He

15580-715: The end of the war, morale among the men in the unit began to collapse; many in the legion deserted or defected. Hans Houterman reported that in one case, a battalion in the Netherlands where the legion was stationed even revolted. Many men surrendered to the Western Allied forces . If not detained by them, they were turned over to Soviet authorities who, in accordance with an order proclaimed by Joseph Stalin , sent them to camps in Siberia as punishment for surrendering to Axis forces and "allowing themselves to be captured",

15744-607: The entire rule of Nazi Germany (1933–1945), and led Amt Rosenberg ("Rosenberg's bureau"), an official Nazi body for cultural policy and surveillance , between 1934 and 1945. During World War II , Rosenberg was the head of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (1941–1945). After the war, he was convicted of crimes against peace ; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression ; war crimes ; and crimes against humanity at

15908-598: The first branch of a projected Advanced School of the NSDAP , dedicated to identifying and attacking supposed Jewish influence in German culture and to recording the history of Judaism from a radical nationalist perspective. He was elected as a Reichstag Deputy in 1930 and would continue to serve in this capacity until the end of the Nazi regime. First elected as a representative of the electoral list , from 1933 on he represented electoral constituency 33, Hesse. In 1930, he also published his book on racial theory The Myth of

16072-440: The first chapter or even found comprehensible. Hitler called it "stuff nobody can understand" and disapproved of its pseudo-religious tone. Rosenberg helped convince Hitler, whose early speeches focused on revenge against France and Britain, that communism was a serious threat to Germany. " Jewish-Bolshevism " became an ideological target for Nazism during the early 1920s. In Rome during November 1932 Rosenberg participated in

16236-486: The following "intentionally vague" statement on 30 May (retroactive to 28 May): In view of the dissolution of the political unity of Transcaucasia and the new situation created by the proclamation of the independence of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Armenian National Council declares itself to be the supreme and only administration for the Armenian provinces. Because of the certain grave circumstances,

16400-487: The following year in Nagorno-Karabakh (then under provisional Azerbaijani rule), ending in April after Azerbaijan's sovietisation . In August 1920, Armenian representatives at the Paris Peace Conference signed the Treaty of Sèvres , which awarded Armenia an additional 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometres) of territory in Western Armenia , albeit the treaty was never implemented. In late 1920, Armenia

16564-402: The following year, the number of refugees declined to 310,835. By late 1920, about 360,000 (almost half of Armenia's population of 720,000) or 200,000 refugees remained. By the time relief aid reached Armenia, some 150,000–180,000 refugees (20 percent of the population) had perished due to famine, exposure, or hunger. According to a report from February 1919, 40 percent of the inhabitants of

16728-656: The following year, the number of refugees fell to 263,393. During this period, there was a flow of Western Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus . In 1918 to the spring of 1919, the number of refugees from Western Armenia was estimated to be 300,000, with 100,000 residing in "makeshift shelters or abandoned military barracks" in Alexandropol alone. In November 1919, the number of refugees again rose, reaching 333,170 and consisting of 284,870 Western Armenians and 48,300 Eastern Armenians. In April of

16892-605: The formation of these battalions of purely Caucasian peoples very risky, while I don't see any danger in the establishment of purely Muslim units...In spite of all declarations from Rosenberg and the military, I don't trust the Armenians either." Minister of the Occupied Territories and Racial Theorist Alfred Rosenberg declared that the Armenians were Indo-European , or Aryans , and thus they were immediately subject to conscription. According to Versteeg, however, "Although Armenians officially were considered 'Aryans',

17056-406: The former, falling back to Selim where they believed the Turks would strike. Accompanying the civilian population, Armenian forces retreated eastwards to more defensible positions. After Karabekir announced his successes to Kemal, the latter ordered a temporary halt to the invasion, fearful of Allied or Russian intervention. The Turkish victory had indicated that "the Armenians had underestimated

17220-507: The formerly occupied regions of Kars and Nakhchivan , thereby tripling in size since independence; however, Armenian control of these regions collapsed during the Muslim uprisings that erupted in the summer of 1919. In late 1919, the isolated Armenian region of Zangezur came under attack by neighbouring Azerbaijan . The fighting subsided until an Armenian rebellion was launched in March of

17384-458: The heads of intellectuals". On 18 June 1920, Armenia issued an ultimatum to the Muslim insurgents in the outskirts, some 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) of Yerevan, to submit to Armenian rule. Having no expectation that the ultimatum would be answered, the Armenian army launched an offensive to recapture the rebelling villages on the following day; the Armenians were victorious on 21 June and had secured

17548-723: The initial difficulties in Armenia–Georgia relations , the two governments signed a transit treaty on 3 November 1919 which was "substantive and immediate in its economic implications". The half-million Armenians in Georgia were "resented" by the Georgians due to the former's "decades-long ... dominance in Tiflis". In the Georgian capital, the Armenians had suddenly become a "disadvantaged minority", most who were civil servants were dismissed, and refugees and families were evicted from

17712-795: The interests of the new Turkish empire". On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed, thus ending hostilities between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies . The armistice only stipulated the Ottomans' withdrawal to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk boundaries, thereby allowing their armies to winter in Kars and Batum. Throughout November, Ottoman forces evacuated the Erivan Governorate, thereby Armenia gained 6,000 square miles (16,000 square kilometres) of formerly-occupied territory. An estimated 50,000–100,000 Armenians had been massacred during

17876-463: The invasion of the Soviet Union intended to impose the New Order , it was essentially a war of conquest. German propaganda efforts designed to win over Russian opinion were, at best, patchy and inconsistent. Alfred Rosenberg was one of the few in the Nazi hierarchy who advocated a policy designed to encourage anti-Communist opinion among the population of the occupied territories. His interest here

18040-547: The job he did. On 1 January 1924, Rosenberg founded the Greater German People's Community , a Nazi front organization . Headquartered in Munich , it was largely limited to Bavaria , the birthplace of National Socialism, had no substantial presence outside that State and became a haven for Nazi Party members from that area. Prominent members included Max Amann , Phillip Bouhler , Hermann Esser , Franz Xaver Schwarz and Julius Streicher . Rosenberg, one of

18204-646: The last Jew has left German territory, and it will only be solved for Europe when not a single Jew stands on the European continent as far as the Urals... And to this end, it is necessary to force them beyond the Urals or otherwise bring about their eradication. At the Nuremberg trials he said he was ignorant of the Holocaust , despite the fact that Leibbrandt and Meyer were present at the Wannsee conference . Since

18368-450: The latter policy prevailed in the case of Penek. Armenian and Turkish reports confirmed the presence of Turkish soldiers operating in the district; in spite of this, the Armenian offensive to capture the western half of the Olti district began on 19 June 1920. By 22 June, the Armenian army had converged on Penek and ousted its Turko-Kurdish defenders, setting the new Armenian–Turkish frontier at

18532-491: The leadership of Hinrich Lohse and Erich Koch , respectively. The organization of these administrative territories led to conflict between Rosenberg and the SS over the treatment of Slavs under German occupation. As Nazi Germany's chief racial theorist, Rosenberg considered Slavs, though lesser than Germans, to be Aryan. Rosenberg often complained to Hitler and Himmler about the treatment of non-Jewish occupied peoples. He proposed

18696-537: The least charismatic of the Nazi leaders and lacking in leadership qualities, was soon pushed aside by Streicher, a far more ruthless and abrasive personality, who was elected Chairman on 9 July 1924 with Esser, also a coarse, bullying sort, as his Deputy Chairman. In 1929 Rosenberg founded the Militant League for German Culture . He later formed the " Institute for Research on the Jewish Question ",

18860-469: The men of six villages and destroying "300 Muslim villages ... since the beginning of 1918". Conversely, 25,000–40,000 Armenians in western Azerbaijan were massacred by the Azerbaijani–Ottoman advance in 1918, forcing the survivors to gather in the three remaining Armenian villages (of 51 originally); further, thousands of Armenian women and girls were abducted during the advance, in an extension of

19024-524: The minister of war of the Aras Republic, Kalb Ali Khan Nakhichevanskii  [ ru ] , thereby effecting the annexation. Beginning in July 1919, a series of insurgencies against Armenian rule erupted in the Kars and Nakhchivan regions, fostered by Azerbaijani and Turkish envoys who instructed local Muslims to resist. The insurgencies were motivated by the British military withdrawal from Armenia which took place in mid-June. The town of Böyük Vedi and

19188-618: The mountain pass known as the "Wolf's Gates"—this again caused the local Muslims to flee, now southward to Sharur . On 14 July, the Armenian advance continued through the Wolf's Gates into the Sharur district, capturing it two days later whilst the locals fled across the Aras river into Iran. Before the Armenians could advance into the Nakhichevan uezd proper, the national council ( Azerbaijani : milli şura ) of Nakhchivan appealed for peace, however,

19352-461: The national council, deferring until the near future the formation of an Armenian National government, temporarily assumes all governmental functions, in order to take hold the political and administrative helm of the Armenian provinces. With the success in the May battles in Abaran, Karakilisa, and Sardarabad, Armenian commander Movses Silikian was urged by the Armenian military command to chase out

19516-430: The negotiations only served in delaying Armenia's advance, after which the town of Şahtaxtı some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Nakhchivan was captured. By this time, the 11th Army of Soviet Russia (which had previously sovietised Azerbaijan ) reached southern Nakhchivan to form a link with Kemalist Turkey — through this link, Russia hoped to bolster its supply of weapons and ammunition to Turkey. Colonel Tarkhov,

19680-488: The newly established Armenian and Azerbaijani republics engaged in a two-year war over their territorial ambitions. The disputed regions were principally Nakhchivan, Zangezur, and Nagorno-Karabakh. In the 18,000 km (6,900 sq mi) of mountainous highlands of the Elizavetpol Governorate which were mostly controlled by Azerbaijan yet claimed by Armenia, Armenians formed "nearly 70 percent of

19844-603: The night of 28–29 November 1920. On 29 November, the Revkom issued its declaration, proclaiming Soviet rule in Armenia—the declaration began as follows: By the will and desire of the insurgent labouring people of Armenia, the Armenian Communist Party declares Armenia from this day a Socialist Soviet Republic . Henceforth, Soviet Armenia's Red Flag will protect the working people from the centuries-long yoke of

20008-645: The notion of them being 'Levantine traders', similar to the Jews, was deep-seated in Nazi circles, and racial 'purists' along with Hitler himself were prone to look upon the Armenians as 'non-Aryans.'" With the "Provisions for the establishment of the Eastern Legions" of 24 April 1942, members of the Eastern Legions were to wear German Army uniforms with the German Eagle . Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians were allowed German uniform, but not

20172-408: The number of Armenians who perished due to famine and disease at 300,000. In 1919, 19,000 inhabitants of Yerevan contracted typhus and 10,000 died from exposure, famine, and pestilence. By mid-1919, 200,000 inhabitants of Armenia had perished; according to Hovannisian, there were 8.7 births and 204.2 deaths per 1,000 persons, yielding a net loss of 195.5—"it was verily a land of death". According to

20336-510: The occupied countries of Europe, as well as the brutal conditions in Eastern Europe. During his trial he wrote his memoirs, which were published posthumously and with analytical commentary by Serge Lang and Ernst von Schenck. He was sentenced to death and executed with other condemned co-defendants at Nuremberg Prison on the morning of 16 October 1946 . His body, like those of the other nine executed men and that of Hermann Göring ,

20500-560: The occupiers. But decollectivisation conflicted with the wider demands of wartime food production, and Hermann Göring demanded that the collective farms be retained, save for a change of name. Hitler himself denounced the redistribution of land as "stupid". There were numerous German armed forces ( Wehrmacht ) posters asking for assistance in the Bandenkrieg, the war against the Soviet partisans , though, once again, German policy had

20664-465: The oppressors Alfred Rosenberg Alfred Ernst Rosenberg (12 January [ O.S. 31 December 1892] 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government . He was the head of the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs during

20828-507: The peripheries of Yerevan, leading the Azerbaijani population to flee to Aralık in the nearby Surmalu uezd to avoid retribution. Occurring simultaneously with the Armenian counteroffensive against insurgents near Yerevan, an attempt was made to seize the coal reserves in Penek . Armenian policy towards integration of Muslim areas was split between peaceful civilian incorporation with local autonomy and military invasion and threats, ultimately,

20992-414: The population"; the claimed boundaries were designed to incorporate a maximum number of Armenians, 300,000, also incorporating "a minimum number of Muslims", 90,000. If Armenia successfully incorporated the highlands of Elizavetpol, its population, "according to pre-war statistics", would rise to 1.797 million, including 1.169 million Armenians. According to Hovannisian, a population exchange whilst practical

21156-549: The provisional Ottoman government failed to win support for ratification of the Treaty of Sèvres, remnants of the Ottoman Army's XV Corps under the command of Kâzım Karabekir , who had orders from the Ankara Government to "eliminate Armenia physically and politically", invaded Armenia on 28 September 1920. After unsuccessful Turkish manoeuvres in Sarıkamış, Armenian military command, not believing its 2.5 thousand and 1.5 thousand man garrisons in Sarıkamış and Olti-Merdenek, respectively, were enough to hold those positions, evacuated

21320-404: The rebellion. As the Armenian army was dispatched by Armenia to assist the rebels, the Red Army put an end to the Azerbaijani republic through an unabated invasion. An ultimatum by the Red Army—which supplanted the Azerbaijani army following the latter's sovietisation—prompted an the army's withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh. The region's Armenian inhabitants blamed the Armenian republic's agents and

21484-404: The region and absorb Muslim-controlled Nakhchivan, however, were forced to retreat some days later due to their defeat in battle, despite initially meeting success on all fronts. According to Hewsen, Armenia's foreign policy objectives consisted of "obtaining foreign aid to prevent its people from perishing, ... securing international recognition ... and ... placing Armenia under the protection of

21648-438: The reports of large-scale massacres of the local Armenians in the Nakhchivan region, amounting to 10,000 dead and 45 villages destroyed. During the insurgencies, only the Volunteer Army of Anton Denikin sent ammunition to replenish the Armenian army. By late 1919, Armenia lost control of the peripheries of the Kars and Surmalu regions, as well as the entirety of Nakhchivan. In 1918, after attaining independence from Russia,

21812-404: The retreating Ottoman army. The richest areas were left barren, stripped of crops, animals, tools, and any movable possessions. Little trace remained of the former Armenian villages, with all clothing, furniture, utensils, pottery, and even doors and windows taken. Along the railway, no functioning locomotives or freight cars were left, and each station lay in ruins. In Alexandropol , rubble filled

21976-408: The soldiers—using this pretext, Armenia fomented insurrection, thereby elevating tensions. Skirmishes began on 7 December, and escalated in Armenia's favour, with them coming within 30 miles (48 kilometres) of Tiflis, after which Allied representatives demanded a ceasefire. Armenia was unsuccessful in its objective of occupying lands up to the Khrami river and was pushed back by Georgian forces to

22140-422: The span of active service, the 812th Battalion participated in the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and the North Caucasus . One unit comprising a part of the Armenian Legion, was the 4th Battalion of the 918th Grenadier Regiment, 242 Infanterie-Division, one of the few Eastern Legion units to be given German insignia after March 18, 1944. The battalion participated in the unsuccessful defense of Toulon . At

22304-519: The streets after the Turks set off explosives and ammunition before withdrawing. Hovannisian further adds: "As the Armenian soldiers advanced, the full significance of the saying, 'the Turk has passed here,' was bruisingly demonstrated". As a result of the Turkish invasion, 200 villages were plundered, half the vineyards in the Aras River valley were ruined, 200,000 large-horned animals were chased away in addition to thousands of carts of agricultural implements, and 80 percent of households were deprived of

22468-441: The summer of 1918 was packed with "at least six hundred thousand refugees", one of the factors that led him to write that "of the three Transcaucasian republics Armenia suffered the greatest hardship in the fateful years 1918–1920". By December 1918, there remained 350,000 refugees distributed throughout the Armenian republic, in addition to 30,000 who had accompanied Armenian partisan commander Andranik to Zangezur. In February of

22632-578: The time of the delineation of Armenia's western frontier. On 10 August 1920, the same day that Armenia signed the Treaty of Sèvres which set their western frontier, a treaty with Soviet Russia was signed which set their "preliminary" eastern frontier; the agreement provided for an end to Soviet–Armenian clashes in Zangezur and Qazax, for Armenia to "occupy" the Şahtaxtı– Xok – Aznabyurt – Bardzruni – Kükü – Gorayk line and in Qazax, "the line they held on 30 July" of 1920. The treaty also recognised Karabakh, Nakhchivan, and Zangezur as disputed districts that Russia

22796-610: The title The Eternal Jew . Rosenberg got the racial term Untermensch from the title of Stoddard's 1922 book The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-men , which had been adopted by the Nazis from that book's German version Der Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen (1925). Rosenberg reshaped the Nazi racial policy over the years, but it always consisted of Aryan supremacy , extreme German nationalism and rabid antisemitism . Rosenberg also outspokenly opposed homosexuality – notably in his pamphlet "Der Sumpf" ("The Swamp", 1927). He viewed homosexuality as

22960-456: The treaty effectively made Armenia a Turkish puppet state. However, the treaty was later declared null by the new authorities in Yerevan who had sovietised the country the previous day. "In consequence of Turkish, and, presumably, Communist, massacres", 200 thousand Armenians were massacred. Another estimate places the number of Armenians massacred by the Turkish army during the war at 100 thousand. Turkish–German historian Taner Akçam mentions

23124-415: The upper hand in battle, seeing them as becoming "nothing more than an Ottoman vassal state". With his three-thousand-strong force, Andranik "pushed over Nakhichevan into Zangezur", where he remained for the duration of the war, destroying Tatar villages and expelling their inhabitants. Thereby the Armenians "retained control in Zangezur". In early November 1919, Azerbaijan launched a campaign to incorporate

23288-487: The very top stood the " Aryan" race . Rosenberg promoted the Nordic theory which considered the Nordic race the " master race ", superior to all others, including to other Aryans (Indo-Europeans). He was also influenced by the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory promoted by the Catholic counter-revolutionary tradition, such as the book Le Juif, le judaïsme et la judaïsation des peuples chrétiens (1869) by Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux , which he translated into German under

23452-432: The village cluster around it served as a symbol of defiance for Muslims in Armenia. As the insurgencies raged, the Azerbaijani diplomatic envoy to Armenia, Mahammad khan Takinski  [ az ] , transferred funds to the insurgents and apprised the Azerbaijani government of developments —earlier, he had worked to forestall the Armenian annexation of Nakhchivan. Investigations by American relief workers confirmed

23616-423: The village of Sadakhlo by the time of the ceasefire which came into effect at midnight on 31 December. In spite of being pushed back in the last days of the war, Armenia was successful in loosening Georgian control over northern Lori, which the latter had held before the war, insomuch as the region was designated a neutral zone under British supervision. Yale historian Firuz Kazemzadeh wrote that Armenia in

23780-410: The war, the Armenian army fielded 40 thousand men, including 33 generals, more than 2 thousand officers, and 66 colonels. However, the army's structure was "top-heavy with a large, conservative officer corps accustomed to classical battle strategies". On 14 October, the Turkish army resumed its offensive, reaching the Merdenek-Selim-Kağızman line. On 27 October, Karabekir attacked towards Kars, flanking

23944-533: The westward expansion of the fledgling Armenian and Georgian republics into the Kars Oblast, the Ottomans backed the establishment of the Southwest Caucasus Republic with moral support, also furnishing it with weapons, ammunition, and instructors. The Southwest Caucasus Republic administered the entire Kars and Batum oblasts as well as neighbouring occupied districts for some three months before provoking British intervention, leading to its capitulation by Armenian and British forces on 10 April 1919. British tolerance of

24108-551: Was invaded by Kemalist Turkey , ending with its partition and sovietisation by the Russian SFSR , with the latter founding the superseding Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic . Shortly thereafter, an anti-Bolshevik revolt resisted Soviet authority from February to July 1921 . In the two and a half years of its existence, Armenia formed diplomatic relations with 40 countries, gained de jure recognition, underwent parliamentary elections , and founded its first university . The nation's parliament and government were dominated by

24272-400: Was a leader oriented towards practical politics, whereas, for Rosenberg, religion and philosophy were key and he was the most culturally influential within the party. Several accounts of the time before the Nazi ascension to power speak of Hitler as being a mouthpiece for Rosenberg's views, and he clearly exerted a great deal of intellectual influence. The question of Rosenberg's influence in

24436-411: Was appointed head of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories ( Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete ) on 17 July 1941. Alfred Meyer served as his deputy and represented him at the Wannsee Conference . Another official of the Ministry, Georg Leibbrandt , also attended the conference, at Rosenberg's request. Rosenberg had presented Hitler with his plan for the organization of

24600-423: Was arguing for a so-called "Positive" Christianity which was based on the argument that Jesus was not a Jew but a member of an Indo-European enclave which was resident in ancient Galilee who fought against Judaism . Significantly, in his work explicating the Nazi intellectual belief system, The Myth of the Twentieth Century , Rosenberg cryptically applauds the early Christian heretic Marcion (who rejected

24764-429: Was considered " degenerate " modern art. He was also known for his hatred and rejection of what he regarded as "negative" Christianity, however, he played an important role in the development of German nationalist Positive Christianity , which denied that Jesus is the Messiah and rejected the Old Testament. Rosenberg was born on 12 January 1893 in Reval (now Tallinn , Estonia), then in the Governorate of Estonia of

24928-411: Was cremated at Ostfriedhof (Munich) and the ashes were scattered in the river Isar . Throughout the trial, it was agreed that Rosenberg had a decisive role in shaping Nazi philosophy and ideology. Examples include: his book The Myth of the Twentieth Century , which was published in 1930, where he incited hatred against " Liberal Imperialism " and "Bolshevik Marxism "; furthering the influence of

25092-452: Was deemed "preposterous" for the Karabakh Armenians because the region's cession "to the Pan-Turanian fanatics will open the door to endless invasions, endanger the peace of the Orient, and shake the political equilibrium off its foundations". Nagorno-Karabakh, despite initially being self-governed , capitulated to British–Azerbaijani pressure and became an autonomous part of Azerbaijan through an agreement signed on 22 August 1919, pending

25256-411: Was fined 40 shillings for willful damage at Bow Street magistrate's court. In October 1933, Rosenberg was named as a member of Hans Frank 's Academy for German Law . Then on 27 January 1934, Hitler made Rosenberg the "Führer's Representative for the Supervision of Intellectual and Ideological Education of the NSDAP." This was the origin of the Amt Rosenberg . Final solution Parties As

25420-413: Was justified through a note from the Azerbaijani government to Armenia, accusing it of attacking nine Azerbaijani settlements. On 18 April, officials from Dilijan and Qazax agreed on a ceasefire agreement that included the repatriation of all displaced residents and the restoration of the former boundary, thereby ending the clashes. Encouraged by the Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan in late April 1920,

25584-462: Was lost. Though the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia ceased to exist in 1375, other sources suggest that Armenian statehood was lost in 1045 with the fall of Bagratid Armenia as Cilician Armenia was outside of the traditional Armenian homeland, while Bagratid Armenia was the last major independent Armenian state in the Armenian Highlands . In the centuries after losing its independence, Armenia remained mostly under Muslim Turkic or Persian rule until

25748-448: Was mainly in the non-Russian areas such as Ukraine and the Baltic States; however, supporters of the Russian Liberation Army were somewhat able to win him over. Amongst other things, Rosenberg issued a series of posters announcing the end of the Soviet collective farms ( kolkhoz ). He also issued an Agrarian Law in February 1942, annulling all Soviet legislation on farming and restoring family farms for those willing to collaborate with

25912-452: Was only accepted by the Trancaucasian delegates weeks later on 5 April. Due to this delay, the Ottomans continued their advance and reached the pre-war 1914 Russo-Turkish frontier by the end of March. On 11 May, a new peace conference was convened in Batum ; the Ottoman delegation stated that as the Ottoman Empire and TDFR were in a state of war, they would no longer recognise Brest-Litovsk and instead presented an alternative treaty by which

26076-571: Was raised as a Lutheran , but he rejected what he called "negative" Christianity later in life. Instead, Rosenberg argued for a new "religion of the blood", which was based on the supposed innate promptings of the Nordic soul to defend its noble character against racial and cultural degeneration. In his 1920 book Immorality in the Talmud , Rosenberg identified Jews with the antichrist . He rejected Christianity because its universality, for its doctrine of original sin (as he believed that all ethnic Germans were born noble), and for its teachings on

26240-421: Was scheduled to depart to participate in the Trebizond Peace Conference with the Ottoman Empire; however, by the time of the conference, Soviet Russia had signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers , ceding Kars and Batum to the Ottomans. From the outset of the Trebizond Peace Conference, the Ottomans demanded that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk serve as the basis of peace negotiations, which

26404-790: Was snuck into the battalion itself, later escaping with the help of the Dutch underground . There were a number of other units that Armenians also served in aside from the 812th Battalion, their total number, according to Joris Versteeg, reaching 33,000. Of these, 14,000 were placed in field battalions, while another 7,000 served in logistical and other non-combat units. Ailsby puts the number of Armenians in "the legions and replacement battalions" closer to 11,600. The other units included: 808th Battalion 809th Battalion "Zeytun" 810th Battalion 812th Engineering Battalion 813th Battalion 814th Battalion 815th Battalion 816th Battalion I / 125 Battalion I / 198 Battalion II / 9 Battalion In spite of Nazi Germany acknowledging

26568-466: Was strategic; Hitler did not want the temporary leader of the Nazis to become too popular or hungry for power, because a person with either of those two qualities might not want to cede the party leadership after Hitler's release. However, at the time of the appointment Hitler had no reason to believe that he would soon be released, and Rosenberg had not appeared weak, so this may have been Hitler reading back into history his dissatisfaction with Rosenberg for

26732-451: Was to occupy without prejudicing the permanent border settlement. Armenia, in reaction to the "furor" among Allied circles caused by the treaty, stated that "In view of the extraordinary pressure exerted from all sides and the fact that the Armenian army was alone and heavily outnumbered, the government had accepted the temporary arrangement in order to win some time. Armenia would nonetheless maintain its firm anti-Bolshevik policies". After

26896-410: Was tried at Nuremberg and found guilty of all four counts: conspiracy to commit crimes against peace ; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression ; war crimes ; and crimes against humanity . The final judgment against him named him one of the principal planners of the invasion of Norway and the invasion of the Soviet Union. It also held him directly responsible for the systematic plunder of

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