The Expulsion of the Armenian People into the Desert

The Armenian Genocide - Armin T. Wegner`s eye witness report, published for the first time

As a first-aid attendant in the First World War, Armin T. Wegner witnessed the stream of Armenian refugees driven into the Syrian Desert by the Turks. Between the years of 1915 and 1917, up to 1.5 million Armenians died there. In an open letter to the American president Wilson, Wegner protested against this outrageous injustice.
Immediately after the war ended, Wegner recapitulated his experiences as an eye witness in a presentation, which he held several times from October 1919 onwards. Here he showed 100 slides he had made in spite of the Turkish ban and - as he said in his lecture - »hid under his truss and smuggled across the border».
Although many of these photographs have greatly influenced the iconography of the genocide, up until now Wegner`s eye witness report has remained unpublished.
This publication allows the photographs to be provided with legends authorised by Wegner. Furthermore, their authenticity can be discussed within a critical context. The volume also contains an essay by Wolfgang Gust on the historical background of the first genocide in recent history.

The Editors
Andreas Meier, born in 1957, is a Professor of German at the University of Wuppertal.

Wolfgang Gust, born in 1935, was amongst other things an editor, correspondent and assistant head of foreign affairs at the journal »Spiegel »from 1965 to 1993. Editor of »Der Völkermord an den Armeniern 1915/16. Dokumente aus dem Politischen Archiv des deutschen Auswärtigen Amts »(The Armenian Genocide. Documents from the Political Archive of the German Foreign Office, 2005).

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