Johannes Lepsius (15 December 1858,

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream o ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

– 3 February 1926,

Meran Merano (, , ) or Meran () is a city and ''comune'' in South Tyrol, northern Italy. Generally best known for its spa resorts, it is located within a basin, surrounded by mountains standing up to above sea level, at the entrance to the Passeier ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

) was a German

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

missionary, Orientalist, and humanist with a special interest in trying to prevent the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through t ...

in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. He initially studied mathematics and philosophy in Munich and a PhD in 1880 with an already award-winning work. Lepsius was one of the founders and the first chairman of the German–Armenian Society. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he published his work "''Bericht über die Lage des armenischen Volkes in der Türkei''" ("''Report on the situation of the Armenian People in Turkey''") in which he meticulously documented and condemned the Armenian genocide. A second edition entitled "''Der Todesgang des armenischen Volkes''" ("''The way to death of the Armenian people''") included an interview with Enver Pasha, one of the chief architects of the genocide. Lepsius had to publish the report secretly because Turkey was an ally of the German Empire and the official military censorship soon forbade the publication because it feared that it would affront the strategically important Turkish ally. However Lepsius managed to distribute more than 20,000 copies of the report. In his novel '' The Forty Days of Musa Dagh'' ("''Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh''") the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

Franz Werfel Franz Viktor Werfel (; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian- Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of ''The For ...

portrayed Lepsius as a "guardian angel of the Armenians". Today, the intellectual heritage of Johannes Lepsius was collected by the German church historian Hermann Goltz, who installed the "Johannes Lepsius Archive" in Halle upon Saale with

Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university in ...

. Several documents and journals from the archive were published as microfiche.

Family

Johannes Lepsius was the youngest son of the founder of Egyptology in Germany, the Egyptologist Carl Richard Lepsius and his wife Elisabeth Klein (1828–1899), a great-granddaughter of

Friedrich Nicolai Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (18 March 1733 – 11 January 1811) was a German writer and bookseller. Life Nicolai was born in Berlin, where his father, Christoph Gottlieb Nicolai (d. 1752), was the founder of the bookseller ''Nicolaisch ...

. Johannes' parents grew up in a house with a great intellectual horizon. In this house, Johannes met many important personalities of the empire, from politics to culture to religion. There were six siblings, including the geologist and Rector of the

Technische Universität Darmstadt The Technische Universität Darmstadt (official English name Technical University of Darmstadt, sometimes also referred to as Darmstadt University of Technology), commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmstadt ...

Richard Lepsius (1851–1915), the chemist and director of the Chemical Factory Griesheim Bernhard Lepsius (1854–1934) and the portrait painter and member of the

Prussian Academy of Arts The Prussian Academy of Arts (German: ''Preußische Akademie der Künste'') was a state arts academy first established in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and late ...

(as of 1916) Reinhold Lepsius (1857–1929). His grandfather was the Naumburg County Commissioner Peter Carl Lepsius (1775–1853), his great-grandfather Johann August Lepsius (1745–1801) was Mayor of Naumburg upon Saale. His wife was Margaret (Maggie) Zeller. She came from the internationally known missionary family, the Württembergian Zellers. Her father was Reverend Johannes Zeller (1830–1902), leader of the ''Gobat School'' (est. in 1847) in Jerusalem, directed by the

Church Missionary Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...

since 1877. Through her mother Maggie Zeller was a granddaughter of Jerusalem's Bishop

Samuel Gobat Samuel Gobat (26 January 1799 – 11 May 1879) was a Swiss Calvinist who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death. Biography Samuel Gobat was born at Crémines, Canton of Bern, ...

and a niece of Dora Rappard. Maggie and Lepsius met in Ottoman Jerusalem. Johannes, who was on the board of the Syrian Orphanage from 1884 to 1886, met many problems in Jerusalem due to massacres inflicted on the Christian population in 1860. Johannes Lepsius house museum - Lepsiushaus was opened in 2011, Potsdam, Germany, in the house where Lepsius lived from 1908 to 1926. It is also a "Research Center for Genocide Studies".

The Armenian genocide

In 1914, Lepsius,

Paul Rohrbach Paul Rohrbach (29 June 1869 – 19 July 1956) was a Baltic Germans, Baltic German writer, concerned with politics, "world politics." He was born at Irgen manor, Raņķi parish, Skrunda Municipality, in the Courland Governorate (then part of the Ru ...

and

Avetik Isahakyan Avetik Sahak Isahakyan ( hy, Ավետիք Սահակ Իսահակյան; October 30, 1875 – October 17, 1957) was a prominent Armenian lyric poet, writer and public activist. Biography Isahakyan was born in Alexandropol in 1875. He was edu ...

created the German–Armenian Society, with Lepsius becoming the first chairman. Lepsius campaigned for the plight of Armenians to such an extent that by January 1916, mere mention of his name excited a disturbance in the Reichstag and "Lepsius' very name had become a synecdoche for embarrassing information". Lepsius is known for his documentation of the

. His work, "''Report on the situation of the Armenian people in Turkey''", was censored on 7 August 1916, however 20,000 copies were sent throughout Germany before the censorship was enforced. Another edition of the documentation is an interview with Enver Pasha in 1915 that bears the title "''The death corridor of the Armenian people''". In 1909 the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire had high expectations from the Young Turk movement which brought

Abdul Hamid ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd (ALA-LC romanization of ar, عبد الحميد) is a Muslim male given name, and in modern usage, surname. It is built from the Arabic words '' ʻabd'' and ''al-Ḥamīd'', one of the names of God in the Qur'an, which gave rise t ...

's regime to an end. Yet during the opening months of the First World War, there were mass arrests, deportations, and massacres of Armenians living in Eastern Anatolia. During this time, Lepsius founded humanitarian relief activities, and tried (unsuccessfully) to influence Germany, the Ottoman Empire's ally, which had thousands of soldiers and officers stationed throughout the

. According to Ernst Jaeckh "At the time of World War I he introduced the Armenian protagonist. Dr. Lepsius, to the Turkish Generalissimo Enver Pasha, and through the author's aeckh'sintervention the lives of many Armenians, particularly women and children, were saved."Ernest Jackh (Ernst Jaeckh) (1944)
The Rising Crescent
', New York-Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, p. 44. One of Lepsius' most important works is ''Germany and Armenia 1914–1918: Collection of Diplomatic documents'', which later became considered as "the main document on the Armenian genocide." Later, in '' The Forty Days of Musa Dagh'',

attributes two chapters to the description of Lepsius' struggle and his negotiations with Enver Pasha.

References

Literature

* Troeger, Brigitte, ''Brennende Augen'', Brunnen-Verlag, (2008), * Edition of the Documents and Periodicals of the Johannes Lepsius Archive It is made up of three parts – 1) Catalogue, 2) Microfiche edition, 3) Thematical lexicon *Part 1: Katalog. Dokumente und Zeitschriften aus dem Dr. Johannes-Lepsius-Archiv – Zusammengestellt und bearbeitet von Hermann Goltz und Axel Meissner. – XXVIII, 622 Seiten – K. G. Saur Verlag München – *Part 2: Mikrofiche-Edition of the Documents and Periodicals of the Johannes Lepsius Archive. Bearb. von Hermann Goltz und Axel Meissner. Unter Mitarbeit von Ute Blaar and others. – 317 Silberfiches inkl. Begleitheft. Lesefaktor 24 X. – K. G. Saur Verlag München – *Part 3: Thematisches Lexikon zu Personen, Institutionen, Orten, Ereignissen – Zusammengestellt und verfasst von Hermann Goltz und Axel Meissner. XIII, 605 Seiten. – K. G. Saur Verlag München –

External links

Johannes Lepsius – a man with a vision (German)
*
Deutschland und Armenien: Sammlung diplomatischer Aktenstücke
' (1919) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lepsius, Johannes 1858 births 1926 deaths German humanitarians German Protestant missionaries Witnesses of the Armenian genocide Protestant missionaries in Turkey Protestant missionaries in the Ottoman Empire

Family

The Armenian genocide

See also

References

Literature

External links