A German General and the Armenian Genocide

The legacy of the German general, Otto Liman von Sanders, remains highly contested in the history of twentieth-century Europe and the Middle East. Noted for leading the 5th Ottoman army’s successful defence of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli in 1915, his role in opposing the Young Turks’ genocide policy and safeguarding Greeks, Armenians, and Jews is overshadowed by his imprisonment for war crimes in 1919. In this enlightening reassessment of Liman von Sanders’ life, Muriel Mirak-Weissbach uses previously-unpublished archival materials to uncover new dimensions to this story and, in doing so, explores wider ethical questions concerning the role of the individual in global crises, the nature of morality in military conflict, and the limitations of justice.