) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

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

Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...

 in the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. He initially studied mathematics and philosophy in Munich and a PhD in 1180 with an already award-winning work. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 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

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 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

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is a 1933 novel by Austrian-Jewish author Franz Werfel based on the defense of a small community of Armenians living in the Musa Dagh of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 during the height of the Armenian Genocide. The book was originally published as Die Vierzig Tage des Musa...

("Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh") the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n-Jewish author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 Franz Werfel

Franz Werfel

Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...

 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. 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. 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 Technical University of Darmstadt

Darmstadt University of Technology

The Technische Universität Darmstadt, abbreviated TU Darmstadt, is a university in the city of Darmstadt, Germany...

 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

Prussian Academy of Arts

The Prussian Academy of Arts was an art school set up in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and later king in Prussia. It had a decisive influence on art and its development in the German-speaking world throughout its...

 (as of 1916) Reinhold Lepsius

Reinhold Lepsius

Reinhold Lepsius was a German painter, especially of portraits, and graphic artist.He was born in Berlin, a son of Elisabeth Klein and Carl Richard Lepsius, the founder of German Egyptology. He was stylistically affiliated with the Berlin Secession school and to some degree with Impressionism. He...

 (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

Kingdom of Württemberg

The Kingdom of Württemberg was a state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located in present-day Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which came into existence in 1495...

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

Samuel Gobat

Samuel Gobat , was a Swiss Lutheran who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death....

 and a niece of Dora Rappard. Maggie and Lepsius met in Ottoman Jerusalem. Johannes, who was on the board of the Syrian Orphanage

Schneller Orphanage

Schneller Orphanage was a Christian orphanage that operated in Jerusalem from 1860 until World War II. The orphanage grounds, located on Malchei Yisrael Street in central Jerusalem, became a British military base known as Camp Schneller. After 1948, the compound housed offices of the Israel...

 from 1884 to 1886, met many problems in Jerusalem due to massacres inflicted on the Christian population in 1860

1860 Lebanon conflict

The 1860 Lebanon conflict was the culmination of a peasant uprising which began in the north of Lebanon as a rebellion of Maronite peasants against their Druze overlords. It soon spread to the south of the country where the rebellion changed its character, with Druze turning against the Maronite...

.

The Armenian Genocide

Lepsius is known for his documentation of the Armenian Genocide

Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...

. His work, "Report on the situation of the Armenian people in Turkey", was censored on August 7, 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

Hamidian massacres

The Hamidian massacres , also referred to as the Armenian Massacres of 1894–1896, refers to the massacring of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, with estimates of the dead ranging from anywhere between 80,000 to 300,000, and at least 50,000 orphans as a result...

'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 Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. 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 [Jaeckh's] intervention the lives of many Armenians, particularly women and children, were saved."

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 Franz Werfel's The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Werfel attributes two chapters to the description of Lepsius' struggle and his negotiations with Enver Pasha.

Literature

• Troeger, Brigitte, Brennende Augen, Brunnen-Verlag, (2008), ISBN 3-7655190-4-9
• 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 - ISBN 3-598-34407-4
• 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 - ISBN 3-598-34408-2
• 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 - ISBN 3-598-34409-0

External links

• Johannes Lepsius - a man with a vision (German)