- Johannes Lepsius
Johannes Lepsius (1858,
Potsdam ,Germany - 1926,Merano ,Italy ) was a GermanProtestant missionary with a special interest in trying to prevent theArmenian Genocide in theOttoman Empire . DuringWorld War I 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 withEnver Pasha , one of the chief architects of the genocide. Lepsius had to publish the report secretly because Turkey was an ally of theGerman 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") theAustria n-Jew ishauthor Franz Werfel 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" at the university of
Halle (Saale) . Several documents and journals from the archive were published as microfiche.Literature
* Baumann, Andreas, "The missiology of Johannes Lepsius" (PhD diss.), University of South Africa, 2006, AAT 0818831.
* Troeger, Brigitte, "Brennende Augen", Brunnen-Verlag, (2008), ISBN 3-7655190-4-9
* Hermann Goltz (Hrsg.): "Deutschland, Armenien und die Türkei 1895-1925. Dokumente und Zeitschriften aus dem Dr. Johannes-Lepsius-Archiv an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Katalog, Mikrofiche-Edition und Thematisches Lexikon", ISBN 3-598-34406-6External links
* [http://www.orientdienst.de/praxis/lepsius.shtml Johannes Lepsius - a man with a vision (German)]
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