Yes, but only in part.
It’s my personal view that the Armenian genocide, at the hands of successive Turkish governments and over an extended period of time, gave inspiration to the leaders within the Nazi ‘Third Reich’, that they too, could also pull off a similar genocide (especially in light of the completely ineffectual response to it by the Western powers at the time) and get away with it, especially in a post-victorious Nazi unified Europe.
As a good colleague reminds me, that the British tried repeatedly to draw Western concern to the carnage inflicted upon the Armenians and bring the Turks responsible to justice, but they never succeeded in their attempts. In fact, there has never been a successful international attempt in bringing the Turkish government to finally admit to that genocide.
In the industrial age, the idea of the use of genocide as a means to eradicate an entire host of people predates the Turks’ genocide of the Armenians. Karl Marx and the band of intellectuals he corresponded and worked with, had already openly concluded that the use of genocide, could and should, be implemented against certain ‘unwanted’ political groups, regardless of the number.
The Ukrainian Holdomor in the 1930’s (predating the Nazi holocaust of the Jews and others) therefore, was a ‘logical’ political action to take in accordance with Communist-Socialist dogma at the time, Stalin understood that. Adolf Hitler, someone who owed much to Marx for his socialist ideals, understood that as well.
Stalin’s genocide of the Ukrainian people was yet one more inducement for Hitler’s regime to commit genocide, especially since no one was ever brought to book for the mass murder of over 4-5 million people in the Ukraine.
Did the Armenian Genocide Inspire Hitler?
Turkey, Past and Future
by Hannibal Travis
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2013
It is well known by genocide scholars that in 1939 Adolf Hitler urged his generals to exterminate members of the Polish race.[1] “Who speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?” Hitler asked, just a week before the September 1, 1939 invasion of Poland.[2] However, while it is generally agreed that Hitler was well aware of the Armenian genocide,[3] some genocide scholars and historians of the Ottoman Empire have questioned whether he actually made the above statement or even intended to exterminate portions of the “Polish race.”[4]
Still, there is evidence that the massacre of the Ottoman Armenians helped persuade the Nazis that national minorities posed a threat to empires dominated by an ethnic group such as the Germans or the Turks. Furthermore, these minorities could be exterminated to the benefit of the perpetrator with little risk. Indeed, it was German officials who had smuggled out of the Ottoman Empire the leaders of the Young Turk regime, culpable for the deaths of over a million Armenians and a million or more other Christian minorities such as the Assyrians and Greeks.[5] Diverse historical evidence suggests that Hitler viewed the Armenians and Poles as analogous; in several ways, his statement about the Armenians was consistent with his other beliefs and writings.
Conclusion
Numerous ideological and political influences led from the Armenian genocide to the rape of Poland and the Holocaust. Chamberlain, Hess, Rosenberg, Seeckt, Scheubner-Richter, and von Papen all likely played a role in prompting Hitler to use Turkey’s example as a model for Poland. Hitler compared the two cases in his 1939 speech, which, like most evidence that the Holocaust took place, was not relied upon in the tribunal’s judgment.[58] Subsequent efforts to discredit the speech by defenders of the Ottoman Empire should not, however, blind us to the manifold connections between the Armenian genocide and that perpetrated by the Nazis.
More here.
