The previous owners in a residential neighborhood of Berlin had called their home "Villa Sans Souci", and when former Ambassador Ashod Voskanian moved his Embassy there, he thought: What better way to describe the relations between Armenia and united Germany.
"The name translates into 'villa with no worries/ and that's how things are between our two countries. In fact, our relations are excellent," he said after a tour of the recently renovated two story building.
The villa, in a residential neighborhood of Berlin, was purchased this year thanks to a generous donation from the Armenian Apostolic Church Diocese and the Armenian Businessmen's Union. A small portion of the cost of the real estate was assumed by the Armenian government.
Germany was among the first countries to recognize Armenia's independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was also one of the first to appoint a resident diplomat in Yerevan.
In the ten years since independence, German aid to Armenia has increased despite a general trend in Berlin to cut back on foreign assistance. "We are very encouraged by the degree of cooperation between our two countries," Voskanian said. Voskanian, a career diplomat who speaks fluent German and who led the move of the Armenian Embassy from Bonn to Berlin after the unification of Germany, said ancient historical ties between the two nations have played a positive role in shaping relations since independence.
"In the last 900 years, many Armenians have been involved in German life. Even if there was no community as such, and even if for most of that period there was no independent Armenian state, there has always been strong ties between the two people," Voskanian said. Relations between Armenia and Germany go as far back as the early years of the first Crusader wars in 1097 AD which paved the way for trade and political alliances.
In the Armenians, a Christian nation, German warrior princes found a friend and ally. The Armenians lost their kingdom in Cilicia and Germany evolved over the centuries, but the ties of friendship never faded.
In 1505 Armenian merchants had special trade privileges. In 1695 Israel Ori, one of the leaders of the Armenian liberation movement of the era settled in Germany. In 1711 a German princess by the name of Therese Kunigunde, who was living in Vienna at the time, adopted a five-year old Armenian prince, the son of one of the rulers of Karabagh.
Young Johann Babtist Aroutioun Casiador, or Hovhannes Mgrditch Haroutiun Khatchadour in Armenian, later changed his name and was known as Freiherrn von Aretin.
Decades later, in 1769, others from the Aretin family assumed prominent positions in government. Georg Freiherrn von Aretin was the commissioner general of the state of Tyrol. Adam Freiherrn von Aretin was the right hand man of Prince Graf Montgelas and later the Bavarian representative to the parliament in Frankfurt. Christoff Freiherrn von Aretin was the commissioner of the banks in Munich.
Between the 17th and 18th centuries Armenian merchants from Julfa, Persia, were very active traders with Germany. According to Armenian historian Ghevond Alishan, by 1826 exports by Armenian traders from Germany was in millions of francs.
It was trade that laid the foundations of future relations between Armenians and Germans. Sympathy for Armenians was already on the rise, and the "Armenian Trade Organization", with an initial donation of the equivalent of 2000 dollars by King Wilhem, was formed in 1863 with the specific objective of developing trade between the two people.
When Berlin first became the capital of Germany in 1877, some of the first foreign students attending Berlin University were Armenians. According to historical records, out of the 230 Armenian students studying in Europe at that time, some 70 were in Germany. In 1885, the first Armenian student’s organization was formed.
Among famous Armenian intellectuals who have graduated from German universities are poet and writer Avedik Issahakian, composer and clergyman Komitas, writer Levon Shant and many others.
After the first wave of massacres by the Ottom an Turks against the Armenians in the town of Sasoon in 1894 and the subsequent massacres between 1895 and 1896 in other Armenian towns and villages across eastern Ottoman Turkey, it was a German Protestant pastor, Johann Lepsius, who established one of the first relief organizations - Deutsche Hilfsbund fur Armenien to help the victims.
Despite well documented historical indications that the German government turned a blind eye toward what happened to the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during the First World War, the general public, and mainly its intellectual class never lost its deep ties with the suffering nation.
It was Armin T. Wegner, a German intellectual, writer, poet, photographer, civil rights militant and eyewitness to the Genocide of the Armenian people, who wrote to his mother in March of 1916, saying:
"Can I still live? Do I have the right to breathe, to make plans for a future which seems so insubstantial, when all about me lies an abyss filled with eyes of the dead?"
Some of the photographs he took were published in 1995 in a book entitled Armin T. Wegner and the Armenians in Anatolia, 1915. Images and Testimonials.
During the Second World War, thousands of young Soviet Armenian prisoners of war joined special Armenian volunteer brigades, not out sympathy or love for Nazi Germany, but to have a chance to liberate their country from communist rule.
It is against this background of centuries old relationship between the two people that a new page was opened when Armenia became independent ten years ago.
"Armenians were never strangers to Germany. And maybe that's why what we have today in terms of the excellent relations between our two countries is nothing but a continuation of these old historical ties," Voskanian explained.
Since independence in 1991, German aid to Armenia has not only been steady, but has grown over the years. The figure now stands at a little over 212 million German marks.
Voskanian said while Germany has made deep cuts in its foreign aid programs, Armenia was not affected.
"This year alone, the aid package was 60 million marks, spread between financial assistance, technical support and food. For the fiscal year 2001-2002, some 20 million is earmarked for the repair of the water distribution network, 10 million for small business, five million for health, and 8 million for other technical projects," Voskanian said.
But unlike the United States where local communities and lobbying groups constantly work with the administration and the legislative bodies to keep U.S. aid to Armenia flowing, the community in Germany is not involved in such matters.
"We, as an Embassy, do all the work. The community is not involved, and often does not even know how much work goes into keeping German aid to Armenia at these levels," Voskanian said. "This community is so much different than anywhere else in the Diaspora. Despite the long history of relations between the two nations, we cannot say there was ever an established Armenian community in Germany until after the mid-1960," he explained.
To get a better picture of who the Armenians in Germany are, this reporter visited a number of cities, starting with Cologne, the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church Diocese where Primate Archbishop Karekin Bekdjian is based.
According to figures available to the Diocese, there were no more than 200 Armenians living in Germany in the 1930's. That number increased after the Second World War when some of the estimated 5,000 Armenian prisoners of war stayed behind and settled in several German cities.
"But the situation began changing in mid-1960's with the arrival of thousands of Armenians from Turkey who came as guest workers along with hundreds of thousands of Turks.
"Most of the Former Armenian Ambassador to Armenians were Germany, Dr. Ashot Vokanian. From the Anatolia region. They spoke no Armenian, had no sense of community organization and the majority fanned out across Germany and began work in the factories," Archbishop Bekdjian explained.
For the early immigrants, mostly men who had left their families behind, social life revolved around others like them Turks who were working in the same factories.
"They shared the same culture, spoke the same language and liked the same food. They spoke no German and their only social outlet was people they felt comfortable with," Bekdjian explained. "It was not their fault that there were no Armenian organizations to bring them into an Armenian society. It took a long time to get organized and the church was one of the main bodies which helped do that," he said.
In the 1970's a new wave of Armenians began arriving from the Middle East. They came after the Iranian Revolution and the Lebanese Civil War.
The Iranian and Middle Eastern Armenians, who had enjoyed decades of organized community life, spoke the Armenian language and were deeply involved in community affairs, began getting organized themselves, but unfortunately most kept to themselves.
They set up their own cultural organizations, began Armenian language classes but confined their social life within the immediate circle of their own fellow countrymen.
"There is always an element of nostalgia. The various groups don't mix much and we don't always see people crossing over even with the abundance of Armenian organizations. It is no secret that the most closely involved with the church are people of Turkish-Armenian origin. They are more attached to the church than anyone else," Archbishop Bekdjian said.
Today, the Diocese has over 2,000 dues-paying members in 14 parishes across Germany. It runs several Armenian Saturday language schools, a dance ensemble, a choir, a youth group and other activities.
Seven clergymen serve these parishes, often travelling from one city to another to perform weddings, baptisms and meet the community's other spiritual needs.
Parallel to what is called "the church community" which has some 14 different cultural and other groupings under its wing, the Central Council of Armenians of Germany, headed by Shavarsh Hovhassapian and Raffi Bedikian, brings together the more secular oriented organizations.
Bedikian, a Beirut born and German trained pediatrician, says while there is no open conflict between the Diocese and the Central Council, there also is no direct cooperation in matters involving community affairs.
"Some people think that the church should only deal with spiritual matters and not get too involved in other aspects of the community life," Bedikian explained.
Whatever the roots of the distance between the two entities, the artificial separation has kept large portions of the Armenian community away from both.
"Armenians are very individualistic by nature. At least that's what the situation seems to be here in Germany. Some people and organizations don't feel comfortable being under the church leadership," Dr. Bedikian said.
With a membership fee of 20 marks per month per working individual, and 2,000 members, the Church is the richest organization within the Armenian community in Germany. The others barely make ends meet.
"What makes matters difficult is the fact that individuals often cannot afford paying dues to the church and the organizations they belong to. For many it's either one or the other," explained Dr. Bedikian.
"Our community needs both: The church and the secular organizations. We need to find common ground. We cannot afford this artificial division," he said.
"We have no political divisions like other communities in the Diaspora. Let's just say we are going through a learning process our growing pains. We have come a long way in the last 30 years, and with a young generation of Armenians here we can always get better," he said.
