Timothy Williams is a research fellow at the Centre for Conflict Studies 
at Marburg University and receives a doctoral research grant from the 
Heinrich Böll Foundation.  In 2015, he was the Raphael Lemkin Fel-
low of the Armenian Genocide Memorial-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia. 
He studied at Mannheim University (BA Political Science) and at the 
London School of economics (MSc Comparative Politics) and he is 
the Executive Director of the non-profit organisation Beyond Violence  
(www.beyondviolence.org).



27

OPPORTUNISM, AUTHORITY AND IDeOLOGY: ON 
THe MOTIVATIONS OF TURKISH PeRPeTRATORS AS 
PORTRAYeD IN THe 1919 WAR CRIMeS TRIALS1

Timothy Williams  
Centre for Conflict Studies, University of Marburg, Germany

Abstract: The study of the motivations of the people participating in genocide is necessary 
to fully understand the dynamics of genocide and its genesis, as these are the people who 
actually implement genocidal policies and provide its material manifestation. This paper 
looks into the motivations of mid-level perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide through 
the verdicts of the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal which was established in 1919. It 
is found that opportunistic motivations dominated for perpetrators’ participation, partic-
ularly the opportunity for material gain, rape, forced marriage, free labour and career 
progression. However, the ambiguous nature of authority, coercive structures and ideolo-
gical tenets also provided a framework within which perpetrators could become motivated 
to participate.

Introduction
To look at the face of the clock, we can discern the time, and when one asks anyone how 
this clock works, they will answer that the hands of the clock turn and thus gradually signal 
the change of time. But to fully understand how the clock works we need to delve into the 
depths of the mechanics and understand how the various cogs are interlinked, what makes 
them turn and how they work together to make the time appear on the clock face. This is 
no different when trying to gain a full understanding of any social phenomenon, including 
the crime of crimes, genocide. It cannot suffice to describe and contrast the grand sweeps 
of history and look into the biographies of the leaders of genocide, but instead we also need 
to look into the dynamics and motivations of the individuals who actually put the genocidal 
policies into practice, the cogs which make the clock actually turn.

These implementing participants of genocide are not automatons, but instead living, 
breathing human beings with their own agency, ideas, emotions and interests. Only through 
a thorough understanding of why these people enlist in a genocidal project and put their 

1. Acknowledgements:This research was made possible by the Raphael Lemkin Scholarship of the Ar-
menian Genocide Museum-Institute. I would like to thank AGMI for their support, particularly Hayk De-
moyan, Suren Manukyan, Robert Tatoyan, Regina Galustyan, Gohar Khanumyan and the other helpful 
members of staff. Also my thanks go to Hasmik Grigoryan, Melanie O’Brien and erin Jessee for their ad-
vice on the project, as well as to Judith von Heusinger, Mariam Salehi and Mareike Stolley for comments 
on earlier drafts of the paper.



International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 3, Issue 1

28

beings in the violent service of the genocidal leaders can we ever expect to increase our re-
cognition of what constitutes genocide and why it happens. And only with this knowledge 
will it ever be possible to contemplate preventing such atrocities from happening in the 
future. This paper provides one small mosaic stone in the bigger picture of why genocide 
occurs and will give some insight into why individuals participated in the genocide of the 
Armenian people in 1915.

There is an emerging field of work which studies perpetrators in general and in particular 
what motivates these people to participate in genocidal violence. In particular much work 
has been done on the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, as well as conceptual work in 
social psychology, criminology, anthropology and sociology. However, previous work in 
the field of the Armenian genocide has been mostly broad historical studies (Akçam 2006; 
Dadrian 1993, 1995, 1996, 1999; Kévorkian 2011; Zürcher 2010) which have failed to 
look in depth at the individual level. A wealth of survivor (National Archives of Armenia 
2013; see also Anush 2007; Aved 1979; Barooshian 1976; Der-Garabedian 2004; Derde-
rian 2008; Garougian 2005; Hamamdjian 2004; Hartunian 1999 [1968]; Jafferian 1993; 
Ketchian 1988; Kharpetian 2003; Odian 2009; Papazian 2000; Shamtanchian 2007; Sog-
hoian 1997; Tabibian 1988; Tilkian 1992) and bystander (Alamuddin 1970; Davis 1989; 
Jacobsen 2001; Morgenthau 2000 [1918]; Niepage 1975 [1917]) testimonial literature fills 
this desideratum but does not give adequate credence to the dynamics of the perpetrators, 
the actual implementing individuals. This paper contributes to approaching this research 
gap and starts looking at the genocide from the perspective of the people who are imple-
menting it.

From a perspective of genocide prevention, it is particularly important to study this topic 
of perpetration comparatively, in order to understand why people participate not just spe-
cifically in one case but across various cases, and thus what could lead people to participate 
in future genocides also. Thus, this paper will first provide an overview of what motivates 
people to participate in genocide more generally, before then developing a micro-level 
foundation for the Armenian Genocide and building a more nuanced understanding of why 
people participated in it. This analysis will draw on the state of the art on perpetration in 
the Armenian genocide, as well as analysing data generated from the verdicts of Turkish 
war crimes tribunals from 1919. Finally, this paper will contrast the findings from Armenia 
with those of other cases in an attempt understand key similarities and differences and 
some more generalisable implications.2

The contribution of this paper lies not in its in-depth study of specific motivations of the 
Armenian Genocide, but to draw on new data and combine this with the previous studies 
on this case as well as other cases to paint a broader picture than has been painted thus far 
on perpetrator motivations in the Armenian Genocide. This will not provide the last word 

2. It would go beyond the scope of this paper to retell the broad sweeps of the Armenian genocide here, 
and it is assumed that the reader has a rudimentary knowledge of the case. For an excellent introduction 
please see Kévorkian (2011).



29

Opportunism, Authority and Ideology: On The Motivations of Turkish Perpetrators  
as Portrayed in The 1919 War Crimes Trials

29

on perpetrator motivations in the Armenian Genocide, but it is an attempt to synthesise the 
literature as it stands and bring a systematic perspective to this topic.

The Complexity Of Evil – Why People Participate In Genocidal 
Violence?
There has been a growing amount of research on perpetrators in recent years, including 
work on attempting to understand the motivations individuals have for participating in 
genocide. This section will give a short overview of the literature on why people participate 
in genocide as a foundation for discussing the motivations of Turkish soldiers and officials 
on trial subsequently. 

Most of the research on perpetrator motivations has been conducted on the cases of 
the Holocaust (e.g. Browning 2001 [1994]; Gross 2003; Lifton 2000 [1986]; Mann 2000; 
Welzer 2006) and the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (e.g. Fletcher 2007; Fujii 2009; Hogg 
2010; McDoom 2008, 2013a, 2013b; Straus 2006; Verwimp 2005), as well as some indi-
vidual works on the genocide in Bosnia in the early 1990s (e.g. Clark 2009; Lieberman 
2006; Mueller 2000; Petersen 2002) and the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia from 
1975-79 (Hinton 2004; Hinton 2005; Williams 2015). Furthermore, there is a large so-
cial-psychological literature which is informative for this topic (e.g. Bandura 1999; Burger 
2009; Milgram 1963; Newman 2002, 2006; Sidanius and Pratto 1999; Staub 1989; Stern-
berg 2005; Vetlesen 2005; Waller 2002; Zimbardo 2008), as well as some criminological 
literature on genocide perpetrators (Brannigan 2013; Jäger 1982 [1967]).This research has 
shown first and foremost, that perpetrators’ personalities are not individually aberrant, nor 
do most of them differ strongly ideologically from their peers; much more, perpetrators 
appear to be overwhelmingly normal (Browder 2003; Browning 2001 [1994]; Fujii 2009; 
Jensen and Szejnmann 2008; Straus 2006; Welzer 2006). However, beyond this, the many 
different approaches diverge on what they focus on, both in terms of causal explanations 
mostly informed by certain disciplinary borders and the cases they study. 

Previously I have developed a model which synthesises these research findings from 
various historical cases and multiple disciplines to a more abstract and inter-contextually 
comparable model which seeks to explain participation in genocide across many cases of 
genocide (Williams 2014a; for an updated version see Williams 2014b). A model is to be 
understood as a systematic representation of social phenomena in which the model aims 
not to provide “a literally true account of the process or entity in question” (Hughes 1990, 
71), but instead an abstraction or idealisation which reduces the complexity of reality to 
only its causally relevant elements (McMullin 1985, 261-262; see also Jones 2005; Psillos 
2011).3

3. The model I have developed is an abstract or idealised representation of genocide participation, which 
does not take on the form of a typology. A typology would systematically and exhaustively categorise the 
phenomenon in question along multiple dimensions, while models focus more strongly on capturing the 
complexity of causal mechanisms.



International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 3, Issue 1

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Motivations are seen here as the impetus for action within a genocidal situation in which 
a perpetrator finds himself or herself4 and these motivations facilitate the process of mak-
ing a decision between socially structured and individually constructed alternatives (in 
reference to Hedström and Udehn 2009). Motivations are the driver which guides a person 
to make a choice between these alternatives. I differentiate between three broad types of 
motivations: those which focus on the in-group of the perpetrators, on the out-group of the 
victims or which are intrinsic to the perpetrators themselves and independent of in- and out-
group. These three types encompass eleven specific individual motivations.5 Furthermore, 
I identify facilitative factors which are not in and of themselves sufficient for causing an 
individual to participate in genocide, as a motivation is, but instead make this participation 
easier. Lastly, there are contextual conditions which influence the entire situation and can 
make certain motivations or facilitative factors more salient. My model differs from previ-
ous approaches to understanding perpetrator motivations as it is the first to systematically 
integrate findings from multiple cases and several disciplines, thus coming at the topic from 
a new, interdisciplinary angle. While this comes at the cost of a contextually embedded 
understanding of perpetration, it also allows for a more nuanced perspective which better 
incorporates the complexity of reality with the many different motivations underlying hu-
man action. The fundamental tenet of the model is that it is possible for similar human and 
interpersonal dynamics to occur in very different cultural and contextual settings. Whether 
this is then actually the case, can then be tested by applying the model to new cases (as will 
be done with the case of the Armenian genocide in this paper).

The first group of motivations I identify are in֊group-focused motivations, which con-
centrate on the social dynamics within the perpetrator group and the social influence exer-
ted between members of it. Social influence can be implicit, explicit or even backed up by 
(threats of) force and can be exercised vertically by an authority or horizontally between 
peers. Most prominent in perpetrator testimonies but also in the literature on motivations 
is explicit or implicit orders by a person in authority and the obedience to orders that 
this then effects (see among many others Alvarez 2001; Brannigan 2013; Du Preez 1994; 
Gourevitch 1998; Hinton 2004; Mamdani 2001; McDoom 2008; Meyer 2009; Milgram 
1963, 1975; Semelin 2005; Straus 2006; Welzer 2002). Similar horizontal social influence 
is termed peer pressure when it is explicit and is a common feature of descriptions of the 
Bosnian and Rwandan genocides (Bašić 2006, 159; Fletcher 2007, 33; Hatzfeld 2004b, 25; 
McDoom 2008, 265; Straus 2006). When this horizontal influence is implicit instead, the 
active motivation is the desire for conformity, in which individuals participate in order 

4. While in the Armenian genocide most perpetrators were men, in other contexts women played a larger 
role. Although there is some research on the topic of women’s diverging roles in genocide (Adler, Loyle, 
and Globerman 2007; Rights 1995; Hogg 2010, 84; Lower 2013; Sarti 2011; Sperling 2005), there is little 
evidence for systematic differences in their motivations.
5. each of these motivations is described at a relatively abstract level and their manifestations in actual 
genocides will vary. The mechanism causing the person to participate will be the same though, even if it 
is culturally specific how this occurs.



31

Opportunism, Authority and Ideology: On The Motivations of Turkish Perpetrators  
as Portrayed in The 1919 War Crimes Trials

31

for them not to lose favour with the group and remain part of it (Asch 1963). Finally, ho-
rizontal and vertical influence can be laced with the threat or actual utilization of violence. 
This coercion can be a powerful motivation for individuals to participate in order not to 
experience physical violence against them. Empirically various instances of genocide have 
provided significantly different degrees of how credible threats of coercion were, with 
no known instances of Germans being killed for refusing to participate in the Holocaust 
(Bhavnani 2006, 657; Fletcher 2007, 32; Hatzfeld 2004a, 130; Mann 2005, 164; Straus 
2006; see also Jäger 1982 [1967], 84-93).

The second set of motivations focus on the out-group from the perspective of the perpet-
rators: the victims. Most prominently for this group and possibly the most pervasive in pop-
ular perceptions of genocide, genocidal ideologies can motivate individuals to participate 
in genocide. A genocidal ideology can lead to someone believing that it is the best and mor-
ally legitimate course of action or that the victims are deserving of the treatment. Ideologies 
can take on many different forms and while they may look quite different across various 
genocides (Goldhagen 1996; Harff 2003; Neilsen 2015; Orth 2002), Jonathon Leader May-
nard (2014) provides a nuanced differentiation of six genocidal ideologies which can be 
found across various cases. The other out-group-focused motivation is emotions which at 
a psychological level raise the saliency of one desire over other competing desires and in 
this way shift motivations for genocide participation (Petersen 2002, 17-20). Emotions of 
particular interest in the context of genocide include fear (Fujii 2009, 121; Hinton 2005; 
Petersen 2002; Semelin 2005, 247; Straus 2006, 122; Sundhaussen 2001, 47), resentment, 
hatred and rage (Petersen 2002), as well as disgust (Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley 2000).

Lastly, there is a broad group of intrinsic motivations which are all particular to the 
individuals themselves and do not relate to the perpetrator or victim group. To begin with, 
people can be motivated to participate in genocide for a broad range of opportunistic 
reasons, such as being able to loot and pillage, career promotion (or avoiding demotion), 
the ability to settle personal scores or get ahead politically, the possibility of raping and 
many more (Browning 2001 [1994], 75; Fletcher 2007, 33; Fujii 2009, 97; Mamdani 2001, 
218; Mann 2005, 32; Mueller 2000, 49, 61; Semelin 2005, 242; Straus 2006, 79; Valentino 
2004). Innately motivating for people to participate is sadism as it gives people pleasure 
in inflicting pain on others (Alford 1997, 28; Baumeister 2002, 254; Segev 1992 [1988], 
46-47; Valentino 2004, 40). Further, as with many types of crime people can experience 
a certain amount of excitement or thrills when being perpetrators which contrasts with 
their more mundane everyday life, thus giving them good reason to want to participate 
(Katz 1988, 53; Hinton 2004; Hinton 2005; Semelin 2005). Next, individual perpetrators 
can assume genocidal roles in which they come to conform to an alternative set of norms 
and practices associated with this role (Bloxham 2008, 232; Browder 2003; Lifton 2000 
[1986]; Roth 2004, 214; Waller 2002, 221; Zimbardo 2008, 214). A pertinent example of 
this comes from the Cambodian genocide where one cadre speaks of what it was like to join 
the Khmer Rouge: “When we joined, it was like we were entering into a tiger zone, so we 
had to be a tiger like them. So, we needed to be a tiger like them, to be cruel like them. No 



International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 3, Issue 1

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morality like them. That's why they were like that.” Finally, status and power can provide 
enough motivational allure for individuals to participate in genocide (Hinton 2004; Hin-
ton 2005), particularly through the intensely satisfying experience of gaining power over 
someone else (Semelin 2005).

Besides these motivations there are also many facilitative factors identified in the model 
which make participation easier. It would go beyond the scope of this paper to discuss these 
in depth, but a few key facilitative factors will be mentioned in all brevity here. It is easier 
for people to participate when they can absolve themselves of the responsibility for their 
actions through the groups they are in. They can do this particularly by displacing it to oth-
ers or diffusing it within a group, or alternatively by immersing themselves in anonymity 
(Bandura 1999, 196; Fujii 2009, 158; Vetlesen 2005, 147; Waller 2002, 212; Warr 2002, 
62; Zimbardo 2008, 315). 

Further, if people are not ideologically committed to the crimes they are committing it 
is likely that cognitive dissonance will occur as their actions do not match their morals. To 
overcome this, people can try and morally disengage from the situation by dehumanising 
the victim group (thus taking away the moral problem of killing fellow humans) (Ban-
dura 1999, 200; Fein 1990, 37-39); furthermore, distance can help to morally disengage, 
be it physical (Bandura 1999, 199; Chirot and McCauley 2006, 52; Grossmann 2004), 
moral (Grossmann 2004, 75; Waller 2002, 196; Welzer 2002, 243), social (Browning 2001 
[1994], 153; Hatzfeld 2004, 28, 51), psychological (Waller 2002, 196) or cultural distance 
(Grossmann 2004, 70).

Third, another way to overcome cognitive dissonance is to seek moral justification for 
the deed and thus change one’s attitude towards one’s actions. There are many strategies 
for moral justification and portraying why the killing is necessary and good (Eisner 2009, 
53; Leader Maynard 2014; Waller 2002).

Finally, the factor time can have a facilitative impact on people’s willingness to par-
ticipate. Over time, people can become habituated into violence and thus grow desens-
itised (Browning 2001 [1994], 69, 128; Hatzfeld 2004, 54; McCauley 2002, 79; Sereny 
1977 [1974], 200). Also individuals can progress along a ‘continuum of destruction’ (Staub 
1989) by which an individual changes little by little over successive steps with each task 
preparing him mentally for the next slightly harder one. Similarly, the idea of ‘escalating 
commitments’ when a person will continue along a pathway towards participation in a 
series of small steps, because at each point in time, stopping would mean admitting that 
the previous step (which was not much less worse) was actually also wrong (Waller 2002, 
205).

Besides these time-dependent facilitative factors, a final note on temporality as un-
derstood in this model is in order: over time people’s motivations for participation can 
change. While a perpetrator may begin his or her participation in response to social dynam-
ics within the perpetrator group, ideological justification can later become more important 
or the opportunities the participation has allowed for. The model does not claim that one 
factor will explain each individual’s participation, but that various factors can coalesce and 



33

Opportunism, Authority and Ideology: On The Motivations of Turkish Perpetrators  
as Portrayed in The 1919 War Crimes Trials

33

that over time these may vary. Future empirical research should endeavour to trace these 
intra-personal developments in some cases.

In evaluating this model, a downside could be construed in its abstract nature by which 
it neglects cultural specificities and the individual dynamics inherent in various cases. 
However, this is also the strength of such a model as it is its abstraction which allows it to 
be inter-contextually and inter-culturally applicable, reducing the complexity of reality to 
the causal mechanisms which effect participation without their context. This in turn means 
that it can then be ‘re-inserted’ into context and help to understand other cases of genocide 
participation by reducing the level of abstraction and showing how the causal mechanisms 
actually work here. Hence, this is the point where researchers who are expert on various 
cases of genocidal violence can bring to the model the cultural specificities of their cases 
and engage it with these more abstract causal dynamics. For example, some participants 
are motivated to participate due to obedience to authority; while social psychologically the 
causal mechanism for how they react to authority will be similar the nature of authority can 
vary strongly from case to case and authority during the Khmer Rouge meant something 
very different to authority in Nazi Germany or authority in the late Ottoman Empire. Thus, 
this means that the model should also be able to assist in understanding participants to the 
Armenian Genocide. The model will now act as the template by which these perpetrators 
can be analysed. It will be of particular interest, which cultural specificities the motivations 
take on when they manifest in this case, but also whether some motivations occur with a 
higher frequency than in other cases. This model is not important in and of itself, but it 
allows the empirical data on perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide to be embedded sys-
tematically in the broader discussions of genocidal perpetrators. This is important in order 
to establish the comparability of the Armenian Genocide’s dynamics, but also with an 
ultimate view to genocide prevention.

The Challenging Data Situation On Perpetrators In The Armenian 
Genocide 
Having introduced in short what motivations can drive people to participate in genocide, 
the focus will turn now to the case of the Armenian Genocide to see whether the model can 
explain perpetrators’ participation in this case also. This is not a formal test of the model 
but instead seeks to understand the case of the Armenian Genocide using the model as a 
framework. Should motivations emerge in the empirical analysis, this would disprove the 
model, while the model would be lent a higher credibility if the motivations found in the 
Armenian genocide resonate with the individual elements of the model. In researching 
perpetrator motivations various approaches which have been pursued in the past will be 
discussed, demonstrating that there is a dearth of original sources for investigating perpe-
trators in the Armenian genocide.

While others have successfully studied perpetrators and their motivations in the Ar-
menian Genocide, this has most often remained a niche of their analysis (although their 
valuable insights will help inform this more general analysis below). The most significant 



International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 3, Issue 1

34

research dedicated specifically to perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide has been con-
ducted by Hasmik Grigoryan who looks at perpetrators through the eyes of survivor and 
bystander testimonies (Grigoryan 2015a, 2015b). In particular she looks at the behaviour 
of children participants in the violence, women perpetrators and the role of sexual viol-
ence as a behavioural expression of perpetration. While the findings in this research are 
certainly interesting in and of themselves, they are more focused on the individual actions 
of the perpetrators than their motivations; this is quite reasonable as it is not only diffi-
cult for third parties to gauge the thoughts and motivations of others, but moreover the 
perspective of survivors is likely to diverge quite strongly from that of the perpetrators. 
Baumeister terms this a ‘magnitude gap’ between victims’ and perpetrators’ perceptions. 
Most of these differences in perspective “boil down to the fact that nasty events, both great 
and small, typically seem worse to the victim than to the perpetrator […]. A researcher 
therefore cannot understand the perpetrator’s perspective without at least briefly adopting 
a view of the episode that makes it far less bad than it seems to the victim” (Baumeister 
2002, 243).6More specifically, survivors like to entertain narratives which “construe the 
perpetrators’ intentions in a suitably grand and evil manner to match the suffering of the 
victims” (Baumeister 2002, 246). Referring to Zygmunt Bauman’s (1989) metaphor of a 
gardener who dispassionately weeds, Roy Baumeister (2002, 246) states that survivors 
would prefer to be hated passionately as this shows more respect than complete indiffer-
ence. In this vein, “victim accounts tend to see stark moral issues with clear lines, whereas 
perpetrator accounts see many more grey areas in the relevant moral judgments. [… Fur-
ther,] perpetrators usually have reasons and explanations for their actions, whereas many 
victims describe the perpetrator’s actions as utterly gratuitous” (Baumeister and Campbell 
1999, 211). Certainly, much can be learned about forms of perpetration from the survivor 
perspective in the Armenian Genocide, as is demonstrated in Grigoryan’s (2015a, 2015b) 
work, but to understand motivations from a perpetrator perspective, a different approach 
becomes necessary.

To understand the perpetrator perspective, it would be most promising to directly in-
terview the perpetrators themselves as was done in many of the studies on Rwanda and 
Cambodia, as well as some of the Holocaust research (e.g. Fujii 2009; Hinton 2004; Hin-
ton 2005; McDoom 2008; Straus 2006; Williams 2015). Given the passage of time since 
the Armenian Genocide, interviews are obviously not a viable approach. Other methods 
for studying perpetrators certainly exist, such as using the transcripts of clandestine audio 
recordings of German prisoners of war (Neitzel and Welzer 2011; Welzer 2006; Welzer, 
Neitzel, and Gudehus 2011) or studying their diaries or letters to read how they portrayed 
themselves and their actions at the actual time. These approaches are advantageous as there 
is less danger of the people wanting to socially conform as they are not writing or speaking 

6. Although the terminology used in the literature on the Armenian genocide is that of ‘survivors’, these 
are equivalent to what is termed in most of the genocide studies literature as ‘victims’. The victims meant 
are obviously also those who were killed, but any types of post-genocide research referring to victims’ 
perspectives will also entail those who survived.



35

Opportunism, Authority and Ideology: On The Motivations of Turkish Perpetrators  
as Portrayed in The 1919 War Crimes Trials

35

for a posterior audience. Unfortunately, such documents do not exist or are inaccessible for 
the case of the Armenian Genocide, as a vast majority of Ottoman soldiers were illiterate, 
as were the villagers and militiamen who participated in massacres (Zürcher 2010, 167). 
Furthermore, even if a small amount of such documents did exist, these would be under 
lock and key of Turkish military archives and thus inaccessible to the general public.7

Instead this paper will draw on data from judicial proceedings of the 1919 trials, an avenue 
of research also followed in many Holocaust-related projects (most prominently in Brown-
ing 2001 [1994]; Goldhagen 1996). More specifically, this paper will look into the verdicts 
of the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal, which was a post-World War I courts-martial 
set up in 1919 by the Ottoman State under extreme pressure by the Allied forces who had 
just defeated the Ottoman Empire, Germany and others. It was an act of the accommoda-
tion by the newly installed government particularly towards the British victors. This paper 
focuses on several cases which go beyond the highest echelons of power, particularly on 
the cases regarding local officials in Yozgad, Trabzon, Erzincan, Bayburt, as well as some 
Responsible Secretaries and Delegates of the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP). I 
focus in particular on the verdicts passed by the tribunal, and draw on two different trans-
lations from Turkish into English by Dadrian and Akçam (2011) and Yeghiayan (1990);8  

7. Private correspondences.
8. The verdicts studied here are from the following cases which include mid-level perpetrators:
1. In the trial regarding Yozgad (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 290-293; Yeghiayan 1990, 155-158) the accused 
were Kemal Bey, Boğazlıyan Sub-District Commissioner  (Kaymakam) and Acting District Governor of 
Yozgad; and Major Tevfîk Bey, Gendarmerie Commander for the provincial district of Yozgad. 
2. In the trial regarding Trabzon (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 294-299; Yeghiayan 1990, 159-165) the accused 
were Mehmed Ali Bey, Director of Taxation of Trabzon; Nuri Bey, Chief of Police of Trabzon; Mustafa 
effendi, Director of the (Secret) Service of Trabzon; Talat Bey, Sub-District Commissioner (Kaymakam) 
and Assistant to the Chief Inspector of the Trabzon Gendarmerie; Niyazi effendi, Manager of a hotel in 
Trabzon; Ali Sayib Bey, Chief Sanitary Inspector, Trabzon; all of the aforementioned were present at their 
trial. Tried in absentia were Cemal Azmi Bey, Provincial Governor (vali) of Trabzon; and Nayil Bey, Party 
Responsible Secretary of Trabzon.
3. In the trial regarding erzincan (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 312-313) the accused were Memduh Bey, 
Former District Governor of Erzincan; Hafız Abdullah Avni Efendi, son of Haci Hüseyin; Halit, Former 
Deputy of erzincan; Haci Vahid-zade efendi from erzincan; Karmo Yusuf, Tribal leader from Dersim; 
Arslan, Gendarme sergeant from Erzincan; tribal leader Kagü, Director of the Daniz Bey village connected 
to the Township of Pülümür.
4. In the trial regarding Bayburt (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 304-310) the accused were Yanyali Nusret 
Bey, former district governor of Urfa; and Mehmet Necati efendi, discharged from the rank of lieutenant. 
5. In the trial regarding Responsible Secretaries and Delegates of the CUP (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 
314-323; Yeghiayan 1990, 147-154), Avni Bey, Party Responsible Secretary of Manisa; Selaheddin Bey, 
Beyoğlu Responsible Secretary; Dr Besim Zuhti Bey, Eskişehir Responsible Secretary; Mithad Bey, Brusa 
Responsible Secretary; Cevted Bey, Lieutenant to the Responsible Secretary of Mirkun; Cemal Bey, 
Aleppo Responsible Secretary; Abdül Geni Bey, Inspector of Edirne; Abdül Kadir Effendi, Aid to the Konia 
Responsible Secretary; Hasan Fehmi effendi, Aid to the Kastamonu Responsible Secretary; Agyah Bey, 
former President of the Sanitary Commission of Karahisar; Hayreddin Bey, former Karahisar official; all the 
accused were also present at the trial.



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36

the use of two translations allows me to triangulate the translations and minimise the risk 
of mistakes or biases in the translations misleading the analysis.9

Before launching into the analysis of these trial documents, a short discussion of the 
limitations of this type of source is necessary. The people on trial are certainly not the low-
level perpetrators in the focus of much perpetrator research, but the list of accused also goes 
beyond the leaders to include some of the mid-level functionaries to whom the scope of the 
model could also apply. Also, any form of post-genocide data collection is confronted with 
the problem that “perpetrator testimony after the fact is vulnerable to attempts to minimize 
personal responsibility, or else to construct socially acceptable narratives. Memory loss 
should also not be under-estimated” (McDoom 2008, 239). This is exacerbated when the 
testimonies being examined are taken in the course of judicial proceedings as the individu-
als have strong incentives to minimize their own role and misconstrue their motivations. 
Furthermore, the source used here are verdicts of the tribunal meaning that they are not the 
perpetrators’ own words but instead the condensed synopsis as seen by the judges. While 
this does allow for a certain adjudication of the credibility of the perpetrator testimony, 
it means that the motivations portrayed will have been filtered; and in this case even by 
a relatively partisan tribunal as was elaborated on above. Nonetheless, these documents 
are among the only primary sources available through which this level of interaction with 
perpetrators and their motivations is visible. Thus, these sources are anything but ideal, but 
-with these limitations in mind- nonetheless they constitute an interesting launching point 
from which to explore the motivations of perpetrators of the Armenian genocide, to try and 
understand, at least to a certain degree, what drove people to participate in this heinous 
violence. Lastly, the judicial documents only let one infer the actual motivations of the 
perpetrators to a certain degree; although much can be said about the actions of perpetrat-
ors and some motivations are made explicit, in parts the motivations are only implicit. To 
bridge this gap, they will –as far as possible– be matched to other studies in the literature 
in which these actions are founded within the motivations of the perpetrators. As explained 
in the introduction, the aim of this paper is not to study any one motivation in-depth, but 
to bring together the insights from these judicial documents with the further research on 
individual motivations conducted by others and place this within the research framework 
of perpetrator motivations in other genocidal contexts. 

Perpetrator Motivations In The Armenian Genocide
In this section, the Tribunal verdicts are analysed in more depth to uncover what motivated 
some of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide who were on trial and their affiliates 
who did not need to face justice but were referred to in the trials. This analysis will be com-
plemented by the insights from several other scholars who have in the course of their re-

9. Both translations obviously offer the same content, albeit with different linguistic interpretations. If 
an idea is cited which can be found in both translations only the verdict will be referred to, whereas if a 
verbatim quote is given, the direct source will be mentioned.



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37

search discussed perpetrator motivations to some degree. Key motivations referred to here 
are various forms of opportunistic motivations, obedience to authority, sadism, ideology, 
although all to varying degrees, as well as several interesting facilitative factors.

Material gain
Of the motivations discussed in my model above, by far the most prominent in the data 
under analysis for the Armenian genocide is that of opportunism with various forms of 
opportunistic participation being described in the verdicts. Üngör and Polatel argue that the 
seizure of Armenian property by the Young Turk regime was not motivated by economic, 
but by ethno-nationalist reasons at the systemic level, with the economic destruction of 
the Armenians aiming at supporting the broader annihilationist campaign and securing a 
Turkish economy (Üngör and Polatel 2011, 166). In particular, “The expropriation of Ot-
toman Armenians was a functionally necessary phase linking persecution to destruction” 
(Üngör and Polatel 2011, 103). However, they argue that for the individual perpetrators 
themselves, economic motivations did play a more central role, particularly for the ordi-
nary people participating in the murders who were motivated by plunder as a ‘pull factor’ 
(Üngör and Polatel 2011, 104). They also refer to Latham’s (2000) work who demonstrates 
that these economic motivations existed at all levels of the state apparatus and also for non
-state participants (Üngör and Polatel 2011, 10). 

First and foremost, looting is described in the verdicts as widespread with the seizure 
of abandoned property and possessions prevalent, as well as the stealing of the deported 
Armenians’ money and carried possessions (CUP Responsible Secretaries; Erzincan; Tra-
bzon; Yozgad; for a broader discussion of the mechanisms of looting during the Armenian 
genocide see Kurt 2015). This occurred both in their homes prior to departure as well as 
when the deported Armenians were already being transported away. As the looting contin-
ued of the possessions they had taken along, increasingly anything they had with them was 
stolen, including even their clothes (Trabzon). Furthermore, even those who were spared 
immediate killing or were allowed to remain behind (mostly women who were then raped 
and killed or later married off, see below) were stripped of all their belongings. In their 
description of Aziz Feyzi, Üngör and Polatel (2011, 163) conclude that “it is likely that in 
his eyes he was only pursuing the financial interest of his family.” Furthermore, even not 
killing, but participating in the broader actions of genocide (e.g guarding a caravan during 
deportation) could also provide options for enrichment as guards accepted bribes to post-
pone deportation or to see one’s family one final time (Balakian 2010, 124), bribes to be 
allowed to use the toilet or to be allowed to rent carriages for transportation (at an already 
grossly inflated rate) (Balakian 2010, 132)

There were, however, also more subtle ways of gaining materially from participation in 
the deportations and genocide by either purchasing properties or possessions at desperation 
prices or by purportedly rescuing Armenians but doing this in order to charge a large sum 
of money. In one example a CUP Inspector for the province of Edirene, Abdülgani Bey, 
“had the cassimere and textile shop of the Kazazyan brothers, which was worth one hun-



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dred thousand lira, given to his own son Hayrullah in exchange for one thousand lira, and 
he had the abandoned property [of the Armenian deportees] given to other followers at very 
low prices”(Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 319). This same Abdülgani Bey also took over the 
shares of two Armenian brothers in exchange for seeking an exemption for them through a 
special request to the governor-general (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 319).

In another example, Mrs Sophie Tahmarzian, widow and daughter of Onik Mahokian, 
trader and shipping agent, reports of Mehmed Ali Bey, Director of Taxation in Trabzon, 
that “in order to further facilitate stealing of my trousseau and my husband’s property he 
adopted me as his daughter. All my property and my deported husband’s thus became his” 
(Yeghiayan 1991, 434). Here the perpetrator was even able to present himself in a positive 
light as a rescuer, while at the same time taking the entire property of Tahmarzian and her 
family. It was also common among Turkish soldiers, paramilitaries and police, accompany-
ing the deportations to collect money daily from the deportees in order to protect them from 
groups of bandits or potential looters from whom the deportees expected their imminent 
murder, as has been testified to broadly in the survivor literature (see for example Dadrian 
1945).

Access to ‘saved’ Armenians as free labour
By participating in the genocide, perpetrators were also able to gain access to various types 
of free labour. Primarily such labour was garnered from women and girls who were not sent 
along with the rest of the deportees, but separated out. In the Trabzon verdict, for instance, 
the plight of several Armenian women and girls is told. They were first collected in a hos-
pital supposedly for their protection, however, in due course, the women were then passed 
on to perpetrators’ households where they were used as slave labour or were married by the 
men (Trabzon). Not all ‘saved’ Armenian women who were given to members of the per-
petrator group were forcibly married. Instead some were given into Muslim households as 
maids or slave labour. Here, again, perpetrators could benefit from participating by receiv-
ing unprecedented access to free labour for their households (Trabzon). Further, during the 
genocide some perpetrators took male deportees also as free labour to build clubhouses for 
members of the CUP or to work in the properties which had been stolen from the Armenian 
deportees (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 315). Lastly, orphaned children were also sometimes 
converted to Islam and then accepted into Muslim families (Balakian 2010, 87).

Forced marriages and rape
Of those who were forcibly married to their new husbands, it is also reported that many 
of them were first obliged to convert to Islam (Yeghiayan 1991, 434), and were often 
also raped in order to prepare “them for absorption into Muslim households” (Bjørnlund 
2009, 30). Rape of Armenian women was also common throughout the genocidal process 
and this was integral to the systemic attacks against the Armenian population (Bayburt; 
Trabzon; Bjørnlund 2009). These practices of rape gave male perpetrators an incentive to 
participate as they had unmitigated access to sexual activity and can “be seen as a result of 



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Opportunism, Authority and Ideology: On The Motivations of Turkish Perpetrators  
as Portrayed in The 1919 War Crimes Trials

39

a thoroughly brutalized environment that left room for local initiatives when it came to the 
methods of killing and humiliation, initiatives that satisfied individual needs, not only for 
self-gratification but also for variation” (Bjørnlund 2009, 29). At the individual level and 
beyond mere sexual desire, the raping allowed some men to gratify their sadistic or domin-
ating needs and provide mutual recognition of masculinity (Bjørnlund 2009, 29). Theriault 
brings these perspectives together slightly differently:

“The pleasure of rape is not sexual, but rather is experienced as sexual because the per-
petrator gets sexual pleasure from violent domination. Sexual enslavement of Armenian 
women and girls, including through coerced or forced marriages, allowed perpetrators a 
related avenue of dominion that could be extended out in time” (Theriault 2007, 30).10

Freedom from prison
A strong opportunistic motivation which can present itself to potential perpetrators is when 
they are currently in prison and are offered their freedom in exchange for their participa-
tion. There is significant evidence that this was a common recruitment strategy in the con-
text of the Armenian Genocide. These former criminals were then trained for one week at 
the Ministry of War and then sent from the capital to the Caucuses as cadres of the ‘Special 
Organization’ (Teskilat-i Mahsusa) in order to implement the annihilation of the Armenian 
people (Altınay 1919, 23; quoted in Dadrian 1991, 121; see also Balakian 2010, 78).
 
Demonstration of loyalty for career progression
“During the period of the rule of the Committee for Union and Progress, […] all civil ser-
vants from the very lowest of rank to the directors of offices were appointed based upon 
no other qualification other than loyalty” (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 307). In the build 
up to and during the Armenian genocide, local officials were systematically replaced by 
individuals more loyal to the CUP and its exterminatory plans (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 
307; see also Balakian 2010, 78, 109). Thus individuals who towed the line and positioned 
themselves strategically in favour of the deportations and the genocide could advance their 
career by receiving promotions. However, it is also plausible that those who had careerist 
ambition during this time were already dedicated to the cause for other reasons, thus not 
making this a motivation. Nonetheless, either way, participation was a possibility to signal 
loyalty to the new system and to establish one’s authority over an area. 

Coercion
Besides these opportunistic motivations though, there were also a host of further moti-
vations. The power of coercion is indicated to varying degrees in different genocides, as 

10. These perspectives which ascribe little erotic sexual pleasure to the act of rape have more problem 
explaining why, in most accounts of genocidal rape against Armenian women and girls, it is the prettiest 
ones who are sought out. If it were soley about domination, the looks of the girls would matter less than, 
for instance, their social status. Notwithstanding this addendum, the possibility to participate in rape 
certainly provided a motivation for some perpetrators.



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described above. In the case of the Armenian genocide, the threat of coercion varied sub-
stantially depending on an individual’s position. As Mann’s (2005, 164) thorough review 
of secondary sources demonstrates, normal soldiers were shot if they refused to participate 
or even dared to help the Armenians, while officers in the army were unlikely to be killed 
for rejecting participation. This security predicament is also demonstrated by the low-level 
perpetrating individuals themselves, as testified by Atkinson (2000, 88; quoted in Bjørn-
lund 2009, 21) when discussing a Turkish policeman who participated in killing because 
he ostensibly believed he would otherwise be killed himself, a common excuse or stated 
motivation.

Obedience to Authority
Regarding the role of authority, many of the perpetrators were embedded in official state 
structures so that any orders they received came along traditional lines of authority used for 
all manner of legislation and its implementation, giving the genocidal policies fundamental 
legitimacy. However, the CUP party structure became ever more dominant throughout the 
Ottoman Empire, with party structures partially existing in parallel to its state counterparts. 
In this context, there are descriptions of individuals “without any official authority as super-
visors over the officials and guards” (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 291) taking charge. These 
people nevertheless managed to successfully assert their authority in these situations, gain-
ing obedience from individual perpetrators to act in accordance with the genocidal policies. 
It is through the authority of the increasingly dominant CUP that these people even without 
official rank were able to enforce obedience to their orders (Trabzon; Yozgad).These pro-
cesses were amplified as decrees were not precisely formulated to begin with, giving ample 
room for interpretation (Üngör and Polatel 2011, 104), thus strengthening the importance 
of authoritative interpretation and the resulting pressure to implement this.

Consequently, state officials became less willing or placed to intercede, For example, in 
the Trabzon trial the court noted that even members of state institutions such as the local 
police chief, Nuri Effendi, took a back seat and “made absolutely no attempt, either offi-
cially or unofficially, to prevent [such acts], even though he witnessed them with his very 
own eyes” (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 296). 

At the same time, these parallel authority structures made it possible for individuals to 
abdicate responsibility for their acts to the state structures. For instance, Besim Zuhti Bey, 
CUP Responsible Secretary of Brusa, says that “it was not within my authority to do any-
thing, and so I cannot say anything whatsoever about it” (Yeghiayan 1990, 141). By refer-
ring to the ‘Temporary Law of Deportation’, individuals were also further able to displace 
the authority which would hold them accountable for their actions, rather than seeing them 
as just automatons implementing orders. Abdül Geni Bey, CUP Responsible Secretary of 
Edirne states in a cross-examination during his trial that “the deportations taking place 
were legally sanctioned. How could we have opposed laws established by the Govern-
ment? […] How could we have interfered? There was the law; there was the gendarmerie. 



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[…] Could we have said to him, ‘You are authorized’ or ‘You are not authorized’ to do this 
work on the basis of the Law?” (Yeghiayan 1990, 127-128).

Ideology
Michael Mann (2005, 167) finds that “few Kurds and few rankers in any unit can have 
been ideological killers.” While he posits that most perpetrators will have had little positive 
sentiment towards the comparatively privileged Armenians, he argues that for most people 
ideology did not play a key motivating part. There are certainly some actors who did have 
ideological motivation, for instance Kemal Bey in the Yozgad trial who displayed “feelings 
of revenge and of a personal vendetta [against the Armenians]” (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 
292). This form of revenge is not opportunistic in the sense that it is personal but instead 
ideological as it is against the whole Armenian people.

While motivating only some individuals, ideology more importantly created a frame-
work of legitimacy within which it became acceptable for people to participate in the de-
portations, lootings and killings. Mann also concedes to the role of ideology that “these 
motives of retaliation and revenge helped still normal taboos against murdering helpless 
human beings” (Mann 2005, 167). This began with the dispossession of the Armenians 
which was clad in legality, and thus suggested a degree of legitimacy (Üngör and Polatel 
2011, 58) and then continued with the legitimacy was given to the expulsion of the Armeni-
ans as it was framed as a deportation or relocation. Furthermore, nationalist narratives in 
which the danger posed by rebellious Armenian groups fed into people’s perceptions of the 
necessity of their actions (see Göçek 2015, 225).

Also, the subjugated role of the non-Muslim Armenians within the Ottoman millet sys-
tem and their unequal status which was legitimised within the doctrines of Islamic ideology 
(Dadrian 1995, 4-5) underlined this facilitative framework. Within this framework the dis-
crimination and subsequent destruction was able to be framed as legitimate the Armenians 
could be portrayed as “antagonists” of the Muslims (Dadrian 1995, 125). Furthermore, at 
the local level, it was local religious authorities whose authority “played a pivotal role in 
motivating and legitimizing the massacres” (Dadrian 1995, 150; see also Balakian 2010, 
146), giving religious absolution for these crimes and also underlining the state lines of 
authority discussed in the previous section. Through declaring the slaughter of the Armeni-
ans a religious war (‘jihad’), it became legitimate to kill people as a normal act of war, as 
testified by a police captain (Balakian 2010, 146), even stylising it to a “sacred religious 
obligation” (Balakian 2010, 145).Hence, ideology functioned here in facilitating people’s 
participation by removing moral inhibitions which individuals would have had and even 
creating a positive, religiously-legitimated reason to participate.

Sadism
While there are no direct reports of sadism in the trial verdicts, there are multiple refer-
ences to how the newly instated people who came to perpetrate the genocide were “cruel 
inhumane individuals” (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 307) and to the “atrocious and cruel” 



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(Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 294) manner of the killings. Furthermore, although survivor 
testimony is more susceptible to interpreting perpetrator motivations as vindictive and 
based on hatred – as explained in more detail above – the actual actions of the perpet-
rators can be gauged with a higher degree of veracity. The degree of gratuitous violence 
involved in the deportations and killings speaks to the presence of at least some sadistically 
motivated perpetrators within the group. If the perpetrators had only been motivated by 
opportunistic, coercive or obedient motivations, there would have been no necessity for 
gratuitous violence, no need to torture both physically and psychologically many of the 
victims before killing them.

Facilitative factors – group dynamics
As detailed above in the discussion of authority, some state and CUP officials were able 
to remain in their positions without effectively and actively propelling the genocide for-
wards. However, this inaction in and of itself also had an effect on other perpetrators in 
their perception of the legitimacy of the crimes, because the inaction signals to others that 
the person is not registering moral inhibitions or their dissent towards the policy, thus in-
advertently and implicitly legitimating it. This is epitomised in the trials of the Responsible 
Secretaries, when the president of the tribunal is quoted as having said to Dr. Mithad Bey: 
“It is maintained that in your region and in others, many vile acts took place. And since you 
did not undertake any measures, your indifference encouraged the initiators and gave them 
license to expand the scope of their cruel activities” (Yeghiayan 1990, 145).

Facilitative factors – moral disengagement through distance
In the Armenian genocide, the key facilitative factor which enabled moral disengagement 
was distance. While the deportations for the most part started through actions of local of-
ficials who were geographically as well as socially and possibly even emotionally closer 
to the victims, the actual killings nearly always occurred either outside the towns in arid 
areas and “out-of-the-way and concealed places” (Dadrian and Akçam 2011, 294), or at 
sea where people were thrown overboard (Trabzon). Furthermore, the killing groups were 
most often not made up of individuals who were from the same place as the victims as they 
had already been deported onwards (Altınay 1919, 23; quoted in Dadrian 1991, 121). Thus 
any possible emotional or social ties which could have inhibited people from killing were 
removed.

This distancing process began earlier even in the dispossession of the Armenians which 
was clad in legal veneer, which also allowed the involved bureaucrats to take on a specific 
role of loyal civil servant. This legalisation of the dispossession created a framework for 
the implementing individuals which “structured their daily work and provided an imper-
sonal, administrative-bureaucratic mask to hide behind. [… Furthermore, it] relieved the 
conscience of the perpetrators by placing the ultimate responsibility with the central au-
thorities” (Üngör and Polatel 2011, 58).



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Facilitative factors – dehumanisation
A further facilitative factor attested to broadly is the systematic dehumanisation of the Ar-
menian population in the years before the genocide through state actors and media, which 
was augmented as a consequence of the early massacres of the Armenians and the de-
portations which reduced the humanity of their appearance and thus legitimised the bad 
treatment in the eyes of the perpetrators (Bjørnlund 2009, 22; see also Balakian 2010, 295).
However, Theriault (2007, 30) convincingly argues against this omnipresent assumption of 
dehumanisation by demonstrating that many perpetrators actually attempted to maximise 
the suffering for the Armenian victims, which provided satisfaction precisely because of 
their status as humans. It is necessary for the human capacity for emotion and trauma of 
the Armenians to be “assumed by perpetrators in order for many forms of cruelty, such 
as raping of women and girls in front of husbands, siblings, or their children, to be con-
sidered meaningful” (Theriault 2007, 31). While Theriault does agree with the successive 
reduction of human features as cruelty mounted, he sees this gradual dehumanisation as 
a process in which enactment of cruelty which had the capacity to dehumanise was the 
foundation for the pleasure experienced by the perpetrators; he graphically phrases this as 
a process “through which genocide perpetrators consume the humanity of their targets by 
converting it into their own pleasure” (Theriault 2007, 31). 

Other facilitative factors are also present in the Armenian genocide, such as the brutal-
isation of soldiers through standard training (see Riggs 1997, 127-128; quoted in Bjørnlund 
2009, 21) which made it easier for them to participate in such horrific acts. Also, the use 
of sanitising language such as referring to massacres as ‘cleansing’ (Balakian 2010, 139) 
made it easier to frame the killing in a positive light. Other facilitative factors have already 
been alluded to above in the discussion of the motivations. First and foremost there are the 
moral legitimisation of the deportations and the genocide through tapping into narratives 
of revenge and resentment already palatable to many of the rural population. This was not 
the motivation for their participation but instead it provided the framework for legitimacy 
within which their actions could become perceived as good and just. 

Discussion
How does the data analysed from the Armenian Genocide compare to the motivations 
and facilitative factors which have been unearthed for perpetrators of other genocides, 
as described in my previously developed model? Most importantly, it should be noted 
that there were an exceptional number of opportunistic motivations found for why people 
participated in the Armenian Genocide. These were all based on the idea that participat-
ing in the deportations and killing enabled people to reap the benefits of being a member 
of the perpetrator group. These benefits range from the receiving the opportunity to loot 
Armenian money, possessions and property for personal material gain, the possibility to 
rape or receive a forced bride, access to Armenians as free labour, or career progression 
(or the avoidance of demotion) for loyalty. Lastly, a key incentive was the opportunity for 
criminals to gain freedom from prison in exchange for their participation. This long list of 



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opportunistic reasons certainly dominated the trial verdicts, as well as secondary source 
interpretations of why people participated. 

Nonetheless, further motivations can be identified also. Referring to the in-group-fo-
cused motivations obedience to authority and coercion played a role, and the ambival-
ent nature of authority is particularly interesting in this context. However, there was little 
evidence of horizontal social influence in the form of peer pressure or conformity, as was 
important especially in the Rwandan genocide (Fujii 2009). 

Next, out-group-focused motivations were primarily located in the realm of ideology, 
which played a role as a motivation for some, and provided a legitimacy framework for 
most, particularly drawing on the subjugating categorisations of the millet system, the ideas 
of an Islamic jihad and Turkish nationalism. 

Regarding intrinsic motivations, the primary motivation of opportunism has already 
been mentioned, but this was also complemented by evidence of sadism. No specific data 
indicated the motivational power of genocidal roles, status or the thrill and excitement of 
participation. Further, regarding facilitative factors, particularly ideology as a legitimating 
factor, distance as morally disengaging and group dynamics were shown to have made 
individuals’ participation easier.

Altogether, participation in the Armenian Genocide appears to have significant similar-
ities to other cases, albeit with its own idiosyncrasies. While the motivations certainly have 
slightly different manifestations in this case to in other cases, they also appear to be quite 
comparable with other cases. The prevalence of opportunistic motivations which interact 
with a framework of legitimacy created by religious and state authorities shows how easy 
it can be to motivate ordinary people to become perpetrators of genocide, and this is an im-
portant lesson to heed in thinking about avoiding genocidal violence in the future. As and 
when new and better primary sources emerge it would be important to continue this sys-
tematic investigation of perpetrator motivations in the Armenian genocide in an attempt to 
find out whether certain motivations occur more frequently than others, whether more often 
in combination with certain others, as well as how these perpetrators themselves perceived 
their motivations at the time and since. This paper here has not been able to provide a final 
answer on these issues but has attempted to bring together the work done so far on perpet-
rator motivations and look at it through the perspective of a model to judge the comparab-
ility of perpetrators in the Armenian genocide to other cases. While this comparability is 
certainly given, much work still remains to be done, both in understanding the perpetrators 
and their motivations, as well as deriving lessons to be learned for the future from these.



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45

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