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What the evidence shows

Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

Disputed — one record of the speech has it, two do not Adolf Hitler 1889–1945 · if genuine, spoken at Obersalzberg, 22 August 1939
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The dispute here is about a document, not about a fabrication. Nobody suggests the sentence was invented after the war: it was in a German text held by an American journalist in August 1939, transmitted to London that month, and published in 1942. The question is whether that text is an accurate record of what Hitler said. Three records of the 22 August 1939 speech reached the Nuremberg prosecution. Only one, document L-3, contains the sentence — and L-3 is the one that was never formally admitted into evidence. Historians of the period are genuinely divided, and we do not resolve it here.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Attributed to Adolf Hitler, Obersalzberg, 22 August 1939, in document L-3 — the only one of three records of that speech to contain it, and the one not admitted at Nuremberg.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Adolf Hitler. Use the credit shown above instead.

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We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

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Provenance

The documents

Occasion
Address to senior Wehrmacht commanders, Obersalzberg
Date
22 August 1939, a week before the invasion of Poland
Contains the line
Document L-3 only
Does not contain it
Documents 798-PS and 1014-PS
Nuremberg status
798-PS and 1014-PS admitted; L-3 not admitted
German original
Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?

Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? Document L-3, Obersalzberg, 22 August 1939

In L-3 the sentence closes a passage in which Hitler orders the killing of Polish men, women and children without pity, and dismisses the question of what the world will say. The German reads: Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier? Read in place, it is not a comment on Armenian history but an argument about impunity — that atrocity is forgotten, and can therefore be repeated.

The documents, the transmission chain and the scholarly dispute

What each document is

  • L-3 is a German text obtained in Berlin in August 1939 by the American journalist Louis P. Lochner, head of the Associated Press bureau there. Lochner showed it to the British chargé d’affaires, Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, who forwarded it to London in a despatch of 25 August 1939 — three days after the speech and before the war began. Ogilvie-Forbes described Lochner’s informant as a staff officer who had it from one of the generals present. Lochner printed the text in his 1942 book What About Germany?, so it was in public circulation years before Nuremberg. He handed a copy to the prosecution in 1945, where it was catalogued as L-3.
  • 798-PS and 1014-PS are German records captured by American forces in the files of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Both were introduced as evidence at Nuremberg. Neither contains the sentence about the Armenians. 798-PS indicates that Hitler spoke twice that day, in the morning and the afternoon.
  • L-3 was not admitted into evidence. After a defence objection, the American prosecutor Sidney Alderman explained that they had no proof of the delivery of the notes by the person who took them to the intermediary who passed them on. The text was nonetheless printed in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, the prosecution’s published document series — which is why it is often described, loosely and incorrectly, as ‘Nuremberg evidence’ the documentary record ↗.

We do not assign a rights status here, because it cannot be established. Hitler’s own German writings entered the public domain in Germany on 1 January 2016, seventy years after his death — but L-3 is not a text he wrote. It is a memorandum by an unidentified notetaker, and an unidentified author means an unresolvable term. The familiar English sentence is a translation, and a translation is a separate copyrightable work; we have not resolved the status of Lochner’s. The general trap is worth stating plainly: Ralph Manheim’s 1943 English translation of Mein Kampf remains in copyright even though the German original is not, so ‘the German is public domain’ does not license the English anyone actually quotes. Quote this sentence with attribution and with the dispute attached. This is not legal advice.

The dispute

Who argues what

This is not a case of a fabricated quotation. It is a case of a contested record, and the disagreement runs among serious historians of Nazi Germany and of the Armenian Genocide. Both positions are set out here without adjudication.

Bardakjian, Albrecht, Anderson documented in 1939

Kevork B. Bardakjian’s 1985 monograph argues that L-3 derives from notes taken at the meeting — Admiral Wilhelm Canaris is the usual candidate — and is as sound as other material accepted at Nuremberg. Richard Albrecht concluded L-3 most likely sums up what Hitler said. Margaret Lavinia Anderson has written that there is no reason to doubt the remark is genuine. The strongest single point is chronological: the text was in British diplomatic hands on 25 August 1939, which rules out post-war invention.

Browning, Ihrig provenance and absence

Christopher R. Browning wrote in 2004 that L-3 is not likely to be an accurate version, and suggested an apocryphal text purposefully leaked. Stefan Ihrig calls the provenance sketchy and notes the sentence’s absence from other accounts — while also observing that the others did not write the remark down either, which is not the same as recording that it was not said.

Frequently overstated not admitted evidence

The line is often introduced as something Hitler said ‘according to Nuremberg evidence.’ It was not admitted. L-3 was withdrawn after a defence objection because the chain of custody of the notes could not be proved, and it appears in the prosecution’s printed document series rather than in the trial record. Anyone quoting it should not claim more than that.

Genocide recognition consequential

The sentence is central to arguments connecting 1915 to the Holocaust, and is quoted at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and in recognition debates. It is correspondingly contested by bodies that dispute the Armenian Genocide itself. That political use is real, but it is not the reason Browning and Ihrig raise their objections, and the two should not be confused.

No consensus unresolved

There is no settled majority view we can report. The events of 1915 are not in doubt among historians; what is unresolved is whether this particular sentence was spoken on this particular afternoon. Treating that as settled in either direction misstates the state of the evidence.

Recorded in document L-3, which was in British hands three days after the speech and published in 1942 — but absent from the two captured German records, and never admitted at Nuremberg. Historians are divided and we do not resolve it the documents ↗.

Context

What is not in dispute

The Armenian Genocide is not a contested question among historians. Beginning in 1915, the Ottoman government deported and killed a large part of its Armenian population; the standard estimates run in the high hundreds of thousands to well over a million dead. Whether Hitler mentioned it on 22 August 1939 is a narrow documentary question, and nothing about the answer changes what happened in 1915.

It is also established that Hitler and his circle knew of those events. German officers and diplomats were present in the Ottoman Empire as allies during the First World War and reported on the deportations, and the Armenian case was discussed in the German press and in Nazi-era writing. A speaker in 1939 did not need a briefing to make the reference.

The question is not whether someone invented the sentence in 1945. It is whether the man who wrote it down in 1939 got it right.

The three records, side by side

1014-PS — captured from Oberkommando der Wehrmacht files; admitted at Nuremberg; no Armenian sentence.

798-PS — captured from OKW files; introduced at Nuremberg; no Armenian sentence; indicates two speeches that day.

L-3 — obtained by Louis P. Lochner in Berlin, August 1939; sent to London by the British chargé d’affaires on 25 August 1939; printed in Lochner’s What About Germany? in 1942; given to the prosecution in 1945; not admitted into evidence; contains the sentence.

The prosecution described L-3 as a garbled merger of the two speeches Hitler gave that day.

No original of the notes from which L-3 was made has been produced, and the notetaker has never been identified with certainty.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Justice Truth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Hitler's reference to the Armenian genocideen.wikipedia.org

The fullest public account of the three documents, the transmission chain and the named scholars on each side.
Hitler's Obersalzberg Speechen.wikipedia.org

What each of 1014-PS, 798-PS and L-3 is, and how each was treated at Nuremberg.
Hitler and the Armenian Genocide — Kevork B. Bardakjianzoryaninstitute.org

The 1985 monograph that argues at length for the authenticity of L-3. The principal case for the line.
Adolf Hitler — statement on the Armenian Genocidearmenian-genocide.org

The Armenian National Institute's presentation of the quotation and its documentation.

The attributed speaker

The speech it comes from

Adolf Hitler

1889–1945 · Chancellor of Germany from 1933; addressed his commanders at Obersalzberg on 22 August 1939

On 22 August 1939 Hitler summoned his senior commanders to the Berghof at Obersalzberg and told them that Poland would be attacked, that the object was the destruction of a people and not the reaching of a line, and that they should close their hearts to pity. The Molotov–Ribbentrop pact was signed the following day; the invasion began on 1 September. That much is established from the captured German records. What is contested is whether one further sentence — about the Armenians — belongs in the transcript of that afternoon.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Attributed to Adolf Hitler, address to Wehrmacht commanders, Obersalzberg, 22 August 1939, as recorded in document L-3 (obtained by Louis P. Lochner; printed in his What About Germany?, 1942; submitted to the Nuremberg prosecution 1945, not admitted into evidence). Not present in documents 798-PS or 1014-PS.

MLA (9th ed.)

Hitler, Adolf. Address at Obersalzberg, 22 Aug. 1939. Document L-3 (disputed).

APA (7th ed.)

Hitler, A. (1939, August 22). Address to Wehrmacht commanders, Obersalzberg [Document L-3; attribution disputed].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Did Hitler say ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/who-after-all-speaks-today-of-the-annihilation-of-the

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