Muriel Mirak-Weissbach Writes New Book on General Otto Liman von Sanders

FRANKFURT — Berghahn books will release a new book this summer by veteran Armenian Mirror-Spectator correspondent and historian Muriel Mirak-Weissbach. The book, titled A German General and the Armenian Genocide: Otto Liman von Sanders Between Honor and State, will be released in July.

The legacy of the German General, Otto Liman von Sanders, remains highly contested in the history of 20th-century Europe and the Middle East. Noted for leading the 5th Ottoman army’s successful defence of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli in 1915, his role in opposing the Young Turks’ genocide policy and safeguarding Greeks, Armenians, and Jews is overshadowed by his imprisonment for war crimes in 1919. In this enlightening reassessment of Liman von Sanders’ life, Mirak-Weissbach uses previously-unpublished archival materials to uncover new dimensions to this story and, in doing so, explores wider ethical questions concerning the role of the individual in global crises, the nature of morality in military conflict, and the limitations of justice.

Mirak-Weissbach is a graduate of Wellesley College and a Fulbright scholar, who completed her graduate studies at the State University of Milan. She has published articles on politics and culture in the Arab and Islamic world, and on Armenia, as well as essays on literature and philology.

Her recent publications include; Through the Wall of Fire, Armenia – Iraq – Palestine: From Wrath to Reconciliation (2013), and Madmen at the Helm: Pathology and Politics in the Arab Spring (2012). In 2012 she and her husband established the Mirak-Weissbach Stiftung, a small foundation supporting cultural, educational, and social projects in Armenia.