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During a debate Friday to commemorate the mass killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey 100 years ago, the speaker of the German Parliament bluntly said the massacre was "genocide,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports.

"What happened in the middle of World War I in the Ottoman Empire under the eyes of the world public was genocide," Bundestag President Norbert Lammert said, adding that it was sadly not the last of the 20th century.

Germany's mainly ceremonial president, Joachim Gauck, had pronounced the mass killings a case of "genocide" as he spoke Thursday at an ecumenical church service.

"The fate of the Armenians serves as an example of the history of mass extermination, ethnic cleansings, expulsions and ultimately the genocides that so dreadfully characterized the 20th century," Gauck said.

He added that Germany may share "partial guilt in the genocide of the Armenians" as an ally of Turkey in World War I, since German military advisors had been aware and were involved in the planning.

"The current government in Turkey is not responsible for what happened 100 years ago, but it is responsible for what becomes of it," Lammert said.

"We Germans cannot give anyone lessons on how to deal with their past, but we can by our own experiences encourage them to face their history, even when it hurts," he said.