Assassination of Talaat Pasha
On 15 March 1921, Armenian student Soghomon Tehlirian killed Talaat Pasha—former grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire and the main architect of the Armenian genocide—in Berlin. At his trial, Tehlirian argued, "I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer"; the jury acquitted him.
Tehlirian came from Erzindjan in the Ottoman Empire but moved to Serbia before the war. He served in the Armenian volunteer units of the Russian army and lost most of his family in the genocide. Deciding to take revenge, he assassinated Harutiun Mgrditichian, who helped the Ottoman secret police, in Constantinople. Tehlirian joined Operation Nemesis, a clandestine program carried out by the Dashnaktsutyun ; he was chosen for the mission to assassinate Talaat due to his previous success. Talaat had already been convicted and sentenced to death by an Ottoman court-martial, but was living in Berlin with the permission of the Government of Germany. Many prominent Germans attended Talaat's funeral; the German Foreign Office sent a wreath saying, "To a great statesman and a faithful friend."
Tehlirian's trial was held 2–3 June 1921, and the defense strategy was to put Talaat on trial for the Armenian genocide. Extensive evidence on the genocide was heard, resulting in "one of the most spectacular trials of the twentieth century", according to Stefan Ihrig. Tehlirian claimed he had acted alone and that the killing was not premeditated, telling a dramatic and realistic, but untrue, story of surviving the genocide and witnessing the deaths of his family members. The international media widely reported on the trial, which brought attention and recognition of the facts of the Armenian genocide; Tehlirian's acquittal brought mostly favorable reactions.
Both Talaat Pasha and Tehlirian are considered by their respective sides to be heroes; historian Alp Yenen refers to this relationship as the "Talat–Tehlirian complex". Talaat was buried in Germany, but Turkey repatriated his remains in 1943 and gave him a state funeral. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin read about the trial in the news and was inspired to conceptualize the crime of genocide in international law.
Background
As the leader of the Committee of Union and Progress, Talaat Pasha was the last powerful grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Considered the primary architect of the Armenian genocide, he ordered the deportation of nearly all of the empire's Armenian population to the Syrian Desert in 1915, to wipe them out. Of 40,000 Armenians deported from Erzurum, it is estimated that fewer than 200 reached Deir ez-Zor. When more Armenians survived than Talaat had intended, he ordered a second wave of massacres in 1916. Talaat estimated that around 1,150,000 Armenians disappeared during the genocide. In 1918, Talaat told journalist, "I assume full responsibility for the severity applied" during the Armenian deportation and, "I absolutely don't regret my deed."When United States ambassador Henry Morgenthau tried to persuade Talaat to discontinue the atrocities, he interrupted, saying he would not reconsider because most of the Armenians were already dead: "The hatred between the Turks and the Armenians is now so intense that we have got to finish with them. If we don't, they will plan their revenge." Talaat told Turkish writer Halide Edib that the extermination of Armenians was justified to advance Turkish national interests and that, "I am ready to die for what I have done, and I know that I shall die for it." In August 1915, after learning about the Armenian massacres, CUP former finance minister Cavid Bey predicted Talaat would be assassinated by an Armenian.
During World War I, Imperial Germany was a military ally of the Ottoman Empire. Ambassador Hans von Wangenheim approved limited removals of Armenian populations from sensitive areas. German representatives issued occasional diplomatic protests when the Ottomans went far beyond this in an attempt to contain the reputational damage from their allies' actions. Germany censored information about the genocide and undertook propaganda campaigns denying it and accusing Armenians of stabbing the Ottoman Empire in the back. Germany's inaction led to accusations that it was responsible for the genocide, which became entangled with the debate over Germany's responsibility for the war.
Talaat Pasha's exile in Berlin
After the Armistice of Mudros, following elaborate preparations, Talaat fled Constantinople on a German torpedo boat with other CUP leaders—Enver Pasha, Djemal Pasha, Bahaeddin Şakir, Nazım Bey, Osman Bedri, and Cemal Azmi—on the night of November 1-2. Except for Djemal, all were major perpetrators of the genocide; they left to evade punishment for their crimes and to organize a resistance movement. German foreign minister Wilhelm Solf had instructed the embassy in Constantinople to aid Talaat and refused the Ottoman government's request to extradite him, on the grounds that "Talaat has been loyal to us, and our country remains open to him."Arriving in Berlin on 10 November, Talaat stayed in a hotel in Alexanderplatz and a sanatorium in Neubabelsberg, Potsdam, before moving into a nine-room apartment at 4, at today's Ernst-Reuter-Platz. Next to his apartment, he founded the Oriental Club where Muslims and Europeans opposed to the Entente would gather. The Foreign Office monitored the goings-on at this apartment using the former Constantinople correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung,. A decree of the Social Democratic Party of Germany's chancellor Friedrich Ebert legalized Talaat's residence. In 1920, Talaat's wife Hayriye joined him. The German government had intelligence that Talaat's name was first on an Armenian hit list and suggested he should stay at a secluded estate belonging to former Ottoman chief of staff Fritz Bronsart von Schellendorf in Mecklenburg. Talaat refused because he needed the capital's networks to pursue his political agitation. The CUP-initiated resistance movement eventually led to the Turkish War of Independence. Talaat initially hoped to use Turkish politician Mustafa Kemal as a puppet and directly issued orders to Turkish generals from Berlin.
Talaat had influential German friends from the beginning of his exile and acquired status over time as he was seen as a representative of the Turkish nationalist movement abroad. Using a false passport under the name Ali Saly Bey, he traveled freely throughout continental Europe despite being wanted by the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire for his crimes. Many German newspapers suspected his presence in Berlin, and he spoke at the press conference after the Kapp Putsch, a failed attempt to overthrow the German government in March 1920. Many Germans, but especially the far right, viewed Turkey as innocent and wronged, comparing the Treaty of Sèvres to the Treaty of Versailles and seeing a "community of destiny" between Germany and Turkey. Talaat wrote a memoir, focused primarily on defending his decision to order a genocide and absolving the CUP from any guilt. Talaat and other CUP exiles were convicted and sentenced to death in absentia for the "massacre and annihilation of the Armenian population of the Empire" by the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal on 5 July 1919.
Operation Nemesis
After it became clear that no one else would bring the perpetrators of the genocide to justice, the Dashnaktsutyun, an Armenian political party, set up the secret Operation Nemesis, headed by Armen Garo, Shahan Natalie, and Aaron Sachaklian. The conspirators drew up a list of 100 genocide perpetrators to target for assassination; Talaat headed the list. There was no shortage of volunteers to carry out the assassinations, mainly young men who survived the genocide or lost their families. Nemesis operatives did not carry out assassinations without confirming the identity of the target and were careful to avoid accidentally killing the innocent.One of these volunteers was Soghomon Tehlirian from Erzindjan, Erzurum Vilayet, a city which had 20,000 Armenian residents before World War I and none afterwards. Tehlirian was in Serbia when war broke out. After hearing about anti-Armenian atrocities, he joined the Armenian volunteer units of the Russian army; as they advanced west, they found the aftermath of the genocide. Realizing his family had been killed, he vowed to take revenge. His memoirs list 85 family members who perished in the genocide. Tehlirian suffered from regular fainting spells and other nervous system disorders that possibly resulted from what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder; during his trial, he said they were related to his experiences during the genocide.
After the war, Tehlirian went to Constantinople, where he assassinated Harutiun Mgrditichian, who had worked for the Ottoman secret police and helped compile the list of Armenian intellectuals who were deported on 24 April 1915. This killing convinced the Nemesis operatives to entrust him with the assassination of Talaat Pasha. In mid-1920, the Nemesis organization paid for Tehlirian to travel to the United States, where Garo briefed him that the death sentences pronounced against the major perpetrators had not been carried out, and that the killers continued their anti-Armenian activities from exile. That fall, the Turkish nationalist movement invaded Armenia. Tehlirian received the photographs of seven leading CUP leaders, whose whereabouts Nemesis was tracking, and departed for Europe, going first to Paris. In Geneva, he obtained a visa to go to Berlin as a mechanical engineering student, leaving on 2 December.
The conspirators plotting assassinations met at the residence of Libarit Nazariants, vice-consul of the Republic of Armenia. Tehlirian attended these meetings even after falling ill with typhoid in mid-December. He was so ill that he collapsed while tracking Şakir and had to rest for a week. The Dashnak Central Committee ordered them to focus on Talaat to the exclusion of other perpetrators. At the end of February, the conspirators located Talaat after spotting him leaving from Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station on a trip to Rome. Vahan Zakariants, posing as a man looking for lodging, investigated and was able to discover that Talaat was living at Hardenbergstraße 4. To confirm the identification, Tehlirian rented a pension across the street at Hardenbergstraße 37, where he could observe people coming and going from Talaat's apartment. His orders from Natalie stated, "You blow up the skull of the Number 1 nation-murderer and you don't try to flee. You stand there, your foot on the corpse and surrender to the police, who will come and handcuff you."