Soghomon Tehlirian (Armenian: Սողոմոն Թեհլիրեան; April 2, 1896 – May 23, 1960) was an Armenian revolutionary and soldier who assassinatedTalaat Pasha, the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, in Berlin on March 15, 1921. He was entrusted to carry out the assassination after having earlier killed Harutian Mgrditichian, who had worked for the Ottoman secret police and helped compile the list of Armenian intellectuals who were deported on April24, 1915.
Tehlirian's father left for Serbia to secure the family's planned move to the country.[4] After his return in 1905, he was arrested and sentenced to six months imprisonment. During this time, the Tehlirian family moved from Nerkin Bagarij to Erzinjan.[4] Tehlirian received his initial education at the Protestant elementary school in Erzinjan.[4] After graduation at the Getronagan (Central) Lyceum of Constantinople, he went to study engineering in Serbia and had plans to continue his education in Germany.[4][6]
Genocide
Soghomon (right), Sahak, and Misak Tehlirian (brothers) as volunteers in the Russian army
He was in Valjevo, Serbia, in June 1914.[7] In the fall of that year, Tehlirian made his way to Russia and joined the army to serve in a volunteer unit on the Caucasus Front against the Turks.[8]
According to History's Great Untold Stories: Larger than Life Characters & Dramatic Events that Changed the World, In June 1915, the Ottoman local police ordered the deportation of all the Armenians in Erzinjan. Tehlirian's mother, three sisters, his sister's husband, his two brothers, and a two-year-old niece were deported.[9] All told, Tehlirian lost 85 family members to the Armenian Genocide.[10]
In 2016 Tehlirian's son, who spoke to The Independent but did not reveal his name, stated that Tehlirian's mother and Vasken, his older brother, died in the genocide – the latter was studying medicine and living in Beirut – but that Tehlirian did not have a sister, that his father was fighting in the war in Russia, and that his other two brothers were in Serbia.[11]
After the war, Tehlirian went to Constantinople, where he assassinated Harutian Mgrditichian, who had worked for the Ottoman secret police and helped compile the list of Armenian intellectuals who were deported on April24, 1915. Meanwhile, Operation Nemesis was being set up to assassinate leaders responsible for the Armenian genocide and Tehlirian's killing of Mgrditichian convinced Nemesis operatives to entrust him with the assassination of Talat Pasha.[12][13] 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 December2.[14]
Tehlirian's main target was Talaat Pasha, who was a member of the military triumvirate known as the "Three Pashas" who controlled the Ottoman Empire. He was the former Minister of the Interior and Grand Vizier (an office equivalent to that of a prime minister), and was noted for his prominent role in the Armenian Genocide. As soon as he found Talaat Pasha's address on 4 Hardenbergstraße, in Berlin's Charlottenburg district, Tehlirian rented an apartment near his house so that he could study his everyday routine.[4][15]
Tehlirian shadowed Talaat as he left his house on Hardenbergstraße on the morning of March 15, 1921. He crossed the street to view him from the opposite sidewalk, then crossed it once more to walk past him to confirm his identity. He then turned around and pointed his gun to shoot him in the nape of the neck.[16][17] Talaat was felled with a single 9mm parabellum round from a Luger P08 pistol.[18] The assassination took place in broad daylight and led to the German police immediately arresting Tehlirian, who had been told by his handlers, Armen Garo and Shahan Natalie, not to run from the crime scene.[17]
Trial
Tehlirian was tried for murder, but was eventually acquitted by the twelve-man jury. His trial was highly publicized at the time, taking place shortly after the establishment of the Weimar Republic, with Tehlirian being represented by three German defense attorneys, including Dr. Theodor Niemeyer, professor of law at Kiel University. Priest and Armenian Genocide survivor Grigoris Balakian, German activist Johannes Lepsius, and German Army general Otto Liman von Sanders, who had been a field marshal in the Ottoman Army during the war, were among several of the prominent individuals called as witnesses to the trial.
The trial examined not only Tehlirian's actions but also Tehlirian's conviction that Talaat was the main author of the Armenian deportation and mass killings. The defense attorneys made no attempt to deny the fact that Tehlirian had killed a man, and instead focused on the influence of the Armenian Genocide on Tehlirian's mental state. Tehlirian claimed during the trial that he had been present in Erzincan in 1915 and had been deported along with his family and personally witnessed their murder. When asked by the judge if he felt any sort of guilt, Tehlirian remarked, "I do not consider myself guilty because my conscience is clear…I have killed a man. But I am not a murderer."[2]
During his trial, Tehlirian claimed that while he was in Germany, he saw his mother in his dreams who scorned her son for seeing Talaat Pasha and not having taken revenge yet.[19] During the trial, Tehlirian's dream was described as follows:[20][21]
He remained calm, and thoughts of vengeance did not occur to him. He carried on as before until five to six weeks later, when he saw a dream, materially almost like a vision. His mother's corpse arose before him. He told her, "I saw Talaat." His mother answered, "You saw Talaat and you did not avenge your mother's, father's, brothers', and sisters' murders? You are no longer my son." This is the moment when the defendant thought, "I have to do something. I want to be my mother's son again. She cannot turn me away when I go to be with her in heaven. I want her to clasp me to her bosom like before." As the doctors explained, the dream ended when he woke up.
It took the jury slightly over an hour to render a verdict of "not guilty."[2]
German reactions to the verdict were mixed, being generally favorable among those who were sympathetic to Armenians or universal human rights. Journalist Emil Ludwig wrote, "Only when a society of nations has organized itself as the protector of international order will no Armenian killer remain unpunished, because no Turkish Pasha has the right to send a nation into the desert".[22]
Later life
Soghomon Tehlirian monument on his grave in Ararat Cemetery in Fresno, California (erected in 1969). The monument incorrectly listed his date of birth as April 15, 1896 (pictured in 2009).[23]
The renovated Soghomon Tehlirian monument in 2022. As of March 2022, the cemetery's website still listed the incorrect birthdate.[24]
After the assassination, Tehlirian moved to Cleveland in the United States.[11] He then moved to Marseille and then Yugoslavia and eventually married Anahit Tatikian who was also from Erzincan.[25] She was 15 when they first met in 1917.[11]
During his days in Serbia, Tehlirian was a member of the shooting club and was considered a skilled marksman.[25] The couple moved to Belgrade and lived there until 1950, when they moved first to Casablanca, then to Paris, and finally to San Francisco.[6] There he worked as a postal clerk, and he lived under the name Saro Melikian.[26]
Tehlirian died in 1960 of a cerebral hemorrhage,[26] and is buried at the Ararat Cemetery in Fresno, California. Tehlirian's monument-grave is an obelisk with a gold-plated eagle slaying a snake on top. It is reported that the original artist of the monument was quoted as saying that the eagle was "the arm of justice of the Armenian people extending their wrath onto Talaat Pasha," who was symbolized by the snake. The monument itself is centered in the middle of the cemetery with a walkway made of red brick surrounded by cypress trees.[2]
Legacy
Tehlirian's bust in Gyumri, Armenia. The plaque attached to the pillar incorrectly lists his year of birth as 1886 instead of 1896.
His trial for murder influenced Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who later reflected on the trial, "Tehlirian acted as the self-appointed legal officer for the conscience of mankind. But can a man appoint himself to mete out justice? Will not passion sway such a type of justice and rather make a travesty of it?" As a result, Lemkin was inspired to campaign for a law allowing genocide to be prosecuted under universal jurisdiction, reasoning that state sovereignty "cannot be conceived as the right to kill millions of innocent people".[27] Historian Hans-Lukas Kieser states "Assassination perpetuated the sick relationship of a victim in quest of revenge with a perpetrator entrenched in defiant denial, instead of humble courage for the truth and redress."[22]
Political theorist Hannah Arendt, in her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, compares Tehlirian to Sholem Schwarzbard, who assassinated Ukrainian statesman Symon Petliura in Paris in 1925 for what Schwarzbard believed to be Petlyura's culpability in the anti-Jewish pogroms in Ukraine. Arendt suggests that each man "insisted on being tried", in order "to show the world through court procedure what crimes against his people had been committed and gone unpunished".[28]
[T]he one in the center of the play, on whom all eyes are fastened, is now the true hero, while at the same time the trial character of the proceedings is safeguarded, because it is not "a spectacle with prearranged results" but contains that element of "irreducible risk" which... is an indispensable factor in all criminal trials. Also, the J'accuse, so indispensable from the viewpoint of the victim, sounds, of course, much more convincing in the mouth of a man who has been forced to take the law into his own hands than in the voice of a government-appointed agent who risks nothing. And yet... it is more than doubtful that this solution would have been justifiable in Eichmann's case, and it is obvious that it would have been altogether unjustifiable if carried out by government agents. The point in favor of Schwartzbard and Tehlirian was that each was a member of an ethnic group that did not possess its own state and legal system, that there was no tribunal in the world to which either group could have brought its victims.[28]
Several statues of Tehlirian have been erected in Armenia. His first statue in Armenia was inaugurated in 1990 in the village of Mastara.[29]
In 2014, Tehlirian's story was told in a graphic novel, Special Mission: Nemesis.[30]
Music
The song Գինի լից, Gini lits ("Pour the wine"), is a well-known revolutionary song,[31] which commemorates and glorifies the assassination of Talaat by Tehlirian. It has been recorded in a variety of versions and is known by heart by many Armenians. The version by Sahak Sahakyan also has a music video. The first stanza of the song goes:[32]
The Armenians' horror shook the world,
The Turkish throne fell to the ground,
Let me tell you about the death of Talaat.
Pour the wine, dear friend, pour the wine,
Drink it nicely; drink it with delight.
Film
The 1982 American film Assignment Berlin, directed by Hrayr Toukhanian, chronicles Talaat Pasha's assassination in Berlin.
The 1986 Turkish film Duvardaki Kan[tr] ("Blood on the Wall") adapts Tehlirian's trial.
The 1991 French film Mayrig by Henri Verneuil depicts Talaat's assassination and Tehlirian's trial.
The 2020 short film The Attempt, directed by Daniel Despart, depicts Tehlirian's assassination of Talaat Pasha.[33][34]
Related Research Articles
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children.
Young Turks was a political reform movement in the early 20th century that favored the replacement of the Ottoman Empire's absolute monarchy with a constitutional government. They led a rebellion against the absolute rule of Sultan Abdulhamid II in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. With this revolution, the Young Turks helped to establish the Second Constitutional Era in the same year, ushering in an era of multi-party democracy for the first time in the country's history.
Otto Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders was an Imperial German Army general who served as a military adviser to the Ottoman Army during the First World War. In 1918 he commanded an Ottoman army during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. On the whole Sanders provided only limited help to the Ottoman forces.
Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent who is best known for coining the term genocide and initiating the Genocide Convention, an interest spurred on after learning about the Armenian genocide and finding out that no international laws existed to prosecute the Ottoman leaders who had perpetrated these crimes.
Mehmed Talaat, commonly known as Talaat Pasha or Talat Pasha, was an Ottoman politician and convicted war criminal who served as the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1918. Talaat Pasha was chairman of the Union and Progress Party, which operated a one-party dictatorship in the Empire; during World War I he became Grand Vizier. He was one of the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansings during his time as Minister of Interior Affairs.
Aram Andonian was an Armenian journalist, historian and writer.
The Three Pashas also known as the Young Turk triumvirate or CUP triumvirate consisted of Mehmed Talaat Pasha (1874–1921), the Grand Vizier and Minister of the Interior; Ismail Enver Pasha (1881–1922), the Minister of War; and Ahmed Cemal Pasha (1872–1922), the Minister of the Navy, who effectively ruled the Ottoman Empire after the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état. According to historian Hans-Lukas Kieser, Talaat's power increased over time and eclipsed the others after 1913–1914.
Mehmed Said Halim Pasha was an Ottoman statesman of Albanian origin who served as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917. He was one of the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide and later assassinated by Arshavir Shirakian as part of Operation Nemesis, a retribution campaign to kill perpetrators of the Armenian genocide.
Bahaeddin Shakir or Bahaddin Şakir was a physician, Turkish nationalist politician, and one of the architects of the Armenian genocide. Though he was not a minister or deputy in the government, he held powerful sway in the Central Committee of the Committee of Union and Progress and was the director of the Şûrâ-yı Ümmet, a magazine that supported the party. He was one of the three important names of the "Doctors Group" in the CUP ; He was a part of the pan-Turkist/Turanist wing of Union and Progress.
Grigoris Balakian 1875 – 8 October 1934), was a bishop of the Armenian Apostolic Church, in addition to being a survivor and memoirist of the Armenian genocide.
Operation Nemesis was a program to assassinate both Ottoman perpetrators of the Armenian genocide and officials of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic most responsible for the massacre of Armenians during the September Days of 1918 in Baku. Masterminded by Shahan Natalie, Armen Garo, and Aaron Sachaklian, it was named after the Greek goddess of divine retribution, Nemesis.
The Istanbul trials of 1919–1920 were courts-martial of the Ottoman Empire that occurred soon after the Armistice of Mudros, in the aftermath of World War I. The leadership of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and selected former officials were charged with several charges including subversion of the constitution, wartime profiteering, and the massacres of both Armenians and Greeks. The court reached a verdict which sentenced the organizers of the massacres – Talat, Enver, and Cemal – and others to death.
The Remaining Documents of Talaat Pasha, also known in Turkey as The Abandoned Documents of Talaat Pasha and Talaat Pasha's Black Book, is the title of a 2008 book by the Turkish journalist Murat Bardakçı. It reproduces in modern Turkish script a selection of documents from the WWI period by Mehmed Talaat Pasha, the Ottoman Empire's Grand Vizier and Minister of Interior, that deal with the relocations of both Muslim Turks and Armenians and the expropriation of abandoned Armenian and Greek property. Its full English title is The Remaining Documents of Talaat Pasha: Documents and Important Correspondence Found in the Private Archives of Sadrazam Talaat Pasha about the Armenian Deportations.
The Monument of Liberty, in the Şişli-Mecidiyeköy district of Istanbul, Turkey, is a memorial in honour of the soldiers killed defending the Ottoman Parliament against rebel forces during the 31 March Incident.
Getronagan is an Armenian minority high school in the Karaköy district of Istanbul, Turkey, The school is attached to the Saint Gregory the Illuminator Church.
Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide is a 2015 book by Eric Bogosian about Operation Nemesis, a plan to kill the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide.
The relationship between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust has been discussed by scholars. While a direct causal relationship between the Armenian genocide is not proven, it has been suggested that Holocaust perpetrators were inspired by the Ottoman example and the legacy of impunity. Both the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide are considered paradigmatic cases of genocide in the twentieth century.
The terminology of the Armenian genocide is different in English, Turkish, and Armenian languages and has led to political controversies around the issue of Armenian genocide denial and Armenian genocide recognition. Although the majority of historians writing in English use the word "genocide", other terms exist.
On 15 March 1921, Armenian student Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated 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.
The state funeral of Talaat Pasha, former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire and one of the chief architects of the Armenian genocide, took place at the Monument of Liberty in Istanbul, Turkey, on 25 February 1943. At the request of the office of the prime minister of Turkey, Şükrü Saracoğlu, Talaat's remains were disinterred and transported to Turkey. The funeral was attended by Prime Minister Saracoğlu, German ambassador to Turkey Franz von Papen, and Turkish journalist Ahmet Emin Yalman. With this gesture, Adolf Hitler hoped to secure Turkish support for the Axis in World War II. Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın gave the funeral oration as Talaat was buried at the monument, originally dedicated to those who lost their lives preventing the 1909 Ottoman countercoup.
↑ Cummins, Joseph (2006). History's Great Untold Stories: Larger than Life Characters & Dramatic Events that Changed the World. Washington D.C.: National Geographic. p.301. ISBN9781426200311.
↑ MacCurdy, Marian Mesrobian (2015). Sacred Justice: The Voices and Legacy of the Armenian Operation Nemesis. Routledge. pp.177, 186. ISBN978-1-351-49218-8.
↑ MacCurdy, Marian Mesrobian (2015). Sacred Justice: The Voices and Legacy of the Armenian Operation Nemesis. Routledge. pp.187–188. ISBN978-1-351-49218-8.
↑ "Soghomon Tehlirian". Ararat. Armenian General Benevolent Union of America. 31. 1990. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
↑ Bogosian, Eric. Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2015, pp. 9–13.
Ihrig, Stefan. "Genocide Denied, Accepted, and Justified: The Assassination of Talât Pasha and the Subsequent Trial as a Media Event in the Early Weimar Republic," Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 22 (2013), pp.153–77.
(in Armenian) Tehlirian, Soghomon. Վերհիշումներ ["Recollections" or "Memories"], Cairo: Husaper, 1953. Recorded in writing by Vahan Minakhorian
Yeghiayan, Vartkes. The Case of Soghomon Tehlirian. Glendale, CA: Center for Armenian Remembrance; 2nd edition, 2006.
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