Operation Nemesis: Murder on the streets of Berlin
Near to Zoo Station on the 15th of March 1921, a single gunshot echoed through Hardenbergstraße. Talaat Pasha had been killed by Soghomon Tehlirian. This wasn’t a random act of murder, but a calculated assassination. It was part of Operation Nemesis; a plan to bring the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide to justice.
Who was Mehmed Talaat Pasha?
Talaat Pasha, as the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, was a principal architect of the Armenian Genocide during the First World War. Under his leadership, over 1.5 million Armenians and other Christian minorities were systematically exterminated as part of a movement in promoting Turkish superiority in Ottoman lands.
Language similar to that that would be used by the Nazis describing Jews was used to describe Armenians at this time. Notably, the desire to find a ‘solution to the Armenian problem’.
The Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1918 as WW1 was drawing to a close. Ottoman lands were divided up by Britain, France, and Greece. Ottoman leaders were brought to trial.
News of mass murder had already been reported as it was happening by both the Germans and Americans, and further details came out in the military tribunals that followed the collapse. This includes telegrams sent by Talaat, then as Minister of the Interior, to provincial governors directing the deportation and annihilation of Armenians.
Talaat and his co conspirators were sentenced to death in the newly formed Turkish state, but in absentia. They had already fled on a torpedo boat with their aid of their WW1 allies, Germany, in 1918.
News of the escape of Talaat Pasha and his co-perpetators, 4 November 1918.
Where did Talaat Pasha go?
The Ottoman officials that fled their country went into hiding across Europe. Outraged and saddened by the injustice of it all, Armenians across the world saught to create their own justice. A group named the Armenian Revolutionary Foundation (ARF) started to track the leaders: bribing customs officials, blending in with European Turkish communities, tracking whatever evidence they could.
They drew up a list of 100 perpetrators they wanted to assassinate. Talaat Pasha was number 1.
Enter Soghomon Tehlirian
Soghomon Tehlirian was an Armenian that had fought alonside the Soviets against the Ottomans at the end of the war. Quiet, and with calm demeanour, he would never be mistaken for a killer. He returned home after the war to find his entire 25,000-person Armenian community, including his family, gone.
Driven by grief and a desire for justice, he travelled to Constantinople, where he murdered an Armenian that had collaborated with the Ottomans. He joined Operation Nemesis, a clandestine initiative by the ARF aimed at eliminating those responsible for the atrocities shortly afterwards.
Tehlirian was exactly the kind of person they were looking for. Motivated, experienced with weaponry, childless, and single - the Armenians feared that those embarking on this mission would have a short life in front of them.
The Assassination of Talaat Pasha
ARF operatives tracked Talaat to Berlin. It took a while to identify him without his finery, entourage, or trademark moustache, but once they thought they were onto him, they rented an apartment on the same street where he was living. There, they monitored his daily movements meticulously.
At 11am every day, Talaat would leave his house to go for a short walk. Often to the same tobacco shop.
on the 15th of March, 1921 Soghomon Tehlirian waited outside Talaat’s residence. When Talaat left the building, Tehlirian walked up behind him, put a gun to the back of his left ear, and pulled the trigger.
Talaat was dead before he hit the ground. According to his autopsy, his brain exploded.
The Trial of Soghomon Tehlirian
This was in broad daylight. Of course, Berliners turned on Tehlirian and started pumelling him, but Tehlirian made no attempt to flee. Peacefully, he awaited arrest. This was all part of the plan. The ARF didn’t want stories of a fugitive on the run hitting the papers, they wanted Tehlirian to go to trial. There, no matter how the court judged him, he could tell the world what had happened to the Armenian people.
During the trial, Tehlirian claimed to have witnessed the horrors of the genocide first-hand. He intimated that witnessing the murder of his family is what lead to his ‘temporary insanity’ upon happening, randomly, to see Talaat on a busy street in Berlin. This wasn’t quite the truth, but it gave both cover for Operation Nemesis and understandable motivation for the killing.
Tehlirian said “I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer.”
The court acquitted him of murder. His trial lasted only two days: June 2 & 3, 1921. Tehlirian went free. News of the murder and ensuing trial went around the world and brought international awareness to the Armenian Genocide.
Operation Nemesis continued in secret.
Sources
My source for this story was the excellent podcast on exactly this murder by Kerning Cultures. You can listen to it here.
Images in this article are all in the public domain, and were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
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