I killed a man but I am not a murderer: The story of Tehlirian

In 1921, Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated one of the principal architects of the Armenian Genocide, Talaat Pasha, in broad daylight on a busy Berlin street. Talaat had fled Turkey and settled in Germany after receiving a death sentence for his role in the Genocide. Tehlirian was arrested, tried, and found not guilty by a German court. He died in 1960 and was buried in Masis Ararat Cemetery. In 1969, the Cemetery erected an impressive monument to mark his tomb.

He was an Armenian revolutionary and soldier who assassinated Talaat Pasha, 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 April 24, 1915.

Tehlirian was born in the village of Nerkin Bagarich, in the Erzurum region, and grew up in nearby Erzincan (Yerznga). He began his education at an Evangelical school in Erzincan, then attended the Ketronakan School of Constantinople. He began his higher education in engineering at a German university but returned to Erzincan when the First World War broke out.

In June 1915, during the deportation of Erzincan Armenians, Tehlirian witnessed the murder of his mother and brother, along with the rape and murder of his three sisters. He was struck on the head and left for dead. He survived and escaped to Tiflis, where he joined the ARF.

He participated in volunteer units commanded by General Antranig and also took part in the Volunteer regiment commanded by Sebouh.

In 1921 he was assigned to the ARF’s Operation Nemesis, which sought to punish Turkish officials guilty of organizing and carrying out the Armenian Genocide.

Tehlirian’s main target was Talaat Pasha, one of the triumvirate of Young Turk leaders who had ruled in the last days of the Ottoman Empire; he was a former minister of the interior and a grand vizier (prime minister). Talaat was killed by Tehlirian with a single bullet on the morning of March 15, 1921, in Berlin, in broad daylight. Tehlirian did not flee the scene and was immediately arrested.

He was tried for murder but was exonerated by the German court. His trial became a highly sensational event, examining not only Tehlirian’s guilt but also that of Talaat Pasha for the Armenian deportations and mass killings.

The trial influenced Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who was later to coin the term “genocide.” He reflected on the trial, “Why is a man punished when he kills another man? Why is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of a single individual?”

After the assassination, Tehlirian moved to Serbia and married Anahit Tatikian, who was also from Erzincan. The couple moved to Belgium and lived there until 1945, when they moved to San Francisco.

Tehlirian died in 1960 and is buried at the Ararat Cemetery in Fresno, California.

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.

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 24 April 1915. This killing convinced the Nemesis operatives to entrust him with the assassination of Talaat Pasha.

The trial opened with the judge asking Tehlirian many questions about the genocide, which revealed the judge's knowledge of the genocide and Turkish and German narratives about it. He asked Tehlirian to recount what he witnessed during the events. Tehlirian said that after the outbreak of war, most Armenian men in Erzindjan were conscripted into the army.

In early 1915, some Armenian community leaders were arrested and reports of their massacre reached the city. In June 1915, a general deportation order was given, and armed gendarmes forced Armenians in the city to abandon their homes and leave their property behind. As soon as they left the city, the gendarmes began to shoot the victims and loot their valuables. Tehlirian said, "one of the gendarmes carried off my sister," but did not continue, stating, "I would rather die now than to speak about this dark day again."After prodding from the judge, he recalled how he witnessed the murder of his mother and brother and was then knocked unconscious, awaking underneath his brother's corpse. He never saw his sister again. After this, Tehlirian said, he found shelter with several Kurds before escaping into Persia with other survivors.

Tehlirian was asked whom he held responsible for instigating the massacres and about historical precedents such as the Adana massacre. Only then did the judge read out the charges of premeditated murder. Asked if he was guilty, Tehlirian said "no", despite having initially admitted to having carried out the assassination. He explained, "I do not consider myself guilty because my conscience was clear ... I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer."

Other testimony on the genocide

Christine Terzibashian

Christine Terzibashian, the tobacconist's wife, said she knew nothing of the assassination. The defense asked her to testify about the Armenian genocide, and the judge allowed this. She was also from Erzurum and said that of her twenty-one relatives, only three survived. She said Armenians were forced to leave Erzurum toward Erzindjan in four groups of five hundred families. They had to walk over the corpses of other Armenians who had been killed earlier. She testified that after they had reached Erzindjan the men were separated from the rest of the deportees, tied together and thrown into the river. She explained the rest of the men were axed to death in the mountains above Malatia and thrown in the water.

Afterwards, Terzibashian recalled, "the gendarmes came and picked out the most beautiful women and girls" and that any who refused were "impaled with bayonets and their legs were ripped apart". She recalled that the killers would cut open pregnant women to kill their children. This caused great stir in the courtroom. She stated that her brother was killed and her mother immediately died. When she refused to marry one of the Turks, "he took my child and threw it away". After recounting more gruesome details, she said the truth was even worse than she could relate. Asked whom she held responsible for these massacres, she stated, "It happened on Enver Pasha's orders and the soldiers forced the deportees to kneel and shout: 'Long live the pasha!' The defense said that other witnesses, including two German nurses in Erzindjan, corroborated her account. Thus, Gordon argued, Tehlirian's account was also "true to the core".

Grigoris Balakian

Armenian priest Grigoris Balakian, one of those deported on 24 April, who had come from Manchester, England. He described how most of the members of his convoy were beaten to death in Ankara. "The official name was 'deportation,' but in reality it was a systematic policy of annihilation", he stated, explaining:

Getting near to Yozgad about four hours from the town, we saw, in a valley hundreds of heads with long hair, heads of women and girls. The chief of the gendarmes in our escort was named Shukri. I said to him, "I thought that only the men were killed." No, he said, "if we killed only the men, but not the women and girls, in fifty years, there would again be several million Armenians. We must therefore eliminate the women and children in order to settle it once and for all, at home and abroad."

The bastard Talaat was buried in 1943 at the Monument of Liberty, Istanbul, as a national hero.

Rita Khatchadorian