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ARMIN WEGNER, WRITER, POET AND EYEWITNESS TO THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
February 24, 2015
Intellectual, Doctor in Law, Photographer, Writer, Poet, Civil Rights
Defender, Eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide
Armin Theophil Wegner (1886-1978)
Armin T. Wegner, whose photographic collection documents conditions
in Armenian deportation camps in 1915-1916, was born in Germany
in 1886. At the outbreak of World War I, he enrolled as a volunteer
nurse in Poland during the winter of 1914-1915, and was decorated with
the Iron Cross for assisting the wounded under fire. In April 1915,
following the military alliance of Germany and Turkey, he was sent
to the Middle East as a member of the German Sanitary Corps. Between
July and August, he used his leave to investigate the rumors about
the Armenian massacres that had reached him from several sources. In
the autumn of the same year, with the rank of second-lieutenant in
the retinue of Field Marshal Von der Goltz, commander of the 6th
Ottoman army in Turkey, he traveled through Asia Minor.
Eluding the strict orders of the Turkish and German authorities
(intended to prevent the spread of news, information, correspondence,
visual evidence), Wegner collected notes, annotations, documents,
letters and took hundreds of photographs in the Armenian deportation
camps. With the help of foreign consulates and embassies of other
countries, he was able to send some of this material to Germany and the
United States. His clandestine mail routes were discovered and Wegner
was arrested by the Germans at the request of the Turkish Command-and
was put to serve in the cholera wards. Having fallen seriously ill,
he left Baghdad for Constantinople in November 1916.
Hidden in his belt were his photographic plates and those of other
German officers with images of the Armenian Genocide to which he
had been a witness. In December of the same year he was recalled
to Germany.
Wegner was deeply moved by the tragedy of the Armenian people to which
he had been eyewitness in Ottoman Turkey. Between 1918 and 1921,
he became an active member of pacifist and anti-military movements
while dedicating his literary and poetic output to the search for
the truth about himself and his fellow man. On February 23, 1919,
Wegner's "Open Letter to President Wilson" appealing for the creation
of an independent Armenian state was published in Berliner Tageblatt.
A man of conscience who protested his country's responsibilities in
the Armenian Genocide, Wegner was also one of the earliest voices to
protest Hitler's treatment of the Jews in Germany. He dedicated a great
part of his life to the fight for Armenian and Jewish human rights.
In 1968 he received an invitation to Armenia from the Catholicos
of All Armenians and was awarded with the Order of Saint Gregory
the Illuminator.
Armin Wegner died in Rome at the age of 92 on May 17, 1978.
Wegner served as a witness during the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian, who
had assassinated the Ottoman leader, Talaat Pasha, in Berlin in 1921.
http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/62206
February 24, 2015
Intellectual, Doctor in Law, Photographer, Writer, Poet, Civil Rights
Defender, Eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide
Armin Theophil Wegner (1886-1978)
Armin T. Wegner, whose photographic collection documents conditions
in Armenian deportation camps in 1915-1916, was born in Germany
in 1886. At the outbreak of World War I, he enrolled as a volunteer
nurse in Poland during the winter of 1914-1915, and was decorated with
the Iron Cross for assisting the wounded under fire. In April 1915,
following the military alliance of Germany and Turkey, he was sent
to the Middle East as a member of the German Sanitary Corps. Between
July and August, he used his leave to investigate the rumors about
the Armenian massacres that had reached him from several sources. In
the autumn of the same year, with the rank of second-lieutenant in
the retinue of Field Marshal Von der Goltz, commander of the 6th
Ottoman army in Turkey, he traveled through Asia Minor.
Eluding the strict orders of the Turkish and German authorities
(intended to prevent the spread of news, information, correspondence,
visual evidence), Wegner collected notes, annotations, documents,
letters and took hundreds of photographs in the Armenian deportation
camps. With the help of foreign consulates and embassies of other
countries, he was able to send some of this material to Germany and the
United States. His clandestine mail routes were discovered and Wegner
was arrested by the Germans at the request of the Turkish Command-and
was put to serve in the cholera wards. Having fallen seriously ill,
he left Baghdad for Constantinople in November 1916.
Hidden in his belt were his photographic plates and those of other
German officers with images of the Armenian Genocide to which he
had been a witness. In December of the same year he was recalled
to Germany.
Wegner was deeply moved by the tragedy of the Armenian people to which
he had been eyewitness in Ottoman Turkey. Between 1918 and 1921,
he became an active member of pacifist and anti-military movements
while dedicating his literary and poetic output to the search for
the truth about himself and his fellow man. On February 23, 1919,
Wegner's "Open Letter to President Wilson" appealing for the creation
of an independent Armenian state was published in Berliner Tageblatt.
A man of conscience who protested his country's responsibilities in
the Armenian Genocide, Wegner was also one of the earliest voices to
protest Hitler's treatment of the Jews in Germany. He dedicated a great
part of his life to the fight for Armenian and Jewish human rights.
In 1968 he received an invitation to Armenia from the Catholicos
of All Armenians and was awarded with the Order of Saint Gregory
the Illuminator.
Armin Wegner died in Rome at the age of 92 on May 17, 1978.
Wegner served as a witness during the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian, who
had assassinated the Ottoman leader, Talaat Pasha, in Berlin in 1921.
http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/62206