Exactly 100 years ago, the Armenian student Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire and chief perpetrator of the Armenian genocide, Mehmed Talât. After a cursory two-day trial Tehlirian was surprisingly acquitted by a Berlin court. The trial turned into a tribunal on the victim’s crimes against humanity, and it made legal history. Even Raphael Lemkin, the “founding father” of the UN Genocide Convention, has always referred in his lifetime to this spectacular Berlin trial of June 2-3, 1921 as his initial experience to coin the term genocide. Hannah Arendt cited the trial strategy as a reference in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem. The lecture sheds light on the background of the trial and its impact on the development of international law.

The lecture will be moderated by Roy Knocke, Associate Lecturer at the University of Potsdam.

About the speaker

Dr. Rolf Hosfeld is the director of the Potsdam Lepsius House. He also works as an independent writer and historian and has been member of the German Writers’ Union since 1982. Besides numerous articles Hosfeld has published fifteen books as author, and edited several more. The social-democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation awarded him its prize “Das politische Buch” (the political book) in 2010 for his biographical essay on Karl Marx (several translations). His history of the Armenian Genocide was published in 2005 and 2009. A revised and completed edition came out in 2015 (Turkish translation 2018, Armenian translation 2021). He also published books on Johannes Lepsius and the German Empire and the Armenian Genocide as editor, co-editor and contributor.

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This conference is part of the project “Ideas & their Consequences: Genocide and International Justice after 1919″ led by AGBU Europe and co-funded by the Europe for Citizens Programme of the European Union. For more info about the project, please visit its website at: www.genocideandjusticeafter1919.com