Armin T.

Wegner
Intellectual, Doctor in Law, Photographer, Writer, Poet,
Civil Rights Defender, and Eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide

T
he photos of Armin T. Wegner are among the few that capture the bleak struggle for survival
that faced Armenian deportees. As a second lieutenant in the German army stationed in the
Ottoman Empire in April 1915, Wegner took the initiative to investigate reports of Armenian
massacres. Disobeying orders intended to stifle news of the massacres, he collected information on
the Genocide and took hundreds of photographs of Armenian deportation camps, primarily in the
Syrian desert. Wegner was eventually arrested, but not before he had succeeded in channeling a
portion of his research material to Germany and the United States through clandestine mail routes.
When he was transferred to Constantinople in November 1916, he secretly took with him
photographic plates of images he and other German officers recorded.

Armin T. Wegner 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.
 Photographs by Armin T. Wegner and Others

1915: Armenian deportees-women, children and elderly men. Woman in foreground is carrying a child
in her arms, shielding it from the sun with a shawl; man on left is carrying bedding; no other belongings
or food noticeable among effects being carried. All are walking in the sun on an unpaved road with no
means of shelter from the elements. Location: Ottoman empire, region Syria.

Scattered deportees in a desert wasteland, individually foraging for grain as their only
source of food. There is no shelter, water, or habitation in sight.
Taken by Armin t. Wegner
Orphan Camp
Orphan Camp 1915
 Camp in the Open Desert

Armenian Orphans at a Danish Orphanage

 Armenian Orphans in a Danish Orphanage

Emmaus, a German-Danish Orphanage in Mezre, near Harput, that gave refuge to hundreds
of Armenian girls in 1915 despite strict orders forbidding shelter to Armenians