4. Payback Visited Upon the Genocide’s Initiator
The next payback target to fall to Operation Nemesis was Mehmed Talaat Pasha. One of a triumvirate known as the Three Pashas who had ruled the Ottoman Empire during WWI, Talaat had initiated the Armenian Genocide in 1915 while serving as Minister of Interior Affairs. He fled the Ottoman Empire in a German submarine in early November of 1918, and settled in Berlin.
Talaat Pasha was tried in absentia by a Turkish court-martial and sentenced to death. However, the Turks were not that eager to have him extradited, and the Germans denied knowledge of his whereabouts. In reality, Talaat’s presence in Germany was an open secret, and he traveled throughout much of Central Europe and Scandinavia without hindrance. That state of affairs lasted until 1921 when Operation Nemesis caught up with him.