Soghomon Tehlirian (; April 2, 1896 – May 23, 1960) was an Armenian revolutionary and soldier who assassinated Talaat Pasha, the 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. Talaat's assassination was a part of Operation Nemesis, a revenge plan by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation against members of the Ottoman Imperial Government responsible for the Armenian genocide during World War I. Talaat Pasha had been convicted and sentenced to death in absentia in the Turkish courts-martial of 1919–20, and was viewed as the main orchestrator of the genocide. After a two-day trial Tehlirian was found not guilty by a German court, and freed. Tehlirian is considered a national hero by Armenians. Life Soghomon Tehlirian was born on April 2, 1896 in the village of (Բագառիճ), in the Erzurum vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. He was raised in Erzincan. Tehlirian's father left for Serbia to secure the family's planned move to the country. After his return in 1905, he was arrested and sentenced to six months imprisonment. During this time, the Tehlirian family moved from Nerkin Bagarij to Erzinjan. Tehlirian received his initial education at the Protestant elementary school in Erzinjan. After graduation at the Getronagan (Central) Lyceum of Constantinople, he went to study engineering in Serbia and had plans to continue his education in Germany. Genocide He was in Valjevo, Serbia, in June 1914. In the fall of that year, Tehlirian made his way to Russia and joined the army to serve in a volunteer unit on the Caucasus Front against the Turks. According to History's Great Untold Stories: Larger than Life Characters & Dramatic Events that Changed the World, In June 1915, the Ottoman local police ordered the deportation of all the Armenians in Erzinjan. Tehlirian's mother, three sisters, his sister's husband, his two brothers, and a two-year-old niece were deported. All told, Tehlirian lost 85 family members to the Armenian Genocide. In 2016 Tehlirian's son, who spoke to The Independent but did not reveal his name, stated that Tehlirian's mother and Vasken, his older brother, died in the genocide – the latter was studying medicine and living in Beirut – but that Tehlirian did not have