contemporaries, and even some of his close friends considered him a liar. Alfred Nossig described Talaat as "The strongest man of Young Turkey", a "man of will", a "unique and outstanding talent of statesmanship" who dominates "the whole state machine". Whereas "the sultan is a constitutional ruler, Talaat is an autocratic sultan." He called him "the Turkish Bismarck" upon his becoming Grand Vizier, a title which German journalist and companion Ernst Jäckh affirmed. Others drew similarities between Talaat and some of his contemporaries, such as Greek prime minister Eliftherios Venizelos and de facto co-dictator of Germany General Erich Ludendorff. Personal life Talaat married Hayriye Hanım (b. 1895) (later known as Hayriye Talat Bafralı), an Albanian girl from Yanya (Ioannina) on 19 March 1910. Talaat met Hayriye in 1909, while she was studying in the French girls' Lycée Notre Dame de Sion in Constantinople. He learned to speak French in the Israelite School at Salonika, and picked up Greek from his wife. They learned in 1911 that they were not able to have children, but they adopted an orphan, Münevver, as their daughter. Hayriye joined Talaat in Berlin in spring 1920 and returned to Turkey after her husband's assassination. She remarried with Hamdi Bafralı in 1946, and they had two sons. Hayriye died in İstanbul on 15 January 1983. Her granddaughter, Ayşegül Bafralı, provided Murat Bardakçı documents from the interior ministry that Hayriye stored away containing data on Armenian deportatation and resettlement of Muhacirs in their place. Bardakçı went on to publish these documents, and an interview with Hayriye 27 years later, in The Remaining Documents of Talaat Pasha. Talaat Pasha was a member of the Bektashi order and a 33° freemason and first became a member of the Salonica Freemason Lodge Macedonia Risorta in 1903 during his time in the Ottoman Balkans. He was also the first Grand Master of the society. He used both organizations as channels for his anti-Hamidian activism, as they were inaccessible for the spies of Yıldız Palace. Legacy Talaat Pasha is widely considered one of the main architects of the Armenian Genocide by historians. In his posthumously published memoirs, he propagated a "national myth – that all Ottoman Armenians were rebels, betrayers, secessionists, and that they were responsible for the massacres that took place in 1915-1916". The memoirs were published many times especially when the Armenian genocide was under discussion. Biographer Hans-Lukas Kieser states that