ARMIN T. WEGNER, SCHÖPFER DES BEGRIFFS „VOLKSMORD» FÜR DIE VERNICHTUNG DER ARMENIER IM OSMANISCHEN REICH

Abstract

This essay sheds light on an almost unknown aspect of the work of the German writer Armin T. Wegner (1886-1978), namely his legal training in Breslau and Berlin, his doctorate in criminal law and his legal qualification of the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. As a medical officer during the World War in Turkey and an eyewitness, Wegner described the extermination of the Armenians with the term “Volksmord”, which he coined in 1916, whereas Raphael Lemkin coined in 1944 for the extermination of the Armenians in the First World War and of the European Jews by the Nazi regime in the Second World War the term “genocide”. The term defined by Lemkin became part of public international law and has been binding worldwide since 1948.