Armin T. Wegner
Armin Theophil Wegner
Armin T. Wegner, 1916 in Baghdad.
Intellectual, doctor in law, photographer, writer, poet, civil rights defender and eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide.
Armin Theophil Wegner, was born on October 16, 1886, in the town of Elberfeld / Wuppertal in Germany. He studied law and economics. As a poet and writer he is considered one of the main protagonists of German literary expressionism.
He enrolled as a volunteer nurse in Poland during the winter of 1914-1915 – at the outbreak of World War I – and was decorated with the Iron Cross for assisting the wounded under fire. In April 1915, following the military alliance of Germany and Ottoman Turkey, he was sent to the Middle East as a member of the German Sanitary Corps. He used his leave to investigate the rumors about the Armenian massacres that had reached him from several sources. Disobeying the military orders that intending to stifle the news of the massacres, he gathered information on the Genocide by collecting notes, annotations, documents, letters and taking hundreds of photographs in the Armenian deportation camps – visible proof of the first systematic genocide of the twentieth century. At the request of the Turkish Command, Wegner was eventually arrested by the Germans and, in December of the same year, he was recalled to Germany. At grave personal risk, hidden in his belt were his photographic emulsions with images of the Armenian Genocide.
In an open letter, which was submitted to American President Woodrow Wilson at the peace conference of 1919, Wegner protested against atrocities perpetrated by the Turkish army against the Armenian people, and appealed for the creation of an independent Armenian state. The tragedy of the Armenian people to which he had been eyewitness in Ottoman Turkey haunted him for the rest of his life and he continued to speak about such crimes against humanity.
In the 1920’s, Wegner reached the height of his success as a writer. He became well known for his travelogues, especially with his “Russian” book, Fünf Finger über Dir (Five Fingers over You), which foresaw the advent of Stalinism.
As a passionate pacifist and opponent of military service and violence, Wegner was outraged by the treatment and persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich. Therefore, he sent a letter to Adolf Hitler protesting the state-organized boycott against the Jews. In 1933 he was arrested by Gestapo. He would suffer incarceration in seven Nazi concentration camps and prisons before he left Germany and made his home in Italy.
Following WWII, in 1956, Wegner was awarded the Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse (Cross of Merit – 1st Class) by the Federal German government. The city of Wuppertal, where he was born, decorated him with the prestigious Eduard-Von-der-Heydt prize in 1962. A piazza in Wuppertal and a street in Neuglobsow were named after him.
Armin T. Wegner dedicated a great part of his life to the fight for Armenian and Jewish human rights. In 1967 he was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel, and 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. Furthermore, a street in Yerevan was named after him, in his honor.
He died in Rome at the age of 92 on May 17, 1978. In 1996 part of his ashes were taken to Armenia, where a posthumous state funeral took place near the perpetual flame of the Armenian Genocide monument and where a plaque now honors him.
In 2003 the Armin T. Wegner Award was created by the Arpa Foundation for Film, Music and Art in Hollywood – a humanitarian honor awarded to motion pictures that contribute to the fight for social conscience and human rights, a struggle to which Armin T. Wegner devoted his life.
Timeline
1886
Born on October 16 in Elberfeld / Wuppertal, Germany.
1892-1904
Elementary, middle and high school in Berlin, Glogau and Breslau. Im Strome verloren. Gedichte (Lost in the Stream. Poems), self-publishing.
1905
Six months as a farmer in Silesia.
1906-1908
Private school in Breslau, high school in Striegau.
1909-1910
Study of law and economics in Breslau.
Travel to Switzerland, France and Italy.
Zwischen zwei Städten. Buch Gedichte im Gang einer Entwicklung (Between Two Cities. A Book of Poems in the Process of Development).
Gedichte in Prosa. Ein Skizzenbuch aus Heimat und Wanderschaft (Poems in Prose. A Sketchbook from Home and Wanderings).
1910-1913
Studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. Friendship with Kurt Hiller.
1912
Höre mich reden, Anna-Maria. Eine Rhapsodie (Listen to Me as I Talk, Anna-Maria. A Rhapsody).
1914
Dissertation in Breslau: Der Streik im Strafrecht (The Strike in Criminal Law). Doctorate degree in law.
1914-1915
Volunteered as army nurse in WWI: Winter campaign in Poland. Iron Cross II. Class. Then member of the German-Ottoman medical mission in Turkey. Healthcare lieutenant under Field Marshal von der Goltz. Reported about the persecution and expulsion of the Armenians.
1916
Discharge from the military mission and recall to Germany.
1917
After illness deployment in the general command in Breslau. Antlitz der Städte (Face of the Cities). Banned because of the “immoral” poems it contained.
1918
Enlisted by the Office of Foreign Affairs as the editor of the monthly newspaper “Neuer Orient” (New Middle East).
1918-1919
Member of the “Political Council of Intellectual Workers”. Open letter to Karl Liebknecht against the “revolutionary violence”.
Co-founder of the “Association of Conscientious Objectors”. Open letter to US President Woodrow Wilson on the expulsion of the Armenian people.
Der Weg ohne Heimkehr. Ein Martyrium in Briefen (The Road of No Return: An Ordeal in Letters).
1920
Chief executive secretary of the “Association of Conscientious Objectors” (from 1921 the German group of the “International Conscientious Objectors”).
Marriage with the poet Lola Landau. Moved to Neuglobsow at Stechlinsee.
Im Hause der Glückseligkeit. Aufzeichnungen aus der Türkei (In the House of Happiness: Chronicles from Turkey).
1921
Der Knabe Hüssein. Türkische Novellen (The Lad Hüssein. Turkish Novels).
Der Ankläger. Aufrufe zur Revolution (The Prosecutor. Calls for Revolution).
Foreword to the report of ‘The Trial of Talaat Pasha’.
1922
Die Verbrechen der Stunde – die Verbrechen der Ewigkeit. Drei Reden wider die Gewalt (The Crimes of the Hour – The Crimes of Eternity. Three Orations Against Violence).
Das Geständnis. Erzählung (The Confession. A Tale).
1923
Daughter Sibylle Anusch is born on April 8.
1923-1914
Travels to England, Denmark, France, Austria and Spain.
Die Straße mit den tausend Zielen. Gedichte (The Road with a Thousand Destinations. Poems).
1925
Return to Berlin, apartment at Kaiserdamm 16.
1926
Wazif und Akif oder die Frau mit den zwei Ehemännern. Ein türkisches Puppenspiel (Wazif and Akif or the Woman with the Two Husbands. A Turkish Puppet Show), (together with Lola Landau).
Das Zelt. Aufzeichnungen, Briefe, Erzählungen aus der Türkei. Eine Auswahl (The Tent. Records, Letters, Tales from Turkey. A Selection).
1927
Journey to Russia, the Caucasus and Persia.
1928
Wie ich Stierkämpfer wurde – und andere Erzählungen (How I Became a Bullfighter and other Tales).
1929
Moni oder die Welt von unten. Ein Jahr im Leben eines Kindes (Moni or the World from Beneath. One Year in the Life of a Child).
Travel with Lola Landau to Palestine.
1930
Fünf Finger über Dir. Bekenntnisse eines Menschen in dieser Zeit (Five Fingers over You. Confessions of a Man in Modern Times).
Am Kreuzweg der Welten. Eine Reise vom Kaspischen Meer zum Nil. (At the Crossroad of the Worlds. A Journey from the Caspian Sea to the Nile).
1931
Treibeis Hörspiel. (Drift Ice Radio Play), (together with Lola Landau).
1932
Maschinen im Märchenland. Tausend Kilometer durch die mesopotamische Wüste (Machines in Fairyland.
A Thousand Kilometers Through the Mesopotamian Desert).
Jagd durch das tausendjährige Land (Chasing Through the Thousand-Year-Old Country).
1933
Für Deutschland (For Germany), letter of protest to Adolf Hitler against the persecution of the Jews in Germany.
May: book burning, including Wegner’s works.
August: arrest, torture and imprisonment in several prisons and concentration camps. Dismissal from the Lichtenburg concentration camp on December 26, 1933.
1934-1935
1934-1935 Journey to England, dissolving of the household in Berlin.
1936
Lola Landau moves with Sibylle to Palestine. Visit to Jerusalem, on the return trip Renting a house in Positano.
Moved to Italy.
1938
Short imprisonment in Amalfi during a Hitler visit.
1939
Divorce from Lola Landau.
1940
Living together with the artist Irene Kowaliska.
1941
Birth of the son Michael Donatello on December 27.
1941-1943
Lecturer in German literature at the University of Padua.
1945
Marriage with Irene Kowaliska.
1947
Writers’ Convention in Berlin pays tribute to Wegner among deceased writers. His name appears in the list of the dead writers and poets on the commemorative plaque.
1949-1950
Invited as guest speaker to Zurich and Jerusalem.
1951
Der Löwe mit dem Mädchenkopf (The Lion with the Maiden’s Head). Die Künstlerstadt Positano (Positano, the City of Artists), a radio play.
1952
Die Silberspur. Wunder der Welt auf der Fahrt durch neun Meere (The Silver Trail. Wonders of the World on the Voyage Through Nine Seas).
1956
Invitation to lecture tours to Berlin and Wuppertal. Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class (Bundesverdienstkreuz) in Naples.
Auf der Suche nach den zehn Gerechten (In Search of the Ten Righteous Ones), a radio play.
1959
Der Todessänger (The Deathchant Singer), a radio play.
1961-1962
Die Reise ohne Heimkehr – Armin T. Wegner erzählt (The Journey with No Return – Armin T. Wegner Narrates), an eight-part radio play.
Das Lied aus der blutigen Stadt Berlin. Gedicht (The Song from the Bloody City of Berlin. Poem).
1962
Awarded with the “von der Heydt Prize” in his native city of Wuppertal.
1968
Honored as “Righteous of the Nations” at the Shoah Memorial Yad Vashem (Jerusalem).
Honored with the highest medal of the Armenian Soviet Republic.
1969
Invitation to Stockholm, participation in the “First Symposium of Refugees from the Third Reich” on exile literature.
1972
Invitation to lectures and readings at American universities.
1974
Fällst Du, umarme auch die Erde oder Der Mann, der an das Wort glaubt (If You Fall, so Embrace the Earth or The Mann, Who Believes in the Pledge), a selection of prosa, lyrics and records Arrangement of extensive bibliography by Hedwig Bieber.
1974-1975
Die Straße nirgendwohin. Gedichte (The Road to Nowhere. Poems).
1976
Odyssee der Seele (Odyssey of the Soul), a second selection of works, including a selection of later poems.
1978 †
Armin T. Wegner died on May 17 in Rome.
***
Lola Landau died on February 3, 1990 in Jerusalem, Irene Kowaliska on March 13, 1991 in Rome.
Sibylle Stevens died on July 24, 2016 on the Isle of Wight.
Michael Wegner lives in Rome and on the island of Stromboli.
The literary estate of Armin T. Wegner is safeguarded in the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar.