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Assassination and funeral

With most CUP leaders in exile, the Dashnaks organized a plot to assassinate the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, known as Operation Nemesis. On 15 March 1921 Talaat was assassinated with a single bullet as he came out of his Hardenbergstraße flat to purchase a pair of gloves. His assassin was a Dashnak agent from Erzurum named Soghomon Tehlirian, who had members of his family who were killed during the genocide. Tehlirian admitted to the shooting, but, after a cursory two-day trial, he was found innocent by a German court on grounds of temporary insanity due to the traumatic experience he had gone through during the genocide. Immediately after the assassination, Nazım and Şakir, the other two Turkish statesmen who were also staying in the area, received German police protection. Şakir would be assassinated a year later by another Dashnak.

According to Hayriye, Talaat had prophesied his own assassination, recalling that he said to her: "One day, someone will shoot me' said he. 'I will collapse, blood spilling from my forehead. I will not have the luxury to die, lying on bed. It doesn't matter; let them shoot me; the motherland shall not be stained with my death. For each Talaat passing away, one thousand Talaats shall come forth (Bir Talât gider, bin Talât yetişir.)' " Mustafa Kemal Pasha remarked, "The motherland has lost her great son; the revolution has lost its great organizer."

Initially, Talaat's friends hoped he could be buried in Anatolia, but neither the Ottoman government in Constantinople nor the Turkish nationalist movement in Ankara wanted the body; it would be a political liability to associate themselves with the man considered the worst criminal of World War I. Invitations from Hayriye and the Orient Club were sent to Talaat's funeral, and on 19 March, he was buried in the Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof in a well-attended ceremony. At 11:00 a.m., prayers led by the imam of the Turkish embassy, Şükri Bey, were held at Talaat's apartment. Afterwards, a large procession accompanied the coffin to Matthäus, where he was interred. Many prominent Germans paid their respects, including former foreign ministers Richard von Kühlmann and Arthur Zimmermann, along with the former head of Deutsche Bank, the ex-director of the Baghdad railway, several military personnel who had served in the Ottoman Empire during the war and August von Platen-Hallermünde, attending on behalf of the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II. The German foreign office sent a wreath with a ribbon saying, "To a great statesman and a faithful friend." Şakir, barely able to maintain his composure, read a funeral oration while the coffin was lowered into the grave, covered in an Ottoman flag. He asserted the assassination was "the consequence of imperialist politics against the Islamic nations ". In 1922, the Kemalist government rescinded Talaat's conviction, and then a house and a martyr's pension was granted to Talaat's family with a law passed by the Grand National Assembly in 1926.

During World War II, at the request of the Prime Minister of Turkey, Şükrü Saracoğlu, Talaat's remains were disinterred from Germany and transported to Turkey, where he received a state funeral on 25 February 1943, attended by German ambassador Franz von Papen, Ahmet Emin Yalman, and Saracoğlu. With this gesture, Adolf Hitler hoped to secure Turkish support for the Axis. Talaat's friend Hüseyin Cahit (Yalçın) gave the funeral oration as he was buried at the Monument of Liberty, originally dedicated to those who died during the 31 March Incident. His return to Turkey was welcomed by Turkish society.