United States
Henry Morgenthau Sr.
1856–1946 U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, 1913–1916
Born in Mannheim in 1856, Henry Morgenthau came to New York as a child, studied law at Columbia, prospered in real estate and helped finance Woodrow Wilson's 1912 campaign. Wilson appointed him ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1913, and he served in Constantinople (Istanbul) until February 1916. With the United States neutral, the embassy also represented many Allied interests. As the Armenian genocide unfolded in 1915, he received consular reports of massacres and deportations, appealed to Ottoman leaders without success and helped found the committee that became Near East Relief. He told the story in Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (1918). Morgenthau died in New York City in 1946.