Henry Morgenthau Sr. (1856–1946) was a prominent German-born American lawyer, businessman, and diplomat best known for his role as the United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Serving in Constantinople from 1913 to 1916, he became one of the most critical eyewitnesses to the Armenian Genocide, aggressively sound the alarm to the U.S. State Department and organizing vital humanitarian relief through the Near East Relief foundation. His historic warnings and detailed accounts of the state-sponsored atrocities were later published in his landmark memoir, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (1918), establishing him as a pioneering figure in the history of international human rights advocacy.
