Skip to main content

Georgios Papadopoulos Biography

Georgios Papadopoulos

(Eleokhorion, 1919-Athens, 1999) Greek military and politician.Graduated as a second lieutenant from the Military Academy in 1940, that year he fought against the Italian invader in Albania and during the German invasion of 1941 he followed the royal family to Egypt.There he continued his studies at the Middle East Officers Training School and joined the Greek battalions that fought alongside the British on the fronts of the region, including guerrilla warfare in occupied Greece.

In 1943 he reached the rank of lieutenant, in 1944 he joined as an intelligence officer of the General Staff of the Greek Army and in 1946, a year after the end of World War II, he was promoted to captain and commander of an artillery battery.From that moment he fought in the Greek National Democratic Army (EDES), mostly monarchical, against the communists of the National People's Liberation Army (ELAS) until the end of the civil war in 1949, which ended with the rank of major.Throughout the conflict he served as an instructor officer in the Artillery School (1946-1948) and commander of units 131 (1948) and 144 (1948-1949) of the Mountain Artillery.

Without supporters in high places and with only his impeccable record of service, Papadopoulos made a dark and slow military career, until reaching the ranks of lieutenant colonel (1956) and colonel (1960).He regularly followed short courses at the Greek Military Academy and received supplementary special training at academies in the US and the UK.

On April 21, 1967, he held a post on the Integrated General Staff In the NATO forces, he starred with Brigadier General Stylianos Patakos and Colonel Nikolas Mazarekos in a bloodless coup that ended the parliamentary regime and the government of Panayotis Kannelopoulos.A government chaired by the civilian Konstantinos Kollias was constituted in which Papadopoulos appeared as minister without portfolio, but as a result of the thwarted counterattack of December 13, 1967 led by King Constantine II, in which Kollias was involved, he seized the Presidency of the Government and the Ministry of Defense, at the same time that he was promoted to brigadier and immediately afterwards he ceased active military service.

Anti-communist and convinced patriot, and imbued with regenerationist purposes of a marked reactionary nature, Papadopoulos was progressively personalizing the so-called "regime of the colonels", of a strictly military and dictatorial nature.With the consent of the United States, which appreciated the service rendered to contain communist influence in the region, Papadopoulos repealed constitutional guarantees, banned political parties, imposed harsh information and cultural censorship, and established a police state in the region.that thousands of opponents or suspected of being so were arrested, imprisoned or deported, including prestigious politicians and figures from the artistic world.

On September 29, 1968, he approved in a referendum (with 91.8% of the favorable votes) an authoritarian Constitution that legitimized the "Revolution of April 21".On November 29, 1970, elections to a "Legislative Advisory Committee" were held through corporate channels and without a party base.

On the outside, he had to face the harsh opposition from Western Europe in the first years, such that on December 12, 1969 he had to withdraw the country from the Council of Europe to avoid the humiliation of an imminent expulsion.Faithful guarantor of the strategic interests of the US, he applied a flexible and moderately pragmatic diplomacy (as opposed to the ideology that guided his internal management), which went through a prudent stance on the Cyprus question (reception by Archbishop Makarios in January 1970), the rapprochement with the Arab world and the communist countries of the Balkans (resumption of diplomatic relations with Albania on November 13, 1971) and, notably, the recognition of People's China in 1972.

When On August 3, 1971, the US House of Representatives decided to suspend military aid to the Greek regime for its violation of human rights, President Nixon came out in defense of Papadopoulos, and later reached an agreement with him to turn Greek ports into the main bases of the 6th US Fleet in the Mediterranean.

Papadopoulos added to his functions that of Minister of Education in 1969 (until 1970), that of Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1970 and own head of state on March 21, 1972 as regency, a position that General Georgios Zoitakis had held since the king's flight in December 1967.On June 1, 1973 he accused Constantine of having prepared the failed royalist plot "the Armada "dismantled in March and announced a law to abolish the monarchical institution and proclaim the" Parliamentary Presidential Republic ", a project that was effectively approved in a referendum on July 29 with 78.4% affirmative votes.

The entire political arc, from the monarchists to the communists, gathered in a Parliamentary Committee for the Restoration of Democratic Legality, denounced the consultation as "a fraud and a disgrace for the country" and "a maneuver to prolong the dictatorship." Be that as it may, on August 19, 1973, Papadopoulos was sworn in as President of the Republic for a seven-year term.

At his inauguration, he announced the appointment of Spyros Markezinis to preside over a new civilian government., the amnesty for all political prisoners since 1967 (including the man who attacked him in August 1968), the lifting of martial law in Athens and the holding of pluralist legislative elections in 1974.This institutionalization of the regime and its alleged defeat Liberal was understood as an attempt to perpetuate the dictatorship.On November 17, 1973, in the face of serious disturbances caused by students, who had called for a popular uprising, Papadopoulos had to declare martial law in Athens, but the following 25 a group of soldiers commanded by the chief of the military police (ESA ), Dimitri Ioannides, removed Papadopoulos from power and installed Lieutenant-General Phaidon Gizikis as president.

The maneuver saw the alarm of the extreme right sector of the army before the latest normalizing initiatives of Papadopoulos, inclined to a certain legalistic solution to the crisis and reaffirmed in its promise to hold legislative elections in 1974, which, they feared, they could lead to chaos.The new junta accused Papadopoulos of being incapable of containing public disorder, of "betraying the aims of the 1967 movement" and of "obstructing the return to a healthy parliamentarism." However, the disastrous military adventure in Cyprus caused the collapse of the regime in July 1974 and in October Papadopoulos was arrested by the new democratic authorities.

In the process that was opened to the heads of During the dictatorship, in August 1975, Papadopoulos was found guilty of insurrection and high treason and sentenced to death, a sentence that would be commuted to life imprisonment.He was held in Korydallos Prison, where he died in 1999.On January 29, 1984, he launched a far-right party, the Greek National Political Society (EPEN), which did not achieve a major impact.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the true origin of Father's Day?

On March 19, Father's Day is celebrated, and although we know that in Spain this celebration occurs on this day because it coincides with the day of the death of San Jose, putative father of Jesus Christ, the truth is that the real origin is a completely different one, then What is the true origin of Father's Day? In Spain Father's Day is celebrated since the 50s , when, following a bell at the department store, Galerias Preciados, it was established that every March 19, it was decided to exalt with gifts to the parents (in 1948 there was already a previous celebration with Mass, gifts and performances in the school of the teacher Manuela Vicente Ferrero which was the first one that I celebrate this day), but it was not in our country where this celebration originated. It seems that the custom of celebrating Father's Day comes to us from the United States and was celebrated for the first time in the early twentieth century, when a young woman decided to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Berlin Wall - Construction, history and fall of the Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall-Construction, history and fall of the Berlin Wall .The construction and especially the fall of the Berlin Wall have been great events that have marked the history of the 20th century since This wall divided Germany into two parts for more than 28 years. In this article we want to explain the background, the history of the construction, the fall and where you can see the remains of the Berlin Wall.all about the Berlin Wall, the Cold War symbol ! Index of the article Background of the Berlin Wall Let's start the article explaining how Germany was and what happened for the construction of the Berlin Wall.When World War II ended Germany was divided , we focused on Berlin where the city was segmented and n four sectors depending on the countries that occupied it.Or what is the same, Berlin was divided into these four sectors of occupation : The Soviet area The American zone The French zone The English zone When four countries with such different pol...
Post a Comment
Read more

Carl Gustav Jung Biography

Carl Gustav Jung (Kesswill, 1875-Küssnacht, 1961) Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist.He studied medicine in Basel, and began his activity at the beginning of this century, in the psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich, of which he was later medical director. Carl Gustav Jung After having followed in Paris, for a semester, the psychopathology courses given by Pierre Janet at la Salpêtrière (1902), He returned to Zurich, worked at the Burghölzli clinic under the guidance of Eugen Bleuler and carried out studies that soon made him famous ( Diagnostiche Assoziations-Studien , 1904-1906). In 1905 he was appointed a free professor of psychiatry.While he was still working in the last clinic mentioned, of which he had become chief physician, he met Sigmund Freud in 1907, with whom he began a fruitful collaboration.He was editor of the Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen , directed by Bleuler and Freud, and in 1911 he became president of the ne...
Post a Comment
Read more

Giambattista Tiepolo Biography

Giambattista Tiepolo (Giambattista or Giovanni Battista Tiepolo; Venice, 1696-Madrid, 1770) Italian painter.He studied the works of Sebastiano Ricci, Veronese and Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, and imitated the chromaticism, with its violent chiaroscuro effects, of the latter.In his early ceiling paintings (Archinti and Dugnani palaces in Milan) he reaffirmed his decorative talent, based on architectural perspectives, trompe-l'oeil paintings and moving crowds. His first important work, the decorative cycle of the archiepiscopal palace of Udine (1727-1728), composed of biblical narratives, already denotes in the conformation of the figures (of great naturalism) and in the composition of the same contributions from the artist himself, although certain influences from Sebastiano Ricci and Veronese are still detected. Feast of Antony and Cleopatra (c.1743), by Tiepolo In Milan he worked in the Clerici Palace; in Venice he did it in the Scalzi church and in the Labia palace.The...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gregory IX Biography

Gregory IX (Ugolino de Segni; Anagni, c .1170-Rome, 1241) Pope of the Catholic Church (1227-1241).Nephew of Pope Innocent III, he studied in Paris and Bologna and in 1206 he was appointed Cardinal Bishop of Ostia by his uncle.A man of notable legal scholarship, he defended with great energy the claims of power of the papacy and the freedom of the church, for which reason he came into conflict with Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen. Pope Gregory IX approves the Decretals (fresco by Rafael Sanzio) Already in 1227 he excommunicated Frederick II for failing to fulfill his promise to undertake a new crusade, and in 1229 ordered the invasion of the kingdom of Sicily.In 1230 he made peace with the emperor, although the struggle between the Church and the emperor continued.In 1239 he again excommunicated Federico II and decreed a crusade against him; the imperial troops were about to enter Rome when he passed away. During his pontificate, Gregory IX founded the Inquisition and, with ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Heinrich Heine Biography

Heinrich Heine (Düsseldorf, present-day Germany, 1797-Paris, 1856) Prussian poet.Of Jewish origin, he studied literature, law and philosophy in Bonn and Berlin; His teachers and friends included Hegel and August Schlegel.His first lyrical compositions date from 1822, clearly influenced by Lord Byron and Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Heinrich Heine In 1823 he published Lyrical Intermezzo , a work linked to two tragedies ( Almanzor and Ratcliff ) of which his melodic vein should be noted, and in 1826 the first part of the Travel Paintings , whose four-volume edition he completed in 1831.These first Prose texts combine a fervent youthful lyricism with a scathing satire against diverse people and institutions.The ironic and agile prose of this work influenced later German authors and laid the foundations for a style that in the same text merged genres such as poetry, short stories, political essays, journalistic chronicles and autobiography. In 1827 Book of Songs was releas...
Post a Comment
Read more

The great conquerors of history

What do you think has been the greatest conqueror in the world? In today's article we will talk about the great world conquerors and what has been the evolution until today. From the beginning of the world to the current moment, as we know it, there have been multiple conquests, battles and wars that have led to the creation of different kingdoms that have remained for a short time or thousands of years. In today's article we will talk about the great conquerors of antiquity: Alexander the Great Attila Genghis Khan Napoleon Bonaparte Adolf Hitler Article index Alexander the Great Alexander the Great is considered the greatest conqueror in history, hence he was called El Grande. The great conquest that you celebrated was that of Persia, territory after territory ended up being part of its empire : Asia Minor, the Mediterranean Levant, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, Central Asia and even invaded India. Attila Attila is another of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Josep Pla Biography

Josep Pla (Palafrugell, Spain, 1897-Llofriu, id., 1981) Spanish writer in Catalan and Castilian languages.In 1918 he moved to Barcelona to study medicine, which he abandoned shortly after, to finally graduate in law.During those years he frequented the gatherings of the Barcelona Athenaeum, where he met Josep Maria de Sagarra and Eugeni D'Ors, among others.He regularly collaborated in various publications (Las Noticias and La veu de Catalunya) and worked as a press correspondent in several European countries.After the Spanish civil war, he collaborated in the magazine Destino and wrote some works in Spanish. Josep Pla Josep Pla's work, very extensive, includes travel chronicles, biographical and historical studies, novels and stories, although his temperament was little given to literary fiction.Enemy of rhetoric and false ornamentation, his style is characterized by its balance and an apparent simplicity, at the service of an acute capacity for observation, so that his ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hans-georg gadamer Biography

Hans-Georg Gadamer (Marburg, Germany, 1900-Heidelberg, 2002) German philosopher.Hans-Georg Gadamer graduated with a doctoral thesis in philosophy directed by Martin Heidegger in Freiburg (1922).He then taught aesthetics and ethics in his hometown (1933), in Kiel (1934-1935) and again in Marburg, where he was appointed extraordinary professor (1937).Two years later he obtained a chair at the University of Leipzig, to later move to the universities of Frankfurt on the Main (1947-1949) and Heidelberg (1949), where he took over from Karl Jaspers as professor of philosophy.He became a professor emeritus in 1968. Hans-Georg Gadamer His most important work, Truth and method.Elements of a philosophical hermeneutic (1960), established the presuppositions and objectives of the hermeneutic current, according to which the world does not exist, but rather different historical meanings of world .Despite the relativism that this conception entails, Gadamer always refers in his writings to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Emilio Butragueño Biography

Emilio Butragueño (Madrid, 1963) Spanish footballer, outstanding striker and scorer of the 1980s.From the 83-84 season he played for Real Madrid, a team in which he spent twelve seasons and with which he won five consecutive leagues (1986 to 1990), two King's Cups, two Super Cups and two UEFA Cups (1985 and 86).In the League he was the top scorer in the 90-91 season. Emilio Butragueño His qualities are remembered for his skill in dribbling short in the area and his fast unmarking.Despite scoring a good number of goals each season, he stood out particularly for his refined passes to his teammates; For years he formed a lethal scorer tandem with the Mexican player Hugo Sánchez. Called "El Buitre", his nickname gave name to a whole generation of excellent Spanish footballers: the so-called "Quinta del Buitre", from the players such as Míchel, Rafael Martín Vázquez, Manuel Sanchis and Miguel Pardeza were part of it.At Real Madrid, the Quinta added their t...
Post a Comment
Read more