Alexandros Zannas

Alexandros Zannas ( Greek Αλέξανδρος Ζάννας ; * 1892 in Thessaloniki , † 1963 in Athens ) was a Greek industrialist and politician.

Life

Alexandros came from an important Greek family in Thessaloniki. After graduating from high school, he went to Germany to study engineering at the Technical University of Stuttgart , where in 1911 he became a member of the Corps Stauffia . In 1912 he interrupted his studies to fight for the independence of Greece in the Balkan Wars . In 1913 he continued his studies in Stuttgart. After the outbreak of World War I he returned to Greece. After the December elections of 1915, boycotted by the liberals, he was one of the founders of the National Defense Committee , along with Periklis Argyropoulos, Dimitrios Dingas' and Emmanouil Zymvrakakis , which recognized Eleftherios Venizelos as a political leader and made contact with army officers and the Cretan gendarmerie.

Initially secretary for aviation in the Venizelos government from December 1929 to March 1930, Alexandros Zannas was Greece's first aviation minister from March 1930 to May 1932. Under his political leadership, the Greek Air Force was formed into an independent military force. From February 1932 to May 1932 he was also Minister of Agriculture.

He was re-elected in the 1933 parliamentary elections, in which the royalists won a majority, and sided with his friend Nikolaos Plastiras in the 1935 movement . During the occupation of Greece in World War II , he became involved in the nationalist resistance and was imprisoned for a few months by the Italian occupation administration. After his release, he continued his political commitment and was re-elected in 1950. He was a member of the board of the Liberal Party.

By Georgios Papandreou Zannas was appointed director of the Thessaloniki International Fair. He was married to Virginia Delta (1897–1980), daughter of the writer Pinelopi Delta . A grandson of Alexandros Zannas and Virginia Delta is the Greek Prime Minister Andonis Samaras .

Fonts

• Ο Μακεδονικός Αγών - αναμνήσεις , Thessaloniki 1960
• Η Κατοχή - αναμνήσεις, επιστολές , Athens 1964

literature

• More recent encyclopedic lexicon Helios , Volume 8, p. 653
• Carl Heydt: Chronicle of the Corps Stauffia zu Stuttgart , 1960, pp. 64, 122