Georgios Kartalis

Georgios Kartalis ( Greek Γεώργιος Καρτάλης , * 1908 in Athens , † September 27, 1957 in London ) was a social democratic Greek politician.

Youth and education

Kartalis came from a prominent family from Volos who played an important role in the liberation of Thessaly . His grandfather of the same name was the first mayor of Volos from 1883 to 1891.

Kartalis grew up in Geneva, where he graduated from secondary school, and enrolled at ETH Zurich in 1925 . In the following year he changed subjects and studied economics at the University of Munich and the University of Leipzig . From 1930 to 1932 he studied economics and sociology at the London School of Economics . 1932/1933 he attended courses at the Institute for World Economics in Kiel , in parallel, he studied mathematics .

Political career until 1941

In 1933 Kartalis returned to Volos to take over the chairmanship of the local party after the sudden death of his uncle Constantine. The following year, when he was only 26, he ran for Mayor of Volos, but narrowly lost. However, he was elected to the Greek Parliament for the People's Party in June 1935 and immediately received the post of State Secretary for Economic Affairs in the Panagis Tsaldaris cabinet and a few months later the Ministry of Labor in the Georgios Kondylis cabinet . During his short time in this office he made a significant contribution to the codification of labor law and its adaptation to international conventions.

The dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas led to a break with the royalist tradition of the family. Kartalis became a political supporter of the republic, open to new ideas and modern ideological currents of his time. He participated in several initiatives against the dictatorship. With the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War , he volunteered for the army.

resistance

After the German occupation of Greece, Kartalis and Colonel Dimitrios Psarros founded the resistance organization EKKA in November 1942 , of which he was the political head. This was intended to build a resistance organization outside the communist EAM / ELAS . According to the statutes of the EKKA drawn up by Kartalis, a democratic republic was sought for the post-war period in Greece and a concept of "socialization" as opposed to "nationalization" was advocated.

After the EAM already to disarm "in May 1943 Evzones had forced -Regiments 5/42", the military wing of EKKA, succeeded Kartalis in stubborn negotiations with EAM / ELAS and EDES with the support of the British, an agreement of the rebel organizations that enabled the EKKA to rebuild the regiment. This gave Kartalis a not insignificant position in negotiations with the British and the Greek government-in-exile in Cairo. Even after Regiment 5/42 had been crushed by ELAS in April 1944 and Colonel Psarros was killed, Kartalis still took part in the Lebanon conference on post-war order in Greece as a representative of the EKKA.

post war period

He belonged to several post-war governments as a minister with various areas of responsibility: the government of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou as minister for press and information and, a few days after their return from exile in Cairo after a conflict with the prime minister because of the insistence on the dissolution of the security battalions and Dismissed his firm anti-monarchist position from this ministry as minister without portfolio, the cabinet of Themistoklis Sofoulis as supply minister and the governments of Nikolaos Plastiras as finance minister and coordination minister. In particular, his work as Finance and Coordination Minister, which laid the foundations of economic and fiscal consolidation for economic growth and stability in the 1950s and 1960s, is considered successful.

Kartalis founded the Democratic Party of the Working People with Alexandros Svolos . After he was not re-elected to parliament in 1953, he became mayor of Volos from 1954 until he moved back to parliament in 1956.

Kartalis died of heart failure at the age of 48. More than 50 years after his untimely death, he was celebrated as a particularly skilled politician.

source

• Ta Nea online from January 15, 2000: "Georgios Kartalis: the politician who was misunderstood by his era"
• Kathimerini, September 27, 1957, obituary

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cabinet list of the Tsaldaris government until November 30, 1935 ( Memento of the original from May 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Cabinet list Kondylis government October 10, 1935 to November 30, 1935 ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Cabinet list Papandreou government May 24, 1944 to October 18, 1944 ( Memento of the original of February 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Cabinet list Papandreou government October 18, 1944 to January 3, 1945 ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Cabinet list of Sofoulis II government, November 22, 1945 to April 4, 1946 ( Memento of the original from November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ^ Cabinet list of the government of Plastira April 15, 1950 to August 21, 1950 ( Memento of the original of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ^ Cabinet list of the Plastiras government October 27, 1951 to October 11, 1952 ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Nikos Nikolaou: "The aristocratic politician who stabilized the economy" in: Kathimerini from December 1, 2007 (Greek)
9. ↑ "Konstantinos Mitsotakis: We would have been better off with Kartalis" in: Kathimerini from September 30, 2007 (Greek) ( Memento of the original from February 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.