Giovanni Gronchi

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Giovanni Gronchi

Giovanni Gronchi (born September 10, 1887 in Pontedera , Tuscany , † October 17, 1978 in Rome ) was the third President of the Italian Republic from 1955 to 1962 .

Life

Gronchi's mother died when he was six years old. As the son of a commercial clerk, he grew up in simple circumstances. He financed his higher education and university studies in Pisa with various secondary jobs. After graduating from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Gronchi worked as a teacher in some northern Italian cities.

Since 1902, as a practicing Catholic, Gronchi was interested in the modernist movement of the theologian Romolo Murri , whose Lega democratica nazionale Gronchi joined in 1905. Like his mentor, Gronchi was in favor of Italy's entry into World War I , which brought him into conflict with other Catholic-minded politicians. As a war volunteer and infantry officer, Gronchi distinguished himself several times at the front and received two bronze and one silver medals for bravery .

At the beginning of 1919 the Catholic people's party Partito Popolare Italiano was founded by Don Luigi Sturzo in Rome . One of the founding members was Giovanni Gronchi, who won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies in the parliamentary elections in Italy in 1919 and then almost quadrupled the number of his votes in the early elections of 1921. In April 1920 he was also elected general secretary of the Catholic-oriented trade union CLC. Despite its explicit criticism of fascist violence excesses he was of Benito Mussolini end of October 1922 in the government appointed State Secretary in the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which Gronchi initially brought again in contrast to several party colleagues. After the PPI party congress in Turin in April 1923, all PPI politicians were removed from the government. Until May 1924, Gronchi remained on the party executive. Re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1924, Gronchi joined the Aventinians , an anti-fascist group of opposition politicians from various parties, after the murder of the Socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti . With the creation of a one-party system by Mussolini, Gronchi lost his parliamentary seat in late 1926 and withdrew from politics until 1942. Cecilia Comparini, who married Gronchi in 1913, died in 1925; Gronchi moved to his sister in Milan, where he stayed during the fascist era and worked as an entrepreneur. In addition, he dealt intensively with the economic and political ideas of John Maynard Keynes , which he championed after the end of fascism. In 1941 he married Carla Bissatini, who was 25 years his junior.

During the Second World War , Gronchi became a member of the national liberation committee CLN and prepared among others with Alcide De Gasperi the re-establishment of the PPI under the new name Democrazia Cristiana . On June 3, 1944, one day before the liberation of Rome, Gronchi played a leading role in the conclusion of the so-called Roman Pact, with which all anti-fascist unions were amalgamated in the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro , in which he was until its definitive split in the year 1948 played a leading role. From 1944 to 1946 he was Minister for Industry and Trade. From 1946 to 1948 Gronchi was DC group leader in the Assemblea Costituente , the constituent assembly of the Italian Republic proclaimed in 1946. Shortly after the parliamentary elections in Italy in 1948 , in which the Democrazia Cristiana won an absolute majority of the seats, Gronchi was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies, an office he held until he took office as President in 1955.

Gronchi belonged to the left wing of the DC, which he de facto led for a long time . When the United States demanded the expulsion of communists and socialists from government in exchange for economic aid, whom Prime Minister De Gasperi had held in government despite an absolute majority in his party, Gronchi spoke out against the deal. He was not in favor of Italy joining NATO . Despite his office as President of the Chamber of Deputies, he spread his political views again and again in the party magazine Politica sociale and also in the newspaper La libertà .

President

President Gronchi (center) at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome

Inner-party quarrels paved Gronchi the way to the Quirinal Palace . The candidacy of Senate President Cesare Merzagora , suggested by the party executive of the DC, turned out to be unsuccessful and so Gronchi was elected President of the Republic as a compromise candidate on April 29, 1955 by parliament in the fourth ballot with 658 of 883 votes cast . Communists and socialists still remembered Gronchi's position on the occasion of their expulsion from the government; they promised themselves other foreign policy accents from him and, especially the socialists, support for renewed participation in government. Despite his more representative functions, Gronchi was particularly active in foreign policy, especially in comparison to his predecessor Luigi Einaudi , who had completely refrained from traveling abroad (except for the Vatican) in protest against the terms of peace that were perceived as unjust (especially the assignment of territories in the northeast). In the United States, Gronchi was received with suspicion for his political views in 1956, but then passed with great benevolence. During a visit to Moscow , the political differences between him and Nikita Sergejewitsch Khrushchev proved to be insurmountable. Visits to France , the FR of Germany , Iran , Turkey and the United Kingdom were also important . Gronchi was the first Italian head of state to visit Latin American states. Domestically, he immediately demanded the establishment of the constitutional constitutional court and the self-governing body of judges and public prosecutors CSM . He also campaigned for the outstanding regionalization of Italy , which, also provided for by the constitution, was not fully implemented until 1970. Numerous domestic trips and social initiatives testify to his interest in the reconstruction of the country after the disastrous Italian participation in the war. He could do little to counter the political instability within; it led him several times to political initiatives and statements that belonged more to the area of ​​responsibility of government and parliament.

At the end of his term as President of the Republic, Gronchi became a Senator for life by law . He joined the mixed parliamentary group in the Senate because he could no longer identify with the politics of the Christian Democrats. He rarely attended Senate meetings; in the last years of his life he was more interested in art and culture. Gronchi died in Rome in 1978 at the age of 91.

As President Giovanni Gronchi carried out the following official trips abroad:

Awards

As President, Gronchi was the head of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and three other Italian Orders of Merit . In the First World War he received three medals for bravery and two war merit crosses, in 1965 a medal for education, art and culture.

As President of the Republic, Gronchi received the following awards from other states or subjects of international law (selection):

Web links

Commons : Giovanni Gronchi  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of trips on archivio.quirinale.it
  2. ↑ Alfio Doveri: Giovanni Gronchi - parlamentare e Uomo politico Pisano. Pacini Editore, Pisa 1987. p. 45
  3. ↑ Entry on quirinale.it
  4. ↑ Entry on quirinale.it
  5. ↑ Entry on quirinale.it
personal data
SURNAME Gronchi, Giovanni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION third President of the Republic of Italy (1955–1962)
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Pontedera
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1978
Place of death Rome