Stylianos Pattakos

Stylianos "Stelios" Pattakos ( Greek Στυλιανός "Στέλιος" Παττακός , alternative transcription Stylianos Patakos ; born November 8, 1912 in Agia Paraskevi, Rethymno province , Crete ; † October 8, 2016 in Athens ) was a Greek military and politician . Along with Georgios Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos, he was one of the three leading figures (colonels) of the military coup against the Panagiotis Kanellopoulos government on April 21, 1967, with which the Greek military dictatorship began.

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education

Pattakos received his officer training at the Scholi Evelpidon in Athens, the Greek officers' academy. He completed his officer training in 1937. As an officer, he took part in the battles of the Greek Army in World War II from October 1940 to the end of April 1941.

Greek Civil War

During the Greek Civil War from March 1946 to September 1949, Pattakos commanded Greek army units against the Communist Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). After the civil war he was first promoted to colonel and in January 1963 to brigadier general. In this capacity he commanded the armored division in Attica , which was stationed in Goudi . In March 1967 Pattakos hit the headlines because of the ongoing trial of the officers of the so-called Aspida conspiracy . On March 22nd, he had the defendant Papageorgopoulos detained for five hours, contrary to his powers of attorney.

dictatorship

During his service in Attica, Pattakos met Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos and Colonel Nikolaos Makarezos, with whom he led the military coup on the night of April 20-21, 1967. Immediately after the coup, Pattakos became Minister of the Interior in the first dictatorial government under Prime Minister Konstantinos Kollias . In this office he was responsible for “internal security” and “public order” in Greece, and for this purpose he prosecuted opponents of the regime with the security organs under his control. The actress Melina Mercouri , who publicly opposed the military junta, deprived Pattakos of her Greek citizenship. Mercouri responded to this measure by saying:

“I was born a Greek and will die a Greek. Mr. Pattakos was born a fascist and will die a fascist. "

- Melina Mercouri .

His extremely nationalist to fascist political stance was made clear by the following address in 1968:

“Young people from Greece,… you have taken Greece in your arms and your creed has the meaning of a sacrifice, from the time of 'come and take her' (molṑn labé) of Leonidas, later of 'I will not leave the city to you 'of Konstantinos Palaiologos, the' No 'of Metaxas and finally the' Stop or I'll shoot 'of April 21, 1967 ... Today's ceremony is a re-baptism in the sources of the tradition of our ancestors; an expression of the national belief that the race of the Greeks is the greatest and best under the sun. "

- Stylianos Pattakos, 1968.

During the change of government on December 13, 1967, when the de facto most powerful man Georgios Papadopoulos replaced Konstantinos Kollias, who had fled into exile with the king, as prime minister after the failed counter-coup by King Constantine II , Pattakos remained in the office of interior minister. In addition, he held the post of Deputy Prime Minister from December 13, 1967. He became the official deputy of Papadopoulos and replaced General Spandidakis in this function. Pattakos held the office of Minister of the Interior until the reorganization of the Papadopoulos government on August 25, 1971: he was replaced on August 26, 1971 by Adamantios Androutsopoulos . He retained the office of Deputy Prime Minister. On May 10, 1973 Androutsopoulos resigned from the office of Minister of the Interior; Pattakos took over the department temporarily until the government reshuffle on October 8, 1973.

After the mutiny on the Greek destroyer Velos , Papadopoulos accused the exiled king of inciting mutiny and deposed him. In a subsequent referendum on the form of government in Greece, Papadopoulos was "elected" President of the Republic for a period of eight years. In his new capacity as President on October 8, 1973, he appointed the politician Spyros Markezinis as the new Prime Minister. With this government reshuffle, Pattakos lost both the office of interior minister and the office of deputy prime minister: Pattakos was no longer a member of a subsequent government.

With the fall of the Greek military dictatorship in July 1974, Pattakos was arrested and subsequently brought to justice. In the trial, Pattakos was sentenced to death for high treason; the death penalty was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment . In 1990 Pattakos was released from prison for health reasons. He died as the last member of the former military junta on October 8, 2016 at the age of 103.

literature

• Pavlos Tzermias: Modern Greek History: An Introduction . Basel: Francke, 1999
• Eleni Vlachou : Greece. Documentation of a dictatorship . Verlag Jugend und Volk, 1972.

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1. ↑ Manousakis, Gregor: Hellas - Where to? The relationship between the military and politics in Greece since 1900. Verlag Wissenschaftliches Archiv, Godesberg 1967. S. 214.
2. ^ Newspaper article in the Greek newspaper Eleftheria of January 4, 1963, page 8 (available online from the Greek National Library).
3. ^ Newspaper article in the Greek newspaper Eleftheria of March 22, 1967, page 8 (available online from the Greek National Library).
4. ↑ Quoted from: Clogg, Richard: History of Greece in the 19th and 20th centuries. A demolition. Romiosini Verlag, Cologne 1997. p. 200. ISBN 3-923889-13-7 .
5. ^ Tzermias, Pavlos: Modern Greek History. An introduction. 3. Edition. Francke Verlag, Tübingen and Basel. 198. ISBN 3-7720-1792-4
6. ^ Clogg, Richard: History of Greece in the 19th and 20th centuries. A demolition. Romiosini Verlag, Cologne 1997. p. 204. ISBN 3-923889-13-7 .
7. ^ Tzermias, Pavlos: Modern Greek History. An introduction. 3. Edition. Francke Verlag, Tübingen and Basel. P. 212. ISBN 3-7720-1792-4
8. ↑ member of / Greek-junta-pattakos.html Greece index Article about Pattakos  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 23, 2009  
9. ↑ Washington Post of October 11, 2016: "Stylianos Pattakos, last surviving member of Greek junta leaders dies at 103"

predecessor	Office	successor
Spyridon Theotokis	Interior Minister of Greece April 21, 1967 - August 25, 1971	Adamantios Androutsopoulos (dictatorship)
Adamantios Androutsopoulos	Interior Minister of Greece May 10, 1973 - October 8, 1973	Ioannis Agathangelos (dictatorship)
Grigorios Spantidakis (dictatorship)	Deputy Prime Minister of Greece December 13, 1967 - October 8, 1973	Charilaos Mitrelias (dictatorship)