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Aris Velouchiotis
Athanasios Klaras (Greek: Αθανάσιος Κλάρας; August 27, 1905 – June 15, 1945), better known by the nom de guerre Aris Velouchiotis (Άρης Βελουχιώτης), was a Greek journalist, politician, member of the Communist Party of Greece, the most prominent leader and chief instigator of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) and the military branch of the National Liberation Front (EAM), which was the major resistance organization in occupied Greece from 1942 to 1945.
Athanasios Klaras was born in Lamia, Greece in 1905, to an urban upper class family of Aromanian origin. His father was Dimitrios Klaras, a well-known lawyer in the area and his mother was Aglaia Zerva. Initially Klaras studied journalism, but later attended and graduated from the Geoponic School of Larissa. He left for Athens, where he did various jobs, participated in the leftist and antimilitary movement and later became a member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). During the 1920s and 30s he was jailed several times for different offenses.
He became an editor in the communist Rizospastis and wrote several articles supporting socialist revolution. In 1931, an article by Klaras caused the intervention of the authorities, who shut down the newspaper and proceeded to prosecute its editors. The newspaper was republished as Neos Rizospastis.
"If there is a moment in my life which I see with pride is when I entered the communist party.......It is honour for me and the communist party, because I survived from the corruption of my consciousness and I adorned Klaras, who was a lost case, with only pure revolutionary characteristics."
During the Metaxas regime (1936–1941), there was an "unprecedented witch-hunt" against Greek communists. Velouchiotis was arrested for his communist ideas at the end of 1936 and jailed in Aegina, where he was tortured under the police interrogation techniques refined by Konstantinos Maniadakis, the Minister of Security. He managed to escape during transport from Aegina to Athens for trial in 1937, but was arrested soon thereafter and sent back to Aegina for an additional four years. He remained imprisoned there until signing a "statement of renouncement of KKE and of the communist ideology," a very humiliating act for a communist at the time. These statements of renouncement, called "declarations of repentance", were then distributed to the authorities in the signatory's home village. These confessions were often publicly published listing both the actions for which the signatory had confessed, as well as wholly fabricated confessions, marking the signatories as dilosias (renegades) in their home villages. This left a mark on Velouchiotis' name, both with those supporting the Metaxas dictatorship, but also from the communists, who saw his declaration as a capitulation.
During World War II, he fought as an artillery private of the Hellenic Army at the Albanian front against the Italian army, until the German invasion in April 1941 and Greece's subsequent surrender and occupation.
After Germany's offensive campaign in the Soviet Union, the Greek Communist Party championed the creation of the National Liberation Front (EAM), and Klaras was sent to Central Greece (Greek Roumeli) to assess the potential for the development of a guerrilla movement against the occupation forces in this area. His proposals were adopted by the party, and in January 1942, Klaras moved to the mountains to start setting up guerrilla groups.
The first appearance of the partisans organised by Klaras occurred on June 7, 1942, in the village of Domnista in Evrytania in Central Greece. There he presented himself as Major of Artillery (in hopes of gaining extra prestige among the villagers) with the nom de guerre of Aris Velouchiotis (from Ares, the Greek god of war, and Velouchi, a local mountain) and proclaimed the existence of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS). Initially, he collected also the traditional local mountain bandits in order to create a small group of experts in guerrilla fighting. Velouchiotis as a leader applied steely discipline and managed to have under his commands a considerable number of guerillas. Starting with only 15 men, ELAS' power finally comprised up to 50,000 guerillas.
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Aris Velouchiotis
Athanasios Klaras (Greek: Αθανάσιος Κλάρας; August 27, 1905 – June 15, 1945), better known by the nom de guerre Aris Velouchiotis (Άρης Βελουχιώτης), was a Greek journalist, politician, member of the Communist Party of Greece, the most prominent leader and chief instigator of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) and the military branch of the National Liberation Front (EAM), which was the major resistance organization in occupied Greece from 1942 to 1945.
Athanasios Klaras was born in Lamia, Greece in 1905, to an urban upper class family of Aromanian origin. His father was Dimitrios Klaras, a well-known lawyer in the area and his mother was Aglaia Zerva. Initially Klaras studied journalism, but later attended and graduated from the Geoponic School of Larissa. He left for Athens, where he did various jobs, participated in the leftist and antimilitary movement and later became a member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). During the 1920s and 30s he was jailed several times for different offenses.
He became an editor in the communist Rizospastis and wrote several articles supporting socialist revolution. In 1931, an article by Klaras caused the intervention of the authorities, who shut down the newspaper and proceeded to prosecute its editors. The newspaper was republished as Neos Rizospastis.
"If there is a moment in my life which I see with pride is when I entered the communist party.......It is honour for me and the communist party, because I survived from the corruption of my consciousness and I adorned Klaras, who was a lost case, with only pure revolutionary characteristics."
During the Metaxas regime (1936–1941), there was an "unprecedented witch-hunt" against Greek communists. Velouchiotis was arrested for his communist ideas at the end of 1936 and jailed in Aegina, where he was tortured under the police interrogation techniques refined by Konstantinos Maniadakis, the Minister of Security. He managed to escape during transport from Aegina to Athens for trial in 1937, but was arrested soon thereafter and sent back to Aegina for an additional four years. He remained imprisoned there until signing a "statement of renouncement of KKE and of the communist ideology," a very humiliating act for a communist at the time. These statements of renouncement, called "declarations of repentance", were then distributed to the authorities in the signatory's home village. These confessions were often publicly published listing both the actions for which the signatory had confessed, as well as wholly fabricated confessions, marking the signatories as dilosias (renegades) in their home villages. This left a mark on Velouchiotis' name, both with those supporting the Metaxas dictatorship, but also from the communists, who saw his declaration as a capitulation.
During World War II, he fought as an artillery private of the Hellenic Army at the Albanian front against the Italian army, until the German invasion in April 1941 and Greece's subsequent surrender and occupation.
After Germany's offensive campaign in the Soviet Union, the Greek Communist Party championed the creation of the National Liberation Front (EAM), and Klaras was sent to Central Greece (Greek Roumeli) to assess the potential for the development of a guerrilla movement against the occupation forces in this area. His proposals were adopted by the party, and in January 1942, Klaras moved to the mountains to start setting up guerrilla groups.
The first appearance of the partisans organised by Klaras occurred on June 7, 1942, in the village of Domnista in Evrytania in Central Greece. There he presented himself as Major of Artillery (in hopes of gaining extra prestige among the villagers) with the nom de guerre of Aris Velouchiotis (from Ares, the Greek god of war, and Velouchi, a local mountain) and proclaimed the existence of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS). Initially, he collected also the traditional local mountain bandits in order to create a small group of experts in guerrilla fighting. Velouchiotis as a leader applied steely discipline and managed to have under his commands a considerable number of guerillas. Starting with only 15 men, ELAS' power finally comprised up to 50,000 guerillas.