Ioannis Tsigantes

Ioannis Tsigantes
Native name	Ιωάννης Τσιγάντες
Born	(1897-12-01)December 1, 1897 Tulcea
Died	January 14, 1943(1943-01-14) (aged 45) Athens, Occupied Greece
Cause of death	Killed by occupation forces
Allegiance	Kingdom of Greece
Service / branch	Hellenic Army
Rank	Lieutenant colonel (Posthumously awarded after his death) Major
Unit	Midas 614
Battles / wars	Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) World War II Greco-Italian War Greek resistance
Alma mater	Hellenic Military Academy
Relations	Christodoulos Tsigantes

Ioannis Tsigantes-Svoronos (Greek: Ιωάννης Τσιγάντες-Σβορώνος; 1897 - January 14, 1943) was a Greek soldier. Dismissed from the army due to his participation in the pro-Venizelist coup attempt of 1935, he was active in the resistance during the Axis occupation of Greece as part of the Midas 614 organization. He was killed by the Italian occupation authorities in Athens on January 14, 1943.

Life

Ioannis Tsigantes was born in Tulcea, Romania on December 1, 1897, and was the brother of Christodoulos Tsigantes, also an officer; the family originally hailed from Mytilene. He took part in the Asia Minor Campaign and played a leading role in the establishment of the Hellenic Military Organization (ESO).

In 1935, as a captain, he participated in the pro-republican coup attempt. On the night of March 2–3, he escaped from the Hellenic Military Academy, where he was serving, and moved towards Perama, certain that the movement had failed. There he was arrested, remanded in custody and sentenced by an Extraordinary Military Tribunal to "life imprisonment" for high treason, on March 31, 1935, together with his brother Lt. Col. Ch. Tsigandes, Col. Stefanos Sarafis and Lt. Col. Stefanakos. This sentence resulted in his public degradation on April 2, 1935, in the infantry barracks at Goudi, (today Freedom Park).

With the restoration of the monarchy in October 1935, Tsigantes received an amnesty. When the Greco-Italian War began in 1940, however, he was not recalled to service with his previous rank, but was demoted to the rank of private, like his brother. However, after the death of dictator Ioannis Metaxas, the government of Emmanouil Tsouderos, which in the face of the German invasion of Greece had moved to Crete, at the suggestion of the Crown Prince Paul, reinstated him to the rank he held as well as those who participated in the 1938 Greek coup attempt. During the Axis occupation of Greece, Tsigantes escaped to the Middle East, where he was promoted retroactively to major, joining a circle of officers cooperating with the English secret services (MO4), with the aim of organizing resistance with the assistance of the pre-war bourgeois parties, as a counterweight to the leftist EAM in Greece.

Resistance and Death

In the summer of 1942 the Allied forces in North Africa were in a very difficult position after Rommel's offensive. Middle East Command then ordered the Prometheus II group, controlled by the Special Operations Executive in Athens, to carry out widespread sabotage, which would have the effect of delaying the supply of German forces in North Africa, and blocking the Corinth Canal. Blocking the canal was an undertaking of the utmost importance, but it was not achieved. It was then decided to organize an independent mission by forming a nine-member organization headed by Ioannis Tsigantes, which, in addition to blocking the Corinth Canal, would seek to collect and transmit information, establish a council that would coordinate the resistance, and begin an armed liberation struggle.

At the end of July 1942, the mission arrived in Greece with an English boat in a bay of Mani Peninsula. Tsigantes, appearing as a representative of the British and in possession of 10,000 pounds, gave priority to the development of the Midas 614 organization and started contacts with almost all political actors and resistance organizations in the country in order to achieve some form of cooperation. It is characteristically reported that one of his associates came into contact with 37 people, while Tsigantes himself contacted no less than 300 people, including university professors and the publisher Dimitrios Lambrakis. However, this effort did not have the expected results, as on the one hand various organizations believed that Tsigantes' mission had become known to the occupation authorities and risked being exposed, and on the other hand due to the spendthrift way his associates spent the money they had brought with them.

At the same time, as Christos Zalokostas notes in his work on the period of the occupation, Tsigantes had raised suspicions in many circles because he was talking about a politically neutral movement, not hostile to a return of King George II from exile. Tsigantes himself had participated in the republican coup of 1935, but the republicans in Greece did not forgive him for having placed himself under the orders of the royal Greek government-in-exile in Cairo. Even his old colleague, Stefanos Sarafis, was wary of him, considering him a renegade and he was not convinced to work with him until the end of 1942, after to the mediation of their mutual friend, Dimitrios Psarros. In addition Tsigantes displayed a reckless behaviour, neglecting to take protective measures. The police chief of Athens, Angelos Evert, had picked him up and provided him with a fake policeman's ID. In exchange for this, Tsigantes sent to Cairo a report that highly praised Evert, which Panagiotis Kanellopoulos included in his book.

On January 14, 1943, an Italian military detachment surrounded his hideout, in an underground apartment on Patision Street 86, in the center of Athens (near the Athens University of Economics and Business). Tsigantes, displaying his police officer identity card, failed to convince the Italians. Finally, and after previously burning his files, he engaged them in a firefight and lost his life, although he managed to injure three Carabinieri, one of whom succumbed to his injuries.

He was posthumously promoted to lieutenant colonel as "fallen on the field of battle". A commemorative plaque was placed in the building where Ioannis Tsigantes was killed in 1984.

There was a mysterious traitor in the "story" of Tsigantes, who called the occupying authorities every time and betrayed his hiding places, but Tsigantes always managed to escape, except for the fateful moment in the Patision Street apartment. In fact, the last phone call, according to sources from the Cities Police, of people who were close to the occupiers but gave information to the resistance fighters, was made by an unknown woman, who, however, may have been bogus so that the real traitor would never be found. Although various investigations were carried out post-war, even by order of the Hellenic Parliament, it has not been possible until today to ascertain who betrayed Tsigantes.