43 Facts About Konstantinos Karamanlis

Konstantinos G Karamanlis, commonly anglicised to Constantine Karamanlis or just Caramanlis, was a four-time Prime Minister of Greece and two-term president of the Third Hellenic Republic.

Konstantinos Karamanlis implemented the extension of full voting rights to women, which had stood dormant since 1952.

Konstantinos Karamanlis's supporters lauded him as the charismatic Ethnarches.

Konstantinos Karamanlis became a Greek citizen in 1913, after the region of Macedonia was annexed by Greece in the aftermath of the First and Second Balkan War.

Konstantinos Karamanlis practised law in Serres, entered politics with the conservative People's Party and was elected Member of Parliament for the first time in the 1936 election at the age of 28.

Konstantinos Karamanlis's rise was strongly supported by fellow party-member and close friend Lambros Eftaxias, who served as Minister for Agriculture under the premiership of Konstantinos Tsaldaris.

In 1951, along with most prominent members of the People's Party, Konstantinos Karamanlis joined the Greek Rally of Alexandros Papagos.

When this party won the Greek legislative election on 9 September 1951, Konstantinos Karamanlis became Minister of Public Works in the Papagos administration.

Konstantinos Karamanlis won the admiration of the US Embassy for the efficiency with which he built road infrastructure and administered American aid programs.

Konstantinos Karamanlis won three successive elections.

Konstantinos Karamanlis was convicted in Greece and sentenced to a 25-year term as a war criminal in 1959.

Konstantinos Karamanlis alleged that he had pressured Karamanlis and Makris to grant amnesty and release him from prison.

Konstantinos Karamanlis rejected the claims as unsubstantiated and absurd, and accused Merten of attempting to extort money from him prior to making the statements.

Konstantinos Karamanlis accused the opposition party of instigating a smear campaign against him.

Merten's accusations against Konstantinos Karamanlis were never corroborated in a court of law.

Historian Giannis Katris, an ardent critic of Konstantinos Karamanlis, argued in 1971 that Konstantinos Karamanlis should have resigned the premiership and pressed charges against Merten as a private individual in German courts, in order to fully clear his name.

Konstantinos Karamanlis considered Greece's entry into the EEC a personal dream because he saw it as the fulfillment of what he called "Greece's European Destiny".

Konstantinos Karamanlis personally lobbied European leaders, such as Germany's Konrad Adenauer and France's Charles de Gaulle followed by two years of intense negotiations with Brussels.

Konstantinos Karamanlis's intense lobbying bore fruit and on 9 July 1961 his government and the Europeans signed the protocols of Greece's Treaty of Association with the European Economic Community.

German Vice-Chancellor Ludwig Erhard and Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak, a European Union pioneer and a Karlspreis winner like Konstantinos Karamanlis, were among the European delegates.

Konstantinos Karamanlis was convinced that Greece's membership in the EEC would ensure political stability in a nation having just undergone a transition from dictatorship to Democracy.

Konstantinos Karamanlis' position was further undermined, and Papandreou's claims of an independently acting "para-state" given more credence, following the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis, a leftist member of Parliament, by right-wing extremists during a pro-peace demonstration in Thessaloniki in May 1963, who were later revealed to have close links to the local gendarmerie.

Konstantinos Karamanlis was shocked by the assassination, was heavily criticized by the opposition of Georgios Papandreou, and he stated:.

The final straw for Konstantinos Karamanlis' government was his clash with the Palace in summer 1963, over the projected visit of the royal pair to Britain.

Konstantinos Karamanlis opposed the trip, as he feared that it would provide the occasion for demonstrations against the political prisoners still held in Greece since the Civil War.

Konstantinos Karamanlis spent the next 11 years in self-imposed exile in Paris, France.

Konstantinos Karamanlis was succeeded by Panagiotis Kanellopoulos as the ERE leader.

US journalist Cyrus L Sulzberger has separately claimed that Karamanlis flew to New York to visit Lauris Norstad and lobby US support for a coup d'etat in Greece that would establish a strong conservative regime under himself; Sulzberger alleges that Norstad declined to involve himself in such affairs.

In 2001, former agents of the Eastern German secret police, the Stasi, claimed to Greek investigative reporters that during the Cold War, they had orchestrated an operation of evidence falsification, to present Konstantinos Karamanlis as having planned a coup and thus damage his reputation in an apparent disinformation propaganda campaign.

Konstantinos Karamanlis was the interim Prime Minister originally deposed by the dictatorship in 1967 and a distinguished politician who had repeatedly criticized Papadopoulos and his successor.

Konstantinos Karamanlis insisted that Karamanlis was the only political personality who could lead a successful transition government, taking into consideration the new circumstances and dangers both inside and outside the country.

Konstantinos Karamanlis was now called to end his self-imposed exile and restore democracy to the place where it was originally invented.

Konstantinos Karamanlis was sworn-in as Prime Minister under President pro tempore Phaedon Gizikis who remained in power in the interim, till December 1974, for legal continuity reasons until a new constitution could be enacted during metapolitefsi and was replaced by duly elected President Michail Stasinopoulos.

Konstantinos Karamanlis attempted to defuse the tension between Greece and Turkey, which were on the brink of war over the Cyprus crisis, through the diplomatic route.

In 1977, New Democracy again won the elections, and Konstantinos Karamanlis continued to serve as Prime Minister until 1980.

Konstantinos Karamanlis served until 1985 then resigned and was succeeded by Christos Sartzetakis.

Konstantinos Karamanlis retired in 1995, at the age of 88, having won 5 parliamentary elections, and having spent 14 years as Prime Minister, 10 years as President of the Republic, and a total of more than sixty years in active politics.

Konstantinos Karamanlis bequeathed his archives to the Konstantinos Karamanlis Foundation, a conservative think tank he had founded and endowed.

Konstantinos Karamanlis died after a short illness in 1998, at the age of 91.

Konstantinos Karamanlis married Amalia Megapanou in 1951, the niece of Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, a prominent politician.

Konstantinos Karamanlis has been praised for presiding over an early period of fast economic growth for Greece and for being the primary engineer of Greece's successful bid for membership in the European Union.

Konstantinos Karamanlis's supporters lauded him as the charismatic Ethnarches.

Konstantinos Karamanlis is recognised for his successful restoration of Democracy during metapolitefsi and the repair of the two great national schisms by legalising the communist party and by establishing the system of parliamentary democracy in Greece.