1974: Beqir Balluku, Albanian Minister of Defence
November 5th, 2017 Headsman
On this date in 1974, the deposed Albanian Defence Minister Beqir Balluku was shot … a bit of an occupational hazard for the post considering a like fate for a predecessor 25 years before.
Balluku (English Wikipedia entry | Albanian | German) fought as an anti-Nazi partisan during World War II and ascended to the brass of the postwar communist state by the late 1940s. Thus positioned, he aided the dictator Enver Hoxha in a notable 1956 purge that earned him a derisive namecheck from Nikita Khrushchev.
The Albanians are worse than beasts — they are monsters. Only later did we learn how the Albanian Communist leaders punished and eliminated members of their own Party. They had a sort of troika: Hoxha, Shehu and Balluku. These three used to bring someone to trial, and Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu would sentence the accused to death themselves, without ever putting anything in writing; then they would look for an opportunity to have their victim murdered secretly, and Balluku would personally carry out the execution. It was all very similar to the system used by Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria.
The unrepentant Stalinism of this “troika” would lead Albania to its strange Cold War alliance with China against Moscow and the power of Hoxha et al would long outlast that of Khrushchev.
But such things never last forever, after all. By the 1970s, friction between the party and the military (and between Albania and China, a relationship that closely implicated Balluku) led Hoxha increasingly to fear a coup d’etat. Hoxha struck first in 1974 by suddenly felling the entire top ranks of the armed forces: not only Balluku but also generals Hito Cako and Petrit Dume.* Balluku had been 22 years the trusted Minister of Defence and 26 years a member of the Politburo, a dependable ally of the chief the entire time but it needed mere weeks to “eat him alive”. (Albanian link)
* These generals would be executed one month after Balluku.
On this day..
- 1959: Guenther Podola - 2020
- 1849: Pierre Dudragne, avarice - 2019
- 2009: Xu Wei, Jilin gangster - 2018
- 1607: Jan Le Loup, Maastricht werewolf - 2016
- 1915: Louis Bundy, "I would like to have shown the world what I could do" - 2015
- 1864: Four Confederate soldiers, under Burbridge's Order 59 - 2014
- 1556: Hemu - 2013
- Executioner-in-Chief: a tour of U.S. Presidents and the death penalty - 2012
- 1927: Alfredo Jauregui, Bolivian lottery winner - 2012
- 1978: 12 coup plotters in Yemen - 2011
- 555: Rusticus and John - 2010
- 2009: Khristian Oliver, Bible basher - 2009
- 1941: Arndt Pekurinen, conscientious objector - 2008
- 1925: Sidney Reilly - 2007
- Themed Set: Spies - 2007
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Albania,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Politicians,Power,Shot,The Worm Turns,Treason,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1970s, 1974, beqir balluku, communism, enver hoxha, november 5, purge, tirna
