The Assassination Attempt on Eleftherios Venizelos

On the night of June 6, 1933, former Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos was targeted by an assassination attempt for the second time, but managed to escape.

The attempt was like something out of a movie, with a seven-kilometer (4.5 mile) car chase and a barrage of bullets coming from the perpetrators’ car.

The great politician got away with only one small bruise. But one passenger in his car and two others in the security car behind him were not that lucky, dying from gunshot wounds.

It was only three months after his seventh (and last) term, serving as prime minister from October 6, 1910, until March 6, 1933, with several intervals in those turbulent years.

As the political leader in the years that Greece doubled its territorial gains after the victorious Balkan Wars (1912-1913), he was loved by most Greeks. He was the first politician who introduced liberal-democratic policies to Greece, modernizing the Greek State.

However, Venizelos had many enemies as well. He was hated by the royalists and the right-wing conservatives, too.

In the elections of March 5, 1933, Venizelos lost to the United Opposition party of Panagis Tsaldaris, Keorgios Kondylis, and Ioannis Metaxas – among others.

The day after the elections, a military coup took place led by Nikolaos Plastiras, who was loyal to Venizelos and his purpose was to prevent Tsaldaris from forming a government. However, the military takeover failed, damaging the prestige of the parliamentary institution and the moral legitimacy of Venizelos’ party.

Venizelos, for his part, never admitted that he had anything to do with the coup attempt,  while Plastiras was forced to flee Greece – initially to Lebanon and then to France. Panagis Tsaldaris was sworn prime minister on March 10.

On May 11, Ioannis Metaxas filed a proposal along with 20 other MPs from the floor of the Parliament to prosecute Eleftherios Venizelos for the coup attempt. The debate was scheduled for May 15, 1933. That was the last day that Venizelos appeared in the Parliament.

The prosecution against him did not proceed, but the situation remained tense, culminating at the near-fatal night of June 6, 1933.

The Venizelos car chase

On the evening of June 6, Eleftherios Venizelos and his wife Helena Venizelos-Schilizzi were invited to the home of author Penelope Delta who hosted a dinner in their honor in her mansion in Kifissia, an upscale northern suburb of Athens.

There were rumors that Venizelos’ enemies wanted the former prime minister dead, and that assassination attempts were being orchestrated against him. The former prime minister was aware of the rumors but he was not afraid. As Penelope Delta herself would later write in her diary, Venizelos had laughingly told her “These are the hazards of the profession”.

The Venizelos couple left the dinner party at 10.55 pm and got into their cars to return to Athens. They were riding a luxurious Packard, while their security guards were following behind on a Ford.

Venizelos’ driver was Ioannis Nikolaou, while next to him sat first lieutenant Ioannis Koufogiannakis. In the Ford, the driver was Filippos Michalopoulos and security guards Andreas Lebidakis, Ioannis Markakis and Andreas Gyparakis were riding with him.

The Ford that was following was slower, and its other disadvantage was that it only had two doors, which made it difficult for those in the back seats to get out.

The shooting

Both vehicles were moving at about 50 kilometers (about 32 miles) an hour on Kifissias Avenue when somewhere in Maroussi, a Cadillac without license plates and its lights off, entered between the two vehicles and blocked the way of Venizelos’ security car.

At the same time, the first shots were fired and bodyguard Markakis, who was riding in the escort car, was hit in the head, to die three days later at the hospital.

Then the assailants started shooting at the Venizelos car. The politician managed to throw his wife to the floor and fall himself. The man sitting next to Venizelos’ driver, had in the meantime ordered the driver to stop to get out of the car, and return the fire at the assassins. This forced the assailants to stop their own car while continuing to shoot at the Packard.

Venizelos realized that by being stationary for so long was extremely dangerous and shouted at the driver to leave quickly. And so the driver did. He drove at a high speed and managed to escape, but only temporarily.

Somewhere in Filothei, the driver realized that one of the rear tires was blown, which forced him to reduce speed. The Cadillac reached them again and bullets started to hit the Packard again, some of them going through the sides of the car.

The Packard driver managed to escape again and took a crucial decision that saved the lives of Venizelos and his wife: while Venizelos told him to head to the Red Cross hospital, as his wife had been injured, he chose to drive to Evangelismos hospital, which was about three kilometers (two miles) further south.

According to testimonies of witnesses later, the potential assassins had planned to ambush them at the Red Cross hospital in case they escaped.

At Evangelismos, first aid was given to Helena Venizelos-Schilizzi, who was slightly injured, and to the driver of the car, who was seriously injured in the left arm, as newspapers reported.

Regarding Eleftherios Venizelos, it was reported that he had no bullet wounds but only suffered a rather light bruise on his right cheek from hitting the car window.

The aftermath of the Venizelos assassination attempt

From the first hours of the Venizelos arrival, a crowd of people started gathering at Evangelismos hospital to support the beloved former prime minister. Ordinary people, friends, politicians and party members crowded the hospital and the surrounding area after the news was heard.

Panagis Tsaldaris publicly disapproved of the act and stated that “the perpetrators will definitely be arrested, and that pertinent ministers and police officers will not keep their posts if they do not fulfill their duty to the fullest”.

On June 10, 1933, the public investigator ordered the arrest of the Commander of the General Security, Ioannis Polychronopoulos, Nikolaos’ brother, police officers Markakos and Tzamaloukas, and known robber Karathanasis.

Eleftherios Venizelos had named with great certainty the Commander of General Security as the organizer of the near-assassination.

The public investigator found evidence that two members of the People’s Party, the Minister of the Interior, Ioannis Rallis, and MP Petros Mavromichalis were morally responsible for the attack. However, the governing majority did not consent to the lifting of their parliamentary immunity. A little later the public investigator would be replaced – a fact that would forever cast shadows on the government and suspicions of its involvement in the assassination attempt.

The trial of the accused began on February 22, 1935. Accused were a total of 18 people, among them two high-ranking police officers, Ioannis Polychronopoulos and Athanasios Dikaios, who were accused of being moral perpetrators, led by the bandit Karathanasis, who had been arrested by ex-soldiers who were Venizelos supporters and not police officers.

The trial was never finalized as it was postponed indefinitely. On March 1, 1935, a new military coup was initiated with the blessings of Venizelos, but it failed due to a lack of clear leadership. Afterward, Venizelos went into self-imposed exile to Paris, France, where he died a year later, on March 16, 1936, at age 71.