Nikos Ploumpidis

Who was Nikos Ploumpidis?

Nikos Ploumpidis was a leading cadre of the Greek Communist Party and a famous member of the wartime anti-Nazi resistance.

The son of a poor farming family, he was born in Arcadian Langadia. As a young man he involved himself in politics and in 1926, as a teacher in the village of Milea, near Elassona, he joined the Communist Party of Greece. At the time he was a teacher and in 1930 became a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Union of Civil Servants. However, in 1931 he had to leave the position after he was sacked from his teaching position on account of his political activism. He began to work full-time for the KKE. In 1937 he was responsible for the party in the Thessaly region, and in 1938, he was elected to the Politburo of the KKE.

In 1939 he was arrested by the secret police of the regime of General Ioannis Metaxas, and was imprisoned in Sotiria hospital until his escape in 1942. He then involved himself in the newly formed National Liberation Front and in the communist youth organisation.

After the return of Nikos Zachariadis, the pre-war general secretary of the KKE, from his incarceration in Dachau Concentration Camp, tensions developed between him and Ploumpidis.