Aristotelis Tsilingaridis

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Aristotelis Tsilingaridis (Αριστοτέλης Τσιλιγγαρίδης), Batumi, Georgia 1912 - Thessaloniki, Greece 2001, was a Greek army officer and member of EAM-ELAS (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos), the main Greek Resistance movement against the Nazi occupation of Greece from 1941 to 1944.

[edit] Biography

Aristotelis Tsilingaridis, son of Athanasios and Nina, was born in 1912 in the port-city Batumi, then part of Tsarist Russia, now capital city of of Adjara, an autonomous republic of Georgia.

Tsilingaridis' family had to flee their homeland in 1917 in their attempt to escape the persecution of the local Greek population by the Bolsheviks, precipitated by Greece's support for the counter-revolutionary White Movement. His father Athanasios never made it to mainland Greece.

The family settled in the Greek port-city of Thessaloniki. At the age of 19 Aristotelis joined the Infantry and took part in the Albanian campaign, the Greco-Italian War of October 1940 - April 1941. During the Occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany (1941-1944) and the disbandment of the Greek armed forces, Aristotelis went underground and became member of ELAS (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos).

After the war was over, Aristotelis joined the Greek army again and served until retirement in 1960. He was awarded the Golden Medal of Honour no less than five times by the then King Paul of Greece. Aristotelis Tsilingardis died in 2001 at the age of 89. He is survived by his wife Anastasia and his three children.