Ivan Gošnjak

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Ivan Gošnjak
June 10, 1909 - February 8, 1980 (aged 70)
Ivan Gošnjak as General of the Army of the FPRY in 1954.
Place of birth	Ogulin, Croatia, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Place of death	Belgrade, SFR Yugoslavia
Allegiance	Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Service/branch	SFR Yugoslavia
Years of service	1942-1974
Rank	General of the Yugoslav People's Army
Commands held	People's Liberation Army and Partisan Units of Croatia, Commander
Battles/wars	Spanish civil war World War II
Awards	Order of National Hero of Yugoslavia
Other work	Member of the Council of Federation

Ivan Gošnjak (Cyrillic: Иван Гошњак) (1909-1980) was the Minister of Defence of Yugoslavia from 1953 to 1967.

Ivan Gošnjak was a carpenter by profession and joined CP of Yugoslavia in 1933. In 1935 Gošnjak was sent to Moscow and was enrolled for one year at the Lenin School where he also attended lectures by certain Comrade Walter, how during World War II became world-famous as Josip Broz Tito. In 1936 Gošnjak was sent to a military barracks in Ryazan were he was given the designation "Number 36", instead his real name and was given military instruction before being sent as a "volunteers" to the Spanish civil war in January 1937. A great admirer of Stalin, Gošnjak was appointed a captain in the International Brigades. After the defeat of the republican forces in Spain, Gošnjak was detained in France 1939. After the capitulation of France in 1940 Gošnjak escaped from the camp, going in 1941 to Germany as a worker. In Germany he used a faked passport, and in July 1942 returned to his native Croatia and immediately joined Tito's partisan units.

As a Spanish civil war veteran, Gošnjak was immediately appointed as deputy commander-in-chief, a post which he held until the end of the war.

In 1946 Tito wanted to send him to complete his military studies at the Soviet Voroshilov Miliatry Academy, but Gošnjak asked him for permission to stay in Belgrade and work in Central Committee. Tito agreed and later appointed him as deputy Defence Minister (1946-1953). At the Fifth Yugoslav CP congress Gošnjak was elected a member of Politburo and later was made a member of the Executive Commeittee (the new name for the Politburo), elected at the sixth (1952), seventh (1958), and eighth (1964) party congresses. In 1953 Gošnjak became Defence Minister, a post which he held until 1967 when he was replaced by General of the Army Nikola Ljubičić.

Stalin could never forgive Gošnjak for taking, as a former student of the Lenin School, Tito's side in confilict between USSR and SFR Yugoslavia. At Rajk Trial in Budapest (1949) General Gošnjak was accused "of having been a Gestapo agent from 1941 onward". But General Gošnjak and his comarde, General of the Army Kosta Nađ (who was also accused of having been a Gestapo agent), "where from 1941 to 1945 commanders of strategic units of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, and toward the end of the war commanded corps that dealt the Germans heavy blows."

General Ivan Gošnjak retired from active military service in 1974 and since then he was a member of the Council of Federation, and advisor body to President Tito. ^[1]