Spiro Moisiu, a high-ranking military officer and anti-fascist fighter, was born in Kavaja. He completed elementary school in his hometown and secondary school in Austria (1918). After returning to his homeland, he served in the gendarmerie (1918–1919). He participated in the defense forces of the Congress of Lushnja (1920). He commanded government troops against the intervention of Serbian chauvinists (September-October 1920, in Kaptina e Martanesh). He was promoted to lieutenant (1923). In 1924, he aligned himself with the June 1924 Revolution. After Ahmet Zogu came to power, he was reinstated in the army (January 1, 1925). He served in various positions in the army until he became a battalion commander. He completed the one-year course for major officers and was promoted to major (1937–1938). As the commander of the border battalion in the Shkodër-Shëngjin area, he led the resistance against the Italian fascist aggression on April 7, 1939. During the Italo-Greek War (October 1940 – April 1941), Spiro Moisiu, at the head of the “Tomorri” battalion he commanded, opposed to take part in combat operations against the Greek army in the area of Korça, and together with the other Albanian battalions, abandoned the war front. For this act he was discharged from the army, interned with his battalion in the Shijak concentration camp and sentenced to death. In order to soften the political opinion, he was taken back into the Albanian formations (1941), but was released (1942), after he joined the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Movement. He worked in the district of Lushnja, where he was elected chairman of the National Liberation Council for Myzeqe (1942). There he worked on the mobilization of the people in the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War and organizing partisan formations (the detachment and the “Myzeqeja” battalion, April 1943) and was accepted as a member of the Albanian Communist Party (April 1943). At the meeting of Labinot (July, 1943) the National Liberation General Council appointed him commander (chairman) of the General Staff. At the Përmet Congress (First National Liberation Anti-Fascist Congress) he was appointed chief of the General Staff of the National Liberation Partisan and Volunteer Army and was promoted to major general. After the liberation, he served as the head of the General Staff of the National Liberation Army and led the beginning of the modernization of the National Army (1945-1946). In 1947, he was released (early retirement). He was reinstated in the army in January 1949 and appointed chairman of the Military Regulations Commission and commander of the Tirana Garrison (1949-1956). In 1963 he was promoted to lieutenant general. He was released in 1966 (reserved officer). He passed away in 1981. Spiro Moisiu was a member of the People’s Assembly in all legislatures. He is decorated with war and military service orders and medals. The Defense Academy of the Republic of Albania bears his name. (In the photo: Spiro Moisiu)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2, Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1755-1756.
Photo: © https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4501482
Graphic processing: AHCF
