Kveder, Dushan

Pre-war years

He was born on April 9, 1915 in Scenture. Father is a teacher by profession. He studied at the Ptuj gymnasium, at the age of 16 he became interested in politics. He was expelled from school for a year for contacts with youth revolutionary organizations, but in 1933 he graduated from it. He entered the Faculty of Technology (Department of Chemistry) in Zagreb, in the same year he was admitted to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. He founded a party cell at the department, but was discovered, expelled, and sentenced to six months in prison. He returned after liberation to Ptuj and continued to work in the local branch of the Communist Party.

In the fall of 1934, Dushan entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Ljubljana, however, due to illness, he took the documents and returned to Ptuj. From the fall of 1935 to the summer of 1936 he worked in the Slovenian Committee of the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia. He was the editor of the magazine “Smooth Travels” from November 8, 1935 to June 23, 1936 until the magazine was banned. Fleeing the persecution, fled to France.

Spanish Civil War

In Paris, Quedère gathered volunteers for the International Brigades, taking up a position in the Yugoslav emigration commission of the French Communist Party . From September 1936 to August 1937, he edited the magazine “Voice of Isenec”, and in August 1937, as part of a Yugoslav group of volunteers, he went to Spain on the fronts of the Civil War. He rose to the rank of captain in the 129th international brigade. From February 1939 to May 1941 he was a prisoner of a concentration camp, escaped from there only in July 1941.

Yugoslav People's Liberation War

Upon returning home, Kweder established contact with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia; in August 1941, he headed the Brezhitsa partisan company in Lower Styria; after its defeat, he moved to Dolenjsko, where he became the political officer of the 2nd Styrian battalion (he held the post from December 14, 1941 to April 4, 1942 ). Later, the battalion expanded to the 2nd group of detachments, and soon the group grew into the 4th operational zone. From December 26, 1942 to May 1943, Kveder was the group’s political leader, returning to Dolenjsko a little later and becoming an instructor at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the General Staff of the NOAA in Slovenia. In August 1943, Dushan became the chief of the operational department of the General Staff of the NOAA in Slovenia; on October 17, 1943, he became the political officer of the 3rd Alpine operational zone. On December 22, he was already appointed commander of the 9th Slovenian corps. At the end of 1943 and until the end of the war, Kweder began to work as chief of the Main Staff of the NOAA in Slovenia.

After the war

After the war, Kveder from 1946 to 1948 studied at the Higher Military Academy named after K. E. Voroshilov, served as assistant commander of the Belgrade Military Academy. He became the first editor of the Military Encyclopedia and the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Voyennoe Delo ( Serb. Voyno delo ). Demobilized in 1955 with the rank of colonel general.

In 1955 he was appointed ambassador of Yugoslavia to Ethiopia. He later served as ambassadors in the Federal Republic of Germany (1956-1957), India (1958-1962), and Great Britain (1965-1966). From 1962 to 1965 he was an assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. During his lifetime, he was awarded a number of orders and medals, including the Order of the People's Hero ( July 15, 1952 ) and the Order of the Cross of Grunwald I degree.

He died on March 12, 1966 in Belgrade . He was buried in Ljubljana at the Cemetery of Popular Heroes.

• "Folk Heroes of Ugoslavia". Beograd: Mladost. 1975.