Galer, Wilim

Born on January 11, 1911 in Prugovac near Bjelovar . Worked in the mail. He joined the revolutionary labor movement while studying at the gymnasium in Belovar, becoming a member of the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia . After graduation, he worked in post offices in the cities of Slavonski Brod , Osijek and Zagreb , was a member of the Commonwealth of Postal Workers of Croatia. He collaborated with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, was accepted into its composition in 1940 with the approval of the Warrior Kovachevich , a member of the Zagreb District Committee. An underground party cell was created at Zagreb post by Vilim, whose secretary he became: the cell was engaged in printing campaign materials and party press, hiding returning veterans of the Civil War in Spain, taking its members out of Zagreb by rail to the cities of Belgrade, Split and Rijeka.

In the summer of 1941, after the occupation of Yugoslavia began, Galer completed a very serious task, establishing a permanent channel of communication between the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Belgrade . In August 1941, Galer was sent to a special task force to carry out a sabotage in the Zagreb post office , the order was given to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia, Rade Konchar . Galer took assistants to Nadu Galer, Slavko Marcon and Josip Chulyat (the second detachment was led by Voin Kovachevich along with Blazh Mesarich, Antun Bieber and Ante Milkovich) and soon he delivered the explosives secretly to the post office on Yurishicheva Street. On September 14, 1941 , an operation took place: five improvised explosive devices, which were located in three branches of the automatic telephone exchange, detonated simultaneously. They were brought into the device by an underground agent Nikola Rupchich, by dialing several phone numbers.

As a result of the explosion, the communication line of the Ustash leadership with the German command and the communication lines of the German command with its headquarters in the USSR, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and occupied Serbia were disabled. The long-distance telephone system was completely destroyed; the automatic telephone exchange itself was seriously damaged. The station was restored after 7 months, and the Ustash authorities did not catch saboteurs: despite the reward of 100 thousand kunas announced for the capture of each of the Galera group, no one was able to catch the saboteurs. The moral and political effect was not less: the partisan underground managed to deliver a serious blow directly to the heart of the Independent State of Croatia, which made citizens ’trust in the Ustash authorities tremble very seriously.

After the explosion, Galer with his group went to Kordun, where he led the 2nd company of the 3rd battalion of the 2nd Kordun partisan detachment, operating in the Slunya sector. March 4, 1942 Wilim Galer died in a battle with the Ustash near Sturlich (near Slunj).

On November 27, 1953, by decree of Josip Broz, Tito was posthumously awarded the Order and the title of People's Hero of Yugoslavia.

• “ Folk Heroes of the Urugoslav ”. Beograd: Mladost. 1975.

• Oružane akcije i diverzije, sa portala Zagreb se bori (Croatian)