German Busch
| Germán Busch | |
|---|---|
 |
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| 41st and 43rd President of Bolivia | |
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In office 13 July 1937 – 23 August 1939 |
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| Preceded by | David Toro |
| Succeeded by | Carlos Quintanilla |
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In office 17 May 1936 – 20 May 1936 |
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| Preceded by | José Luis Tejada Sorzano |
| Succeeded by | David Toro |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Germán Busch Becerra March 23, 1904 San Javier, Bolivia |
| Died | August 23, 1939 (aged 35) La Paz, Bolivia |
| Nationality | Bolivian |
Germán Busch Becerra (San Javier, Santa Cruz or El Carmen de Itenez, Beni, Bolivia, March 23, 1904 – August 23, 1939) was a former Bolivian military officer, hero of the Chaco War (1932–1935, in which Bolivia was defeated by Paraguay), and president of Bolivia between 1937 and 1939. Busch also served as president for three days during May 1936.
Germán Busch's birthplace is still under dispute, some historians pointing to San Javier, in central Bolivia's hot, fertile, coffee-growing region, others to El Carmen de Itenez, in a northern cattle-growing region. His father was a physician, a German immigrant, and his mother was of Italian descent. At some point in Busch's childhood, his father went to Germany, while sending the young boy and his mother to live in Trinidad. He attended provincial school there and entered military college at the age of 18.
Known for his torrid, fearless, and reckless temperament, he seemed to dominate the Bolivian army by force of his personality alone (in addition to his feats of bravery on the field), despite his relatively lower rank. In the first stages of the Chaco War, he saved an entire division from certain destruction during the battle of Gondra, as well as a part of his own cavalry regiment -fighting on foot- which he drove out from the Campo Vía pocket. As a Major, he took part, and carried the bulk of the action, in the highly controversial coup d'état that overthrew the Constitutional President Daniel Salamanca in November 1934, right in the middle of the war and in the very theater of operations. The reason for this was the constant butting of heads of the Bolivian High Command with Salamanca over the conduct of the war and the issuing of military appointments and promotions. Busch again conspired in 1936, this time overthrowing Salamanca's successor and former vice-president, José Luis Tejada, and installing his higher-ranked friend and comrade David Toro as de facto President. Toro presided over a reformist experiment called Military Socialism (championed by Busch) for a bit over a year, before Busch himself overthrew Toro and installed himself in the Palacio Quemado on July 1937, alleging that Toro's controversial past made him a liability to the regime and he was better off leading it.
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