Early Years
Shehu was born in Çorrush, Mallakastër District, southern Albania; in a family of a Tosk Muslim Imam. He graduated in 1932 at the Tirana Albanian Vocational High School funded by the American Red Cross. His specialty was Agriculture. Unsuccessful in finding employment within the Ministry of Agriculture he managed to get a scholarship to attend the Naples Military Academy. After being expelled from this school for his pro-Communist sympathies in 1936 he gained entry to Tirana Officers School, but he left the following year after volunteering to fight for the republican side in the Spanish Civil War. He joined the Spanish Communist Party and rose to the command of the Fourth Battalion of the XIIth Garibaldi Brigade. After the defeat of the Republican forces he was arrested in France in early 1939 as he was retreating from Spain along with his friends. He was interned in an internment camp in France and later was transferred to an Italian internment camp, where he joined the Italian Communist Party.
Read more about this topic: Mehmet Shehu
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