Ivan Kramberger

Ivan Kramberger
Personal details
Born	May 4, 1936 Negova, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Slovenia)
Died	June 7, 1992 (aged 56) Jurovski dol, Lenart, Slovenia

Ivan Kramberger ( pronunciation ) also styled as the "benefactor of Negova" (Slovene: dobrotnik iz Negove) (May 4, 1936 – June 7, 1992) was a Slovenian inventor, writer, philanthropist, and politician.

Kramberger was born in Negova, Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He was one of eleven children born to a poor family. He made his fortune in Germany, where he worked in a hospital as a technician and patented a series of improvements for a dialysis machine. The money he obtained through his invention was distributed among poor people in Slovenia in a Robin Hood manner, and also for purchasing dialysis machines for hospitals in Slovenia. He lived in modest conditions with his wife and children. He was known for his hobby of collecting and repairing vintage cars. He was a very eccentric figure in the Slovene media and politics. As a populist figure, he held political speeches on Prešeren Square in Ljubljana. He had the ability to make long speeches without using notes. With popular backing, he was one of the Slovene presidential candidates in the 1990 elections, in which he obtained 18.5% of the votes and placed third. In 1992 he said that he would not campaign any longer for the presidency, but he wanted to enter parliament with his political party.^[1] He was assassinated under unusual circumstances before the campaign started. The presumed shooter, Peter Rotar, was drunk; he was charged with shooting from a great distance and was sentenced to prison. The motivation and circumstances for the murder remain unexplained.^[2]

References

1. "Remembering the fathers". The Slovenia Times. June 21, 2007. Retrieved April 2, 2010. External link in |publisher= (help)
2. "Motivation for the assassination" (in Slovenian). Ivan Kramberger Junior blog. June 17, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2010.