Dan Ḥiram

Dan Ḥiram was born in 1924 in Czechoslovakia

Dan Hiram was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, as Robert Klepter. His father, Otto Klepter, held a doctorate in law and was a close friend of Franz Kafka and Max Brod. His mother, Hedwig Hermann Klepter, was a physician.

He moved to the Land of Israel in 1939 with Youth Aliyah and lived at Kibbutz Ein Gev and later Givat Haim. In 1940 he volunteered for the British army and served in a coastal artillery battery on Mount Carmel. In 1944 he joined the Jewish Brigade and fought on the Senio River in Italy in March 1945, receiving a commendation.

In the War of Independence he commanded a battery in the Northern Command. As Chief Artillery Officer from 1957, he reorganized the corps after the Sinai War, added self-propelled guns and adopted American survey and ranging methods. He later served as military attaché in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, as an armament adviser to the defense minister, and as coordinator of civilian affairs in the held territories after the Six-Day War.

After leaving the IDF in 1969 he headed exports at the Citrus Marketing Board. He was director general of the Ministry of Transport from 1972 to 1975, where he chaired committees that led to the Hadera coal terminal, and of Ayalon Highways from 1976 to 1982. In November 1984 he headed an inquiry into the stowaway affair, and he donated his body to science.