Born on December 6, 1912, in Hungary. In 1938 he joined Betar, and two years later immigrated to Eretz Israel aboard the Skaria, an illegal immigrant vessel organized by Betar.
After spending six months in the Atlit internment camp, he joined the Betar company at Rosh Pina, and then found his way to the ranks of the Irgun. In 1941, he joined the British army in order to fight the Nazi enemy, and together with his comrades in the Jewish Brigade came to the aid of Holocaust survivors in Europe.
After his demobilization, in March 1946, he resumed his activity in the Irgun and joined its Fighting Force. While still on demobilization leave, he took part in the requisition of weapons from a British army depot near Natanya. Ten days later set out on his second and last operation - the attack on the Ramat Gan police station. He was severely wounded, caught by the British and sentenced to death. He was 35 when he went on April 16, 1947 to the gallows, together with his comrades - Alkahi, Dresner and Kashani.
On Tuesday, April 23, 1946, a military vehicle approached the Ramat Gan police station, and let off about a dozen 'Arab prisoners' , escorted by 'British soldiers'. The 'prisoners' were taken into the station, and the 'British sergeant' in charge of the convoy informed the desk sergeant that the Arabs had been caught stealing at the Tel Litvinsky army camp (present-day Tel Hashomer) and were to be detained. While the desk sergeant was deciding what to do with them, the 'prisoners' and their escorts took out revolvers and ordered the policemen to put up their hands and file into the detention cell. Within moments, the unit had taken over the police station, and then moved towards the armory, blasting open the door. Meanwhile the 'porters', led by Dov Gruner, had entered the building. They removed the weapons from the armory and loaded them onto a waiting truck. A policeman on the upper storey noticed the activity, and directed machine-gun fire at the attackers. He shot the Irgun Bren gunner, who had taken up position on the balcony of the building opposite the police station, and then fired at the 'porters', who continued to load weapons while bullets whistled around them. When they had completed their task, the truck drove off to an orange grove near Ramat Gan.
The commander of the operation, Eliezer Pedatzur (Gad), counted his men and discovered that three were missing: the Bren gunner Yisrael Feinerman, who had been shot and killed while covering the 'porters' from the balcony of the building opposite the police station; Yaakov Zlotnik, who was fatally wounded while running to the truck (his body was discovered hanging on the barbed wire) and Dov Gruner, who had sustained jaw injury, had fallen into the trench beside the fence and was taken captive. The British took Gruner to Hadassah hospital in Tel Aviv, where he was operated by Professor Marcus. Gruner spent twelve days at Hadassah, with an armed guard posted outside his room around the clock. From there, he was transferred to the government hospital in Jaffa, and then to the medical division of the central jail in Jerusalem.
On January 1, 1947, seven months after his arrest, Gruner's trial opened at the military court in Jerusalem. He was charged with firing on policemen, and setting explosive charges with the intent of killing personnel 'on His Majesty's service'. When asked if he admitted his guilt, Gruner replied that he did not recognize the authority of the court to try him, had no intention of taking part in the proceedings, which he did not want translated into Hebrew for his benefit. Instead, he read a statement to the judges:
I do not recognize your authority to try me. This court has no legal foundation, since it was appointed by a regime without legal foundation.
You came to Palestine because of the commitment you undertook at the behest of all the nations of the world to rectify the greatest wrong caused to any nation in the history of mankind, mainly the expulsion of Israel from their land, which transformed them into victims of persecution and incessant slaughter throughout the world. It was this commitment—and this commitment alone—which constituted the legal and moral basis for your presence in this country. But you betrayed it willfully, brutally and with satanic cunning. You turned your commitment into a mere scrap of paper.
When the prevailing government in any country is not legal, when it becomes a regime of oppression and tyranny, it is the right of its citizens—more than that, it is their duty—to fight this regime and to topple it. This is what Jewish youth are doing and will continue to do until you quit this land, and hand it over to its rightful owners: the Jewish people. For you should know this: there is no power in the world which can sever the tie between the Jewish people and their one and only land. Whoever tries to sever it—his hand will be cut off and the curse of God will rest on him forever.
There was a silence in the courtroom after Gruner's statement. The prosecutor delivered his address and summoned witnesses .In an unusual move, the prosecutor pointed out several factors in favor of the accused: his five years' service in the British army, his good conduct during his service, his participation in fighting on the Italian front and the severe injury he suffered, which left him disabled. This statement had no effect on the judges, and after a brief consultation, the president of the court announced that Gruner had been found guilty on two charges. On the first charge, he was sentenced to be hung by the neck. The court reserved the right to determine the punishment for the second charge. Immediately after the reading of the sentence , Gruner rose to his feet and declared:
“In Blood and Fire Judea fell, in Blood and Fire Judea will rise again.”
a quotation from a poem written by the poet Yaakov Cohen after the 1903 Kishinev pogroms, which became the slogan of the Hashomer organization.
Dov Gruner was taken to the death cell under heavy guard, and dressed in scarlet garments. He spent 105 days in the cell, alternating between hope and despair, while leaders and public figures in Palestine and abroad interceded with the British government to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. Heavy pressure was also exerted on Gruner to plead for clemency, but he insisted on being treated as a prisoner of war and refused to sign the request.
Forty eight hours before the date fixed for the execution, Gruner wrote a letter from his cell to the Irgun commander, which he concluded with the following words:
“I am writing these lines 48 hours before our oppressors are due to carry out the murder, and at such times one cannot lie. I swear that if I had the choice of starting again, I would choose the same path I have followed regardless of the possible consequences for me.”
Article taken from Etzel online.