National Union of Greece
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National Union of Greece Εθνική Ένωσις Ελλάδος | |
|---|---|
| Founder | Georgios Kosmidis |
| Founded | 1927 |
| Dissolved | 1944 |
| Ideology | National Socialism Greek nationalism Fascism Anti-semitism |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Religion | Greek Orthodox |
The National Union of Greece (Greek: Εθνική Ένωσις Ελλάδος, Ethniki Enosis Ellados or EEE) was an anti-Semitic nationalist party established in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1927.
Registered as a mutual aid society, the EEE was founded by Asia Minor refugee merchants. According to the organisation's constitution, only Christians could join. Its members were opposed to Thessaloniki's substantial Jewish population.
It was led by Georgios Kosmidis (Γιώργος Κοσμίδης), an illiterate Turkish-speaking trader[1] and D. Charitopoulos (Δ. Χαριτόπουλος), a banking clerk.
The party's leaders were the main defendants in the trial held after the Campbell Riot of 29 June 1931, in which Greek nationalist mobs attacked the Jewish "Campbell" settlement in the city. (A co-defendant was Nikolaos Nikos Fardis (Νίκος Φαρδής), editor-in-chief of the Makedonia newspaper.)
Estimates put the party's strength at 7,000 members in 1932; by 1933, it had 3,000 members march to Athens, in apparent imitation of Benito Mussolini's 1922 March on Rome.[2] However, it polled miserably in the 1934 city elections in Thessaloniki, and in 1935, the party imploded as a result of in-fighting. It was revived by the German occupation authorities in 1942, during the Axis Occupation of Greece; many members of EEE became prominent collaborators of the Nazis, and many more joined the Security Battalions and helped in the identification of Greek Jews.
Owing to its paramilitary uniforms and organisation, the party was commonly referred to as "The Three Epsilons" (τα Τρία Εψιλον) or "The Steelhelmets" (οι Χαλυβδόκρανοι), in allusion to the German paramilitary [Stahlhelm] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help).
References
- ^ Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950, London: HarperCollins, 2004, p. 413. ISBN 0-00-712023-0.
- ^ Victor Roudometof (2002). Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict. Praeger/Greenwood. p. 115. ISBN 0-275-97648-3.
External links
Further reading
- Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950, London: HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0-00-712023-0
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Categories:
- Defunct nationalist parties in Greece
- Antisemitism in Greece
- Fascism in Greece
- Greek collaborators with Nazi Germany
- Greek Macedonia in World War II
- Politics of Thessaloniki
- 1920s in Greece
- 1930s in Greece
- 1940s in Greek politics
- Political parties established in 1927
- Political parties disestablished in 1944
- 1927 establishments in Greece
- 1944 disestablishments in Greece