The ESPO ( el, Ελληνική Σοσιαλιστική Πατριωτική Οργάνωσις, translation=Hellenic Socialist Patriotic Organization) was a
collaborationist
Wartime collaboration is cooperation with the enemy against one's country of citizenship in wartime, and in the words of historian Gerhard Hirschfeld, "is as old as war and the occupation of foreign territory".
The term ''collaborator'' dates to t ...
, pro-
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
organization created in the summer of 1941 in
German-occupied Greece, under the leadership of Georgios Vlavianos and later Dr.
Spyros Sterodimas. Its members were ultra-nationalists, Nazis, and fascists aiming to help the Axis occupation forces against
Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
.
One of their main actions was the ransacking of the synagogue on
Melidoni Street, Athens, by the ESPO's youth section.
The bombing
Dr. Sterodimas, meanwhile, was trying to recruit Greek youth to create a Greek division of the
Waffen SS, but was killed together with other 28 members of ESPO (and 48 German soldiers) when the
PEAN
The Panhellenic Union of Fighting Youths ( el, Πανελλήνιος Ένωσις Αγωνιζόμενων Νέων, ''Panellínios Énosis Agonizómenon Néon'', ΠΕΑΝ, PEAN) was a Greek Resistance organization during the Axis Occupation o ...
resistance
Resistance may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Comics
* Either of two similarly named but otherwise unrelated comic book series, both published by Wildstorm:
** ''Resistance'' (comics), based on the video game of the same title
** ''T ...
group blew up the organization's headquarters in central Athens. His death meant the abandonment of these plans, and the effective end of ESPO. During the
Day of Atonement
Yom Kippur (; he, יוֹם כִּפּוּר, , , ) is the holiest day in Judaism and Samaritanism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar. Primarily centered on atonement and repentance, the day's ...
services, on September 22, 1942, the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
seized ten prominent Jews in retaliation for this explosion.
[Markos Vallianatos, The untold history of Greek collaboration with Nazi Germany (1941-1944)] After the death of Sterodimas, the leadership passed to
Aristeides Andronikos, who left to Austria in September 1944 with other collaborators.
Today there is a small monumento to PEAN's leader,
Kostas Perrikos
Kostas Perrikos ( el, Κώστας Περρίκος; 23 April 1905 – 4 February 1943) was a Greek Air Force officer and leader of the PEAN resistance movement in World War II. He is the father of the UN arms control Commissioner Dimitris Perri ...
at the place.
References
1941 establishments in Greece
1942 disestablishments in Greece
Political parties established in 1941
Political parties disestablished in 1942
1940s in Greek politics
Defunct nationalist parties in Greece
Fascism in Greece
Greek collaborators with Nazi Germany
Athens in World War II
Nazi parties
Collaboration with the Axis Powers
Antisemitism in Greece
Anti-communist parties
Far-right political parties in Greece
Greek Orthodoxy in Greece
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