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National Union of Greece
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Union of Greece (Greek: Εθνική Ένωσις Ελλάδος, Ethniki Enosis Ellados 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) 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 Nikos (Nikoloas) Fardis (Νίκος Φαρδής), editor-in-chief of the Makedonia newspaper.)
Estimates put the party's strength at 1,000 members in the 1930s. It polled miserably in the 1934 city elections in Salonica. 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 during World War II; many members of EEE became prominent collaborators of the Nazis (many 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 "The Three Epilon" (τα Τρία Εψιλον) or "The Steelhelmets" (οι Χαλυβδόκρανοι").
- History of the EEE (in Greek)
- Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950, London: HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0-00-712023-0
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