The National Union of Greece (, ΕΕΕ; ''Ethniki Enosis Ellados'', EEE) was a

far-right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...

political party established in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, in 1927. Registered as a mutual aid society, the EEE was founded by Asia Minor refugee businesspeople. According to the organisation's constitution, only

Christians A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...

could join. Its members were in political and, especially, commercial antagonism with Thessaloniki's substantial Jewish population. It was eventually led by Georgios Kosmidis who claimed to be a Venizelist and so did his party even though it was opposed to most Venizelist principles. Owing to its military uniforms and organisation, the party was commonly referred to as "The Three

Epsilon Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or ; ) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was derived from the Phoenic ...

s" () or "The Steelhelmets" (), in allusion to the German paramilitary . It gained a revival in 1941 when

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

captured Thessaloniki and put it in charge and then it also changed its name to "Εθνική Σοσιαλιστική Ένωση Ελλάδος" (National Socialist Union of Greece) and it also ran the collaborationist newspaper.

References

History of the EEE

References

Further reading