The ‘National Socialist Party of Greece’ and its Contacts with Italy: Contribution to the Study of Greek Fascism Eleftheria MANTA * Keywords: George Merkouris, National Socialist Party of Greece, fascism abroad, Greek fascism, CAUR Abstract: The economic crisis of the early 1930s facilitated the spread of fascist ideas in Greece. It was in this context that George Merkouris founded the National Socialist Party of Greece, on 7 April 1933. Merkouris’ contacts with Italian fascism and the CAUR began in February 1934. What the Greek politician wanted was support for the National Socialist Party and help with propagating fascist ideas in Greece. Having secured assurance of financial support from Italy, Merkouris decided the publication of a newspaper called Ethniki Simaia (‘National Flag’). Its first number appeared on 9 December 1934. The purpose was to disseminate the ‘new ideas’ to the mass of the people, these ‘new ideas’ representing the need to change the parliamentary system that had led the nation into an impasse. Merkouris also participated to the Montreux Conference (December 1934), which was organised by PNF and the CAUR, intending to serve as a forum for Europe’s fascist forces. He was elected as a member of the Organising Committee, which would prepare the next International Fascist Conference the following year. The political developments in Greece of 1935, put an end to any dealings between Merkouris and the Italian Fascist Party. Finally, with its ban on all political parties the Metaxas dictatorship of 4 August, 1936 spelled the end for the National Socialist Party itself. The economic crisis of the early 1930s, which brought about the devaluation of the drachma (1932) and the paralysis of Greece’s political system, also affected the country in other ways, one of which was facilitating the spread of fascist ideas. Up until 1932, Greece’s bourgeois political class remained oriented towards the parliamentary tradition, even as the democratic deficit became more and more obvious. It concurred in the repression of labour demands and social unrest and from time to time expressed admiration for the Italian regime, but for all that fascist-type expressions remained circumscribed trends within the bourgeois parties. With the eruption of the economic crisis in Greece in 1932, however, this picture changed, as the political climate became more polarised and anti-parliamentary fascist ideas spread, challenging the parliamentary system ever more vigorously and overtly. 1 One characteristic sign of the new current was the complicity of the larger middle class parties, corrupted by fascist ideas, in weakening the work of the Greek Parliament and thus in effect debilitating parliamentary democracy per se . Several representatives of the more conservative and royalist factions intensified their contacts with retired and serving * Lecturer of Modern History, Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ([email protected], [email protected]). 1 Spyros Marketos, Πώς φίλησα τον Μουσολίνι ! Τα πρώτα βήµατα του ελληνικού φασισµού (Athens: Vivliorama, 2006). Studia Universitatis Cibiniensis. Series Historica, vol. 9-2012, p. 89-108 90 Eleftheria MANTA military officers, paving the way for more sweeping changes; although few in number, they formed a particularly dynamic strand within the political fabric. This new internal schism deepened early in 1933, when the confrontation between the rival political factions fomented active movements, further deteriorating the already tragic image of the political climate and poisoning Greek society. The impossibility of forming stable governments in the wake of the 1932 and 1933 elections created in Greece conditions similar to those that in other countries had opened the door to fascism. It is, therefore, unsurprising that from the beginning of that decade a segment of urban society was seeking in Italian fascism models for institutions and ways of dealing with the ‘crisis of democracy’ for which that movement was entirely responsible. Throughout the 1920s the ‘splendid virtues’ of fascist Italy and the achievements of Mussolini’s regime had been systematically reported, and by 1930 Italian fascism had become an ‘acceptable’ regime in the eyes of many Greeks, perhaps even a ‘good and desirable’ one, and in any case an effective system. Mussolini was idolised as the man who had saved Italy from the ‘communist peril’ and set it on the path of progress, making it a shining political example and the first successful fascist paradigm. The collapse of democracy was rendered less disturbing by the existence of this glorious Italian precedent. And so fascist discourse in Greece steadily moved onto a higher plane. The major difference between Greek and Italian fascism, of course, lies in the absence in Greece of a broad popular base; in the Greek version, there was no mass, nation-wide fascist movement. The Greek approach, as has been correctly observed, was more selective, the Greek admirers of Mussolini seeing in fascism a regime, a type of state, a technical solution, rather than a social movement. 2 The founding of the “National Socialist Party of Greece” It was in this context, the paralysis of the parliamentary system, that George Merkouris, son of Athens mayor Spyros Merkouris, founded the National Socialist Party of Greece, which came into existence on 7 April 1933, 3 although its advent had been announced in the press at least two months earlier. 4 From his first appearance on the political stage, in 1916, as a member of the Populist Party, George Merkouris had held high office, including ministerial posts, and had always been close to George Kondylis, 5 whom he admired. In 1932 he was elected deputy in Athens with more votes than any other candidate, but disagreed with party leader Panagis Tsaldaris on the question of forming a grand coalition cabinet. 6 In March 1933 he left the Populist Party to form his own group, which despite its 2 Christos Chatziiossif, “ Κοινοβούλιο και ∆ικτατορία ,” in Ιστορία της Ελλάδας του 20 ού αιώνα , vol. B2 (Athens: Vivliorama, 2002), 37-124. 3 The party was officially recognised as a political association by the Athens Court of First Instance on 2 August 1933. 4 Iakovos Chondromatidis, Η µαύρη σκιά στην Ελλάδα . Εθνικοσοσιαλιστικές και φασιστικές οργανώσεις στην Ελλάδα του Μεσοπολέµου και της Κατοχής (1941-1944) (Athens: Periskopio, 2001). 5 General and statesman (1879-1936). One of the country’s most royalist politicians, he put down the Venizelist insurrection of 1935 and was the prime mover in the restoration of King George II. 6 After the elections of 25 September 1932 neither of the two main parties, the Populists and the Liberals, was able to form a government alone. Following lengthy negotiations and under pressure from Liberal leader Eleftherios Venizelos for a coalition cabinet, the Populists under Panagis Tsaldaris eventually formed a minority government that the Venizelists agreed to allow to function. The ‘National Socialist Party of Greece’ and its Contacts with Italy … 91 name was not in fact an expression of national socialism. As we shall see, its tenets, positions and contacts place it closer to those parties that were leaning towards fascism and right-wing totalitarianism and seeking the support of and association with Italy, the “great and mighty” state that was the chief protagonist and unchallenged model for the system: “The National Socialist Party of Greece turns spontaneously to the principles of Fascist belief and embraces it fraternally ”. 7 George Merkouris himself admired the dictator Mussolini, felt himself “drawn sympathetically” towards the Italian state, and sought to introduce many of its principles into the Greek reality. Let us, then, take a closer look at this newly founded political entity. Its purpose, as declared in its Constitution, was to “restore National Unity, Social Solidarity and Discipline as a means of achieving the fuller moral and material well-being of the people”. This aim would be pursued through labour in the service of the country’s interests, the moral and political education of the people, strengthening patriotic, religious and family feeling and inspiring national self-confidence. Another point worth noting is the fact that one element of the organisational structure described in that Constitution was the “National Socialist Combat Units” that were to be set up at the party headquarters in each prefecture, 8 in obvious imitation of the corresponding “Italian Fasci di combattimento”, the political organisations through which Mussolini entrenched his authority at local level before his October 1922 ‘March to Rome’, and the German paramilitary “Freikorps”. Their founder and leader was, of course, George Merkouris. The party flag was a white cross on a blue ground with the figure of Herakles severing the heads of the Lernaean Hydra in the centre, a symbol intended – according to Merkouris – to express the party’s determination to “fight evil and anarchy in every imaginable form and variety”. 9 As for the party’s name, it proclaimed precisely its ideological and programmatic orientation: it signalled on the one hand the activation of the nation as an historic entity and cultural value, as the projection of the individual, the family, the community, the homeland, national traditions, and on the other the defence of social justice. It aimed, in other words, at uniting all social groups in common action, at an ideal union of not only capital and labour but indeed of all the country’s productive forces: 10 “ Our movement is a national one… We are indeed a political and a social revolution ”. 11 The state envisioned by the National Socialist Party was a paternal one, which would devote itself to the improvement of the people and to public health, which would seek to heal society from corruption and modernisation, which would provide the means “to create a valiant Youth” and give it a healthy education in accordance with the traditional values of religion, family, country and devotion to God, which would encourage Greek women to be good wives and mothers, and which would defend the Greek language against vulgarisation.