The leadership of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party have maintained that they are ‘nationalists and not fascists’ and that previous photographs depicting them and and party’s members performing Nazi salutes are actually depicting ancient Roman / ancient Greek salutes.
Yet those rather flimsy explanations are once again refuted by photographs that are included in the court evidence amassed against the party. The party’s leadership and MPs currently face trial on multiple charges included establishing and operating a criminal organisation.
Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos
The photographs published today by the newspaper Efimerida Ton Syntakton were found to be in the possession party’s leadership. Several from around the period when Golden Dawn was founded by Nikos Michaloliakos in the 1980s depict the leader of the neo fascist party and a key deputy, Christos Pappas, giving Nazi salutes in makeshift Nazi uniforms and in front of swastikas, the symbol of the SS and pictures of Hitler.
The photographs appear to corroborate that which is widely believed of Golden Dawn – i.e. that from its inception the organisation was modelled on Hitler’s Nazi party for which its founders had great admiration.
A young Christos Pappas is also seen wearing a Nazi armband and giving a Nazi salute in front of a graveyard of German soldiers from WWII.
The adulation of Nazi war criminals is far from confined to the party’s past. A much more recent photograph – believed to be from the winter solstice of 2012 – show Golden Dawn spokesperson and MP Ilias Kasidiaris holding a Nazi flag and saluting with other party members.
Ilias Kasidiaris (bottom row, second from right and other Golden Dawn members)