Dimitris Deliolanis: The ideological roots of Golden Dawn

The Pavlos Fyssas murder case and guilty verdict handed out to the leaders of Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi) brought Michaloliakos’ organization to the forefront of the news, while for some time it had been relegated to the back burner. The question of the origin of the name of Golden Dawn, a party that, at some point, was the third largest in Parliament, has been raised for many years. In an interview with Telecity in 1994, Konstantinos Plevris had wondered if this was Chrysavgi, the mistress of Ali Pasha of Ioannina!

The explanation that Michaloliakos himself has given for the name of his organization is comical. After denying any connection to the “Satanist” and “Mason” Crowley, he quoted a convolutated story about the “Homeric word Eos”, after which he had originally considered naming his group. However, because, according to Kazantzakis, he had to translate it into “rose-fingered dawn”, he chose “The Golden Dawn of Hellenism”.

It is interesting, however, that the theorist of fascism in Greece (K. Plevris) referred to a forgotten Ali Pasha concubine and not to the well-known occult society, for which the “Fourth of August” apologist of the Greek Metaxas dictatorship holds conflicting emotions. The mystical aspect of National Socialism is indeed the subject of intense controversy, even rupture, between European neo-fascist movements. As a rule, they mainly hold a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity.

After all, at a time when Crowley’s message was at its peak in Western Europe, Benito Mussolini had no intention of coming to a compromise with him. In 1923, as soon as the fascist regime had stabilized, Il Duce arranged for the British “sorcerer” to be expelled from Sicily, wherein 1920 he had made his home along with his followers.

His Sicilian residence was a farmhouse that he called by the Greek word “Thelema” outside the city of Tsefalos (ancient Kefaloidion). The presence and action of a Satanist on Italian soil was a challenge to the fascist movement. The fascists were closely linked to the Catholic Church from the outset, as evidenced by the signing of the concordat between the regime and the Vatican in 1929.

Occult Golden Dawn roots

The choice of Golden Dawn to already refer through its name to the deepest occult roots of National Socialism is in complete harmony with the Nazi character of the organization. Awareness of the fact that National Socialism has left disastrous memories in Greece, in recent years has forced the representatives of the organization to artfully hide their ideological identity behind that of the “nationalists”.

This is based on a sophistry devised by Plevris: the fascists are the Italian nationalists, the Nazis are the German nationalists, they themselves happen to be Greeks, so they can be labeled neither fascists nor Nazis, but only “Greek nationalists”. By the same token, ignoring the fact that some ideological groups have a bad habit of crossing borders and gaining followers worldwide, the Communists could only be Russians, the liberals could only be Britons, and so on.

It is obvious that we are facing an attempt to hide the true nature of the organization, analogous to the genuine (conscious) lies that Golden Dawn sometimes spreads, in order to substantiate some supposed “Greek identity”. Such a lie, for example, is that the fascist salute is in fact an ancient Doric salute, or that the organization’s oldest symbol, the Nazi Wolfsangel, is in fact “the symbol in ancient linear B called X-ray.”

Blut, Ehre, Goldene Morgenroete

The National Socialist character of Golden Dawn is proven From the numerous presumptions arising from the overall action and theoretical musings of the organization from its foundation after 1980 onwards. This element, however, alone is not enough to repel the masses and limit its impact.

What is most interesting is to document the distance that separates the German-inspired National Socialist theory of Golden Dawn from Greek nationalism, as it was historically molded. In other words, by fully adopting the German National Socialist doctrine, the Golden Dawn is in complete opposition to the historical conception of the Greek nation, in all the theoretical nuances that characterized it from antiquity to the present day.

Golden Dawn, even in its most famous slogan, speaks of “blood” and “honor” (translation of the Hitler Youth motto “Blut und Ehre”). It refers, that is, to models completely alien and unrelated to Greek tradition. The “blood” is clearly that of the “Aryan race” destined to dominate the planet, based on the dark occult prophecies of which Hitler was a believer and avid evangelist.

What is most interesting is to document the distance that separates the German-inspired National Socialist theory of Golden Dawn from Greek nationalism, as it has been historically formed. In other words, by fully adopting the German National Socialist doctrine, the Golden Dawn is in complete opposition to the historical conception of the Greek nation, in all the theoretical nuances that characterized it from antiquity to the present day.

Golden Dawn, even in its most famous slogan, speaks of “blood” and “honor” (translation of Hitler Youth’s Blut und Ehre). It refers, that is, to models completely foreign and unrelated to the Greek tradition. The “blood” is clearly that of the “Aryan race” destined to dominate the planet, based on the dark occult prophecies of which Hitler was the bearer and exponent.

The theory of “blood lineage” 

The theory of “blood lineage” culminated in the 19th century in the first structured racial theory formulated by Arthur de Gobino. Its roots, however, lie in the feudal social model that developed in Western Europe from the 5th century. The feudal system was based on the strict hierarchy of titulars and feudal lords, as well as on the inheritance of the title and office.

This is evident from the medieval and renaissance obsession with feudal family genealogical trees. In this social and political context, “blood” is a decisive factor in the formation and identification of the ruling class, its citizens, society as a whole, and consequently of the people and the nation itself. In the Greek world, however, the notion of “blood” is in stark contrast to these standards. In this land, the concept of “blood” has never exceeded the narrow perception of the family context: the Greek characterizes as “his blood” only first-degree relatives.

The explanation is simple: in the history of Greece, the western feudal system never tookl deep roots. Both in Byzantium and in the Ottoman Empire, local rulers were state officials appointed by the imperial court. All attempts by these officials to enforce the succession of the title failed.

So the political significance of “blood” remained limited to the narrow confines of family certification, and without any political significance. The same thing happened with the tax collectors, whose political influence was indirect. This rich ruling class, unlike the feudal lords, did not rightfully belong as a class, per se, in the political system of the Byzantine Empire.

The cultural element

The Greek concept of “blood” stems from the legal and cultural heritage imposed in this area by the Roman administration and the ancient Greek first and later Hellenistic heritage, when the cultural element fully prevailed in the formation of national identity. Hitler’s propaganda had already made a great effort to promote a supposed ancient Greek tribal conception of the state on the basis of Herodotus’ definition of race as “of the same blood, the same language, the common sanctuaries and sacrifices.”

In fact, the ancients referred to the terms “race” and “blood”, giving them content that defines kinship relations (tribe, clan) and not racial differences. The very supposed racism of the Spartans, which seems to have so excited Hitler, was due to the necessity of their political and social imposition on the helots and not to the fact that they considered them an inferior race.

It is characteristic that discrimination between sexes/factions within the ancient city always serves for the class stratification within the city, especially in a democratic regime. It never defined its foreign policy, such as, for example, a privileged relationship between Doric or Ionian cities.

Also characteristic is the fact that ancient writers seldom referred to someone with their external racial characteristics, such as skin color. We assume that the Roman emperor Septimius Severus was probably black because his coins depict darker characteristics than that of his family members. No ancient writer considered it important to record this information.

Already during the Hellenistic period, moreover, the cultural element had widely dominated the definition of Greek identity. By the explicit order of Alexander the Great his officers and soldiers were to conduct mixed marriages. So much so that the various writers of the time characterized as “Greeks” all those who speak the Greek language and sacrifice to the Greek gods.

The same tradition continued in Byzantium within the Christian expanse that characterized Roman citizens, regardless of race or ethnic origin. This explains the ascension to the throne of emperors from Syria, Armenia, or other areas, without any whiff of scandal.

The racism of Greek National Socialism

Indicative of the inability of Greek National Socialism to combine its tribal sermons with the historical tradition of the Greek nation is the fact that the Golden Dawn simply ignores Byzantium. Sometimes it launches barbs against the Jewish origin of the Christian religion, which it considers responsible for the decline of Hellenism. Also indicative of the vile character of Golden Dawn propaganda is the fact that it tries to take advantage of the Byzantine conflict with the Greeks. It hides the fact that in the Greek Middle Ages this word characterized as the Paulic “nations”, that is, the pagans of the ancient religion.

We do not need to expand on this element, because all modern Greek literature, from the ‘saga’ of Digenis Akritas and afterward, is an indisputable testimony of the cultural and not racial (“blood”) definition of the people and the nation. The very leading representative of Greek nationalism, Pericles Giannopoulos, extended the cultural element in the field of aesthetics, completely ignoring any racial identification.

It is worth adding, however, that the Greeks, while fighting for their independence, themselves fell victim to German origin theories of “blood”. Referring to the famous case of Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer, who tried to prove that the Greek revolutionaries were, from a racial point of view, Slavs or Albanians:

“Not a single drop of blood, of genuine Greek blood, runs in the veins of the Christian inhabitants of today’s Greece. A terrible storm scattered to the farthest corner of the Peloponnese a new tribe, related to the great Slavic tribe. The Scythians-Slavs, the Illyrians-Arvanites, the relatives of the Serbs and the Bulgarian peoples, are what we now call Greeks. A people with Slavic features, arched eyelashes and hard features of Albanian mountain shepherds, which of course does not come from the blood of Narcissus, Alcibiades and Antinous.Only a strong romantic imagination can dream of another rebirth of the ancient Greeks”, he wrote in “On the origin of today’s Greeks”.

The fact that these (supposedly) Slavs and Albanians spoke the Greek language and at that very time were fighting for Hellenism did not trouble the German scholar. Like the Nazis a century later that would indiscriminately embrace his theories, later, Fallmerayer was only interested in “purity of blood.” There can only be one conclusion. Golden Dawn has nothing to do with Greek nationalism or the national movement, as it has evolved historically. Golden Dawn is an attempt at a slab of, and not at all refined introduction, National Socialist theories in Greece.