'Golden Dawn' Fosters Ties with German Neo-Nazis

The Greek right-wing extremist party Golden Dawn has established contacts with German neo-Nazis in Bavaria. The group, which is represented in Greek parliament, is also attempting to set up a cell in the southern German state.

The Greek right-wing extremist party Golden Dawn is establishing close contacts with Bavarian neo-Nazis and began setting up a cell in Nuremberg last year. The party, known in Greek as Chrysi Avgi, even held a conference in the southern German city recently.

Bavaria's state intelligence agency is particularly interested in meetings that have been taking place between right-wing extremists from Greece and those in Bavaria.

An umbrella organization of Greek communities in Germany has called on all Greeks in Germany to reject attempts by neo-Nazis to promote "violence, inteolerance and social cannibalism."

Golden Dawn is led by Nikolaos Michaloliakos and has called for a revolution in Greece and an "ethnically pure" nation. Members of the party are accused of physically attacking immigrants and members of the country's left-wing. They also regularly stage intimidating marches, wearing military uniforms and singing Nazi chants, in immigrant neighborhoods of Athens.

Support for the party has increased following the debt crisis and the radical austerity measures imposed on Greece by international lenders. Golden Dawn won seats in parliament for the first time in last year's election and is currently polling at 12 percent.


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30,000 Golden Dawn Supporters March in Athens  [VIDEO]

Billed as a remembrance rally, the event in central Athens on 2 February attracted a crowd of 30,000 to honour three "fallen heroes" of the party. Men dressed in military fatigues, baseball caps lit torches and fired flares, chanting anti-immigration slogans.

"We are winning the hearts and minds of the people, because we say it as it is," Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kassidiaris told supporters.

"These politicians who have ruled us for decades are crooks. They have betrayed our national interests. They have led us to humiliating defeats," he said, referring to a 1996 dispute with fellow Nato member Turkey, when three Greek air force pilots were killed in a dispute over an Aegean island before the US intervened, forcing both sides to back down.  

"They calls us fascists, thugs and criminals," says Vassilis, a 23-year-old recruit who joined the party because of his disenchantment with the country's political elite.

"We're nationalists. We're patriots. And if these guys who ruled the country for decades had a fibre of the nationalism we're running on, they would have never brought the country to its current predicament."

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