National-Socialist Patriotic Organisation

"ESPO" redirects here. For other uses, see ESPO (disambiguation).

The ESPO (Greek: Εθνικο-Σοσιαλιστική Πατριωτική Οργάνωσις, "National-Socialist Patriotic Organization") was a collaborationist, pro-Nazi organization created in the summer of 1941 in German-occupied Greece, under the leadership of Dr. Spyros Sterodimas. Its members were ultra-nationalists, national-socialists and/or fascists aiming to help the Axis occupation forces against Communism and Jewry.

One of their main actions was the ransacking of the synagogue on Melidoni Street, Athens, by the ESPO's youth section.

Dr. Sterodimas, meanwhile, was trying to recruit Greek youth to create a Greek division of the Waffen SS, but was killed when the PEAN Resistance group blew up the ESPO's headquarters in central Athens. His death meant the abandonment of these plans, and the effective end of ESPO. During the Day of Atonement services, on September 22, 1942, the Gestapo seized ten prominent Jews in retaliation for this explosion.