The ESPO 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

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 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

Panhellenic Union of Fighting Youths

The Panhellenic Union of Fighting Youths , abbreviated as PEAN was a Greek Resistance organization during the Axis Occupation of Greece in the Second World War...

 Resistance

Greek Resistance

The Greek Resistance is the blanket term for a number of armed and unarmed groups from across the political spectrum that resisted the Axis Occupation of Greece in the period 1941–1944, during World War II.-Origins:...

 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

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

seized ten prominent Jews in retaliation for this explosion.