Documents found at Golden Dawn MP’s home detail rigid hierarchy

Handwritten documents confiscated from the home of Golden Dawn lawmaker Christos Pappas in Ioannina, northwestern Greece, suggest that the neofascist party was organized on the basis of a medieval German military order and was subject to a rigid hierarchy, Kathimerini has learned.

The documents removed from the home of Pappas, one of six GD lawmakers in pretrial custody for running a criminal organization, include an organizational chart with the “leader” at the top and groups called the Golden Lodge, Golden Dawn and Popular Association forming the lower sections of the pyramid of power.

According to sources, the two investigating magistrates who are leading a criminal investigation into Golden Dawn are studying the documents with particular interest and in parallel to the party’s charter, which was the original basis for their probe. Each section of the organizational pyramid includes painstaking details about the role of party members who are divided into ranks including officers and knights that are believed to be inspired by the hierarchies of the Teutonic Knights of the Middle Ages in Germany.

Judicial sources describe the organizational chart found in Pappas’s home as a “Bible for Golden Dawn.” At the top of each document are the initials SS, the armed wing of the Nazis, consolidating the argument of the authorities that Golden Dawn is a neo-Nazi party.

GD itself has consistently denied embracing a Nazi ideology even though its logo resembles a swastika and its members and supporters routinely perform the Nazi salute at gatherings.