Georgios Papadopoulos ΓΕΩΓΙΟΣ ΠΑΠΑΔΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ
Born 5 May 1919 in Achaia Died 27 June 1999 in Athens
Section Five, Number 435
Georgios Papadopoulos was a Greek military officer who, on April 21, 1967, led a bloodless coup in Greece. He swiftly named himself the country's Prime Minister, a post held until 1973 when, after a rigged plebiscite, he abolished the Greek monarchy and declared himself President of the Greek Republic. That was a few short months before the infamous November 17 Polytechnic student uprising which gave his co-conspirator, hardliner Dimitrios Ioannides, the opportunity to oust him and place him under house arrest where he remained until the junta’s botched attempt to back a coup d'état in Cyprus caused the whole house of cards to collapse. Democracy was miraculously restored when a deus ex machina in the person of former Prime Minister Constantinos Karamanlis returned from exile on July 24, 1974 to lead the country.
How a rather ordinary group of middle echelon army officers led by colonel Giorgios Papadopoulos managed to take centre stage and oust democratically elected officials, get the king on board, anesthetize the misgivings of the majority of the population while ruthlessly suppressing dissent, is a cautionary tale. This drama unfolded in a country with a rich history of coups, a monarchy that often miss-stepped or overstepped, and where concepts of loyalty to the ‘nation’ did not necessarily mean loyalty to the state.
His Life
Georgios began life in the small village of Eliochoro, Achaia. He was the eldest son of the local school master, Christos and his wife Chrysoula. When he completed high school in Patras in 1937, he enrolled in the Hellenic Military Academy (Σχολή Ευελπίδων) and graduated in the summer of 1940, in time to defend the country in the Italo-Greek war of 1941. He was 22 years old.
The young soldier
As a second lieutenant of the artillery, he fought against the Italians and against the Germans when they invaded the country in April 1941. The king, many politicians, and a tiny fraction of the army (1) immediately fled into exile. Since there was no longer a Greek army to belong to, Papadopoulos enrolled in the university to study civil engineering. He never did complete his studies nor did he join any of the many resistance groups that formed during the occupation. Instead he sat out much of the occupation working for the ‘Patras Food Supply Office’ which was under the aegis of the Greek puppet administration.
While in Patras, it is believed he joined the notorious Greek Security Battalions (2) which had been formed in 1943 by quisling prime minister Ioannis Rallis. The aim was to counter the rising power of leftist and communist guerrillas fighting under the banner of EAM-ELAS.
Rallis (on the right) had made the formation of these battalions a condition of accepting office.
In early 1944, with the help of the British, Papadopoulos went to Egypt and joined the Greek army in exile as a lieutenant. That same year he helped in the formation of IDEA, The Sacred Association of Nationalist Officers, an anti communist group within the army who were well disposed towards those officers who had joined the Security Battalions in occupied Greece. IDEA promoted their being integrated into the nationalist army after the liberation, glossing over the fact they were working directly under the command of the Nazis because they regarded them as the likeliest group able to counter the communist threat that EAM-ELAS posed to the pre war status quo. (3)
Middle Echelon Army Officers, Loyalties, and the ‘Communist Threat’
There are explanations for the mindset of men like Papadopoulos and his 16 co-conspirators. The milieu they grew up in was an era of army coups. Between 1922 and 1935 there had been 7 coups or coup attempts; 5 had been spearheaded by the army. This chaos was followed by the Metaxas dictatorship with its emphasis on law and order, rigid anticommunism, and anti-political bias, all ideas that went down better in conservative rural communities than in the more socially diverse cities. Almost all of the future conspirators did come from poor rural families. One of them, Ioannis Ladas, said: We were all so poor that we called Papadopoulos the rich man because his father was a school teacher. (4).
For men of their social class without the political ties that might have secured them advancement in civil life, a military career offered the best chance for upward mobility. Once enlisted, these middle echelon officers became part of a remarkably cohesive social group.(5) That they had a ‘sacred’ duty to defend the nation was instilled in all officers during training. That ‘nation’ did not always mean the Greek state with its volatile and often warring politicians.(6) To them, the possibility of a future coup to ‘save the nation’ would not have seemed like much of a stretch.(7)
The Return (October 18, 1944)
Papadopoulos was promoted to captain in 1946, fought during the civil war and was decorated twice for his effort. He became a major in 1949. His already visceral anti-communism would have been reinforced and vindicated in his own mind by the anti-communist stance of the Greek government during the nineteen fifties.
Papadopoulos during the civil war
Papadopoulos from 1950 to 1967
In 1951 Papadopoulos participated in the now notorious court-martial of communist leader Nikos Beloyannis. At the time, the Communist Party of Greece was a banned organization and anti-communist feelings ran high.(8)
Papadopoulos (under the arrow) with the military tribunal prosecuting Beloyannis.
During the 1950s, he underwent military training in the United States which has given rise to theory that he was, in fact, a CIA agent. Greece had been under American influence since 1947. He certainly would have fit right into the 1950’s CIA mindset. In 1959, he was appointed to the KYP Intelligence Service, the CIA’s Greek equivalent and acted as its liaison with the CIA’s John Fatseas.
Papadopoulos (left) with CIA operatives John Fatseas (third from left) and George Stevens (third from right) on a wild boar hunt.
1963 - 1967: Politics Gets Complicated – Again
If the politics in the country had remained stable in the 1960s, Papadopoulos might have served his time, retired, and been grumbling about wrong-headed politicians in his local coffee shop. Greece had been stable under the conservative government of Constantinos Karamanlis.(9)
Karamanlis in 1963
His ERE (National Radical Union) party governed from 1955 to 1963. But then Karamanlis resigned in 1963, forcing early elections in November of the same year. In that election, social democrat Georgios Papandreau’s Center Union party won 138 seats to Karamanlis’ 132. That meant that the 28 seat EDA (Union of the Democratic Left), the socialist party perceived to be a communist front, would have a swing vote in the new parliament. Papandreau called for new elections in February 1964 and won his majority but the political pot continued to boil: the Cyprus issue, communist fears, concerns as to whether Greece’s alignment towards Europe was a good or bad move, all simmered in the background.
Georgios Papandreau
Georgios Papandreau had already been leery enough of Papadopoulos to post him to Thrace, far away from any army plots brewing in the capital. While there, Papadopoulos arrested two soldiers under his command along with some local leftists, claiming that they had conspired to sabotage army vehicles by putting sugar into their gas tanks.
An Athens Newspaper with the story of Sabotage on June 13, 1965
The suspects were arrested and tortured until it was discovered that it had been Papadopoulos himself who sabotaged the tanks in an effort to prove that communists were infiltrating the army.
In a twist that could only happen in Greece where loyalties and patronage ties can be very complicated indeed, Georgios Papandreau forgave him because their fathers had been school mates in Achaia!(10)
The Colonels Begin to Gather in Athens…
Papadopoulos was recalled, first to Larissa and then to the Army General Staff in Athens. Several of his future co-conspirators would also be favoured by appointments in Athens. Then Papadopoulos was promoted to the rank of colonel - just in time for his coup. The coup was triggered by the prospect of yet another election in 1967, but the ‘finger’ had been hovering over the trigger for some time.
The Coup: April 21, 1967
The coup, when it came, was bloodless and the king was persuaded to go along with it at first.
King Constantine in the midst of the conspirators, Papadopoulos is on the left.
If he and his co-conspirators could only be blamed for bad prose and simplistic ideas it might have been farcical. But they were in earnest; house arrests of politicians, banishments of leftists or supposed leftists to islands or abroad, the torture of dissidents, and ridiculous restrictions on long hair and long skirts began immediately. Nor did they fail to play the religious card. The Orthodox Church was promised the biggest church in the Balkans under the junta slogan: Greece for Greek Christians. (11) The king had second thoughts almost eight months later, made a belated effort to overthrow the regime, failed, and went into exile.
As Western democracies waffled trying to figure out how Greece’s fate affected their own geopolitical aims, Papadopoulos did his best to convince Greeks that the country was sick and that therefore ‘shackling the patient to the operating table for his own good’ was just common sense. Early on he had erased farmers’ debts, which went a long way to creating support in rural communities. He touted a rise in prosperity as a junta achievement. The symbol of his ‘make Greece great again’ was one Trump might envy: a phoenix rising from the ashes – fronted by a soldier. It wasn’t subtle but it was ubiquitous.
Every town Square in Greece quickly became April 21st Square.
Why did people stand for it? Inertia, fatigue, the hope for a respite from political infighting, self interest (especially among the wealthy), business fears - all played their part and maybe just the feeling that the army somehow had the right to interfere every now and then. After all, democracy had always bounced back before. Roads were being built and villages electrified for the first time.
It did not take the United States long under Richard Nixon to decide that the Papadopoulos’ government was one they could ‘do business with’. Meanwhile, the co-conspirators did very well for themselves. Papadopoulos took up residence in a rather grand estate in Lagonissi with his former lover Despina Gaspari whom he married in 1970.
Georgios ,Despina, and friends
There was resistance both in and outside of Greece.(12) In 1968 Alexandros Panagoulis attempted to blow him up as his limo made its way into Athens from Lagonissi.
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Panagoulis under arrest. He suffered torture and humiliation. See.
https://athensfirstcemeteryinenglish.blogspot.com/2023/01/alexandros-alekos-panagoulis.html
The Beginning of the End
Papadopoulos, under pressure, began to make a few moves to loosen the reins. But the reforms he attempted were blocked by his co conspirators, Dimitrios Ioannidis in particular. His decision, the same year, to make Greece a republic with himself as the figure at the helm was resented both by his co-conspirators and by his ‘base’ in the army.
Meanwhile, abroad, resistance or sympathy for resistance was rising. (The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark had been anti-junta from the get go). Local resistance among young people culminated in the Student uprising of November 17, 1973 which was quashed violently with tanks. Hardliner Demitrios Ioannidis took over the reins and put Papadopoulos under house arrest.
Tanks arriving at the Polytechnic University
Ioannides initiated even more oppression and it is hard to know how it all would have ended if the Junta had not supported a coup in Cyprus which led to Turkey’s invasion of the island. The Junta’s effort to call up civilians and prepare for war was so chaotic that even they realized they were in trouble. (13) They were persuaded to disband themselves and invite Constantinos Karamanlis to return and lead the nation out of chaos.
The Return
The Aftermath
The monarchy was abolished by a referendum in December 1974, democracy was reinstated, and all the conspirators arrested and tried for high treason. In August 1975, Papadopoulos and others were sentenced to death (later commuted to life in prison) but he never recanted; he even rejected an amnesty offer that would have required him to recant. He was a true believer. He remained in prison until a cancer diagnosis caused his transfer to an Athens hospital where he died three years later on June 1999.
He was buried in the First Cemetery under the following epitaph:
GEORGIOS PAPADOPOULOS, PRESIDENT OF THE GREEK DEMOCRACY
Well!
An Afterword
Collaboration is not an aberration; it’s the resisters who are exceptional. (14)Not many people alive today who lived through the dictatorship will claim they were pro junta or acquiescent, and yet many were. That urge to ‘go with the flow’ and make do or self-censure oneself when dictators take over is frightening to behold in retrospect and hard to watch when it is actually happening. Whether or not America was behind the coup is an issue for many who blame the United States for the entire mess. November 17, the anniversary of the student uprising, is a national holiday and always ends with a march to the U.S. embassy.
Today, hardly anyone makes a trek, annual or otherwise to Papadopoulos’ grave.
The Grave
Section Five, Number 436
The Map
Footnotes
(1) The vast majority of the mainland troops were cornered, surrendered, or simply demobilized and sent home.
(2) Papadopoulos’ boss in Patras had been responsible for forming the Security Battalions in Achaia.
(3) The fact that so many members of the Security Battalions were, in fact, integrated into the army after liberation is still a contentious issue in Greece.
(4) The fathers of seven of the co-conspirators were farmers, two were school masters; only one had been previously in the military. Ioannidis may be the exception because his family was relatively wealthy. The army attracted far more rural recruits than the navy.
(5) Four of the future co conspirators graduated in 1940, eight in 1943 and most were of field grade rank.
(6) For an excellent explanation of the difference between the perception of nation and the state, see The Nation, the State and the International System, the Case of Modern Greece by Andreas Psomas, Athens 1978.
(7) There is a very extensive website listing all of the coups, counter coups and failed coups in modern Greece. It is a long read.
(8) Beloyannis was sentenced to death but the sentence was not carried out until a second trial in 1952 where he was declared guilty and, immediately after the verdict, shot. Papadopoulos was not involved in this second trial.
(9) Under Karamanlis, many laws suppressing communists and left wing views had remained on the books. In the eyes of conservatives, the communist threat was always there.
(10) Some have gone as far as to say that Georgios Papadopoulos was a god son of Papandreau – not completely implausible since Greek politicians frequently acted as god fathers for constituents in order to ensure their votes.
(11) The mega church promised by Georgios Papadopoulos was a colossal, never-built monument known as the Tama tou Ethnous (Vow of the Nation). Designed to sit atop the Tourkovounia hills in Athens, the junta government collected millions in public funds for this massive project, but it was ultimately abandoned and never built.
(12) The resistance of Melina Mercouri, Andreas Papandreau, and Mikis Theodorakis makes inspiring reading.
(13) Ioannidis named Greek general Phaidon Gizikis president and it was this general who would gather together various political figures after the Turkish invasion who would invite Karamanlis to return.
(14) Collaboration is not an aberration; it’s the resisters who are exceptional Alice JollySun 16 Nov 2025 13.00 CET
Sources
http://www.protagon.gr/apopseis/editorial/i-mnimi-o-mythos-i-lithi-44341396292
The Military and Society in Greece by James Brown
The Nation, the State and the International System, the Case of Modern Greece by Andreas Psomas, Athens 1978,
https://www.thenationalherald.com/the-greek-junta-and-the-other-americans/
https://www.kathimerini.gr/culture/books/928267/i-galanoleyki-sti-skia-tis-asteroessas/
https://stratistoria.wordpress.com/1944/07/18/19440718-picme-greek-security-battalions/
The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels by C.M. Woodhouse, Franklin Watts, 1985
The Greece of Karamanlis, by Maurice Genevoix, Doric Publications, 1972
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