National and Social Liberation

National and Social Liberation (, Ethniki kai Koinoniki Apeleftherosis), also known by its Greek initials EKKA, was a Greek Resistance movement founded in autumn 1942 by Colonel Dimitrios Psarros and politician Georgios Kartalis during the Axis Occupation of Greece.

Alongside Psarros and Kartalis, founding members included fellow officers Dimitrios Karachristos, Dimitrios Georgantas and others. The organization's aims were to fight the Germans as long as the occupation lasted and, after Liberation, work for a republican regime and social change.

EKKA's armed wing was the 5/42 Evzone Regiment, founded in early 1943 and named after Psarros' old unit. It numbered at its peak ca. 1,000 men, and was active mainly in Central Greece, in the area of Fokida. The organization however was from the outset confronted with the might of the communist-led Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), which claimed the overall leadership of the Resistance movement and regarded EKKA as reactionary and an anglophile organization. ELAS forces attacked the 5/42 Evzones Regiment occurred on 14 May and 23 June 1943 forcing its dissolution, but bowing to pressure from the British Military Mission, they agreed to allow it to reform within the unifying framework of the so-called "National Bands Agreement" of July 1943. Nevertheless, the rivalry between ELAS and the republican EDES and EKKA groups continued, and on 14 April 1944, the EKKA forces were attacked by ELAS. The 5/42 Evzones Regiment held...
Read More