Athens protesters decrying a 1973 military crushing of a student uprising converged on the US Embassy. Radicals clashed with police after a peaceful main march.
Image: Reuters/C. Baltas
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Some 12,000 mostly young protesters ended Saturday's march at the embassy of the United States, which many Greeks accuse of having backed the nation's seven-year military dictatorship that began in 1967.
Wreaths and carnations were first laid at Athens' Technical University or Polytechnic, where 45 years ago the military regime crushed the student uprising — centered on the campus — resulting in dozens of deaths.
That crackdown is generally considered to have broken the junta's grip on power and helped the restoration of democracy in 1974.
Cups hurtled at Syriza
Saturday's march, overseen by 6,000 police, also saw protesters frustrated over Greece's eight-year debt crisis throw plastic bottles and coffee cups at governing Syriza party members outside the embassy.
Some marchers held banners with slogans denouncing fascism, imperialism, NATO and US foreign wars as well as austerity.
Trade unionists with salutes and wreathsImage: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Zachos
'Continuous battle for our freedom'
Protester and doctor Maria Marougadaki said the anniversary was a moment for Greeks to reaffirm their "continuous battle for our freedom, for our democracy and shows how timeless the slogans we chant are."
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the EU nation's first radical leftist leader, said the commemoration focused attention on "new fights" against fascism, the far right and "neoliberal absolutism."
For the annual march, central Athens was partly closed to vehicles. Drones and a police helicopter hovered over Syntagma Square.
Marches culminate in clashes
Afterwards, Greek Alpha television showed police firing tear gas and water cannons at some 300 protesters who erected barricades and threw stones and firebombs near the Polytechnic.
Police also made eight arrests during unrest at a subway station near Athens' police headquarters.
In Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city, where some 7,500 demonstrators marked the anniversary, about 200 anarchists later threw firebombs. At least 10 people were detained.
Another five people were detained in Patras after attacking police officers.
Annual anti-junta demonstrations became a treasured anniversary for many Greeks after the junta's demise.
ipj/bw (Reuters, AFP, AP)
The junta of Athens and the Greek DW program
During the military dictatorship in Greece, DW made journalism history.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/UPI
The military coup of 1967
A small group of conspirators led by colonel Georgios Papadopoulos, lieutenant-general Stylianos Pattakos and general Georgios Zoitakis executed a coup d'etat late on April 21, 1967. That night, the first wave of arrests swept Greece. An estimated 8,000 people were detained, among them sitting ministers, countless journalists, lawyers, writers and artists.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Haber
Seven years of junta rule
The parliament was disempowered, tens of thousands of people - in particular those leaning to the political left - were jailed and banished to island prisons. The seven years of the military regime were marked by despotism, extensive censorship, torture and murder. Thousands were killed.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo
Broadcasting from Cologne to Greece
DW started broadcasting its Greek-language program from its then-headquarters in Cologne in 1964. After the military seized control in Greece, the program gave a voice to critics of the new regime. DW was one of the few outlets available to Greek citizens that provided unrestricted information, making it a thorn in the junta's side.
Image: DW
Dissident news and banned music
Every day from 9:40 to 10:40 p.m., DW broadcasted news, opinion pieces, press reviews, features on the events in Greece and interviews with anti-regime activists. Greek music was also part of the program. This included tunes that had been banned by the military dictators, such as the songs of composer and famous opposition supporter Mikis Theodorakis.
Image: DW
United against the junta
People from all walks of life with widely different political views were part of DW's Greek department. The one thing they could all agree upon: A military dictatorship was not acceptable. Pictured here: G. Heyer, A. Maropoulos, G. Kladakis, D. Koulmas, K. Nikolaou (from left to right).
Image: DW
A protest tour against the regime
When she arrived in Berlin, Melina Mercouri was greeted by German novelist Günter Grass. Merkouri was a successful Greek actress, singer and politician who had left her home country for exile in France in 1967. "The military junta is a disgrace for a democratic Europe," Merkouri said when she visited Germany's biggest city on an international protest tour against the regime.
Image: Bildagentur Ullstein
Counterattacks from the regime
The regime systemically disrupted DW's shortwave signal. Newspaper "Nea Politeia" - a mouthpiece for the Athens regime - tried but failed to damage the reputation of the DW editorial team. "The rodents of the Cologne radio broadcaster;" read the title page of their June 8, 1969 issue. But 3 million Greeks still followed the broadcast every night.
Image: DW
A concert turned demonstration
"When Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis conducted the performance of his own songs in the sold-out concert hall yesterday, the concert was spontaneously turned into a demonstration after the intermission by the many Greeks attending the event," newspaper "Hamburger Abendblatt" wrote after Theodorakis' performance in Hamburg on Februar 2, 1972.
Image: Bildagentur Ullstein
The voice of the Athens Polytechnic
On November 14, 1973, students of the Polytechnic in Athens went on strike to protest against the regime. They barricaded the campus and opened a radio station. Their voices were broadcast across Greece by DW. The student boycott marked the beginning of the end for the dictatorship, which ultimately collapsed in Mid-1974. The myth of DW as the "voice of freedom" lasts to this day.
