Athanasios Souliotis (January 6, 1878 – March 22, 1945)

Athanasios Souliotis (January 6, 1878 – March 22, 1945)

Born on the island of Syros, but with roots from Souli in Epirus, he was a military and political figure who fought in the Macedonian Struggle (1904-08) & the Balkan Wars (1912-13).

After graduating from the Hellenic Military Academy in 1900, in 1906 he joined the Macedonian Struggle under the nom de guerre – Nikolaidis – where he helped create and led the “Thessaloniki Organisation”. A group focusing on and specialising in espionage. He would later establish a similar group – the Constantinople Organisation – focusing on Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor.

The Thessaloniki Organisation’s main task was the systematic gathering of intelligence and the disruption of Bulgarian propaganda which was being spread throughout Macedonia, as well as to diminish the presence of the Bulgarian Exarchists, while strengthening the Greek presence in the region.

He continued this role throughout the Balkan Wars, monitoring events at the Bulgarian and then Ottoman borders.

Later on he was a member of the Greek Royal Gendarmerie where he retired as a Major.

On this day in 1945, he died in Athens of tuberculosis. The suffering he experienced under the German occupation of WW2 contributed to his death.