Grey Wolves

The Grey Wolves were the youth wing of the Milliyetci Hareket Partisi (MHP), a neo-fascist political party in Turkey. Fighting between the Grey Wolves and leftists during the late 1970s resulted in more than 5,000 deaths.

The Milliyetci Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Action Party or Nationalist Movement Party) was founded in 1969 by Alpasan Türkes, a Turkish military officer and ardent supporter of pan-Turkism, the idea that all Turkic-speaking peoples should be united under one political regime. Many observers compare the MHP's structure, ideology, and tactics to those of Europe's fascist regimes of the 1930s. The Grey Wolves were composed of young Turkish men, often students or rural migrants to Turkey's largest cities: Istanbul and Ankara, the capital. The organization was run on military lines, with followers undergoing training in the martial arts and the use of various weapons and explosives. Members were fed and ...