Dimitrios Ioannidis
Greek military officer (1923–2010), dictator of Greece from 1973 to 1974
Dimitrios Ioannidis (Greek: Δημήτριος Ιωαννίδης [ðiˈmitri.os i.oaˈniðis]; 13 March 1923 – 16 August 2010), also known as Dimitris Ioannidis and as The Invisible Dictator, was a Greek military officer and one of the leading figures in the junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. For the last 10 months of the junta's rule, he was the de facto leader of the country though never holding a formal government post. Ioannidis was considered a "purist and a moralist, a type of Greek Gaddafi".
Early life and education
He was born on March 13, 1923 in Athens and came from a relatively wealthy family. He was descended from a family from Ioannina.
During the Axis occupation of Greece he was a member of the National Republican Greek League (EDES) resistance group. After the war he studied at the Hellenic Military Academy and complemented his military education by studying at the Infantry School, the War School, and the School of Atomic-Chemical-Biological Warfare. As an army officer he took part also in the Greek civil war.
Ioannidis had begun his career as an officer in Napoleon Zervas's guerrilla forces.
Involvement in the military junta (1967-1974)
Ioannidis took an active part in planning and executing the coup d'état of 21 April 1967 (he was Director of the Hellenic Military Academy), but despite his great power he preferred to stay in the shadows, allowing George Papadopoulos to take the limelight.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Dimitrios Ioannidis” as greek military officer (1923–2010), dictator of Greece from 1973 to 1974. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q460912. VIAF identifies the subject as 285660779. The Library of Congress control number is n2012070578. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923, 2010, 1967 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dimitrios Ioannidis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.