Editing Costas Simitis (section)

=== Political activity before 1981 ===
In 1965, he returned to Greece and was one of the founders of the "[[Alexandros Papanastasiou]]" political research group. In 1967, after the [[Greek junta|military coup on 21 April]], this group was transformed into [[Democratic Defense]], an organization opposed to the [[Regime of the Colonels|military regime]]. Simitis fled abroad after planting bombs in the streets of Athens (in later years, he acknowledged his activities on the Greek MEGA TV channel) in order to avoid being jailed and became a member of the [[Panhellenic Liberation Movement]] (PAK), led by [[Andreas Papandreou]]. He also took up a position as a university lecturer in Germany. He returned to Athens in 1974 and was one of the co-founders of PAK's successor, the [[Panhellenic Socialist Movement]] (PASOK). In 1977, he took up a lecturer's post at the [[Panteion University]].