Iron Guard
Encyclopedia
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement
and political party
in Romania
in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II
. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist
, fascist
, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith. It is also considered an antisemitic organization, an ideology even going so far as to demand the introduction of "state anti-semitism".
Originally founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
on July 24, 1927, as the Legion of the Archangel Michael ("Legiunea Arhanghelului Mihail"), and led by him until his death in 1938, adherents to the movement continued to be widely referred to as "legionnaires" (sometimes "legionaries"; ) and led to the organization of the "Legion" or the "Legionary Movement" ("Mişcarea Legionară"), despite various changes of the (intermittently banned) organization's name. In March 1930 Codreanu formed the "Iron Guard" ("Garda de Fier") as a paramilitary
political branch of the Legion; this name eventually came to refer to the Legion itself. Later, in June 1935, the Legion changed its official name to the "Totul pentru Ţară" party, literally "Everything for the Country", but commonly translated as "Everything for the Fatherland" or occasionally "Everything for the Motherland".
Historian Stanley G. Payne
writes in his study of Fascism, "The Legion was arguably the most unusual mass movement of interwar Europe." The Legion contrasted with most other European fascist movements of the period in its overt religiosity (in the form of an embrace of the Romanian Orthodox
religion). According to Ioanid, the Legion "willingly inserted strong elements of Orthodox Christianity into its political doctrine to the point of becoming one of the rare modern European political movements with a religious ideological structure." The movement's leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was a religious mystic who aimed at a spiritual resurrection for the nation. According to Codreanu's heterodox philosophy, human life was a sinful, violent political war, which would ultimately be transcended by the spiritual nation. In this schema, the Legionnaire might have to perform fanatical and violent actions that would condemn him to damnation
, which was considered the ultimate sacrifice for the nation. Like many other fascist movements, the Legion called for a revolutionary "new man". As for economics, there was no straightforward program, but the Legion generally promoted the idea of a communal or national economy, rejecting capitalism as overly materialistic
. The movement considered its main enemies to be present political leaders and the Jews.
. The main symbol used by the Iron Guard was a triple cross
(a variant of the triple parted and fretted one), standing for prison bars (as a badge of martyr
dom), and sometimes referred to as the "Archangel Michael Cross" ("Crucea Arhanghelului Mihail").
The mysticism of the Legion led to a cult of death, martyrdom, violence, and self-sacrifice. They had an action squad that was called Echipa morţii, or "Death Squad" who had the mission to go everywhere in Romania and to sing. It was called "Death Squad" because its members had to accomplish their mission even with the risk of being killed by the police, communist or any other enemies of the Legion. The members of it were: Ion Dumitrescu-Borşa (who was a Christian Orthdox priest), Sterie Ciumetti, Petre Ţocu, Tache Savin, Traian Clime, Iosif Bozântan, Nicolae Constantinescu
A chapter of the Legion was called a cuib, or "nest," and was arranged around the virtues of discipline, work, silence, education, mutual aid, and honor. These groups observed rituals that included both the drinking of and writing oaths in blood.
(NCDL). It was then he founded the Legion of the Archangel Michael.
The Legion also differed from other fascist movements in that it had its mass base among the peasantry and students, rather than among military veterans. However, the legionnaires shared the fascist penchant for violence, up to and including political assassination
s.
With Codreanu as a charismatic leader, the Legion was known for skillful propaganda
, including a very capable use of spectacle. Utilizing marches, religious processions and patriotic and partisan hymns and anthems, along with volunteer work and charitable campaigns in rural areas in support of its anti-Communist
, anti-Semitic, anti-liberal
, and anti-parliamentary
philosophy, the League presented itself as an alternative to corrupt
, clientelist
parties including the NCDL. Initially, the Iron Guard hoped to encompass any political faction, regardless of its position on the political spectrum
, that wished to combat the rise of communism
in the USSR.
Like other clerical fascist movements of the time, the Iron Guard was vividly anti-Semitic, promoting the idea that "Rabbinical aggression against the Christian world" in "unexpected 'protean forms': Freemasonry
, Freudianism
, homosexuality, atheism, Marxism, Bolshevism, the civil war in Spain
," were undermining society.
On December 10, 1933, the Romanian Liberal Prime Minister Ion Duca banned the Iron Guard. After a brief period of arrests, beatings, torture and even killings, (twelve members of the Legionary Movement were murdered by the police force), Iron Guard members retaliated on December 29, 1933 by assassinating Duca on the platform of the Sinaia
railway station.
In the 1937 parliamentary elections
the Legion came in third, behind the Liberal and the Peasant Parties, with 15.5 percent of the vote. King Carol II
was strongly opposed to the Legion's political aims (not, as some claimwho?, simply due to the influence of his mistress Elena "Magda" Lupescu
, a Roman Catholic whose father had been Jewish) and successfully kept them out of government until he himself was forced to abdicate in 1940. During this period, the Legion was generally on the receiving end of persecution. On February 10, 1938, the King dissolved the government, taking on the role of a royal dictator.
Codreanu was arrested and imprisoned in April 1938, and ultimately strangled to death along with several other legionnaires by their Gendarmerie
escort on the night of November 29–30, 1938, purportedly during an attempt to escape from prison. It is generally agreed that there was no such escape attempt, and that Codreanu and the others were killed on the King's orders, probably in reaction to the November 24, 1938, murder by legionnaires of a relative (some sources say a "friend") of Armand Călinescu
, then Minister of the Interior in the King's cabinet.
The royal dictatorship was brief. On March 7, 1939, a new government was formed with Călinescu as prime minister; on September 21, 1939, he, in turn was assassinated by legionnaires avenging Codreanu. Further rounds of mutual carnage ensued.
In addition to the conflict with the king, an internal battle for power ensued in the wake of Codreanu's death. Waves of repression almost completely eliminated the Legion's original leadership by 1939, promoting second-rank members to the forefront. According to a secret report filed by the Hungarian political secretary in Bucharest in late 1940, three main factions existed: the group gathered around Horia Sima
, a dynamic local leader from the Banat, which was the most pragmatic and least Orthodox in its orientation; the group composed of Codreanu's father, Ion Zelea Codreanu, and his brothers (who despised Sima); and the Moţa-Marin group, which wanted to strengthen the movement's religious character. After a long period of confusion, Sima, representing the Legion's less radical wing, overcame all competition and assumed leadership, being recognised as such on 6 September 1940 by the Legionary Forum, a body created at his initiative. On 28 September the elder Codreanu stormed the Legion headquarters in Bucharest (the Green House) in an unsuccessful attempt to install himself as leader.
, Romania was officially neutral. However after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
of August 23, 1939, stipulated, among other things, Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia
. When Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, Romania granted refuge to members of Poland's fleeing government, and even after the assassination of Călinescu, King Carol tried to maintain neutrality, but France's surrender and Britain's retreat from Europe rendered them unable to fulfil their assurances to Romania. A lean toward the Axis Powers
was probably inevitable.
This political alignment was obviously favorable to the surviving legionnaires. Ion Gigurtu
's government, formed July 4, 1940, was the first to include a Legion member, but by the time the movement achieved any formal power, most of its
leadership was already dead: Horia Sima, a strong anti-Semite who had become the nominal leader of the movement after Codreanu's murder, was one of the few prominent legionnaires to survive the carnage of the preceding years.
On September 4, 1940, the Legion formed a tense alliance with General (later Marshal) Ion Antonescu
. Using popular outrage at Romania being forced to give up a large block of land as a result of the Second Vienna Award
, the alliance forced the abdication of Carol II in favour of his son Michael, and leaned even more strongly toward the Axis. (Romania would formally join the Axis in June 1941.) Romania was proclaimed a "National Legionary State
, with the Legion as the country's only legal party. As part of the deal, Antonescu was named the Legion's honorary leader, while Sima became deputy premier.
Once in power, from September 14, 1940, until January 21, 1941, the Legion ratcheted up the level of already harsh anti-Semitic legislation and pursued, with impunity, a campaign of pogroms and of political assassinations. More than 60 former dignitaries or officials were executed in Jilava
prison while awaiting trial; historian and former prime minister Nicolae Iorga
and economist Virgil Madgearu
, also a former government minister, were assassinated without even the pretense of an arrest.
The Iron Guard have become infamous for their participation in the Holocaust. In The Destruction of the European Jews, Raul Hilberg
writes, "There were... instances when the Germans actually had to step in to restrain and slow down the pace of the Romanian measures." The annihilation of the Jews of eastern Romania (including Bessarabia
, Bukovina
, Transnistria
, and the city of Iaşi
) had more the character of a pogrom
than of the well-organized transports and camps of the Germans.
The Legion overplayed their hand, however. On January 24, 1941, Antonescu successfully suppressed a Legion-inspired military coup, resulting in the Legion being forced out of a governing role and losing its government protection. During the three-day civil war, eventually won by Antonescu with support from the German army, members of the Iron Guard instigated a deadly pogrom in Bucharest, the capital city. Particularly gruesome was the murder of dozens of Jewish civilians in the Bucharest slaughterhouse. After the victims were killed, the perpetrators hung the bodies from meat hooks and mutilated them in a vicious parody of kosher slaughtering practices. Horia Sima and many other legionnaires took refuge in Germany; others were imprisoned.
.
There are also another contemporary far-right organizations in Romania, such as Pentru Patrie(For the fatherland) and Noua Dreaptă
(The New Right). Considering themself the heir apparent to the Iron Guard, Noua Dreaptă embraces legionnairism and has a personality cult for Corneliu Codreanu but they also use the Celtic Cross
which is not a symbol of legionnairism.
Since the 1970s Mircea Eliade
, a prominent historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher, has been criticized for having supported the Iron Guard in the 1930s.
faction in early 1970s Argentina
known as the Guardia de Hierro (Spanish
for “Iron Guard”) which had no connection to Romanian nationalism.
Political movement
A political movement is a social movement in the area of politics. A political movement may be organized around a single issue or set of issues, or around a set of shared concerns of a social group...
and political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith. It is also considered an antisemitic organization, an ideology even going so far as to demand the introduction of "state anti-semitism".
Originally founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was a Romanian politician of the far right, the founder and charismatic leader of the Iron Guard or The Legion of the Archangel Michael , an ultra-nationalist and violently antisemitic organization active throughout most of the interwar period...
on July 24, 1927, as the Legion of the Archangel Michael ("Legiunea Arhanghelului Mihail"), and led by him until his death in 1938, adherents to the movement continued to be widely referred to as "legionnaires" (sometimes "legionaries"; ) and led to the organization of the "Legion" or the "Legionary Movement" ("Mişcarea Legionară"), despite various changes of the (intermittently banned) organization's name. In March 1930 Codreanu formed the "Iron Guard" ("Garda de Fier") as a paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
political branch of the Legion; this name eventually came to refer to the Legion itself. Later, in June 1935, the Legion changed its official name to the "Totul pentru Ţară" party, literally "Everything for the Country", but commonly translated as "Everything for the Fatherland" or occasionally "Everything for the Motherland".
Ideology
Stanley G. Payne
Stanley George Payne is a historian of modern Spain and European Fascism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He retired from full time teaching in 2004 and is currently Professor Emeritus at its Department of History. Payne is one of the most famous modern theorists of fascism...
writes in his study of Fascism, "The Legion was arguably the most unusual mass movement of interwar Europe." The Legion contrasted with most other European fascist movements of the period in its overt religiosity (in the form of an embrace of the Romanian Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
religion). According to Ioanid, the Legion "willingly inserted strong elements of Orthodox Christianity into its political doctrine to the point of becoming one of the rare modern European political movements with a religious ideological structure." The movement's leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was a religious mystic who aimed at a spiritual resurrection for the nation. According to Codreanu's heterodox philosophy, human life was a sinful, violent political war, which would ultimately be transcended by the spiritual nation. In this schema, the Legionnaire might have to perform fanatical and violent actions that would condemn him to damnation
Damnation
Damnation is the concept of everlasting divine punishment and/or disgrace, especially the punishment for sin as threatened by God . A damned being "in damnation" is said to be either in Hell, or living in a state wherein they are divorced from Heaven and/or in a state of disgrace from God's favor...
, which was considered the ultimate sacrifice for the nation. Like many other fascist movements, the Legion called for a revolutionary "new man". As for economics, there was no straightforward program, but the Legion generally promoted the idea of a communal or national economy, rejecting capitalism as overly materialistic
Economic materialism
Materialism is a mindset that views the consumption and acquisition of material goods as positive and desirable. It is often bound up with a value system which regards social status as being intrinsically linked to affluence as well as the perception that happiness can be increased through...
. The movement considered its main enemies to be present political leaders and the Jews.
Style
Its members wore green uniforms (meant as a symbol of renewal, and the origin of the occasional reference to them as the "Greenshirts" - "Cămăşile verzi"), and greeted each other using the Roman saluteRoman salute
The Roman salute is a gesture in which the arm is held out forward straight, with palm down, and fingers touching. In some versions, the arm is raised upward at an angle; in others, it is held out parallel to the ground. The former is a well known symbol of fascism that is commonly perceived to be...
. The main symbol used by the Iron Guard was a triple cross
Cross
A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run obliquely, the design is technically termed a saltire, although the arms of a saltire need not meet...
(a variant of the triple parted and fretted one), standing for prison bars (as a badge of martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
dom), and sometimes referred to as the "Archangel Michael Cross" ("Crucea Arhanghelului Mihail").
The mysticism of the Legion led to a cult of death, martyrdom, violence, and self-sacrifice. They had an action squad that was called Echipa morţii, or "Death Squad" who had the mission to go everywhere in Romania and to sing. It was called "Death Squad" because its members had to accomplish their mission even with the risk of being killed by the police, communist or any other enemies of the Legion. The members of it were: Ion Dumitrescu-Borşa (who was a Christian Orthdox priest), Sterie Ciumetti, Petre Ţocu, Tache Savin, Traian Clime, Iosif Bozântan, Nicolae Constantinescu
A chapter of the Legion was called a cuib, or "nest," and was arranged around the virtues of discipline, work, silence, education, mutual aid, and honor. These groups observed rituals that included both the drinking of and writing oaths in blood.
Founding and rise
In 1927, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu left the number two position (under A.C. Cuza) in the Romanian political party known as the National-Christian Defense LeagueNational-Christian Defense League
The National-Christian Defense League was a virulently anti-Semitic political party of Romania formed by A. C. Cuza.-Origins:The group had its roots in the National Christian Union, formed in 1922 by Cuza and the famed physiologist Nicolae Paulescu. This group, which used the swastika as its...
(NCDL). It was then he founded the Legion of the Archangel Michael.
The Legion also differed from other fascist movements in that it had its mass base among the peasantry and students, rather than among military veterans. However, the legionnaires shared the fascist penchant for violence, up to and including political assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s.
With Codreanu as a charismatic leader, the Legion was known for skillful propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
, including a very capable use of spectacle. Utilizing marches, religious processions and patriotic and partisan hymns and anthems, along with volunteer work and charitable campaigns in rural areas in support of its anti-Communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, anti-Semitic, anti-liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
, and anti-parliamentary
Parliamentary system
A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....
philosophy, the League presented itself as an alternative to corrupt
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
, clientelist
Political machine
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses , who receive rewards for their efforts...
parties including the NCDL. Initially, the Iron Guard hoped to encompass any political faction, regardless of its position on the political spectrum
Political spectrum
A political spectrum is a way of modeling different political positions by placing them upon one or more geometric axes symbolizing independent political dimensions....
, that wished to combat the rise of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in the USSR.
Like other clerical fascist movements of the time, the Iron Guard was vividly anti-Semitic, promoting the idea that "Rabbinical aggression against the Christian world" in "unexpected 'protean forms': Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
, Freudianism
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, homosexuality, atheism, Marxism, Bolshevism, the civil war in Spain
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
," were undermining society.
On December 10, 1933, the Romanian Liberal Prime Minister Ion Duca banned the Iron Guard. After a brief period of arrests, beatings, torture and even killings, (twelve members of the Legionary Movement were murdered by the police force), Iron Guard members retaliated on December 29, 1933 by assassinating Duca on the platform of the Sinaia
Sinaia
Sinaia is a town and a mountain resort in Prahova County, Romania. The town was named after Sinaia Monastery, around which it was built; the monastery in turn is named after the Biblical Mount Sinai...
railway station.
A bloody struggle for power
Romanian general election, 1937
General elections were held in Romania on 20 and 22 December 1937. It was Romania's last election before King Carol II dissolved Parliament and instituted a royal dictatorship the following February. By the next elections under the 1923 Constitution, Romania had passed through two dictatorships and...
the Legion came in third, behind the Liberal and the Peasant Parties, with 15.5 percent of the vote. King Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
was strongly opposed to the Legion's political aims (not, as some claimwho?, simply due to the influence of his mistress Elena "Magda" Lupescu
Magda Lupescu
Elena Lupescu , better known as Magda Lupescu, was the mistress of King Carol II of the Romanians and later , his wife.-Parents and siblings:...
, a Roman Catholic whose father had been Jewish) and successfully kept them out of government until he himself was forced to abdicate in 1940. During this period, the Legion was generally on the receiving end of persecution. On February 10, 1938, the King dissolved the government, taking on the role of a royal dictator.
Codreanu was arrested and imprisoned in April 1938, and ultimately strangled to death along with several other legionnaires by their Gendarmerie
Jandarmeria Româna
Jandarmeria Română is the military branch of the two Romanian police forces .The gendarmerie is subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform and does not have responsibility for policing the Romanian Armed Forces...
escort on the night of November 29–30, 1938, purportedly during an attempt to escape from prison. It is generally agreed that there was no such escape attempt, and that Codreanu and the others were killed on the King's orders, probably in reaction to the November 24, 1938, murder by legionnaires of a relative (some sources say a "friend") of Armand Călinescu
Armand Calinescu
Armand Călinescu was a Romanian economist and politician, who served as Prime Minister between March 1939 and the time of his death.-Early life:...
, then Minister of the Interior in the King's cabinet.
The royal dictatorship was brief. On March 7, 1939, a new government was formed with Călinescu as prime minister; on September 21, 1939, he, in turn was assassinated by legionnaires avenging Codreanu. Further rounds of mutual carnage ensued.
In addition to the conflict with the king, an internal battle for power ensued in the wake of Codreanu's death. Waves of repression almost completely eliminated the Legion's original leadership by 1939, promoting second-rank members to the forefront. According to a secret report filed by the Hungarian political secretary in Bucharest in late 1940, three main factions existed: the group gathered around Horia Sima
Horia Sima
Horia Sima was a Romanian fascist politician. After 1938, he was the second and last leader of the fascist and antisemitic para-military movement known as the Iron Guard.-In Romania:...
, a dynamic local leader from the Banat, which was the most pragmatic and least Orthodox in its orientation; the group composed of Codreanu's father, Ion Zelea Codreanu, and his brothers (who despised Sima); and the Moţa-Marin group, which wanted to strengthen the movement's religious character. After a long period of confusion, Sima, representing the Legion's less radical wing, overcame all competition and assumed leadership, being recognised as such on 6 September 1940 by the Legionary Forum, a body created at his initiative. On 28 September the elder Codreanu stormed the Legion headquarters in Bucharest (the Green House) in an unsuccessful attempt to install himself as leader.
Sima's brief ascendancy
In the first months of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Romania was officially neutral. However after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
of August 23, 1939, stipulated, among other things, Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
. When Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, Romania granted refuge to members of Poland's fleeing government, and even after the assassination of Călinescu, King Carol tried to maintain neutrality, but France's surrender and Britain's retreat from Europe rendered them unable to fulfil their assurances to Romania. A lean toward the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
was probably inevitable.
This political alignment was obviously favorable to the surviving legionnaires. Ion Gigurtu
Ion Gigurtu
Ion Gigurtu was a Romanian politician, Land Forces officer, engineer and industrialist who served a brief term as Prime Minister from July 4 to September 4, 1940, under the personal regime of King Carol II. A specialist in mining and veteran of both the Second Balkan War and World War I, he made a...
's government, formed July 4, 1940, was the first to include a Legion member, but by the time the movement achieved any formal power, most of its
leadership was already dead: Horia Sima, a strong anti-Semite who had become the nominal leader of the movement after Codreanu's murder, was one of the few prominent legionnaires to survive the carnage of the preceding years.
On September 4, 1940, the Legion formed a tense alliance with General (later Marshal) Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
. Using popular outrage at Romania being forced to give up a large block of land as a result of the Second Vienna Award
Second Vienna Award
The Second Vienna Award was the second of two Vienna Awards arbitrated by the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Rendered on August 30, 1940, it re-assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.-Prelude and historical background :After the World War I, the multi-ethnic...
, the alliance forced the abdication of Carol II in favour of his son Michael, and leaned even more strongly toward the Axis. (Romania would formally join the Axis in June 1941.) Romania was proclaimed a "National Legionary State
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
, with the Legion as the country's only legal party. As part of the deal, Antonescu was named the Legion's honorary leader, while Sima became deputy premier.
Once in power, from September 14, 1940, until January 21, 1941, the Legion ratcheted up the level of already harsh anti-Semitic legislation and pursued, with impunity, a campaign of pogroms and of political assassinations. More than 60 former dignitaries or officials were executed in Jilava
Jilava
Jilava is a commune in Ilfov county, Romania, near Bucharest. It is composed of a single village, Jilava.The name derives from a Romanian word of Slavic origin meaning "humid place". Jilava was the location of a fort built by King Carol I of Romania, as part of the capital's defense system...
prison while awaiting trial; historian and former prime minister Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
and economist Virgil Madgearu
Virgil Madgearu
Virgil Traian N. Madgearu was a Romanian economist, sociologist, and left-wing politician, prominent member and main theorist of the Peasants' Party and of its successor, the National Peasants' Party...
, also a former government minister, were assassinated without even the pretense of an arrest.
The Iron Guard have become infamous for their participation in the Holocaust. In The Destruction of the European Jews, Raul Hilberg
Raul Hilberg
Raul Hilberg was an Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the world's preeminent scholar of the Holocaust, and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews, is regarded as a seminal study of the Nazi Final...
writes, "There were... instances when the Germans actually had to step in to restrain and slow down the pace of the Romanian measures." The annihilation of the Jews of eastern Romania (including Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, Transnistria
Transnistria (World War II)
Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944...
, and the city of Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
) had more the character of a pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
than of the well-organized transports and camps of the Germans.
The Legion overplayed their hand, however. On January 24, 1941, Antonescu successfully suppressed a Legion-inspired military coup, resulting in the Legion being forced out of a governing role and losing its government protection. During the three-day civil war, eventually won by Antonescu with support from the German army, members of the Iron Guard instigated a deadly pogrom in Bucharest, the capital city. Particularly gruesome was the murder of dozens of Jewish civilians in the Bucharest slaughterhouse. After the victims were killed, the perpetrators hung the bodies from meat hooks and mutilated them in a vicious parody of kosher slaughtering practices. Horia Sima and many other legionnaires took refuge in Germany; others were imprisoned.
Legacy
The name "Garda de Fier" is also used by a small, Romanian nationalist group, active in the post-communist eraCommunist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
.
There are also another contemporary far-right organizations in Romania, such as Pentru Patrie(For the fatherland) and Noua Dreaptă
Noua Dreapta
Noua Dreaptă is an ultra-nationalist organization in Romania and Moldova, founded in 2000.-Beliefs:The group's beliefs include militant nationalism and strong Orthodox Christian religious convictions...
(The New Right). Considering themself the heir apparent to the Iron Guard, Noua Dreaptă embraces legionnairism and has a personality cult for Corneliu Codreanu but they also use the Celtic Cross
Celtic cross
A Celtic cross is a symbol that combines a cross with a ring surrounding the intersection. In the Celtic Christian world it was combined with the Christian cross and this design was often used for high crosses – a free-standing cross made of stone and often richly decorated...
which is not a symbol of legionnairism.
Since the 1970s Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
, a prominent historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher, has been criticized for having supported the Iron Guard in the 1930s.
Other uses of the term
There was a PeronistPeronism
Peronism , or Justicialism , is an Argentine political movement based on the programmes associated with former President Juan Perón and his second wife, Eva Perón...
faction in early 1970s Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
known as the Guardia de Hierro (Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
for “Iron Guard”) which had no connection to Romanian nationalism.
External links
- Influential Sicilian TraditionTraditionA tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
alist rightist Julius EvolaJulius EvolaBarone Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola also known as Julius Evola, was an Italian philosopher and esotericist...
's analysis of the Iron Guard: The Tragedy of the Romanian Iron Guard: Codreanu
- An excellent web site about the Iron Guard, produced as a class project at Claremont CollegeClaremont CollegeClaremont College opened in 1990 as a senior secondary Government school in Tasmania, Australia, for students in Years 11 and 12. It provides a full range of courses, preparing students for university, TAFE, traineeships and employment...
. Essays on that site provide a detailed picture of the growth of the Iron Guard and the legionary movement, the cultural aspects of the movement, and the involvement of the Iron Guard in the Holocaust, as well as a year-by-year chronology of the Iron Guard, its antecedent groups and rival fascist and proto-fascist movements, beginning in 1910. - Facing the Past. Information on the Holocaust in Romania, including the role of the Iron Guard, from a report commissioned and accepted by the Romanian government.
- An untold footnote to World War II. An aborted 1945 mission of the AromanianAromaniansAromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...
Iron Guardists in Greece.