Codreanu and the Warrior Ethos

Came across an interesting article on the Iron Guard movement: your thoughts guys? @Vergennes @Psychic @The Sandman @AUSTERLITZ and at our Russian members @vostok @ptldM3 @Glavcom considering that the Iron Guard incorporated Orthodox Christianity as the central core of their movement i have read that many Russian Nationalists also take inspiration from the Iron Guard but i would like to know to what extent this is true (if at all) and how do Russians view the Iron Guard?




Keith Preston · July 15, 2012


European civilization of the early to middle twentieth century was characterized in part by the growth of political movements with a martial character. These included both the many variants of fascism from the far Right and revolutionary socialist currents from the far Left. The proliferation of such movements accelerated sharply in the interwar period. Particularly noteworthy were Mussolini’s Fascisti and the National Socialists of Germany, given the later success of these at actual achievement of state power, as well as the various factions involved in the Spanish Civil War. Romania’s Iron Guard, under the leadership of Corneliu Codreanu, was unique among these movements in that it was one of the few such tendencies with a strong religious orientation, and a highly eccentric religiosity at that. (Payne, 1995)

The religiosity of the Iron Guard is ironic given that the rise of secular mass movements with a strong martial or even apocalyptic outlook during the twentieth century can easily be interpreted as a substitution for declining religious enthusiasms during the same era. Nietzsche had predicted that the twentieth-century would be a time of great ideological wars, and history has demonstrated the prescience of Nietzsche’s prediction. Yet, Nietzsche regarded the ominous cloud of previously unparalleled warfare he saw on the horizon as a consequential phase through which humanity must pass in part due to the “death of God” and the quest for new gods to fill the resulting void. While Nietzsche himself detested militarism, he also lamented the decline of the warrior ethos in the era of modernity. Like Ernst Junger after him, Nietzsche considered the comforts of bourgeois society to have brought with them an emasculating aversion to danger and a pervasive preoccupation with safety and security. These observations were the foundation of the underlying sentiments expressed in the Nietzschean adage that “a good fight justifies any cause.” (Preston, 2011; Junger, )

The twentieth century certainly brought with it a myriad of causes which inspired their adherents to “a good fight.” While the icons of Race, Nation, or Class largely replaced “God” in the pantheons of twentieth century secularized religiosity, it was among the ranks of Codreanu’s Iron Guard (or the Legion of the Archangel Michael, as the Guard also referred to itself) that the older icons of God, Faith, and Church retained their traditional place. Indeed, it was perhaps among the Iron Guard that martial values achieved extremes that were unparalleled among other ideological revolutionaries of the era. Of all the extremist movements of the period, the Iron Guard surpassed perhaps even the German S.A. in the development of a cult of death and martyrdom. The similarities between German National Socialism and the Iron Guard were great. The particularly obvious parallels are the virulent nationalism, anti-communism, and anti-Semitism of both movements. Codreanu could fairly be said to have rivaled Hitler in the fervor of his anti-Jewish rhetoric. (Volovici, 1991)

However, perhaps the most interesting dimension of the ideology of the Iron Guard was its approach to theology. The Legionnaires conceived of the Romanian nation as having a special relationship to God and its commitment to the traditional Orthodox Christianity of the Romanian people informed every aspect of their thought and action. Like Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the ruthlessly Catholic Jesuit order before them, the Legionnaires recognized no limitations on the ends to which they might go in defense of their particular variation of the Christian faith. The extremism of their cult of martyrdom is perhaps best exemplified by their belief that in order to defend the Faith and the Nation, a Legionnaire might at times be called upon to perform deeds that would result in his own damnation. In other words, not only an individual life but an individual soul must at times be sacrificed for the greater good of the struggle. This is likely the most intense form of cultic martyrdom ever devised. Religious movements which teach martyrdom typically promise reward in a future life for the faithful holy warrior who sacrifices his mere mortal life for the cause. Yet for the holy warriors of the Iron Guard, a soldier of faith could be called upon to lay down not only his mortal life but his immortal soul as well. (Payne, 1995) No cult of martyrdom could ever be more extreme. Their fervent Orthodoxy aside, one might be tempted to compare the theological outlook of the Legionnaires with that of Milton’s Lucifer. Just as Milton depicted Satan as having insisted that it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, so might the faithful warriors of the Iron Guard be said to have believed that it is better to achieve Hell in the struggle for one’s nation than to achieve Heaven for having engaged in a less virulent struggle. The Romanian warriors took the martyrdom cults of the Islamic jihadists or the Japanese kamikazes still a step further.

Because of their stalwart religiosity and fervent attachment to Romanian tradition, it is also tempting to dismiss the Legionnaires as mere reactionaries of the throne and altar variety rather than to recognize them as a manifestation of an authentic revolutionary force in European civilization of the time. Yet such a conclusion would be problematical. As early as 1919, Codreanu himself had joined Constantin Pancu’s National Awareness Guard, a right-wing anti-communist faction that simultaneously advocated for greater worker rights. Likewise, the Iron Guard itself was involved in the organization of cooperatives and, like many radical right movements of the era, voiced fervent opposition to both capitalism and communism. (Barbu, 1993) In many ways the Iron Guard might be considered an Orthodox counterpart to the Falangist movement of Spain’s Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. The ideological parallels are rather significant. Both movements espoused a radical nationalist philosophy that attacked communism, finance capital, liberalism, internationalism, and parliamentarism and while expressing support for the traditional faith of the people of their respective nations. Both maintained a primary orientation towards paramilitarism and armed struggle in a way that represented the evolution of the Right beyond the throne and altar reactionary current towards a genuinely revolutionary nationalism. (Rivera, 1936) Yet both movements maintained an outlook that was more traditional than the modernist influences exhibited by some radical right movements of the era, such as the anticlericalism of the German National Socialists, the avante garde influences on Italian Fascism, the Nietzscheanism of the Conservative Revolutionaries, or the Marxism of the National-Bolsheviks. In other ways, the Iron Guard resembled the now forgotten anti-communist Buddhist or Catholic militias formed in the nations of Indochina during the early period of the civil wars in those nations.

The prevalence of so many forces exhibiting an uncompromising martial spirit throughout the Western world in the first half of the twentieth century is all the more remarkable given the near total disappearance of martial values in Western culture of the present time. The militaries of the contemporary Western nations are barely militaries at all but instead function as glorified police departments forever being deployed in the pursuit of dubious and never-ending “peacekeeping” and “humanitarian” endeavors. Even the massive military-industrial complex maintained by the United States functions more as a corporate welfare scheme for legions of crony capitalists connected to the American state. American military personnel are careerist bureaucrats rivaling their counterparts in the civilian sectors of the state or the world of capitalist corporations. Indeed, even among the rank and file, the military forces of the United States are more a collection of mercenaries and fraternities than anything that could be said to exhibit a warrior ethos in the historic or traditional sense. The blending of modern warfare and high-technology has served in many ways to eliminate the truly martial aspects of warfare. Instead, the forces of the American empire and its allies drop bombs from the safety of the skies. “War” for these modern imperial legions is sometimes more comparable to a visit to a video arcade than engagement on the battlefield. Indeed, the American military now serves a primary force for the perpetration of Political Correctness as represented by its conscientious commitment to “diversity,” properly integrating women and homosexuals into its ranks, and upholding “human rights” on a global scale rather than cultivating a warrior ethos or upholding its own historic traditions. (Hunter, 2009)

One is inclined to wonder what Western civilization might be today if its recent ancestors who did indeed exhibit such martial valor had not simultaneously squandered so much blood and treasure in internecine warfare over petty nationalisms, sectarian ideological squabbles, and class hatreds. Whether they were the Legionnaires of Romania, the Falangists of Spain, the Brownshirts of Germany, the Blackshirts of Italy, the Anarchists of Catalonia, or the Communist street fighters of the KPD, it seems a pity that so much blood was lost in struggles that were ultimately futile and meaningless and that these struggles eventually culminated in explosive and historically unrivaled warfare that ended the reign of Europe as the world’s premiere civilization in favor of the American hegemony that has dominated since 1945. One wonders if such martial spirit could ever again be recaptured and directed towards a more constructive vision. The decadence of modern society is illustrated by the apathetic nature of its population. The principal values of contemporary Western culture are the pursuit of material comfort, safety, and personal hedonism. Only a dramatic psychic sea change among Western peoples generated by necessity would likely reverse this prevailing trend.

It appears that just as the torch of politico-economic dominance and cultural evolution is currently being passed from Europe to Asia, so is the torch of martial spirit and the warrior ethos being passed to the insurgent forces of the Third World. The spirit of the Legionnaires continues to thrive not among Western Christians but among Islamic insurgents originating from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and the remaining armed struggle movements of Latin America. Today’s holy warriors are Islamists rather than Legionnaires or Falangists. It is the Muslim insurgents who now raise the banner of the classical Anarchist ideal of “propaganda by the deed.” (Hari, 2009) It is the youth of the Muslim nations rather than Western youth who fight the institutions of decadent, corrupt and archaic authorities in the streets. Indeed, virtually the only elements demonstrating any sort of martial values in contemporary Western society are lumpenproletarian street gangs.

The most advanced military theorists of the contemporary era have recognized the dramatic changes that are currently evolving on a global basis concerning the nature of war. Commonly labeled as “fourth generation warfare,” the new form which human martial endeavor assumes is that involving non-state actors. This is a genuinely revolutionary phenomenon that is essentially overturning the monopoly on the waging of war assigned to the state since the time of the Treaty of Westphalia. War is now waged not by states but by movements lacking state power or which have replaced state power in a situation of political collapse. Among the most prominent example of these is Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia which essentially serves as the defense force of the otherwise militarily impotent Lebanese nation, having successful repelled the Israeli invasion in the summer of 2006. Hezbollah has likewise assumed the domestic as well as external roles normally played by conventional states with its provision of public health, education, and welfare services. (Preston, 2006) Ironically, it might well be said that Hezbollah is the closest parallel to the Iron Guard of any contemporary political or military movement.

It is clear enough the legacy of Corneliu Codreanu and the Iron Guard, like the legacy of so many comparable movements of the era, belongs to the past. However admirable the personal valor of Codreanu and his Legionnaires may have been, there can be no doubt that many of the ideas that fueled their movement have become increasingly archaic with the passing of time. For instance, their adherence to the model of the Jewish conspiracy outlined in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” now seems a bit primitive, and one need not be an adherent of the pieties of contemporary political correctness to recognize the anti-Jewish rhetoric and actions of the Legionnaires as inordinately extreme. Likewise, one may find the alleged mystical nature of the relationship between the Orthodox faith and the Romanian nation championed by the faithful of the Iron Guard to be dubious in nature. The era of such extreme fidelity to a particular nation-state has certainly passed and conventional patriotism of the kind assigned to historic nation-states becomes increasingly less prevalent in the contemporary world. Likewise, the decline of orthodox or traditional Christian religious belief of any kind among Westerners is well known. It is doubtful that either Christianity or national patriotism could ever again inspire the inhabitants of Western civilization in the way these inspired those of previous eras. Clearly, these things are relics from the past. Valuable relics they may be, perhaps, but relics nevertheless. (Van Creveld, 1999)

Yet as Western civilization continues its process of decline, it is likely that its indigenous peoples will once again be in search of identity as a result of the dislocation generated by the collapse of their civilization. As the current century unfolds and Asian preeminence becomes ever more obvious and the demographic overrun of the West becomes ever more imminent, it is likely that the primordial spirits of Western peoples will once again awaken. At that point, the indigenous peoples of the West will become insurgents once again and may well come to resemble present insurgents of the Third World. When such an era arrives, indigenous Europeans will no doubt look to find inspiration from past figures representing the martial spirit and warrior ethos that Westerners once took for granted. It is certainly possible that Corneliu Codreanu will be one among many such figures.



Originally published in Thoughts & Perspectives: Codreanu, a compilation of essays on Corneliu Codreanu, published by ARKTOS.



Bibliography:

Barbu, Zeev (2003). "Romania: The Iron Guard", in Aristotle A. Kallis (ed.), The Fascism Reader. London: Routledge, p.195-201.

Hari, Johan (2009). “Blood, Rage & History: The World's First Terrorists.” The Independent, October 12, 2009.

Hunter, Jack (2009). “Casualties of Diversity.” Taki’s Magazine, November 15, 2009.

Junger, Ernst (1993). “On Danger.” New German Critique, No. 59 ( Spring/Summer 1993)

Payne, Stanley G. (1995). A History of Fascism 1914-1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 277-289.

Preston, Keith (2011). “The Nietzschean Prophecies: Two Hundred Years of Nihilism and the Coming Crisis of Western Civilization.” The Radical Tradition: Philosophy, Metapolitics & the Conservative Revolution, edited by Troy Southgate (Primordial Traditions, 2011).

Preston, Keith (2006). Propaganda by the Deed, Fourth Generation Warfare and the Decline of the State: An Examination of the History of the Decline of the State’s Monopoly on Violence and Warmaking (archived here).

Primo de Rivera, Jose Antonio (1936). “Carta a los militares de Espana” (archived here)

Van Creveld, Martin (1999). The Rise and Decline of the State. Cambridge University Press.

Volovici, Leon (1991). Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991.

Interesting history ,i had never heard of this guy before. @flamer84 perhaps could shed some more local views on this?

AUSTERLITZ said:

Interesting history ,i had never heard of this guy before. @flamer84 perhaps could shed some more local views on this?

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Corneliu Codreanu and the Iron Guard (AKA Legionnaire Movement) are not that well known within the English speaking world as compared to the other more prominent Fascist movements despite the Iron Guard being one of the early Fascist movements and one of the most fanatical ( @flamer84 to his credit was the one to introduce me to this movements history). I think this is mostly due to the fact that the founding leader of the movement Codreanu was assassinated in 1938 and the Iron Guard as a political movement was disbanded in 1941 before they could play any significant role in WW2 though many of its members were absorbed into the Romanian Army and went on to fight on the side of the Axis under General Ion Antonescu until Romania's defection to the allies after which the remnants of the Iron Guard were then reorganized into a Romanian Waffen SS division that fought till the wars end. Even after the war the Iron Guard became a movement for Romanian anti-Communist Partisans well into the 1960's.

Though the Iron Guard are not that well known in the West (particularly in the Anglosphere), in Eastern Europe and Russia where Orthodox Christianity is the prevalent religion many Nationalist movements draw their inspiration from Codreanu's works despite decades of Communist propaganda portraying Codreanu and the Iron Guard in a negative light.

@Psychic @The Sandman



Christopher Thorpe
6,347 words

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was the Romanian Christian nationalist who founded the Legionary Movement, often referred to as the Iron Guard among English speakers. It is surprising that very little attention is given to him among those in the Anglophone world, and when it is given, it is only to heap insults and lies upon his memory.

Attempts are made to label him as a “dark” and “fanatical” figure, but even the Jewish-Hungarian historian Nicholas Nagy-Talavera commented about Codreanu his book The Green Shirts and the Others that he “could see nothing monstrous or evil in him. On the contrary. His childlike, sincere smile radiated over the miserable crowd, and he seemed to be with it yet mysteriously apart from it.”

Horia Sima, Codreanu’s successor as commander of the Legion in 1940, also described Codreanu in his book Istoria Mişcarii Legionare (“History of the Legionary Movement”) as a noble man who had unlimited love for his people and was motivated by this love: “The characteristic of his soul was goodness. If you want to penetrate the initial motive which prompted Corneliu Codreanu to throw in a fight so hard and almost desperate, the best answer is that he did it out of compassion for suffering people. His heart bled with thousands of injuries to see the misery in which peasants and workers struggled.”

It should be clear that Codreanu was a great man with good intentions; something that most Liberals and Jews will never admit. Here we will present an overview of his life and motives from an unbiased perspective for the sake of the education of English speakers.

The Early Life of Codreanu

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was born on September 13, 1899 in the small town of Hushi in Moldavia. His father, Ion Zelea Codreanu, had been a nationalist fighter all his life, while his grandfather and great-grandfather were foresters. Corneliu Codreanu had been educated for five years, from age eleven to sixteen, at the military academy Manastirea Dealului (“the Cloister on the Hill”). Codreanu explained how his time there affected him (quoted from the key book he wrote, For My Legionaries): “…my military education will be with me all my life. Order, discipline, hierarchy, molded into my blood at an early age, along with the sentiment of soldierly dignity, will constitute a guiding thread for my entire future activity. Here too, I was taught to speak little, a fact which later was to lead me to hate ‘chatter boxing’ and too much talk. Here I learned to love the trench and to despise the drawing room.”

After Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary in August 1916, Corneliu Codreanu and his father went to join the Romanian army moving into Transylvania. Codreanu was not old enough to be accepted as a volunteer, but still fought with the army in its advance and retreat across the mountains. However, his father had been wounded in battle, and insisted that Corneliu return home so that they do not both die in battle and leave his mother unsupported. However, a year later in 1917, Codreanu completed his military education in The Military School of Infantry at Botosani by 1918, but did not get the chance to join the front before the war ended.

After graduating from high school in 1919, Codreanu was accepted into the University of Iasi and left Husi for Iasi. He had already read many works by the famous professors Nicolae Iorga and A.C. Cuza, which taught him the ideals for Romania: “1. The unification of Romanian people. 2. The elevation of peasantry through land reform and political rights. 3. The solution of the Jewish problem.” After arriving in Iasi, Codreanu found that the city and university were heavily influenced by Communist agitators and that even many professors were Marxists. The Romanian workers were experiencing terrible working conditions and had very low wages, and had therefore been drawn to Communism by Marxist propagandists. Students at the University of Iasi were also largely converted to Communism, and Communist student meetings attacked the Army, Justice, Church, and the Crown, essentially propagating anti-Romanianism.

After doing some research, Codreanu discovered that the leaders of the Romanian Communist workers were neither Romanians nor workers. At Iasi, the “workers’ movement” was led by Dr. Ghelerter along with Messrs, Gheler, Spiegler, and Schreiber. At the capital, Bucharest, the leaders were Ana Pauker and Ilie Moscovici. All of them, Codreanu found, were Jews. Realizing that like in Russia, where a largely Jewish-led Bolshevik revolution occurred a few years earlier, Romania was in danger of being taken over by Jewish Communists who would destroy everything Romanian. He commented:

Early Political Activity

Codreanu then decided that he quickly needed to take action against the Communist movement, while the conservative students were not doing anything sufficient. He joined a small organization, the Guard of National Conscience, which had been recently created by Constantin Pancu, who was a well-known steel-worker. The members of the Guard of National Conscience, with Codreanu and Pancu at the head, made speeches and rallies to combat Communism and eventually even got into physical battles with groups of violent Communists. At the Nicolina railway works, where nearly all the workers were Communist and a large number of Jews were also present, a general strike began. Conservative Romanians led by Pancu and Codreanu then met and marched around placing the national flags on various buildings while removing Communist red flags. Codreanu even heroically climbed on top of a factory to throw off the red flag and put up a Romanian one in its place. By the time he was down, the Communists workers were so impressed by his efforts that they allowed Codreanu and Pancu to leave without a fight. Everywhere across Romania news of this event was carried quickly, and the Communist movement soon was reduced and had no chance at success.

The Guard of National Conscience then declared its program for the improvement of the Romanian nation, which they called “National Christian Socialism.” Codreanu explained that “It is not enough to defeat Communism. We must also fight for the rights of the workers. They have a right to bread and a fight to honor, We must fight against the oligarchic parties, creating national workers organizations which can gain their rights within the framework of the state and not against the state.”

It was then, by 1920, that Codreanu started focusing on the problems at Iasi University, when they realized that Romanian universities, as revealed by the studies of professor Ion Gavanescul, were swarming with Jews. The Jews, an alien people hostile to Romanian culture, formed about five percent of the population, and yet in Iasi a third of the students were Jews. Codreanu knew that the schools, which had an unreasonable number of Jews when compared to Romanians, formed the next leading class in Romania. Once the Jews would become overwhelming in the leading class, Romania’s national culture would be destroyed, because, as professor Cuza taught, Jews were an alien people culturally and racially and would only distort the culture of the nation in which they lived. This menace disturbed Codreanu and others who loved their Romanian nation, its culture, and the Orthodox Christian religion. Codreanu put forth a dramatic exposition of his own feelings about this issue in For My Legionaries:


The Jewish students at the University of Iasi continued encouraging Communism, but after his victory with Pancu, Codreanu could now put an end to the bullying of nationalist students by Jewish and Marxist students. Students who wore Russian caps as a sign of support for Bolshevism were beaten and their caps burnt. A Marxist student strike was then defeated by Codreanu and his friends when they seized the dining hall and insisted that students who do not work, do not get to eat. Soon afterwards, newspapers owned by Jews insulted King Ferdinand and Codrenau, to which Codreanu responded by leading a group to the papers’ offices to wreck the presses.

In 1922, Codreanu graduated from Iasi University’s Faculty of Law, and by then had made almost the entire university nationalist as well as having spread pro-Romanian and anti-Jewish concepts to other universities. In that same year, professors A.C. Cuza and Nicolae Paulescu, who Codreanu regarded as being some of the greatest intellectuals to teach Romanians about the Jewish Problem, published two articles in the magazine Apararea Nationala (“The National Defense”): “The Science of Anti-Semitism” (by Cuza) and “The Talmud, the Kahal, Freemasonry” (by Paulescu, an excerpt from a book). Of this influential publication, Codreanu wrote: “The articles of Professors Cuza and Paulescu were religiously read by all the youth and had everywhere upon students both in Bucharest and in Cluj a resounding impact. We considered the publication of each issue a triumph, because it was for us another munitions transport for combating the arguments in the Jewish press.”

He continued studying political economy and in the fall of 1922 traveled to Germany to register at the University of Berlin. While in Berlin he spoke with German nationalists and taught them what he knew of the Jewish problem. He also heard of Adolf Hitler, who, upon becoming more prominent, Codreanu thought of as a great anti-Jewish nationalist leader. It was also in Berlin that Codreanu heard of Mussolini’s victory in Italy, at which he declared: “I rejoiced as much as if it were my own country’s victory. There is, among all those in various parts of the world who serve their people, a kinship of sympathy, as there is such a kinship among those who labor for the destruction of peoples.”

The National Christian Defense League & Reactions to Government Corruption

In December, 1922, Codreanu’s education in Germany was suddenly halted, because a nation-wide anti-Jewish nationalist student movement exploded in Romania and Codreanu felt he had to return to join them at that crucial moment. While the students were making a strike for better conditions in universities as well as a limit on the number of Jews, Codreanu, Cuza, and a few others decided to hold a rally in March 3, 1923 in Iasi to create a new organization. This organization, which they decided to call “The League of Christian National Defense”, was to be created once thousands of students would meet at the rally. Codreanu explained the banner of the National Christian Defense League (L.A.N.C.): “The cloth of these flags was black – a sign of mourning; in the center a round white spot, signifying our hopes surrounded by the darkness they will have to conquer; in the center of the white, a swastika, the symbol of anti-Semitic struggle throughout the world; and all around the flag, a band of the Romanian tricolor – red, yellow and blue.”

However, just a few weeks afterwards the Romanian government, under pressure from influential Jews as in Romania as well as abroad, decided to change the Romanian constitution to allow almost all Jews to become Romanian citizens. This allowed an alien body in Romania, different in language, dress, religion, customs, racial type, and soul, to further infiltrate Romanian society and undoubtedly Judaize its culture. Romanian nationalists were shocked and Codreanu so much that he cried. After explaining this situation in For My Legionaries, Codreanu reflects on how the great and highly respected Romanian leaders in 1879, after Romania won independence from the Ottoman Empire, took action to make sure that Jews would not gain any power in Romania, even though they were forced to give Jews a theoretical right of citizenship (which depended on qualification through military service, thus making only a few Jews citizens, since most Jews did not want to fight in war). These men, whose works were read by all nationalist students, were Vasile Conta, Vasile Alecsandri, Mihail Kogalniceanu, Mihail Eminescu, Bogdan Petriceicu Hajdeu, Costache Negri, A.D. Xenopol.

The larger Romanian parties ruling the government also refused to take any action against the increasing number of Jews flooding into universities, jeopardizing the nation’s future. Codreanu wrote of them, “Fundamentally there was no distinction among them other than differences of form and personal interests-the same thing in different shapes. They did not even have the justification of differing opinions. Their only real motivation was the religion of personal interest.” He also knew, having been educated by the works of Nicolae Paulescu, that the Jews used their economic, financial, and media power to influence the government’s activities. Finally, filled with despair at the almost complete failure of the national student movement, Codreanu and his close friends, including Ion Mota, decided that they would assassinate the top Romanian politicians, top rabbis, and Jewish bankers. Codreanu wrote explaining why he was more concerned with going after the politicians:

However, one of the members of this group, Vernichescu, decided to betray them and they were arrested before they could take action. Upon being interrogated by the police, Codreanu decided that honesty was the only noble way to deal with the situation, and took full responsibility for the assassination plot. They spent some time in jail, where they felt a living spiritual force in the icon of Saint Michael the Archangel at the prison church, which led them to decide that a new group they would create should be named The Legion of Michael the Archangel.

The trial for the assassination plot was held at Bucharest, at which Codreanu and his friends were acquitted since the jurors, all Romanians, were sympathetic with their action due to their anger at the government’s betrayal of the will of the Romanian people. However, upon leaving, Ion Mota felt that they could not succeed in their efforts without killing their betrayer, whom they recently discovered was Vernichescu. Mota shot him in his cell on the day of the trial and thus remained in prison for a longer time to be tried for murder later (although he was acquitted there as well, since few had sympathy for the traitor).

Work for the L.A.N.C. and the Split with Cuza

After Codreanu returned to Iasi in May of 1924, he again started working for the National Christian Defense League. The youth wing of the L.A.N.C. of which Codreanu was a part, the Brotherhood of the Cross, was very low on money as well as labor and was no longer allowed to hold meetings in universities. They resorted to holding meetings in old wooden barracks, until they finally decided to build a “Christian cultural home” with their own hands at Ungheni. With picks and shovels, even making their own bricks with the help of local brick-makers, they built this meeting house, which inspired local villagers (who simultaneously learned about the ideas of the regeneration of Romania).

However, while they were doing their construction work, they were brutally beaten several times without any legal reason by policemen. Codreanu and other students were arrested and hauled off to the police station in Iasi, where the Police Prefect Manciu had them tortured while hanging upside-down in chains. Only with the intervention of Cuza and other leading citizens in Iasi were the students finally freed. The Jews in the area were extremely happy over the torture of the students and rewarded Manciu, who received no punishment for his actions, by buying him a car. Months later in October, 1925, Codreanu was defending a student in court who was arrested at the raid on the Ungheni site. In this courtroom, Manciu burst in with several gendarmes and was prepared to harm Codreanu again. But Codreanu reacted quickly, refusing to be illegally beaten and humiliated, by taking out his revolver and shooting Manciu.

Codreanu was transferred for trial to Tunul Severin, as far south from Moldavia as possible in order to make sure that he was not in an area where everyone sympathized with him. Yet even there, while the policemen denied torturing the students, the jury knew the truth of what happened and proclaimed Codreanu innocent. Shortly after this trial he returned to Iasi and there married Elena Ilinoiu. From there he and his wife decided to travel to France where he would earn his doctorate in political economy at the University of Grenoble.

In May of 1927, Codreanu returned from France and found that the L.A.N.C. was split into two factions due to a lack of coordination and unity (specifically because of a confusion over the expulsion of a deputy), which he felt was the beginning of failure and disaster. Codreanu found that Cuza, the leader of one faction, was perfectly happy with the situation, which caused Codreanu to realize that Cuza was not a good leader. He commented on Cuza’s leadership abilities: “If the doctrinaire is expected to master the science of researching and formulating truth, the leader of a political movement is expected to master the science and the art of organization, education and leadership of men, Professor Cuza, excelling and unsurpassed on the first plane, when brought down on the practical one showed himself ignorant, awkward . . .”

After failing to get the two factions, one led by professor Sumuleanu and the other by Cuza, to come to an agreement, and also after seeing Cuza willing to cooperate to an extent with corrupt politicians from other parties, Codreanu finally decided to split off. He thought that the youth, which was beginning to form a faction of its own, should become a totally new organization that would be better led and more unified. Codreanu and his best friends visited Cuza as well as Sumuleanu and declared their intentions to create a movement on their own. The students met at the “Christian cultural home” and founded their own fully independent group, the Legion of Michael the Archangel, which used the icon of Saint Michael as its symbol.

The Legion of Michael the Archangel

The Legion of Michael the Archangel did not present a party program, and Codreanu did not even consider the Legion to be a political movement, but rather a spiritual movement whose aim was to improve Romania. He asserted that even the best political programs would be compromised if the Romanian people were corrupted by the influence of Jews and greedy politicians. In The Nest Leader’s Manual, he wrote: “The Politician’s goal is to build a fortune, ours is to build our homeland flowering and strong. For her we will work and we will build. For her we will make each Romanian a hero, ready to fight, ready to sacrifice, ready to die.”

The Legion was to be more of a school and an army, rather than a political group, for the creation of a New Man (Omul Nou), a generation of Romanians who, through their Christian spirituality and nationalism, would create a Greater Romania freed from darkness and oppression. A spiritual revolution would be the prerequisite for a political revolution. He declared in For My Legionaries:

The Legion, because it needed a strong structure of organization, was designed as a hierarchical system. The basic unit of the Legion was called a nest, numbering from simply three to thirteen members. At each level of the Legion, from the nest to town, city, county, and regional sections up to the Căpitanul (“Captain”), the top leadership role which Codreanu attained, the leaders were not chosen by election but by bravery and skill. The movement would be opposed to the republican system, which Codreanu observed did not really represent will of the people, and replace it with a new form of government in which a leader would be selected rather than elected, and would not be able to do what he personally wishes, but only what is best for the nation. He explained the role of the leader in this way: “He (the leader) does not do what he wants, he does what he has to do. And he is guided, not by individual interests, nor by collective ones, but instead by the interests of the eternal nation, to the consciousness of which the people have attained. In the framework of these interests and only in their framework, personal interests as well as collective ones find the highest degree of normal satisfaction.”

All the members of the Legion were educated in Christian virtues, love of nation, and were taught to be disciplined and disinterested in battle. The Legionaries marched and sang national songs together along with volunteering to help impoverished lower class Romanians (especially peasants) in building, repairing houses, assisting in farming, and other areas of work. The Legion’s nests were to be self-sufficient, not reliant on buying materials for survival.

Codreanu and other nationalist Romanians had witnessed for many years the suffering of the Romanian people at the hands of the Capitalists, which were largely Jews only interested in profit, and had no sympathy for Romanians. The peasants were extremely poor, in some areas even to the point of starvation, and were barely surviving by borrowing money at interest rates from Jewish money-lenders. Jew-owned companies were chopping down forests at alarming rates, destroying the source of livelihood for certain groups of peasants such as the Moti. Jewish speculators were buying up land and malnutrition was widespread, making the situation seem grim for the Romanian people.

The Legionary Movement grew, spreading through Romania and determined to change this situation by finally banishing the Jews who usually had little sympathy for Gentiles. Through charity and volunteer work, they revealed that they were not just another corrupt party interested in power and money. By 1929, in order to progress further, the Legionaries were forced to create a political branch of the Legion to run for elections. This organization was called Garda de Fier (“Iron Guard”), which is the name by which the Legionary Movement would later be commonly called.

Throughout the early 1930s Iron Guard members marched through villages, wearing the green-colored uniform with a white cross sewn on their shirts. Top Legionaries, including Codreanu, were making speeches and marches, sometimes at night, calling for the regeneration of Romania and the expulsion of the Jews. But influential Jews and established political parties were determined to stop the Iron Guard. In certain areas, Codreanu and other top Legionaries were illegally barred from speaking and often beaten by policemen as well as by Jews, usually without provocation. Unfortunately, they also got into clashes with members of the L.A.N.C., also called Cuzists, who viewed them as a threat to their own success.

Eventually, by 1932, Codreanu and his father entered the Romanian National Assembly through elections in Moldavia. Despite this, the treatment of Legionaries got worse as time passed, and all members, including girls, were beaten and humiliated. By 1933, the Liberal Party, led by Ion Duca, was elected into power and declared that it would exterminate the Iron Guard.

In that same year, Duca’s government, after having already terrorized, tortured, and assassinated several Legionaries, went ahead and banned the Legion to keep it from participating in elections, leading to the arrest of about 18,000 Legionaries (although Codreanu succeeded in hiding). The Legionaries Nicolae Constantinescu, Doro Belimace and Ion Caranica then assassinated Ion Duca in revenge and immediately turned themselves in to the police. Following this, the tortures and assassinations of Legionaries by the government multiplied.

By the fall of 1936, the Legion decided to send a symbolic team of seven top Legionaries to Spain to help Francisco Franco fight the Marxist Republicans. While fighting there, Ion Mota and Vasile Marin died at Majadahonda, near Madrid. At the funeral, before the bodies of Mota and Marin, Codreanu declared in an “Oath of Ranking Legionaries” (1937): “That is why you are going to swear that you understand that being a Legionary elite in our terms means not only to fight and win, but it also means above all a permanent sacrifice of oneself to the service of the Nation; that the idea of an elite is tied to the ideas of sacrifice, poverty, and a hard, bitter life; that where self-sacrifice ends, there also ends the Legionary elite.” Later, there were large funeral processions all over Romania, and in the next year a new elite unit in the Legionary Movement was created, the “Mota-Marin Corps.”

In March of 1938, Codreanu sent a letter to Nicolae Iorga to complain about Iorga’s campaign of calumny against the Legion, in which he told Iorga that he is a dishonest person who has taken part in the oppression of innocent people. Iorga, insulted, then filed a lawsuit against Codreanu, which resulted in King Carol II (who had earlier established himself as a dictator, changing the constitution) and his Minister, Armand Calinescu, arresting Codreanu (and then thousands of Legionaries) and condemning him to six months in prison. The government organized a second trial to take place, closed to the public and extremely biased, in which Codreanu was sentenced to ten years in prison for unreasonable and unproven accusations of sedition and treason. Calinescu, a few months later, then had the military police murder Codreanu, acting outside of the law (this occurred on November 30, 1938).

After Codreanu’s death, terrible persecutions of the Legion continued, and eventually a group of nine Legionaries assassinated Calinescu. General Argeseanu, the new leader in the Romanian government, afterwards executed 252 Legionaries and imprisoned thousands more, intensifying the persecution yet more. By 1940, The Legionaries, under the leadership of Horia Sima, attempted to negotiate with King Carol II. Later that year, General Ion Antonescu would finally overthrow King Carol’s government, resulting in the creation National Legionary State ruled jointly by Sima and Antonescu.

The Legionary Movement After Codreanu

Horia Sima joined the Legion of the Archangel Michael in November of 1927, the same year it was founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. But Sima was prominent only when he first became a leader of the Legion in October of 1938, after a new Legionary Command (of which Sima was a part) was organized due to the fact that Corneliu Codreanu was imprisoned and other top Legionaries arrested or assassinated. In 1940, Sima and Ion Antonescu launched a coup against the tyrannical King Carol II and together created the National Legionary State. It was only after this state was established that Horia Sima became the top commander of the Legion. Of the establishment of the National Legionary State, Horia Sima said in his book Era Libertaţii – Statul naţional-Legionar vol. 1 (“It was Freedom – National Legionary State vol. 1″) that “Rarely in our people’s history has there been experienced a moment of collective exaltation of as impressive enthusiasm as that of the popular masses after the expulsion of King Carol from the country. You cannot even compare the intensity of national sentiment with that rush of joy in the annexed provinces, when the Union of 1918 was formed.”

Sima and Antonescu then proceeded to nationalize or Romanianize the nation’s economy, trade, industry, and mass media. Jews had previously gained an unreasonable degree of ownership of factories, companies, newspapers, cinemas, and various economic positions. Romania would no longer allow the Jews, an alien ethnicity whose influence previously had negative effects on Romanian life, to dominate their nation’s economy and media and distort Romanian culture and lifestyle.

A note needs to be made of an event that occurred in the Legionary State. On November 25, 1940, the bodies of Codreanu and other murdered by Calinescu were exhumed. In two days, by November 27, the Legionaries who were working in that exhumation were so disturbed and angered upon seeing the bodily remains of Codreanu and the other martyrs that they could not restrain themselves from executing 64 members of previous political regimes imprisoned at Jilava who were involved in imprisoning, torturing, and massacring Legionaries in the past. Among these executed for their past crime was Nicolae Iorga.

Iorga’s death was oftentimes, and still is, used as propaganda against the Legionary Movement by philo-semites, Jews, and Communists (it was used by the Romanian Communist regime during its reign) in order to label Horia Sima and the Legion as “terrorists” and “criminals.” Sima wrote in his 1990 book Era Libertaţii – Statul naţional-Legionar vol. 2 (“It was Freedom – National Legionary State vol. 2″) that “Iorga’s killing offered our enemies a weapon of great efficiency, which they fired into the Movement and which has not left their hands even today.” Of course, the Communist propaganda usually overlooks the fact that Iorga was very anti-Semitic and very anti-Communist like many other Romanians, and also that Iorga brought his death upon himself by his own actions. It has also been pointed out that Traian Boeru, Iorga’s assassin, was a Communist agent and that the Legionaries involved would not have actually killed Iorga had this agent not been there. The facts of the situation are not fully clear, but what is clear is that it is foolish and unreasonable to condemn the Legionary Movement based on Iorga’s death, especially when considering how many “democratic” movements throughout history are not condemned, but praised, despite the murders they had committed.

Earlier in November of 1940, Legionary Romania had joined the Tripartite Pact of National Socialist Germany, Italy, and Japan, bringing Romania into World War II on the side of the Axis powers. However, the dual leadership of Sima and Antonescu was imperfect, since Antonescu was extremely ambitious and wanted to gain complete power by personally becoming the leader of the Legionary Movement. In January of 1941, Antonescu prepared a personal meeting with Adolf Hitler without notifying Sima or any other Legionary leaders (which resulted in Sima being unable to participate) and left for Berlin on January 13th. Antonescu discussed with Hitler the possibility of a war with the Soviet Union and the conditions for Romania’s participation in that war. Antonescu argued that the Romanian army was on his side and if Hitler wanted Romania to join in fighting the U.S.S.R., Germany must remain neutral in the event of a conflict between him (Antonescu) and the Legionary Movement.

General Antonescu in a few days then prepared a coup d’etat against the Legion by having anti-Legionary propaganda spread through rumors claiming that Legionaries were undisciplined, engaging in scuffles with military members, and of questionable use in war. Antonescu then took various anti-Legionary actions, including removing various prominent Legionaries from government positions and eventually began to arrest and imprison Legionary leaders. In this situation, on January 21 of 1941, Horia Sima and a large number of Legionaries rebelled against Antonescu, and although they would later tried to negotiate an agreement, Antonescu harshly repressed the Legionaries. In another meeting with Hitler, Antonescu convinced the German leader that the Legionaries were “fanatics” that needed to be suppressed. The Romanian government under Antonescu then became highly authoritarian and began to arrest and kill hundreds of Legionaries. By April of 1941, Horia Sima and many other members of the Legion fled into German territory and were confined to compulsory quarters in certain camps, although they were treated well by the Germans.

During World War II, Romania under Antonescu took part in Operation Barbarossa, fighting with the Axis against the Soviet Union. After the Battle of Stalingrad was lost, the Soviets expanded westwards. As the Soviet armies were moving into Romania in 1944, Antonescu contemplated making peace with the Allies but decided to firmly stay in the Axis alliance. Because of this decision, the Royal Coup of August 23, 1944 occurred, in which groups led by King Michael I decided to remove Antonescu from power by surrounding him and having him arrested. Romania then switched sides in World War II, joining the Allies. The Germans reacted to this by releasing Horia Sima and the other Legionaries. Upon this release, Sima established, with German help, a Legionary government in Vienna to assist in the battle against Communism. However, by 1945 the Soviet conquest could not be stopped, so they retreated westwards.

Sima and most other Legionaries fled to Italy or to parts of Germany, where they established Romanian Committees to help Romanian refugees fleeing from Communism get into Western Europe. By 1949–50, Sima and other top Legionaries started collaborating with French, American, and British authorities to fight Communism, especially by assisting emigrants from the Soviet Union (which would weaken Communist regimes in Eastern Europe). The French-American military then assisted in preparing Legionaries to move into Romania in order to physically fight Communists and start an anti-Communist uprising in that nation. By 1954, the agreement was cancelled due to Soviet infiltration of British intelligence (led by Kim Philby) and because Western powers wanted to establish a “peaceful coexistence” with Stalin’s regime.

Although some Legionaries in Romania continued fighting the Communists into the 1960s, most Legionaries went into exile, scattered across nations in Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. Horia Sima, from the 1950s onwards, lived in various places throughout Germany, Italy, France, and finally Franco’s Spain (where he received political refugee status). Various dissident groups created factions splitting off from Sima’s rule, although he was considered leader by the majority of Legionaries. For decades, most Legionaries could not do much other than publish articles, books, and translations. However, in 1989 after Ceausescu’s Communist regime was overthrown in Romania, Sima and other Legionaries took the opportunity to attempt to revive Legionarism in Romania. Legionaries created various parties, although Sima could not go to Romania himself since he had been sentenced to death there since 1946. Unfortunately, the Legionary parties came into conflict with each other, and none could establish a large movement. Sima died in May 25, 1993 in Madrid, Spain unable to end the quarrels among the various groups. However, the Legionary Movement still continues in its new form, and modern Legionaries today are still working to educate the younger generations about the truth of Legionary history.

Bibliography

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, For My Legionaries, third edition, translated and edited by Dr. Dimitrie Gazdaru (York, S.C., USA: Liberty Bell Publications, 2003).

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, The Nest Leader’s Manual (USA: CZC Books, 2005).

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, The Prison Notes (USA: Reconquista Press, 2011).

Radu Mihai Crisan, Istoria Interzisă (“Forbidden History”) (Bucharest: Editura Tibo, 2008).

Radu Mihai Crisan, “The Secret of the Fire Sword” (Bucharest: University Book Publishing House, 2006).

Julius Evola, “The Tragedy of the Romanian ‘Iron Guard’: Codreanu,” (Conway, S.C.: Thompkins & Cariou, 2004).

Nicholas Nagy-Talavera, The Green Shirts & The Others: A History of Fascism in Hungary and Rumania (Stanford, Cal.: Hoover Institution Press/Stanford University Press, 1970).

Alexander E. Ronnett and Faust Bradescu, “The Legionary Movement in Romania,” The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 193–228.

Alexander E. Ronnett, Romanian Nationalism: The Legionary Movement (Chicago: Romanian-American National Congress, 1995).

Horia Sima, Era Libertaţii – Statul naţional-Legionar vol. 1 (“It was Freedom – National Legionary State vol. 1”) (Madrid: Editura “Miscarii Legionare, 1982).

Horia Sima, Era Libertaţii – Statul naţional-Legionar vol. 2 (“It was Freedom – National Legionary State vol. 2”) (Madrid: Editura Miscãrii Legionare, 1990).

Horia Sima, Istoria Mişcarii Legionare (“History of the Legionary Movement”) (Timişoara: Editura Gordian, 1994).

Horia Sima, Guvernul National Român de la Viena (“Romanian National Government in Vienna”) (Madrid: Editura “Miscarii Legionare, 1993).

Horia Sima, Prizonieri ai Puterilor Axei (“Prisoners of the Axis Powers”) (Madrid: Editura “Miscarii Legionare,” 1990).

Horia Sima, Sfârşitul unei domnii sângeroase (“The End of a Bloody Reign”) (Madrid: Editura “Miscarii Legionare,” 1977).

Horia Sima, The History of the Legionary Movement (Liss, England: Legionary Press, 1995).

Michael Sturdza, The Suicide of Europe: Memoirs of Prince Michael Sturdza, Former Foreign Minister of Rumania (Boston & Los Angeles: Western Islands Publishers, 1968).

Desert Fox said:

During World War II, Romania under Antonescu took part in Operation Barbarossa, fighting with the Axis against the Soviet Union. After the Battle of Stalingrad was lost, the Soviets expanded westwards. As the Soviet armies were moving into Romania in 1944, Antonescu contemplated making peace with the Allies but decided to firmly stay in the Axis alliance. Because of this decision, the Royal Coup of August 23, 1944 occurred, in which groups led by King Michael I decided to remove Antonescu from power by surrounding him and having him arrested. Romania then switched sides in World War II, joining the Allies. The Germans reacted to this by releasing Horia Sima and the other Legionaries. Upon this release, Sima established, with German help, a Legionary government in Vienna to assist in the battle against Communism. However, by 1945 the Soviet conquest could not be stopped, so they retreated westwards.

Sima and most other Legionaries fled to Italy or to parts of Germany, where they established Romanian Committees to help Romanian refugees fleeing from Communism get into Western Europe. By 1949–50, Sima and other top Legionaries started collaborating with French, American, and British authorities to fight Communism, especially by assisting emigrants from the Soviet Union (which would weaken Communist regimes in Eastern Europe). The French-American military then assisted in preparing Legionaries to move into Romania in order to physically fight Communists and start an anti-Communist uprising in that nation. By 1954, the agreement was cancelled due to Soviet infiltration of British intelligence (led by Kim Philby) and because Western powers wanted to establish a “peaceful coexistence” with Stalin’s regime.

Although some Legionaries in Romania continued fighting the Communists into the 1960s, most Legionaries went into exile, scattered across nations in Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. Horia Sima, from the 1950s onwards, lived in various places throughout Germany, Italy, France, and finally Franco’s Spain (where he received political refugee status). Various dissident groups created factions splitting off from Sima’s rule, although he was considered leader by the majority of Legionaries. For decades, most Legionaries could not do much other than publish articles, books, and translations. However, in 1989 after Ceausescu’s Communist regime was overthrown in Romania, Sima and other Legionaries took the opportunity to attempt to revive Legionarism in Romania. Legionaries created various parties, although Sima could not go to Romania himself since he had been sentenced to death there since 1946. Unfortunately, the Legionary parties came into conflict with each other, and none could establish a large movement. Sima died in May 25, 1993 in Madrid, Spain unable to end the quarrels among the various groups. However, the Legionary Movement still continues in its new form, and modern Legionaries today are still working to educate the younger generations about the truth of Legionary history.

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