The Iron Guard () was a far-right, revolutionary, fascist paramilitary organization and political party active in the Kingdom of Romania during the interwar period and the Second World War. Founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael () or the Legionary Movement (), the movement was strongly anti-democratic, anti-communist, and antisemitic, and its ideology inspired both political violence and forms of Christian terrorism.*
It differed from other European far-right movements of the period due to its spiritual basis, as the Iron Guard was deeply imbued with Romanian Orthodox Christian mysticism.
In March 1930, Codreanu formed the Iron Guard as a paramilitary branch of the Legion, which in 1935 changed its official name to the "Totul pentru Țară" party—literally, "Everything for the Country". It existed into the early part of the Second World War, during which time it came to power. Members were called Legionnaires or, outside of the movement, "Greenshirts" because of the predominantly green uniforms they wore.For "greenshirts" see, for example, R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace, University of Chicago Press eBook (2013), , p. 182. Originally published 1942.
When Marshal Ion Antonescu came to power in September 1940, he brought the Iron Guard into the government, creating the National Legionary State. In January 1941, following the Legionnaires' rebellion, Antonescu used the army to suppress the movement, destroying the organization; its commander, Horia Sima, along with other leaders, escaped to Germany.
Name The "Legion of the Archangel Michael" () was founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on 24 June 1927 and led by him until his assassination in 1938. Despite various changes of the (intermittently banned) organization's name, members of the movement were widely referred to as "legionnaires" (sometimes "legionaries"; ) and the organization as the "Legion" or the "Legionary Movement".
In March 1930, Codreanu formed the "Iron Guard" () as a paramilitary political branch of the Legion; this name eventually came to refer to the Legion itself. "[...] it was committed to the “Christian and racial” renovation of Romania and fed on anti-Semitism and mystical nationalism. [...]" From June 1935 onwards, the organization used the name "Totul pentru Țară", literally meaning "Everything for the Country", in electoral contexts."Totul pentru Țară" is translated as "Everything for the Fatherland" in "Collier's Encyclopedia" material that is now incorporated into "Encarta" as a sidebar (1938: Rumania ) and in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" article Iron Guard ; the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania uses "Everything for the Motherland" in the English-language version of its November 11, 2004 Final Report (PDF). (All retrieved 6 Dec 2005.).
History 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 League (Liga Apărării Național Creștine, LANC), and founded the Legion of the Archangel Michael along with , Teodosie Popescu, Ion I. Moța, Radu Mironovici, and Ilie Gârneață.Ioanid, "The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard."
The Legion differed from other fascist movements in that it had its mass base among the peasantry and students, rather than amongst military veterans. However, the legionnaires shared the general fascist "respect for the war veterans". Romania had a very large intelligentsia relative to the general population with 2.0 university students per one thousand of the population compared to 1.7 per one thousand of the population in far wealthier Germany, while Bucharest had more lawyers in the 1930s than did the much larger city of Paris.Crampton, Richard Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After, London: Routledge, 1997 p. 115. Even before the worldwide Great Depression, Romanian universities were producing far more graduates than the number of available jobs and the Great Depression in Romania had further drastically limited the opportunities for employment by the intelligentsia, who turned to the Iron Guard out of frustration. Many Orthodox Romanians, having obtained a university degree, which they expected to be their ticket to the middle class, were enraged to find that the jobs they were hoping for did not exist, and came to embrace the Legion's message that it was the Jews who were blocking them from finding the middle-class employment they wanted.
Beyond that, Romania had traditionally been dominated by a Francophile elite, who preferred to speak French over Romanian in private and who claimed that their policies were leading Romania to the West with the National Liberal Party, in particular, maintaining that their economic policies were going to industrialize Romania. The national Great Depression seemed to show the literal bankruptcy of these policies and many of the younger Romanian intelligentsia, especially university students, were attracted by the Iron Guard's glorification of "Romanian genius" and its leaders who boasted that they were proud to speak Romanian. The Romanian-born Israeli historian Jean Ancel wrote that from the mid-19th century onward, that Romanian intelligentsia had a "schizophrenic attitude towards the West and its values".Ancel, Jean "Antonescu and the Jews", pp. 463–479, from The Holocaust and History The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined edited by Michael Berenbaum and Abraham Peck, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 463.
Romania had been a strongly Francophile country since 1859, when the United Principalities came into being, giving Romania effective independence from the Ottoman Empire (an event largely made possible by French diplomacy, which pressured the Ottomans on behalf of the Romanians). From that time onward, most of the Romanian intelligentsia professed themselves believers in French ideas about the universal appeal of democracy, freedom, and human rights, while at the same time holding antisemitic views about Romania's Jewish minority. Despite their antisemitism, most of the Romanian intelligentsia believed that France was not only Romania's "Latin sister", but also a "big Latin sister" that would guide its "little Latin sister" Romania along the correct path. Ancel wrote that Codreanu was the first significant Romanian to reject not only the prevailing Francophilia of the intelligentsia, but also the entire framework of universal democratic values, which Codreanu claimed were "Jewish inventions" designed to destroy Romania.Ancel, Jean "Antonescu and the Jews" pp. 463–479 from The Holocaust and History The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined edited by Michael Berenbaum and Abraham Peck, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999 p. 464.
In contrast to the traditional idea that Romania would follow the path of its "Latin sister", France, Codreanu promoted a xenophobic, exclusive ultra-nationalism, in which Romania would follow its own path and reject French ideas about universal values and human rights. In a marked departure from the traditional ideas held by the elite about making Romania into the modernized and Westernized "France of Eastern Europe", the Legion demanded a return to the traditional Eastern Orthodox values of the past. It glorified Romania's peasant culture and folk customs as the living embodiment of "Romanian genius". This pivot away from France was also motivated by Germanophilia.Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919–1941: Mistica ultranaționalismului , Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993. pp. 251–255.
The leaders of the Iron Guard often wore traditional peasant costumes, with crucifixes and bags of Romanian soil around their necks, to emphasise their commitment to authentic Romanian folk values, in marked contrast to Romania's Francophile elite, who preferred the style of the latest fashions.Crampton, Richard Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After, London: Routledge, 1997 p. 114. The fact that many members of Romania's elite were often corrupt and that very little of the vast sums of money generated by Romania's oil found its way into the pockets of ordinary people further enhanced the appeal of the Legion, which denounced the entire elite as irredeemably corrupt.
Under Codreanu's charismatic leadership, the Legion was known for skillful propaganda, including a deft use of spectacle. Utilizing marches, religious processions, patriotic and partisan hymns and anthems, along with volunteer work and charitable campaigns in rural areas, the League presented itself as an alternative to corrupt parties in support of anti-communism. 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.
The Iron Guard was purposely antisemitic, promoting the idea that "Rabbinical aggression against the Christian world"—which manifested through Freemasonry, Freudianism, homosexuality, atheism, Marxism, Bolshevism, and the civil war in Spain"—were undermining society., citing N. Crainic, Ortodoxie și etnocrație, pp. 162–164
The Vaida-Voevod government outlawed the Iron Guard in January 1931.Savu, pp. 62–63.Veiga, p. 191. On 10 December 1933, the Romanian Liberal Prime Minister Ion Duca banned the Iron Guard. After a brief period of arrests, beatings, torture and even killings (18 members of the Legionary Movement were killed by the police force), Iron Guard members retaliated on 29 December 1933, by assassinating Duca on the platform of Sinaia railway station.
The Iron Guard participated in the 1934 Montreux Fascist conference as an observer.Payne, Stanley G. "Fascist Italy and Spain, 1922–1945". Spain and the Mediterranean Since 1898, Raanan Rein, ed. p. 105. London, 1999 From the outset, the conference was marred by serious conflicts between the participants. The Iron Guard, for example, stressed the need for race to be an integral component of fascism.Morgan, Philip. Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945. London, UK; New York, US: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 169-170.
Struggle for power
In the 1937 parliamentary elections, the Legion came in third with 15.5% of the vote, behind the National Liberal and the National Peasant Parties. King Carol II strongly opposed the Legion's political aims 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 10 February 1938, the king dissolved the government and initiated a royal dictatorship.
Codreanu advised the Legion to accept the new regime. However, Interior Minister Armand Călinescu did not trust Codreanu and ordered him arrested on 16 April. Realizing that the government was looking for an excuse to have him executed, Codreanu ordered the Legion's acting commander, Horia Sima, to take no action unless there was evidence that he was in immediate danger. However, Sima, who was known for his violent streak, launched a wave of terrorist activity in the autumn. Codreanu got wind of this and ordered the violence to end.
The order came too late. On the night of 29–30 November 1938, Codreanu and several other legionnaires were strangled to death by their Gendarmerie escort, 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 24 November 1938 murder by legionnaires of a relative (some sources say a "friend") of Călinescu. In the aftermath of Carol's decision to crush the Iron Guard, many members of the Legion fled into exile in Germany, where they received both material and financial support from the NSDAP, especially from the SS and Alfred Rosenberg's Foreign Political Office.