Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (; 13 September 1899 – 30 November 1938), born Corneliu Zelinski and commonly known as Corneliu Codreanu, was a fascist Romanian politician, the founder and charismatic leader of the Iron Guard or The Legion of the Archangel Michael (also known as the Legionary Movement), an ultranationalist and violently antisemitic organization active throughout most of the interwar period. Generally seen as the main variety of local fascism, and noted for its mystical and Romanian Orthodox–inspired revolutionary message, the Iron Guard gained prominence on the Romanian political stage, coming into conflict with the political establishment and the democratic forces, and often resorting to terrorism. The Legionnaires traditionally referred to Codreanu as Căpitanul ("The Captain"), and he held absolute authority over the organization until his death.
Codreanu, who began his career in the wake of World War I as an anticommunist and antisemitic agitator associated with A. C. Cuza and Constantin Pancu, was a co-founder of the National-Christian Defense League and assassin of the Iași Police prefect Constantin Manciu. Codreanu left Cuza to found a succession of movements on the far right, rallying around him a growing segment of the country's intelligentsia and peasant population, and inciting pogroms in various parts of Greater Romania. Several times outlawed by successive Romanian cabinets, his Legion assumed different names and survived in the underground, during which time Codreanu formally delegated leadership to Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul. Following Codreanu's instructions, the Legion carried out assassinations of politicians it viewed as corrupt, including Premier Ion G. Duca and his former associate Mihai Stelescu. Simultaneously, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu advocated Romania's adherence to a military and political alliance with Nazi Germany.
During the 1937 election, his party registered its strongest showing, placing third and winning 15.8% of the vote. It was kept from power by King Carol II, who invited the rival fascists and fourth-place finishers of the National Christian Party to form a short-lived government, succeeded by the National Renaissance Front royal dictatorship. The rivalry between Codreanu and, on the other side, Carol and moderate politicians like Nicolae Iorga ended with Codreanu's incarceration at Jilava Prison and eventual execution at the hands of the Gendarmerie. He was succeeded as leader by Horia Sima. In 1940, under the National Legionary State proclaimed by the Iron Guard, his killing served as the basis for violent retribution.
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's views influenced the modern far right. Groups claiming him as a forerunner include Noua Dreaptă and other Romanian successors of the Iron Guard, the International Third Position, and various neofascist organizations in Italy and other parts of Europe.
Biography Early life Corneliu Codreanu was born in Huși to Ion Zelea Codreanu and Elizabeth (née Brunner) on 13 September 1899. His father, a teacher and himself a Romanian nationalist, would later become a political figure within his son's movement. A native of Bukovina in Austria-Hungary, Ion had originally been known as Zelinski; his wife was ethnically German.Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution, Frederick A. Prager, New York, 1961, p. 206 Statements according to which Ion Zelea Codreanu was originally a Slav of Ukrainian or Polish originJelavich, pp. 204–205; Emil Cioran, a philosopher who, early in his life, had been attracted to the Iron Guard, stated in a later interview that he believed Corneliu Zelea Codreanu to be "in fact, Slavic, more of a Ukrainian hetman type" (Cioran, Convorbiri cu Cioran, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993, in Ornea, p. 198) Ilarion Țiu, "Relațiile regimului autoritar al lui Carol al II-lea cu opoziția. Studiu de caz: arestarea conducerii Mișcării Legionare", in Revista Erasmus , 14/2003–2005, at the University of Bucharest Faculty of History; retrieved 13 February 2008 contrast with the Romanian chauvinism he embraced for the rest of his life. Codreanu the elder associated with antisemitic figures such as University of Iași professor A. C. Cuza.Ornea, p. 286 Just prior to Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's 1938 trial, his ethnic origins were the subject of an anti-Legionary propagandistic campaign organized by the authorities, who distributed copies of a variant of his genealogy which alleged that he was of mixed ancestry, being the descendant of not just Ukrainians, Germans, and Romanians, but also Czechs and Russians, and that several of their ancestors were delinquents. Historian Ilarion Țiu describes this as an attempt to offend and libel Codreanu. Codreanu's mother came from a Bukovina German family, which had originally emigrated from Bavaria.Berend, Iván T. (2020). A Century of Populist Demagogues: Eighteen European Portraits, 1918–2018, p. 79. Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, Historian Dragoș Zamfirescu claims that only Elizabeth's father was German, while her mother was an ethnic Hungarian.
Too young for conscription in 1916, when Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, Codreanu nonetheless attempted to enlist and fight in the subsequent campaign. His education at the military school in Bacău (where he was a colleague of Petre Pandrea, the future left-wing activist)Veiga, pp. 51, 68 ended in the same year as Romania's direct entry into the war. In 1919, after moving to Iași, Codreanu found communism as his new enemy, after he had witnessed the effects of Bolshevik activity in Moldavia, and especially after Romania lost her main ally in the October Revolution, forcing her to sign the 1918 Treaty of Bucharest; also, the newly founded Comintern was violently opposed to Romania's interwar borders (see Greater Romania).Veiga, pp. 41, 47
While the Bolshevik presence decreased overall following the repression of Socialist Party riots in Bucharest (December 1918),Veiga, p. 47 it remained or was perceived as relatively strong in Iași and other Moldavian cities and towns. In this context, the easternmost region of Bessarabia, which united with Romania in 1918, was believed by Codreanu and others to be especially prone to Bolshevik influence.Barbu, p. 196 Codreanu learned antisemitism from his father, but connected it with anticommunism, in the belief that Jews were, among other things, the primordial agents of the Soviet Union (see Jewish Bolshevism).Veiga, pp. 48–49, 54
GCN and National-Christian Defense League Codreanu studied law in Iași, where he began his political career. Like his father, he became close to A. C. Cuza. Codreanu's fear of Bolshevik insurrection led to his efforts to address industrial workers himself. At the time, Cuza was preaching that the Jewish population was a manifest threat to Romanians, claimed that Jews were threatening the purity of Romanian young women, and began campaigning in favour of racial segregation.
According to Romanian historian Adrian Cioroianu, he defined the early Codreanu as a "quasi-demagogue agitator".Cioroianu, p. 16 According to Cioroianu, Codreanu loved Romania with "fanaticism", which implied that he saw the country as "idyllicized [and] different from the real one of his times". British scholar Christopher Catherwood also referred to Codreanu as "an obsessive anti-Semite and religious fanatic".Catherwood, p. 104 Historian Zeev Barbu proposed that "Cuza was Codreanu's mentor [...], but nothing that Codreanu learned from him was strikingly new. Cuza served mainly as a catalyst for his nationalism and antisemitism." As he himself later acknowledged, the young activist was also deeply influenced by the physiologist and antisemitic ideologue Nicolae Paulescu, who was involved with Cuza's movement.Final Report, pp. 35, 44, 45
In late 1919, Codreanu joined the short-lived Garda Conștiinței Naționale (GCN, "Guard of National Conscience"), a group formed by the electrician Constantin Pancu.Barbu, pp. 196-197; Veiga, pp. 49–50 Pancu had an enormous influence on Codreanu.
Pancu's movement, whose original membership did not exceed 40,Barbu, p. 197 attempted to revive loyalism within the proletariat (while offering an alternative to communism by advocating increased labor rights).Veiga, pp. 49–50 Like other reactionary groups, it won the tacit support of General Alexandru Averescu and his increasingly popular People's Party (of which Cuza became an affiliate);Veiga, pp. 46–47 Averescu's ascension to power in 1920 engendered a new period of social troubles in the larger urban areas (see Labor movement in Romania).
The GCN, in which Codreanu thought he could see the nucleus of nationalist trade unions, became active in crushing strike actions.Barbu, p. 197; Veiga, pp. 48–49 Their activities did not fail in attracting attention, especially after students who obeyed Codreanu, grouped in the Association of Christian Students, started demanding a Numerus clausus (Jewish quota) for higher education – this gathered popularity for the GCN, and it led to a drastic increase in the frequency and intensity of assaults on all its opponents.Veiga, p. 52 In response, Codreanu was expelled from the University of Iași. Although allowed to return when Cuza and others intervened for him (refusing to respect the decision of the University Senate), he was never presented with a diploma after his graduation.Cioroianu, p. 17; Ornea, p. 288; Veiga, pp. 52, 55
While studying in Berlin and Jena in 1922, Codreanu took a critical attitude towards the Weimar Republic, and began praising the March on Rome and Italian fascism as major achievements against the advancement of communism; he decided to cut his stay short after learning of the large Romanian student protests in December, prompted by the intention of the government to grant the complete emancipation of Jews (see History of the Jews in Romania).Ornea, p. 287
When protests organized by Codreanu were met with lack of interest from the new National Liberal government, he and Cuza founded (4 March 1923) a Christian nationalist organization called the National-Christian Defense League.Ornea, p. 287; Veiga, p. 74 They were joined in 1925 by Ion Moța, translator of the antisemitic hoax known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and future ideologue of the Legion.Catherwood, p. 105; Veiga, p. 75 Codreanu was subsequently tasked with organizing the League at a national level, and became especially preoccupied with its youth ventures.Final Report, p. 44
With the granting of full rights of citizenship to persons of Jewish descent under the Constitution of 1923, the League raided the Iași ghetto, led a group which petitioned the government in Bucharest (being received with indifference), and ultimately decided to assassinate Premier Ion I. C. Brătianu and other members of government.Ornea, p. 287; Veiga, pp. 62–64, 76 Codreanu also drafted the first of his several death lists, which contained the names of politicians who, he believed, had betrayed Romania. It included Gheorghe Gh. Mârzescu, who held several offices in Brătianu's executive, and who promoted the emancipation of Jews.Final Report, p. 46 In October 1923, Codreanu was betrayed by one of his associates, arrested, and put on trial. He and the other plotters were soon acquitted, as Romanian legislation did not allow for prosecution of conspiracies that had not been assigned a definite date. Before the jury ended deliberation, Ion Moța shot the traitor and was given a prison sentence himself.Ornea, p. 287; Veiga, p. 77
Manciu's killing