The
Legionary Movement of Romania, also popularly known as the Iron
Guard, is for many people today a difficult matter to discuss
straightforwardly because of all the untruths, the deceptions, the
distortions, and the misconceptions surrounding its history. The
movement has a great legacy and there is much to learn from it,
but due to the destructive and hostile forces which have been
politically dominant in the latter half of the 20th
Century and the beginnings of the 21st Century, the
history of the Legionary Movement has almost always been shown to
the public through the perspective of its enemies. The image of
the movement and its founder, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, is smeared
using every possible method from any possible angle as its history
is written (or rewritten) by Liberals, Communists, Jews, and
Philosemites.
We
have produced two previous works on this subject, “The
History of Corneliu Z. Codreanu and the Legionary Movement”
and “The
Legionary Doctrine", which aimed to provide an overview
of the teachings and history of the Legion of Michael the
Archangel which would counter the deceptions and distortions
normally thrown against it. Here we aim to make further
clarifications and address more directly some of the key
misconceptions and accusations thrown at the Legionaries,
something which is increasingly necessary if the world will ever
have the benefit of properly understanding this movement. As
Ronnett and Bradescu put it in “The Legionary Movement in
Romania,” “The wave of calumny must cease, and society must
become aware that there are two sides to the coin.”
The
Jews in Romania
It
is important to keep in mind that in Romania, and in fact in much
of Eastern Europe in general, Jews had obtained a very peculiar
position throughout the late 19th Century and the early
20th Century. A majority of the Jewish population
managed to obtain occupations in most fields excluding those based
on serious physical labor, thus gaining positions in fields such
as law, journalism, politics, trade, banking, speculation, company
management, etc. It was very disconcerting for Romanians during
this time period to witness an upsurge of Jewish students in their
colleges, which is significant when one keeps in mind that in
Romania at this time, universities were not places to which
everyone would go to, but specifically those who were more
intellectually inclined and would thus form the nation’s elite.
While
this occurred, the majority of Romanians were of the lower class,
working in factories, on farms, or other such areas. They were
living in conditions of economic inferiority when compared to most
Jews. Their conditions worsened by the early 20th
Century, when their poverty increased, also increasing
malnutrition and starvation as Romanian peasants struggled in
physical labor, underpaid and in many cases having lost their
former sources of livelihood. Simultaneously, the increase in
Jewish economic and political influence placed the integrity of
Romanian culture in danger, as Jews, who were clearly a culturally
and racially foreign group, were increasingly able to influence
culture. With such things occurring, it should come as no surprise
that suspicion of the Jews and anti-Semitism became widespread.
It
was also very common for certain notable Romanian intellectuals
such as Nicolae Paulescu, A.C. Cuza, and Nichifor Crainic to
postulate that Jews functioned as a conspiracy. While it is
possible to explain Jewish power without using a conspiracy
theory, it needs to be kept in mind that the reason many Romanians
(and almost all Legionaries) believed in a Jewish conspiracy was
because of the intellectual backing the concept received. Even if
one discounts the conspiracy thesis, this certainly does not mean
that their anti-Semitism was unjustified, as the facts mentioned
above indicate. In fact, the reality of Jewish economic,
financial, and political ascendance opposed to the conditions of
native populations is now very much verifiable from recent
historical studies and analyses on the subject (see, for example,
Professor Kevin MacDonald’s Separation
and Its Discontents). These are the facts which need to be
acknowledged in order to understand why the Legionary Movement was
anti-Jewish.
Anti-Semitism
Many
Legionaries who lived through the latter half of the 20th
Century, as well as modern Legionaries today, oftentimes deny that
the Legionary Movement was anti-Semitic. Why? What does it mean to
be an anti-Semite? Unfortunately, the term “anti-Semitism” has
been distorted to describe an irrational and unfounded hatred of
Jews, at the same time conjuring up images of massacres and
pogroms against the Jews. The Legionary Movement was not
anti-Semitic in that sense, even though it opposed Jewish power
and wanted to expel the Jews.
Corneliu
Codreanu is often accused of having called for the destruction of
Jews, yet nowhere has he ever done such a thing, neither in speech
nor in writing. While Codreanu had often expressed anger towards
the Jews and even insulted them at times, the truth is that he
merely wanted to peacefully deport Jews to Palestine as a solution
to the problem (as is made clear, for example, in The
Nest Leader’s Manual). Codreanu also opposed any sort of
immoral action or physical attacks against Jews, as he himself
stated in his autobiography For
My Legionaries. Michel Sturdza (a Romanian nobleman and
diplomat), who joined the Legion and was learned in its policies,
informs us in The Suicide of
Europe that “Codreanu never tolerated the slightest physical
violence against Jews or Jewish properties. Any act of
indiscipline in that direction would have been punished
immediately by the expulsion of the culprits from the
organization.” This fact, often cited by Legionaries, is almost
always ignored by official “historians” in academia today.
Even
more striking is the fact that, to quote Sturdza, “There were
always one or two Jews in the Movement, and the only trouble they
gave was due to their sometimes too extreme devotion to the
Legionary cause.” As is obvious, while the Legion of Michael the
Archangel wanted to remove Jews from Romania so that they could
safeguard Romania’s culture and national vitality, their
anti-Semitism was in no way violent or immoral. Thus we can see
that there are different forms of anti-Semitism which must be
distinguished from each other in order to understand the
Legion’s true character.
Violence
against the Jews
There
are certain key events which are oftentimes referenced in regards
to Legionaries committing violence against the Jews in order to
denounce their movement. One of these is the “pogrom” which
occurred in Oradea when the Student Congress met there in December
of 1927, which included both Legionaries and non-Legionaries
alike. When this incident is pointed out by most historians today,
usually all that is mentioned is that five synagogues were sacked
and burnt and Jewish shops were broken into and looted, and that
this was supposedly organized by the Legion. Nowhere do these
ideologically biased “historians” reference the facts that Ion
Mota, a notable Legionary leader, had brought up in his book Cranii
de Lemn (“Wooden Skulls”), where he wrote how, prior to
the burning, when the students met, “the Jewry of Oradea dared
to receive the students with knife blows, revolver shots, and then
with boiling water and gangs of coachmen organized to attack…”
So, as Romanian students simply traveled to meet and discuss the
Jewish problem at a congress, masses of local Jews took the
liberty to physically attack them and even threaten them with
death. What could be expected of these enraged students in such an
intolerable situation, in which the police did not intervene? They
were likely so infuriated that even if their leaders commanded
them to restrain themselves, they would not obey. It is also
interesting to note that in this event, neither side ever mentions
any Jews dying in this so-called “pogrom,” only property
damage and theft.
More
important to address are the events which occurred during the
establishment of the National Legionary State in 1940, led jointly
by Horia Sima and Ion Antonescu, up to its end in 1941. Jewish
historians attempt to portray the Legionary State as an oppressive
regime in which Jews were greatly mistreated. It is true that the
Legionaries removed Jews from their former positions of economic,
financial, and political power, and thus put them in the position
to do the same physical labor that the masses of common Romanians
engaged in. However, the leaders of the National Legionary State
generally had no intention of being cruel to the Jews and in many
cases gave them reasonable living conditions. A notable example to
corroborate this is the fact that when the Legionary official Radu
Gyr was appointed to the role of general director of theatres in
1940, he initiated a program to establish the Jewish Theatre. It
is evident that these “vicious anti-Semites” were not at all
interested in being unkind to the Jews which remained in Romania.
In
terms of what occurred after Antonescu made a coup against the
Legionary State, anti-Legionary writers oftentimes cite yet
another common charge against the Legionaries: their involvement
in the Bucharest Pogrom of 1941. During this time, when thousands
of Legionaries were engaged in protests against Antonescu’s
actions and a nation-wide state of disorder was created, thousands
of Legionaries were simultaneously being arrested and killed.
During the Bucharest Pogrom, official records reveal that a total
of 125 Jews were killed and a small numbers of others wounded. It
must be pointed out beforehand that some Communist and Jewish
writers on this matter are extremely biased and deceitful, and
many times exaggerate the number of Jews killed. Although,
fortunately, mainstream historians have recently admitted that the
number of Jews killed is limited to 125. It must also be kept in
mind that this is a remarkably small number of Jews when compared
to most pogroms which took place in other parts of Europe (where
several hundred if not thousands of Jews oftentimes died), which
indicates that is not as significant as the rhetoric of the
Legion’s enemies would have readers believe.
Oftentimes,
a lot of attention is given to a specific incident in this pogrom,
the story in which Jews were allegedly hung on meat hooks in the
Slaughter House in Bucharest. This accusation was originally made
during Antonescu’s dictatorship, which attempted to censor any
evidence disproving it because of how unclear the facts of the
matter were. Studies have shown that the photographs of bodies at
the slaughterhouse were most likely forged, and all of the people
who were employees at that slaughterhouse, including a Jewish
tinker, denied that there was any pogrom when they were
interviewed. Most of the employees even signed a note denying that
Jews were killed which was published in the newspaper Universul
(“The Universe”) on February 12, 1941, although it was later
censored by Antonescu’s government. When the police of the
Communist regime in 1946 investigated the slaughterhouse pogrom,
there was such a lack of evidence as to who committed the crime or
whether or not it even occurred that the case was closed without
any prosecution.
However,
whether or not the killings at the slaughterhouse transpired,
there some facts about the Bucharest Pogrom as a whole which need
to be remembered, and which have been pointed out by Horia Sima in
his book Era Libertaţii
- Statul Naţional-Legionar vol. 2 (“It was Freedom -
National Legionary State vol. 2”). As Sima wrote, “It is
regrettable what happened to these poor anonymous Jews, taken at
random and killed, but the origin of these crimes should be placed
into the whole situation at that time. All the information needs
to be collected, from all places, and analyzed in the light of
these facts, if we are to reach an objective judgment.” Those
Jews were attacked in a state of disorder, when there was no real
authority to protect the Jews; a state of disorder created by
Antonescu. More importantly, in such revolutionary circumstances
there are always irresponsible and immoral people who engage in
looting, the destruction of property, and killings. It is not
clear which particular people were responsible for the pogrom,
although it is evident that it was a mixture of Legionaries and
non-Legionaries.
It
is certain that had the Legion in that situation retained the
amount of order, discipline, and authority that they possessed
during the National Legionary State, not only would the committers
of the pogrom have been severely punished, but the pogrom itself
would not have even occurred. Through objective historical
analysis it may be observed that there is no political movement in
history, no matter how well-intentioned its leaders may have been,
which had not committed any sort of excesses or crimes. What is
important to remember when one observes the Bucharest Pogrom, is
that a distinguishment must be made between those who committed
the crimes and those Legionaries who, in the spirit of Codreanu,
upheld Legionary principles and refused to do any harm to the
Jews.
Political
Violence
The
occasional assassination of political figures by Legionaries is
often characterized as “gangster-like behavior” by enemies of
the Legion. However, one should ask in return, what of the
behavior of these politicians who were killed? Were they
completely innocent, or did they engage in “gangster-like”
behavior themselves? The analysis of the Legion’s assassinations
should begin with the police prefect Constantin Manciu, who was
killed by Corneliu Codreanu himself. Even though his death
occurred before the Legion was founded and when Codreanu was still
with Cuza’s party, this event is important to address because
anti-Legionary propagandists attempt to ignore or obscure the
facts of the situation. In 1924, Manciu had policemen beat
Codreanu and his friends (who had not committed any crimes at the
time) multiple times without any legal reason and eventually
arrested the students (including Codreanu) and tortured them at
the police headquarters before they were forced to release them.
Later, as Codreanu defended a student at a trial in October, 1925,
Manciu abruptly entered the courtroom and was prepared to
illegally beat and torture Codreanu once again. Codreanu quickly
reacted by shooting him. Codreanu was acquitted later at a trial,
and certainly it is no surprise that that happened when the
policemen themselves, especially Manciu, were behaving like
gangsters and torturing innocent people.
The
second assassination took place during the year of 1933, when the
“liberal” Ion G. Duca was elected prime minister, declared
that he would “exterminate” the Legion (or the Iron Guard, as
it was called by that time). In order to keep the Legion from
participating in elections, he used the charge of treason
(although he had no real evidence to back this accusation) in
order to ban the organization. Following this, Duca had the police
arrest 18,000 Legionaries and put them to work in concentration
camps, while terrorizing others and even torturing and murdering
certain top Legionaries. It should not be shocking that this led
three Legionaries, known as the Nicadori,
to assassinate Duca in revenge.
The
third assassination was in 1935, after the Legionary Mihail
Stelescu was discovered by Legionary officials to have engaged in
a plot to poison Codreanu himself and was subsequently expelled
from the Legion (in 1934). It is known that Stelescu had secretly
gathered a group of friends who would spread false rumors claiming
Codreanu was a traitor, and that Stelescu himself would kill
Codreanu afterwards as a “reaction” to these rumors. It was
Stelescu’s ambition to thus replace Codreanu, hoping that the
Legionaries would accept him as a leader and hero once convinced
the rumors were true. However, after the plot was discovered and
Stelescu and his friends were brought before Codreanu and other
top Legionaries, Vasile Cotea (one of the conspirators) admitted
the whole plot. It should also be noted here that some authors try
to claim that Stelescu voluntarily left the Legion after he became
“disillusioned” with Codreanu, a notion which these facts
sufficiently dispel. After Stelescu founded his own organization
in 1935 with some friends, Cruciada Romanismuliu (“The Crusade of Romanianism”), he
slandered Codreanu in its newspaper in all possible ways. When
Legionaries met with Stelescu in order to make a compromise,
Stelescu refused and only intensified his propaganda. Eventually,
ten Legionaries known as the Decemviri, fearing that Stelescu would once again attempt to
assassinate Codreanu (a reasonable suspicion, considering the
circumstances) and also believing that treason needed to be
stigmatized for Romania to improve itself, shot Stelescu.
The
fourth assassination is preceded by the trial and murder of
Codreanu. In the months after King Carol II established his
dictatorship on February 12, 1938, Nicolae Iorga slandered the
Legionary Movement in his newspaper, and once Codreanu wrote him a
letter criticizing his behavior, Iorga filed a lawsuit for insult
and injury (an action which essentially made Iorga responsible for
all subsequent events). Carol’s government, making full use of
this situation, had Codreanu arrested and put on trial. Although
Iorga later changed his mind and tried to withdraw the charges, it
was too late and Codreanu was condemned to six months in prison.
At a second trial completely closed to the public, Codreanu was
tried for treason and sedition and condemned to 10 years in
prison, despite the fact that the charges were completely
unproven.
During
this situation, an assassination attempt was made by a Legionary
student on Florian Stefanescu-Goanga, the rector of the University
of Cluj and a friend of Armand Calinescu (Carol’s prime
minister). This event, which occurred on November 24 of 1938, is
oftentimes referenced in passing but not explained in-depth by
most historians, who usually refuse to even mention
Stefanescu-Goanga’s name. It is claimed that the reason
Calinescu decided to kill Codreanu later was because of the
supposed killing of Stefanescu-Goanga. However, we can speculate
that the reason historians do not explain what happened is because
Stefanescu-Goanga was not even killed, and recovered in the
hospital after being shot. Furthermore, Horia Sima has pointed out
in Sfarşitul unei
domnii sângeroase (“The End of a Bloody Reign”) that the
Legionary Command did not order the assassination attempt on
Stefanescu-Goanga, as it was an entirely local event, and even
tried to stop it by sending a messenger. The reason Calinescu
decided to kill Codreanu was not because of the attempt on
Stefanescu-Goanga, but rather because Codreanu and his followers
had already gained the support of the majority of Romanians and
were a threat to the continuation of Carol’s regime. When one
learns these facts, it becomes painfully clear that all the
“historians” who mention only the most superficial details of
this incident are actively attempting to mislead their readers.
As
Calinescu, under the service of Carol’s tyrannical regime, moved
to arrest, torture, and massacre thousands upon thousands of
Legionaries as well as killing Corneliu Codreanu, it is completely
understandable why on September 21, 1939, nine Legionaries called
the Rasbunatorii (“The
Avengers”) assassinated him. Even the Legion’s enemies do not
try to pretend that this was unjustified. However, they do try to
claim that the executions at the Jilava prison which occurred on
November 27, 1940 under the National Legionary State were crimes.
As Legionaries exhumed the remains of Codreanu, the Nicadori,
and the Decemviri, they
were so enraged that they could not control themselves and rashly,
“in the heat of the moment,” decided to execute the 64
politicians held at Jilava. Those who reference this event as a
“crime” while forgetting that these politicians all engaged in
the torture and massacre of Legionaries are clearly attempting to
distort history. These politicians were criminals themselves and
were therefore going to be tried at court and condemned, most
likely executed considering their deeds, by the state itself. It
is certainly no “tragedy” that they were executed prematurely,
merely an inconvenience.
Finally,
it should strike anyone as strange that all of these writers who
condemn the Legionary Movement for its assassinations and
executions of the politicians who oppressed it do not condemn
other, more “democratic” revolutionary movements which engaged
in similar actions. It is very hypocritical, for example, to
praise the French Revolution, brushing aside its crimes, while
simultaneously attacking the Legionaries for such events as the
assassination of Duca or the Jilava executions. Nevertheless, this
kind of hypocrisy seems to permeate academia today.
Accusations
of Chauvinism and Xenophobia
The
Legionaries are often accused of believing in the ethnic cultural
and genetic superiority of Romanians, particularly in relation to
the supposed inferiority of Hungarians, Gypsies, Jews, and other
surrounding peoples. It is undeniable that some Romanians had
these kinds of attitudes, even some members of the Legion of
Michael the Archangel. However, these ideas were certainly not
part of the doctrine of the Legion and its leaders did not share
them. Codreanu never expressed any sort of ethnic or racial
supremacism and people of non-Romanian ethnic background living in
Romania, such as Germans and Hungarians, could and did join the
Legion.
The
Legionaries were concerned with race, which most of them believed
to be of some importance, because they understood that if a
nation’s racial type and solidarity is destroyed, the foundation
of the nation and the culture is undermined, and therefore the
nation itself is harmed. The Legionary view was that a nation must
uphold its racial solidarity, and the Legionaries’ concern with
this matter did not involve any beliefs of racial superiority or
supremacist attitudes. Of course, some Legionaries such as Ion
Mota did not believe race was important, as there was variety in
opinion within the Legion, but this a description of the general
attitude of the Legionary Movement. It may come as a surprise to
many Leftists that it is possible to believe in the reality of
race without believing that one’s race is somehow superior.
These points on the Legionary view of race and ethnicity have
already been extensively discussed by Horia Sima in several works
on Legionary belief. Thus it becomes apparent that when certain
“academics” today accuse Codreanu or the Legionaries as a
whole of believing in the inferiority of Hungarians (or of being
specifically anti-Hungarian), Jews, or other peoples, they are
simply speaking plain falsehoods.
The
Legionary Movement is also wrongly labeled “xenophobic” or
“anti-foreign” by its enemies, who are implying that the
Legionaries aimed to make Romania into some kind of bubble closed
to the outside world. However, these claims are simply ridiculous
considering that the Legionaries were very much willing to engage
in dialogue and an exchange of ideas with other ethnic groups in
Europe. Codreanu himself did not feel entirely out of place when
he visited France and Germany, as he reveals in For My Legionaries. It is also noteworthy that Codreanu and other
Legionaries often expressed concern and sympathy for the
well-being other nations in Europe. For Codreanu's Legionaries,
Europeans were Christian brothers and European nationalism was to
be supported everywhere against the threat of what they believed
were its chief enemies: Jews, Capitalists, and Communists. Thus
their aim to defend the integrity of their culture and religion
was not a form of “xenophobia,” it was simply a natural
conservative trait.
Religious
Devotion
The
enemies of the Legion often try to portray it as a group of
“madmen” and “religious fanatics” incapable of rational
thought and obsessed with martyrdom. Michel Sturdza responded well
to such absurd arguments in The
Suicide of Europe:
“It
would be unjust, perhaps, to ask from this new crop of
intellectuals - victims, it seems, of a contagious
brain-corroding pestilence that has already suffused Western
universities with its materialistic, utilitarian and Marxist
philosophy, to understand fully the notion of sacrifice for a
principle, or for one's country, or of fidelity, even unto
death, toward the leader who incarnates this principle or
represents better than anybody else the interests and destiny of
that country. For this new generation of ‘educators’ and
public opinion builders, religion is no better than magic; love
and fear of God is superstition; patriotism is an error;
nationalism is a crime; self-sacrifice is masochism; love of the
past is necromania; an obeyed leader is a medicine man; and
discipline is a dark cult.”
As
Sturdza also mentioned, attempts are made to depict Codreanu as a
cultic leader manipulating his followers; attempts which reveal
themselves to be absurd once one learns that Codreanu was a devout
Christian motivated by his love for his people. When opponents of
the Legion try to bring up the writings or declarations of
Romanians who were formerly Legionaries but which later turned
against the Legionary Movement, it is odd that most of these
happen to be from Romanians who were forced to become
anti-Legionary by the Communist regime under which they lived. For
example, Nichifor Crainic, before and during World War II a
Christian nationalist who supported the Legion, mocked Codreanu
and his followers in his autobiography Zile albe, zile negre (Memorii)
("White Days, Black Days [Memories]") which he wrote
after Romania fell to Communism. However, it should be remembered
that Crainic was imprisoned and tortured by the Romanian Communist
dictatorship from 1947 to 1962, after which he was released and
forced to work for the Communist propaganda newspaper Glasul
Patriei (“The Voice of Fatherland”), which sought to
mislead Romanians abroad. There is already evidence from people
who had personal contact with Crainic that some of the things
written in his autobiography were done under Communist pressure,
and certainly a man who had undergone “reeducation” through
torture cannot be trusted as having expressed a reliable opinion.
This example is only one of many, and serves to demonstrate how
dishonest and biased certain scholars are concerning Legionary
history.
It
must also be point out here that the assertions that Codreanu
taught that men must actively sin (therefore, “accepting
damnation”) in service to their nation are also quite ridiculous
in light of Legionary teachings and attitudes. Alexander Ronnett
mentioned that “Codreanu considered the Legion's mission a holy
crusade; its enemies were, not only the enemies of Romania, but
also the enemies of God.” Codreanu made a distinction between
personal enemies, which a person had a Christian duty to forgive,
and the enemies of the nation and Christianity itself, towards
which one had no such duty as with the former. This is an old
Christian argument, which is oftentimes overlooked by
anti-Legionary sources. The Legionaries actually did believe that
overall their actions against the enemies of Romania and God were
justified.
Political
Programs
Related
to the issue of “fanaticism” and “insanity” are also the
claims that the Legionaries had no real political and economic
programs for their nation and that they were incapable of leading
during the National Legionary State. Those who make such
assertions only show their ignorance, considering that there are
already standards of leadership as well as general political and
economic plans or ideas laid out in the works of various Legionary
leaders. While it is true that the Legion was specifically
dedicated to the spiritual and moral improvement of the people,
laying less stress on programs, it should not be thought that they
had no programs in mind.
The
Legion of Michael the Archangel itself had a very specific and
hierarchical organizational structure with determinations as to
how leaders would be selected and the kinds of personal and moral
qualities they should possess (on this subject, Codreanu’s own
works, The Nest Leader’s
Manual and For My
Legionaries, are particularly relevant). It is evident that
this kind of organization served as the model for their plans for
the future Romanian government. Concerning economics, the writings
of Legionaries as well as the formation of the Corpul
Muncitoresc Legionar (“Legionary Workers Corps”), which
was established in 1936 to aim for fairer conditions for workers,
should be taken into consideration. The program of
“National-Christian-Socialism” which Codreanu had advocated
earlier in his life should not be ignored, and neither should the
practice of the “Christian Commerce” concept which was taken
up by the Legion in the late 1930’s.
Furthermore,
Legionary leaders had already written on the subject of economic
programs, studying and taking inspiration from the economic
policies used in Italy and Germany. Ion Mota had written on
corporatism in Cranii de
Lemn, approving of the concept while demanding the
prerequisite of removing Jews from economic positions first, and
Vasile Marin’s 1932 doctoral thesis Fascismul: Organizarea Constitutionala a Statului Corporativ Italian
(“Fascism: The Constitutional Organization of the Italian
Corporate State”) deals with the matter as well. This is not to
say that Legionarism was a copy of Italian Fascism (it was neither
a copy of German National Socialism), something which is
demonstrably false considering its uniqueness, but only an
indication that they did not ignore the issue of what kinds of
economic programs to implement. Essentially the Legionary Movement
aimed for a kind of Christian Corporatism in which everyone would
be motivated to work.
As
for assertions that the Legionaries could not successfully manage
the National Legionary State, these are very empty claims
considering that the Legionary state had already begun carrying
out their basic aims in terms of what kind of political and
economic system they would create. However, they could not
accomplish their goals to the extent that they had desired because
they had only recently emerged from revolutionary and bloody
conditions (created by King Carol II, whom they toppled) and only
had the opportunity to rule for less than five months. By the
beginning of 1941, Antonescu, driven by a personal hunger for
power, made a coup against the Legionary State after creating a
secret agreement with Hitler. Antonescu spread deceitful
propaganda attempting to portray the Legionaries as a group of
uncontrollable and belligerent youths who were incapable of
ruling; propaganda which forms the basis of these same accusations
today.
Conclusion
From
what has been written thus far it should be clear that ideological
bias and dishonesty permeates academia today. The most disgusting
falsehoods are projected onto the Legionary Movement and some of
the oldest lies are simply repeated in the newest ways. This essay
does not provide a complete address to all of the problems
concerning the Legionary Movement and the untrue claims and
misconceptions surrounding it; what it aims to accomplish is an
exposure of the more common distortions. The Legion of Michael the
Archangel was a movement which sought to defend its country and
culture as non-violently as possible during an oppressive and
turbulent time period in Romanian history. It eventually fell due
to facing constant betrayal, persecution, expulsion, and
dissolution, but its legacy is nevertheless a beacon of victory
for true European nationalism, free of chauvinism, which may
provide the world with many valuable lessons. Yet, the history of
the movement faces constant distortion and falsification. For this
reason, those who study Legionary history and who also wish to
truly learn something from this history, need to be skeptical of
what they read in mainstream sources.
Christopher
Thorpe
2012
B
I B L I O G R A P H Y
•
Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea. For My Legionaries. Third
Edition. Trans. Dr. Dimitrie Gazdaru. York, SC, USA: Liberty Bell
Publications, 2003.
•
Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea. The Nest Leader’s Manual.
USA: CZC Books, 2005.
•
Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea. The Prison Notes. USA:
Reconquista Press, 2011.
•
Codreanu
et al. Thoughts and Perspectives Volume Five: Codreanu. Ed.
Troy Southgate. London: Black Front Press, 2011.
•
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