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. Statements according to which Ion Zelea Codreanu was originally a
Slav of
Ukrainian or
Polish origin 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. 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. 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) 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). While the Bolshevik presence decreased overall following the repression of
Socialist Party riots in
Bucharest (December 1918), 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. 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).
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 Cioroianu, Codreanu loved Romania with "fanaticism", which implied that he saw the country as "idyllicized [and] different from the real one of his times". 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." In late 1919, Codreanu joined the short-lived
Garda Conștiinței Naționale (GCN, "Guard of National Conscience"), a group formed by the
electrician Constantin Pancu. Pancu had an enormous influence on Codreanu. Pancu's movement, whose original membership did not exceed 40, attempted to revive
loyalism within the
proletariat (while offering an alternative to communism by advocating increased
labor rights). 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); Averescu's ascension to power in 1920 engendered a new period of social troubles in the larger urban areas (
see Labor movement in Romania). 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. 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. 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). 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. 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. Codreanu was subsequently tasked with organizing the League at a national level, and became especially preoccupied with its youth ventures. 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. 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. 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.
Manciu's killing Codreanu clashed with Cuza over the League's structure: he demanded that it develop a
paramilitary and revolutionary character, while Cuza was hostile to the idea. In November, while in
Văcărești Prison in
Bucharest, Codreanu had planned for the creation of a
youth organization within the League, which he aimed to call
The Legion of the Archangel Michael. This was said to be in honour of an
Orthodox icon that adorned the walls of the prison church, or, more specifically, linked to Codreanu's reported claim of having been visited by the Archangel himself. The couple had broken up when the younger Cuza refused his girlfriend's demand that he marry her now that she was bearing his child. Though the scandal was hushed up, the fact that his sister was having an illegitimate child was deeply humiliating for Codreanu as he liked to present his family as model members of the Orthodox church and he sought unsuccessfully to have Cuza pressure his son to marry his sister. It gathered on 6 May 1924, in the countryside around Iași, starting work on the building of a student centre. This meeting was violently broken up by the authorities on orders from
Romanian Police prefect Constantin Manciu. Codreanu and several others were allegedly beaten and tormented for several days, until Cuza's intervention on their behalf proved effective. After an interval of retreating from any political activity, Codreanu took revenge on Manciu, assassinating him and severely wounding some other policemen on 24 October 1924, in the Iași Tribunal building (where Manciu had been called to answer accusations, after one of Codreanu's comrades had filed a complaint).
Forensics showed that Manciu was not facing his killer at the moment of his death, which prompted Codreanu to indicate that he was acting in
self-defence based solely on Manciu's earlier actions. In the meantime, the issue was brought up in the
Parliament of Romania by the
Peasant Party's
Paul Bujor, who first made a proposal to review legislation dealing with political violence and
sedition; it won the approval of the governing
National Liberal Party, which, on 19 December, passed the
Mârzescu Law to which Cuza replied by claiming his innocence, while theorizing that Manciu's brutality was a justifiable cause for violent retaliation. On the day he was acquitted, members of the jury, who deliberated for five minutes in all, showed up wearing badges with League symbols and
swastikas (the symbol in use by Cuza's League). After a triumphal return and an ostentatious wedding to Elena Ilinoiu, Codreanu clashed with Cuza for a second time and decided to defuse tensions by taking leave in
France. Codreanu's wedding to Elena Ilinoiu in June 1925 in Focșani was the major social event in Romania that year; it was celebrated in lavish, pseudo-royal style and attended by thousands, attracting enormous media attention. After the wedding, Codreanu and his bride were followed by 3,000 ox-carts in a four-mile long procession of "ecstatically happy" peasants. Codreanu's wedding was meant to change his image from the romantic, restless,
Byronic hero image he had held until then to a more "settled" image of a married man, and thus allay concerns held by more conservative Romanians about his social radicalism. Codreanu gathered former members of the League who had spent time in prison, and put into practice his dream of forming the Legion (November 1927, just days after the fall of
a new Averescu cabinet, which had continued to support now-rival Cuza). Codreanu claimed to have had a vision of the Archangel Michael who told him he had been chosen by God to be Romania's saviour.
Frăția endured as the Legion's most secretive and highest body, which requested from its members that they undergo a
rite of passage and swear allegiance to the "Captain", as Codreanu was now known. The Legion introduced Orthodox rituals as part of its political rallies, while Codreanu made his public appearances dressed in
folk costume — a traditionalist pose adopted at the time only by him and the
National Peasant Party's
Ion Mihalache. Throughout its existence, the Legion maintained strong links with members of the Romanian Orthodox clergy, and its members fused politics with an original interpretation of Romanian Orthodox messages — including claims that the Romanian kin was expecting its national salvation, in a religious sense. Such a mystical focus, Jelavich noted, was in tandem with a marked preoccupation for violence and self-sacrifice, "but only if the [acts of terror] were committed for the good of the cause and subsequently expiated." and it became common that violence was seen as a necessary step in a world that expected a
Second Coming of
Christ. With time, the Legion developed a doctrine around a cult of the fallen, going so far as to imply that the dead continued to form an integral part of a perpetual national community. and Codreanu explained early on: "The country is dying for lack of men and not for lack of political programs." Elsewhere, he pointed out that the Legion was interested in the creation of a "new man" (
omul nou). Despite its apparent lack of political messages, the movement was immediately noted for its antisemitism, for arguing that Romania was faced with a "
Jewish Question" and for proclaiming that a Jewish presence thrived on uncouthness and
pornography. The Legionary leader wrote: "The historical mission of our generation is the resolution of the 'kike' problem. All of our battles of the past 15 years have had this purpose, all of our life's efforts from now on will have this purpose." He accused the Jews in general of attempting to destroy what he claimed was a direct link between Romania and God, and the Legion campaigned in favour of the notion that there was no actual connection between the
Old Testament Hebrews and the modern Jews. In one instance, making a reference to the
origin of the Romanians, Codreanu stated that Jews were corrupting the "
Roman-
Dacian structure of our people." The Israeli historian
Jean Ancel wrote that, from the mid-19th century onward, the Romanian
intelligentsia had a "schizophrenic attitude towards the West and its values". Romania had been a strongly Francophile country starting in the 19th century, and 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. 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. He began openly calling for the destruction of Jews, and, as early as 1927, the new movement organized the sacking and burning of a
synagogue in the city of
Oradea. It thus profited from an exceptional popularity of antisemitism in Romanian society: according to one analysis, Romania was, with the exception of
Poland, the most antisemitic country in
Eastern Europe. Codreanu's message was among the most radical forms of Romanian antisemitism, and contrasted with the generally more moderate antisemitic views of Cuza's former associate, the prominent historian
Nicolae Iorga. The model favoured by the Legion was a form of
racial antisemitism, and formed part of Codreanu's theory that the Romanians were biologically distinct and superior to neighbouring or co-inhabiting ethnicities (including the
Hungarian community). However, according to various commentators, Codreanu won his most significant following in the rural environment, which in part reflected the fact that he and most other Legionary leaders were first-generation urban dwellers. American historian of fascism
Stanley G. Payne, who noted that the Legion benefited from the 400% increase in university enrolment ("proportionately more than anywhere else in Europe"), has described the Captain and his network of disciples as "a revolutionary alliance of students and poor peasants", which centred on the "new underemployed
intelligentsia prone to radical nationalism". Thus, a characteristic trait of the newly-founded movement was the young age of its leaders; later records show that the average age of the Legionary elite was 27.4. By then also an
anticapitalist, Codreanu identified in Jewry the common source of
economic liberalism and communism, both seen as
internationalist forces manipulated by a
Judaic conspiracy. As an opponent of
modernization and
materialism, he only vaguely indicated that his movement's economic goals implied a non-
Marxian form of
Collectivist anarchism,
First outlawing and parliamentary mandate After more than two years of stagnation, Codreanu felt it necessary to amend the purpose of the movement: he and the leadership of the movement started touring rural regions, addressing the churchgoing illiterate population with the rhetoric of
sermons, dressing up in long white
mantles and instigating Christian prejudice against
Judaism (this intense campaign was also prompted by the fact that the Legion was immediately sidelined by Cuza's League in the traditionally-receptive
Moldavian and
Bukovinian centers). Between 1928 and 1930, the
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod National Peasants' Party cabinet gave tacit assistance to the Guard, but
Iuliu Maniu (representing the same party) clamped down on the Legion after July 1930. This came after the latter had tried to provoke a wave of
pogroms in
Maramureș and
Bessarabia. Codreanu was briefly arrested together with the would-be assassin
Gheorghe Beza: both were tried and acquitted. Nevertheless, the wave of violence and a planned march into Bessarabia signalled the outlawing of the party by Premier
Gheorghe Mironescu and
Minister of the Interior Ion Mihalache (January 1931); again arrested, Codreanu was acquitted in late February. Having been boosted by the
Great Depression in Romania and the discontent it engendered, in 1931, the Legion also profited from the disagreement between
King Carol II and the National Peasants' Party, which brought a cabinet formed around
Nicolae Iorga. The Legion had won five seats in all, signalling its first important electoral gain. Codreanu quickly became noted for exposing the corruption of ministers and other politicians on a case-by-case basis (although several of his political adversaries at the time described him as "bland and incompetent"). and probably an added source for the conflict between the Captain and Stelescu). Romania was traditionally one of the most Francophile countries in Europe and had been allied to its "Latin sister" France since 1926, so Codreanu's call for an alliance with Germany was very novel for the time. A new National Liberal cabinet, formed by
Ion G. Duca, moved against such initiatives, stating that the Legion was acting as a puppet of the
German Nazi Party, and ordering that a huge number of Legionnaires be arrested just prior to the
new elections in 1933 (which the Liberals won). Several of the Legionnaires held in custody were killed by authorities. In retaliation, Duca was assassinated by the Iron Guard's
Nicadori death squad on 30 December 1933. Another result was the very first crackdown on non-affiliated sympathizers of the Iron Guard, after
Nae Ionescu and allies protested against its repression. Due to Duca's killing, Codreanu was forced into hiding, awaiting calm and delegating leadership to General
Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul, who later assumed partial guilt for the assassination. Legionnaire Mihai Stelescu, who would become Codreanu's adversary as head of the splinter group
Crusade of Romanianism, alleged that Codreanu had been given refuge by a cousin of
Magda Lupescu, Carol's mistress, implying that the Guard was becoming corrupt. Despite Codreanu's attacks on the elite, at his trial in 1934 a number of respected politicians like
Gheorghe I. Brătianu,
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod and
Constantin Argetoianu testified for Codreanu as character witnesses. Codreanu was again acquitted. As Prime Minister I.G. Duca had alleged, the Iron Guard did have some links to the Nazi Party's foreign office under
Alfred Rosenberg, but in 1933–34 the main local beneficiary of financial support from Rosenberg was Codreanu's rival
Octavian Goga, who lacked Codreanu's mass following and thus was more biddable. A further issue for the Nazis was concern over Codreanu's statements that Romania had too many minorities for its own good, which led to fears that Codreanu might persecute the
volksdeutsch minority if he came to power. In 1936, during a youth congress in
Târgu Mureș, Codreanu agreed to the formation of a permanent
Death Squad, which immediately showed its goals with the killing of dissident Mihai Stelescu by a group called the
Decemviri (led by
Ion Caratănase), neutralizing the
Crusade of Romanianism's anti-Legion campaign, and silencing Stelescu's claims that Codreanu was
politically corrupt, uncultured, a
plagiarist, and hypocritical in his public display of
asceticism. 1937 was marked by
the deaths and ostentatious funerals of Ion Moța (by then, the movement's vice president) and
Vasile Marin, who had
volunteered on
Francisco Franco's side in the
Spanish Civil War and had been killed in the battle at
Majadahonda. Codreanu also published his autobiographical and ideological essay
Pentru legionari ("For the Legionnaires" or "For My Legionnaires"). It was during this period that the Guard came to be financed by
Nicolae Malaxa (otherwise known as a prominent collaborator of Carol), and became interested in reforming itself to reach an even wider audience: Codreanu created a
meritocratic inner structure of ranks, established a wide range of
philanthropic ventures, again voiced themes which appealed to the industrial workers, and created
Corpul Muncitoresc Legionar, a Legion branch which grouped members of the
working class. King Carol struggled to preserve his rule after being faced with a decline in the appeal of the more traditional parties, and, as
Tătărescu's term approached its end, Carol made an offer to Codreanu, demanding leadership of the Legion in exchange for a Legionary cabinet; this offer was promptly refused.
"Everything for the Country" Party After the consequent ban on paramilitary groups, the Legion was restyled into a political party, running in elections as
Totul Pentru Țară ("Everything for the Country", acronym
TPȚ). Shortly afterwards, Codreanu went on record stating his contempt for Romania's alliances in
Eastern Europe, in particular the
Little Entente and the
Balkan Pact, and indicating that, 48 hours after his movement came into power, the country would be aligned with
Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy. Reportedly, such trust and confidence were reciprocated by both German officials and
Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, the latter of whom viewed Goga's cabinet as a transition to the Iron Guard's rule. In the
elections of 1937, when it signed an electoral pact with the National Peasants' Party with the goal of preventing the government from making use of
electoral fraud, TPȚ received 15.8% of the vote (occasionally rounded up to 16%). The Legion was excluded from political coalitions by nominally fascist King Carol, who preferred newly-formed subservient movements and the revived National-Christian Defense League. Cuza created his antisemitic government together with poet
Octavian Goga and his
National Agrarian Party. Codreanu and the two leaders did not get along, and the Legion started competing with the authorities by adopting
corporatism. In parallel, he urged his followers to set up private businesses, claiming to follow the advice of
Nicolae Iorga, after the latter claimed that a Romanian-run commerce could prove a solution to what he deemed the "
Jewish Question". — and initiated an official campaign of persecution of Jews, attempting to win back the interest public interest in the Iron Guard. After much violence, Codreanu was approached by Goga and agreed to have his party withdraw from campaigning in the scheduled elections of 1938, believing that, in any event, the regime had no viable solution and would wear itself out — while attempting to profit from the king's
authoritarianism by showing his willingness to integrate any possible
one-party system.
Clash with King Carol and 1938 trials Codreanu's designs were overturned by Carol, who deposed Goga, introducing his own
dictatorship after his attempts to form a
national government. The system relied instead on the new
Constitution of 1938, the financial backing received from large business, and the winning over of several more or less traditional politicians, such as Nicolae Iorga and the Internal Affairs Minister
Armand Călinescu (
see National Renaissance Front). The ban on the Guard was again tightly enforced, with Călinescu ordering all public places known to have harboured Legion meetings to be closed down (including several restaurants in
Bucharest). Members of the movement were placed under close surveillance or arrested in cases where they did not abide by the new legislation, while civil servants risked arrest if they were caught spreading Iron Guard propaganda. Codreanu referred to the historian's charge that Legionary commerce was financing rebellion, and argued that this strategy had originated from Iorga's own arguments. and by writing Codreanu a letter which advised him to "descend in [his] conscience to find remorse" for "the amount of blood spilled over him".Upon being informed of the indictment, Codreanu urged his followers not to take any action if he was going to be sentenced to less than six months in prison, stressing that he wanted to give an example of dignity; however, he also ordered a group of Legionnaires to defend him in case of an attack by the authorities. Witnesses testifying in his defense included General
Ion Antonescu, who would later become
Conducător and Premier of Romania. According to historian Ilarion Țiu, the trial and verdict were received with general apathy, and the only political faction believed to have organized a public rally in connection with it was the outlawed
Romanian Communist Party, some of whose members gathered in front of the tribunal to express support for the conviction. However, the provisional leadership, against Codreanu's wishes, announced that he was faring badly in prison and threatened further retaliation, to the point where the prison staff increased security as a means to prevent a potential break-in.
Death On 30 November, it was announced that Codreanu, the
Nicadori and the
Decemviri had been shot after trying to flee custody the previous night. The actual details were revealed much later: the fourteen persons had been transported from their prison and executed (strangled or
garroted and shot) by the
Gendarmerie around
Tâncăbești (near Bucharest), and their bodies had been buried in the courtyard of the Jilava Prison. Their bodies were dissolved in acid, and placed under seven tons of concrete. == Legacy ==