Iron Guard

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. From June 1935 onwards, the organization used the name "Totul pentru Țară", literally meaning "Everything for the Country", in electoral contexts. ==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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 anti-Semitic, 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. The Vaida-Voevod government outlawed the Iron Guard in January 1931. 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. 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. Struggle for power , the founder of the Iron Guard 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. For much of the interwar period, Romania was in the French sphere of influence, and in 1926, Romania signed a treaty of alliance with France. Following the Remilitarization of the Rhineland in March 1936, Carol began to move away from the traditional alliance with France, as the fear grew in Romania that the French would do nothing in the event of German aggression in Eastern Europe. However, Carol's regime was still regarded as essentially pro-French. From the German viewpoint, the Iron Guard was regarded as far preferable to King Carol. The royal dictatorship lasted just over one year. On 7 March 1939, a new government was formed with Călinescu as prime minister; on 21 September 1939, he, in turn was assassinated by legionnaires avenging Codreanu. Călinescu favored a foreign policy where Romania would maintain a pro-Allied neutrality in World War II, and as such, the SS had a hand in organizing Călinescu's assassination. and Iron Guard members in 1937 In addition to the conflict with the king, an internal power struggle ensued in the wake of Codreanu's death. Waves of repression almost eliminated the Legion's original leadership by 1939, promoting second-rank members to the forefront. According to a secret report filed by the Hungarian political secretary in Bucharest in late 1940, three main factions existed: the group gathered around Sima, a dynamic local leader from the Banat, which was the most pragmatic and least Orthodox in its orientation; the group composed of Codreanu's father, Ion Zelea Codreanu, and his brothers (who despised Sima); and the Moța-Marin group, which wanted to strengthen the movement's religious character. After a long period of confusion, Sima, representing the Legion's less radical wing, overcame all competition and assumed leadership, being recognised as such on 6 September 1940 by the Legionary Forum, a body created at his initiative. On 28 September, the elder Codreanu stormed the Legion headquarters in Bucharest (the Green House) in an unsuccessful attempt to install himself as leader. Sima was close to SS Volksgruppenführer Andreas Schmidt, a volksdeutsch (ethnic German) from Romania, and through him become close to Schmidt's father-in-law, the powerful Gottlob Berger who headed the SS Main Office in Berlin. The British historian Rebecca Haynes has argued that financial and organizational support from the SS was an essential factor in Sima's rise. Once in power, from 14 September 1940 until 21 January 1941, the Legion ratcheted up the level of already harsh anti-Semitic legislation and pursued, with impunity, a campaign of pogroms and political assassinations. On 27 November 1940 more than 60 former dignitaries or officials were executed in Jilava prison while awaiting trial. The following day, historian and former prime minister Nicolae Iorga and economic theorist Virgil Madgearu were assassinated; assassination attempts were made on former prime ministers and Carol supporters Constantin Argetoianu, Guță Tătărescu and Ion Gigurtu, but they were freed from the hands of the Legionary police and put under military protection. Failure and destruction Once in power, Sima and Antonescu quarreled bitterly. According to historian Stanley G. Payne, Antonescu intended to create a situation analogous to that of Francisco Franco's regime in Spain, in which the Legion would be subordinated to the state. He demanded that Sima cede overall leadership of the Legion to him, but Sima refused. During the run-up to the coup attempt, different factions of the German government backed different sides in Romania with the SS supporting the Iron Guard while the military and the Auswärtiges Amt supported General Antonescu. Baron Otto von Bolschwing of the SS who was stationed at the German embassy in Bucharest played a major role in smuggling arms for the Iron Guard. The American ambassador to Romania Franklin Mott Gunther who toured the meat-packing plant where the Jews were slaughtered with the placards reading "Kosher meat" on them reported back to Washington: "Sixty Jewish corpses were discovered on the hooks used for carcasses. They were all skinned....and the quantity of blood about was evidence that they had been skinned alive". When it came to killing Jews, the Antonescu regime and the Iron Guard were capable of finding common ground despite the failed coup in January 1941; Antonescu was as virulently anti-Semitic as the Guard. When the pogrom began in Iași on 27 June 1941, the Iron Guards armed with crow-bars and knives played a prominent role in leading the mobs that slaughtered Jews on the streets of Iași in one of the bloodiest pogroms ever in Europe. Post-war era Between 1944 and 1947 Romania had a coalition government in which the Communists played a leading, but not yet dominant role. Journalist Edward Behr claimed that in early 1947, a secret agreement was signed by the leaders of the exiled Iron Guard in displaced persons (DP) camps in Germany and Austria and the Romanian Communist Party, under which all of the Legionnaires in the DP camps, except for those accused of the murder of Communists, could return home to Romania; in exchange, Legionnaires would work as thugs to terrorize the anti-communist opposition as part of a plan for the ultimate communist takeover of Romania. Behr further claimed that in the months after the "non-aggression pact" between the Communists and the Legion, thousands of Legionnaires returned to Romania, where they played a prominent role working for the Interior Ministry in breaking opposition to the emerging socialist government. and sections of the Legionary Movement received further support from Vatican officials. By the 1950s, groups of exiled Legionnaires had formed a network of political, cultural, and "religious" organizations in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Canada, the United States, and South America. Through these organizations, they continued to publish Legionary, anti-communist, or ultra-nationalist literature; they also forged connections with other ultra-nationalist or fascist movements and attempted to recruit new members. ==Electoral history==

At the 1927 and the 1931 elections the movement stood for the Chamber of Deputies as Legion of the Archangel Michael. In the 1932 it stood as the Codreanu Group, winning five of the 387 seats. It did not compete in the 1928 election and was banned in 1933. At the 1937 election it stood as Everything for the Country Party, winning 66 of the 387 seats. At the 1939 election, all opposition parties were banned. ==Description==

Ideology Historian Stanley G. Payne writes in his study of fascism, "The Legion was arguably the most unusual mass movement of interwar Europe." It was distinguished among other contemporaneous European fascist movements with respect to its understanding of nationalism, which was indelibly tied to religion. According to Ioanid Radu, the Legion "willingly inserted strong elements of Orthodox Christianity into its political ideology to the point of becoming one of the rare modern European political movements with a religious ideological structure." The movement's leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was a religious nationalist who aimed at a spiritual resurrection for the nation, writing the movement was a "spiritual school...[which] strikes to transform and revolutionise the Romanian soul." Drawing on Italian Fascism, National Socialism, and the corporatist, left-leaning thought of Georges Valois, Marin claimed that the Legion belonged not to the conservative right but to the revolutionary left, emphasizing its rejection of social conservatism and its belief in the "organized masses" as agents of national renewal. He reinforced this argument by condemning classical liberalism for privileging individual and class interests, repressing workers, and reducing the state to a bourgeois instrument, as evidenced by the violent suppression of the 1929 miners' strike and the 1933 railway workers' revolt. In place of the "imported", universalist liberal state, Marin demanded a modern, collectivist, "totalitarian" national state capable of enforcing the collective interest and reorganizing society into a unified corporatist order. This vision entailed dismantling Romania's historic, plural, and flexible social ties in order to impose a militarized national community purified of perceived political and "racial" undesirables, a project the Legion justified as a modern response to economic complexity and the subordination of individuals to the collective in contemporary industrial society. Strongly influenced by Oswald Spengler, Marin further argued that genuine political modernity required a "cultural state" rooted in national particularism, in contrast to what he saw as the impersonal, civilizational—and therefore decaying—character of liberalism and Soviet communism. He regarded Romania's "minor" peasant culture as evidence of historical marginality and envisioned the population—villagers included—as raw material to be transformed into a modern, culturally revitalized nation by a disciplined Legionary elite. Seeing fascist corporatism and Leninist collectivism as rival modernizing projects, Marin believed that fascism offered the superior model because it harmonized national interests rather than subordinating them to class conflict. Even Soviet industrial "civilization", he contended, had degenerated into a sterile, deracinated modernity once its revolutionary impulse had been "hijacked", though he observed in the 1930s a mutual convergence between fascism becoming more socialist and Stalinism becoming more national. Taken together, these claims framed the Iron Guard as a radical, modernizing movement that sought not to preserve Romanian tradition, but to reconstruct the nation—biologically, culturally, and politically—through a "totalitarian" revolutionary project. Economics The Iron Guard's economic outlook blended nationalist and spiritual themes with selective, loosely defined "socialist" elements, though these claims were often exaggerated or unreliable. Some members, such as organizer Andrei Ionescu, later asserted under Securitate interrogation that the movement embraced aspects of Marxism and promoted economic ideas aligned with social justice and anti-corruption. However, these statements were shaped by the political pressures of the communist era and conflict with the Legion's strong anti-communist stance. In practice, the Iron Guard's economics were less a coherent program and more an ideological tool, framed around moral renewal, discipline, and opposition to perceived corrupt elites, rather than a structured socialist or communist model. Style Members wore dark green uniforms, which symbolized renewal and led to them being occasionally referred to as "Greenshirts" (). Like fascist counterparts in Italy, Spain, and Germany, legionnaires greeted each other using the Roman salute. The main symbol of the Iron Guard was a triple cross (a variant of the triple parted and fretted one), standing for prison bars (as a badge of martyrdom), (Unicode: U+2A69 ⩩ ) and sometimes referred to as the "Archangel Michael Cross" (). The Legion developed a cult of martyrdom and self-sacrifice, best exemplified by the action group, Echipa morții, or "Death Squad". Codreanu claimed the name was chosen because members were ready to accept death while campaigning for the organization. A chapter of the Legion was called a cuib, or "nest", and was arranged around the virtues of discipline, work, silence, education, mutual aid, and honor. Flag gallery File:Flag of Iron Guard Romania.svg File:Flag of the Iron Guard (Legion of the Archangel Michael or Legionary Movement).svg File:Flag of the Iron Guard (white disk version).svg File:Flag of the Legionary Movement (White Cross Variant).png File:Flag of the Legionary Movement or Legion of the Archangel Michael (Iron Guard).svg File:Iron Guard flag (defaced tricolor version).svg File:Iron Guard flag (yellow on green version).svg File:Legionary Movement flag.svg Hymns Octavian Racu argues that Imnul legionarilor căzuți (also known as "Cântecul legionarilor căzuți"), written by Simion Lefter and lamenting the death of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was actually adapted from Cossack folklore based on the verses of Ukrainian poet Mihailo Petrenko (1817–1862), with music composed by Vladislav Zaremba (1833–1902), of Polish origin. Consultative body The was a consultative body of the Legionary Movement, created during the first national assembly of legionary nest leaders, which took place in Iași, at the home of General Ion Tarnoschi, between 3–4 January 1929. The Senate was established at the initiative of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu following his break with his former mentor, Professor A. C. Cuza. The Legionary Senate was conceived as both a counterweight and a type of supreme authority within the Legionary Movement, intended to give it an academic and moral aura. The organizational instructions of the "Everything for the Fatherland" Party specified: In practice, the criteria for appointment diverged significantly from those stated by Codreanu. The senators he hurriedly named during the founding session, as well as those later co-opted, did not include "peasants or workers", were not evaluated regarding whether they "lived lives of great integrity, showed faith in the legionary future, and possessed wisdom", and did not meet the age requirement. Codreanu himself, who placed himself at the head of the Senate, was not yet 29 years old. The first Legionary senators were Hristache Solomon, General Dr. Ion Macridescu, General Ion Tarnoschi, Spiru Peceli, Colonel Paul Cambureanu, and Ion Butnaru. The Iron Guard and gender According to a 1933 police report, 8% of the Iron Guard's members were women, while a 1938 report placed the figure at 11%. Part of the reason for the overwhelming male membership of the Iron Guard was that a disproportionate number of legionnaires were university students and very few women went to university in Romania during the inter-war period. In the Romanian language, plurals are attached to most nouns that have either a masculine or feminine form. Words in English that are gender-neutral, such as "youth" or "member", are used in Romanian to refer either to Romanian men or Romanian women, young men or young women, and male members or female members. The Iron Guard argued that Romanian men had been "emasculated" and were suffering from "sterility", which one Iron Guard, Alexandru Cantacuzino, called the "plague of the present" in a 1937 essay. The Iron Guards constantly spoke in viscerally sexualized rhetoric of the need to create a "new man" whose virility and strength would liberate Romanian men from their emasculation. Included in their small arms was the MP28/II submachine-gun supplied by Himmler's SD. The Legion also possessed a small, mostly symbolic armored force of four vehicles: two police armored cars and two Renault UE Chenillettes from the Malaxa factory. The Malaxa factory had been licence-producing these French armored vehicles since mid-1939, and aside from the two such machines, the factory also supplied the Legion with machine guns and rifles. For transport, the Legion possessed almost 200 trucks in Bucharest alone. ==Legacy==

The name Garda de Fier is also used by a small nationalist group active in the post-communist Romania. There are several contemporary far-right organizations in Romania, such as Totul pentru țară (Everything for the country), which existed until it was banned in 2015, and Noua Dreaptă (The New Right), the latter considering itself heir to the Iron Guard's political philosophy, including personality cult centered on Corneliu Codreanu; however, the group uses the Celtic cross, which is not associated with legionarism. Legionary architecture Through their summer work camps, the Legionnaires performed volunteer work involving the construction and reparation of roads, bridges, churches and schools in rural areas. One notable construction of the Iron Guard is the "Green House" (Casa Verde). Built in the Romanian architectural style, this building on the outskirts of 1930s Bucharest served as the Legion's headquarters and home to Codreanu. these camps intended to cultivate athleticism, discipline, sense of community and elimination of certain societal divisions. Horia Sima stated that the camps "destroyed class prejudice" by bringing together those from different classes. The attendees were not allowed to leave the camp except for emergencies and in their free time were to read literature. Following completion of camp time a diploma was received. Public commemoration The Iron Guard is currently commemorated in Romania and elsewhere through permanent public displays (monuments and street names) as well as public distinctions (such as posthumous honorary citizenship) dedicated to some of its members. A few such examples include: • Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the Iron Guard, has a roadside cross a few miles from Bucharest, near Buftea. It was built on the spot where he was executed in 1938. The site serves as a current destination for neo-Legionaries, who regularly gather there to commemorate Codreanu. Occasionally, members of right-wing extremist parties from outside Romania (such as Germany, Sweden and Italy) also attend these ceremonies. In 2012, the Elie Wiesel Institute notified the Romanian general prosecutor about the monument, claiming that two symbols displayed at the site – the logo of the Iron Guard and a photograph of Codreanu – were illegal. The prosecutor decided that the memorial did not violate the law, because Codreanu had not been convicted for crimes against peace or crimes against humanity, and because the symbols displayed are not propaganda. Finally, the prosecutor referred to a legal exception which stated that the public use of such symbols is allowed if it serves an educational, academic or artistic purpose. However, the prosecutor also established that the flagpole and fence did not have a construction permit, so they were removed. The cross itself was left in its place. • Radu Gyr was a commander and ideologue of the Iron Guard who was convicted of war crimes. The Wiesel Institute requested the renaming of Radu Gyr Street in Cluj-Napoca. As of September 2025, the street had not been renamed. • Valeriu Gafencu was a Legionary who was active during the Legionary Rebellion. He is now an honorary citizen of the town of Târgu Ocna. • Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu was one of the main leaders of the Romanian anti-communist resistance movement, but prior to that he was a member of the Iron Guard. He now has a monument in his memory in Deva, as well as a foundation that bears his name. The neo-Legionary "Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu" Foundation is active in promoting the memory of the Iron Guard, such as when it organized a symposium dedicated to Gogu Puiu, a prominent Iron Guard leader, in January 2016. A motion-picture about Ogoranu's life, Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man, was produced in 2010. • Ion Moța and Vasile Marin were two Legionaries who were killed during the Spanish Civil War on 13 January 1937 while fighting on Franco's side. At Majadahonda, the site of their deaths, a monument was built in their honor. • Mihail Manoilescu was an economist and politician, Governor of the National Bank of Romania between June and November 1931. In 1937, he joined the Iron Guard when he ran as a senator on the list of the Totul pentru Țară, an organization established by the Iron Guard. He succeeded in becoming senator following the election. His views corresponded to a large extent with the ideology of the Iron Guard. In 1948, he was detained at the Sighet Prison where he died in 1950. He never faced trial, and thus he was never convicted. On 14 April 2016, the National Bank of Romania issued a set of commemorative coins in the honor of three former bank governors. Manoilescu, who led the bank for several months in 1931, was among them. Manoilescu's inclusion drew strong protests from the Wiesel Institute, on the grounds of Manoilescu's advocacy of Fascist ideology and antisemitism before World War II. In spite of the criticism, the Bank did not withdraw the coin. • Historian Mircea Eliade was perhaps the most well-known person to have been a member of the Iron Guard. As with Manoilescu, his membership was the result of his joining the Totul pentru Țară. Eliade is currently honored by various means, ranging from stamps to busts. • Nicolae Paulescu, a Romanian physiologist and academic, most famous for his work on diabetes, including patenting pancreine (a pancreatic extract containing insulin), was an important antisemitic doctrinaire who was a member of the . A hospital in Bucharest, is named after him and he is currently honored by various means, ranging from stamps to statues (including one outside the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy). • Ilarion Felea and Ilie Lăcătușu were members of the Iron Guard, the latter even an officer within its ranks ("legionary sector" leader). However, this did not prevent the Romanian Orthodox Church from canonizing the two as saints, despite protests from both within and outside Romania. Iron Guard in other countries The defunct American neo-Nazi Traditionalist Workers Party of the Nationalist Front took influence from Corneliu Zelia Codreanu for their ideology. The group's leader Matthew Heimbach (a Catholic convert to Orthodox Christianity) was photographed wearing a T-shirt promoting Codreanu and the Iron Guard's Archangel Michael's Cross symbol in the aftermath of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Archangel Michael's Cross was among the symbols emblazoned on the firearms used by Brenton Tarrant during the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings and by Payton S. Gendron during the 2022 Buffalo shooting. During a 2018 interview with alt-right Mormon blogger Ayla Stewart, the Canadian white nationalist Faith Goldy recommended Codreanu's book For My Legionaries—which explicitly called for the extermination of the Jews—calling it "very, very, very, very spot on, given a lot of what the movement is talking about right now"; she later said she no longer endorsed the book. ==See also==