Early life and career Born in Leca village (part of
Ungureni,
Bacău County), Radu Lecca was the scion of a landowning family. He was educated in
Vienna and
Paris, and, according to one eyewitness account, was "the perfect polyglot". Lecca's brother, Sergiu, also had a career in politics, before moving into the diplomatic service. Radu Lecca was drafted into the
Romanian Army in 1915, and, after Romania's entry into the war the following year, saw action on the
local front. During the early
interwar years, he worked as a commercial agent in France. In 1931, French authorities arrested him and a French court convicted him for espionage, based on revelations that he had provided
Romanian King Carol II with sensitive information about prominent politicians subsidized by France. Tasked with promoting German interests in Romania, he transferred clandestine funds from Rosenberg to the country's own
fascist and antisemitic force, the
National Christian Party.
Polish historian
Jerzy W. Borejsza describes the "intense contacts" between, on one side, Lecca and National Christian leader
Octavian Goga, alongside men from the radically fascist
Iron Guard, and, on the other, Rosenberg, concluding that Romania was one of the countries most infiltrated by Rosenberg's agents. Around the same time, Sergiu Lecca was involved with an Iron Guard splinter group, the
Crusade of Romanianism. Although funded by the Nazis, Radu Lecca also contacted the SSI, making himself available as a
double agent. According to his own testimonies, Lecca focused his attention on
Kurt Geißler, the
Schutzstaffels liaison with the Guard. Lecca watched on as the Guard made preparations to oust Antonescu. He maintained that, on Geißler's request, the Guard's Legionary Police was armed with some 5,000
Walther PPs (surplus from the
Berlin Police), and suggested that the Bucharest
regular police chief, Guardist
Ștefan Zăvoianu, had influenced Geißler into mistrusting Antonescu. Lecca also claimed that the
Jilava Massacre, during which the Guard purged its political enemies, was instigated by Geißler. This account contradicts other reports, according to which the Guard was voluntarily avenging its murdered founder, Captain
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. These intrigues were a preamble to the Guard's
Legionary Rebellion, of January 1941. The attempted coup was crushed by the
Conducător, who acted with authorization from
Adolf Hitler. The triumphant Antonescu ordered Lecca to contact
Manfred Freiherr von Killinger, the new German Ambassador, and inform him about Geißler's dissent. Lecca accomplished his task, but did so with noted reluctance. Also according to Lecca's reports, Antonescu was unaware of the pogrom as it happened, and that swiftly condemned it as it became news. However, documents of the pogrom show that
Iuniu (Iunius, Junius) Lecca, who worked under
Eugen Cristescu at the SSI, had a major role to play in plotting the series of murders. Iuniu was probably a relative of Radu Lecca.
Central Jewish Office establishment '' men arresting Romanian Jews (December 1941) In late 1941, Radu Lecca was assigned Jewish Affairs Commissioner and supervisor of the newly created Central Jewish Office. This advancement may have been owed to Killinger's favors. Establishing the CE was a measure suggested to Lecca by special Nazi envoys, who wanted to involve Romania in their pan-European
Final Solution project.
Gustav Richter, the German official directly involved in the negotiations, hoped the Central Jewish Office would function as a
Judenrat, to ensure the compliance of senior Jewish community leaders. Lecca was in close contacts with both Richter and Killinger, establishing communication channels leading from Killinger to
Conducător Antonescu and to the Romanian deputy leader,
Mihai Antonescu. It was also Richter who suggested to Lecca that
Nandor Gingold, a Jewish physician and
lapsed Roman Catholic convert, be made General Secretary of the CE Central Committee. Lecca's personal selection for CE President was
Henric Streitman, a prominent and eclectic journalist of the interwar period. Streitman was an unwitting collaborator, who believed that compliance was a path to survival, and whose assignments were mostly ceremonial. The CE was originally tasked with mundane chores: producing statistical surveys, organizing special taxation,
expropriation, welfare, and the
civil conscription of Romanian Jews (as a free labor supply for the Romanian Army on the
Eastern Front and behind the lines). Lecca's other proposal was for the CE to replace all Jewish political bodies. As a result, in January 1942, Antonescu outlawed the traditional
Jewish Federation, which had been founded by activist
Wilhelm Filderman. Antonescu's order also hindered the growing
Zionist movement, who had
Mișu Benvenisti for its animator. According to Benvenisti's own reports, Richter and the CE were directly interested in destroying Romania's Zionist organizations. In practice, the CE was unable to earn the respect of most Romanian Jews, and Lecca resorted to co-opting Federation activists, and even some committed Zionists, on the CE leadership board. When the Zionists threatened to convert into an anti-German resistance movement, Lecca reluctantly overturned some of Richter's anti-Zionist measures. Lecca's new missions did not alienate him from the German circles, and he witnessed first-hand the Germans' growing involvement in Romania's antisemitic policies. He was caught in the middle as
Horst Böhme, who headed the
RSHA branch in Bucharest, began investigating Killinger's bureaucratic work. This was a local facet of the violent conflict opposing the RSHA and the
German Foreign Office. Böhme, who wanted to speed up the Final Solution project, was described by Lecca as a person of outstanding cruelty, promoted as kudos for his earlier rule of terror in
Bohemia-Moravia. Lecca alleged that both Killinger and the senior
Schutzstaffel delegate, Richter, were alarmed by Böhme's scrutiny of their dealings with the CE. He writes that Böhme accused both colleagues for leniency and incompetence, displaying such arrogance as to invite in speculation that he was mentally ill. In one of his own RSHA reports, Böhme worried that Killinger had lost Antonescu's respect, and that, among Romanians, Lecca was the only one still interested in what the German Ambassador had to say. Eventually, Böhme's notes angered the
German Foreign Minister,
Joachim von Ribbentrop, who obtained his reassignment, freeing Killinger of a nuisance.
Extortion mechanisms and extermination proposals in March 1943, documenting Lecca's use of extortion money Beginning in early 1942, Lecca spearheaded extortion initiatives. He produced the special decrees requiring all non-deported Jews to contribute special cash funds for social causes benefiting
ethnic Romanians. As early as January, he reported to Ion Antonescu that some 20,000 people targeted by this provision lacked the money and had therefore been prosecuted. Lecca informed that such blind severity defeated the economic purpose. He therefore proposed (successfully so) that a grand total of 100 million
lei be collected from more affluent members of the community, and go directly through the Central Jewish Office. In August, he drafted a project to levy 1.2 billion lei from those Jewish business owners who had been spared "
Romanianization", on the pretense that it would help their conscripted coreligionists. The project was endorsed by Lecca's superiors, who raised the bar by a further 800 million lei, half of it diverted to a state-endorsed charity headed by Ion Antonescu's spouse,
Maria. Lecca was by then also considering the demolition of
synagogues left unused in areas subject to Jewish evictions. He countersigned a plan to recycle the resulting debris, as materials for the
Romanian Orthodox church in
Bucecea. Before September 1942, Lecca was contacted by German officials in the matter of planned transports from Romania, specifically southern
Transylvania and the
Banat, to
Nazi extermination camps. He confirmed that both Ion and Mihai Antonescu had given approvals, and proceeded to instruct the
Romanian Railways administration. The agreement between the two states was announced by a satisfied RSHA in July 1943. RSHA bureaucrats informed that, beginning September 10, Romanian Jews were to be forcefully embarked for
Lublin (Majdanek): "those that are fit will be put to work, while the rest undergo
special treatment". In Lecca's own words, the project was left on hold "until the right time." Moreover, according to
American historian Monty Noam Penkower, Lecca felt "snubbed" by Ribbentrop's subordinates while visiting Germany. Contrarily,
English researcher
David Cesarani locates the problem with the RSHA, who "mishandled [Lecca's] stay disastrously". Cesarani republishes angry comments made by Ribbentrop aide
Franz Rademacher, accusing the RSHA of presumptuousness and breach of
protocol. The extermination project lacked secrecy, and was therefore sabotaged from the outside.
Baron Neumann of Végvár, a Banat Jewish industrialist, is credited with having coaxed and bribed some Romanian officials, focusing his effort on postponing all transports to Lublin for as long as was possible. According to historian
Victor Neumann, the Baron's intervention was only part of a series of intersecting events. These include a propaganda and passive resistance effort mounted by other Jewish community leaders of the Banat, the discontent of Romanian railway employees, topical criticism coming from Romanian
civil society representatives (
Bishop Bălan,
Iuliu Maniu), and, in some part, Antonescu's own doubts about Germany's ability to win the war. As the Lublin project was falling apart, Lecca was streamlining the extortion part of his CE activities. In May 1943, he suggested collecting another 4 billion lei from those Jews who, as his report to the government claimed, "enjoy the freedom to trade and live protected from war". Lecca talked about his plan in a face to face meeting with
Chief Rabbi Alexandru Șafran, on
Hanukkah 1942. Interviewed in 1994, Șafran recalled that Lecca treated him "respectfully". He declared: "I would say that, although
corrupt and sometimes inebriated, he sometimes had toward me the attitude of a true to life
Romanian boyar." According to Șafran, Lecca pressured the Jews to come up with the sum in full, because "our soldiers are out on the front dying, and they stay at home". The Chief Rabbi protested that his community could never have afforded such expenditures, but Lecca replied that Antonescu was adamant and passionate about the project. Filderman issued a vocal protest, and faced the consequences: he was deported into a Transnistrian camp. Benvenisti took over as leader of the protest, confronting Lecca in a "long and violent discussion." After the part-tolerated Romanian opposition parties publicized their own objections and sided with the Jewish community, Antonescu signed off on Filderman's release.
Alternatives, corruption, policy reversals By then, Radu Lecca was involved in dealings to have Jews from Romanian-controlled territories transferred into
Palestine. He was initially approached by
Apostolic Nuncio Andrea Cassulo, who asked him to intervene and allow Jewish orphans in Transnistria safe passage. At their first meeting in spring 1941, Lecca reportedly agreed, but no further measure of this kind had been taken by September, when Cassulo decided to intervene directly with the
Conducător. Antonescu refused him, claiming that none of the "desired guarantees" were presented to him. In the context of Nazi pressures to have Romanian Jews exterminated in Poland, Lecca made provisions for some 3,000 Jews to be saved and sent to Palestine in exchange for 2 million lei. In 1943, Richter warned Lecca not to approve of Filderman's plan to transport 4,000 to 5,000 orphans from Transnistria to Palestine, even as the
Allies approved of their transfer. Antonescu himself only allowed sporadic transports of orphans in 1944, when it had become clear that the
Axis powers were losing the war. In late 1942, Lecca had also begun negotiating with the smugglers and Zionists who organized the
Aliyah Bet movement, and with Filderman, Benvenisti, etc.
Aliyah Bet from Romania was set to take place once Lecca received 200,000 lei per emigrant. Claiming Antonescu's acquiescence, Lecca even informed Killinger about the deal. His reports generated German alarm, and a warning that those Jews caught in
Bulgaria would be arrested on the spot. Documents and testimonies of the period give evidence as to Lecca's corruption. His supervision helped some influential civilian administrators and soldiers, who made fortunes trafficking their own dispensations from compulsory labor. Lecca stated that he himself collected money not just for Maria Antonescu, but also for Mihai Antonescu and Killinger. , a businessman and member of the semi-clandestine
National Peasants' Party, also recounted having periodically paid off the Commissioner in order to protect the livelihoods of his Jewish employees at
Ardeleana Bank. The Commissioner is said to have deposited his extortion funds in neutral
Switzerland, with (later incorporated into
Credit Suisse). According to other accounts, he made efforts to embezzle the money he had extorted from would-be emigrants to Palestine, and received 20 million lei from the
Iași survivors, pledging them his leniency. In July 1943, Lecca suggested to postpone the planned confiscation of Iași's Jewish Cemetery. His comments were ignored by the city's antisemitic mayor,
Constantin Ifrim, whose only concession on this issue was to leave exhumations in the care of a
Judaic congregation. In September of the same year, Lecca was promoted Commissioner General by the Antonescus, his department reintegrated within a Secretariat for Labor. The same month, Ifrim sent Lecca a memorandum, demanding the deportation of Iași Jews to Transnistria or to the German
Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Eventually, in November 1943, following the turn of tides on the Eastern Front, Radu Lecca became party to Antonescu's revised project. This was a last-minute effort to ensure the survival, and a humane detainment at a new camp in
Vyzhnytsia, of the Transnistria deportees (excepting those whom Antonescu still called "communist Jews"). At around the same time, Sergiu Lecca was in
Lisbon, discussing a possible surrender to the Allies. Radu Lecca took part in a government meeting presided upon by Antonescu: the
Conducător instructed Lecca to collect funds and food for the deported Jews, whom he acknowledged were dying "at a fast rate", worrying about being perceived as the sole perpetrator of Romanian Holocaust crimes. Also then, allegedly with Killinger's consent, Lecca managed to obtain the reassignment of Gustav Richter from his post in Jewish affairs to more regular police work, proposing that: "Richter no longer has anything to direct within the Central Jewish Office." Although aware that Richter's network of spies was still at work within Jewish affairs departments, Lecca believed that Richter had since lost his motive for murder: "He was a young man, he had a wife and child, and he knew that if he lost his position in the legation [because of a diplomatic protest] he would have to leave straight for the front." However, both Lecca and SSI director
Eugen Cristescu recalled that, in his new capacity, Richter obtained the January 1944 arrest of several Zionist leaders (Filderman, Benvenisti etc.), whom he denounced as conspirators against Germany; all were freed the next month, when the
International Red Cross pleaded in their favor.
Prison term and final years In late 1944, soon after the
August 23 Coup overthrew the Ion Antonescu regime, Radu Lecca was arrested by the new administration. As a participant in the events, the
Romanian Communist Party arranged for Antonescu and his key functionaries to be held together at a Communist hiding place in
Vatra Luminoasă quarter. Romania's new government pushed the Germans out of Bucharest, and
Aurel Aldea, the
Interior Minister, agreed to have the "Antonescu Lot" transferred into Soviet custody. Unlike his colleagues, Lecca was able to escape custody before this could take place. According to an article in the Communist Party's
Scînteia, "the gangster Radu Lecca" duped his police escort on November 18, and lost himself in the Bucharest crowd. He was apprehended by the Romanian Detective Corps only four days later. Handed over to the
Allied Commission, Lecca was taken into custody by the
Soviet occupation forces, and eventually transported into Soviet territory. In June 1945, he and Antonescu were moved into
Lubyanka Building cells. The status of the "Antonescu Clique", Lecca included, was still being debated between the Allies. Reportedly, the
United States Department of State suggested to present them before the
Nuremberg Tribunal. The Soviets vetoed that option in April 1946. Lecca was subsequently a co-defendant in Antonescu's 1946 trial by the
People's Tribunal, on counts of
war crimes,
crimes against the peace and
treason, and
sentenced to death on May 17. During the actual proceedings, Lecca was the target of an especially negative portrayal in
Scînteia, which described him as having a "black-bluish face", noting: "A hideous man, with bloated and vice-consumed cheeks, Lecca hides his rapacity under the mask of obduration." Lecca used up his right of appeal, with a laconic address to
Michael I, the Romanian King. On May 31, his sentence, like those of Cristescu and Vasiliu, was commuted to
forced labor for life, through a special decree issued by the king. Several sources note that, in issuing the pardon, Michael I answered requests made by the Communist-led
Petru Groza cabinet. The government cited "
national interest" or, more specifically, "the need of addressing our Country's great interests". Lecca was by then being held in the
Jilava Prison, detained together with lawyer-politician
Aurelian Bentoiu and literary critic
Nicolae Steinhardt. Steinhardt's Jewish and
left-wing background is said to have been a stress factor for Lecca. As Steinhardt noted, Lecca was left paralyzed by negligent surgery on his
hemorrhoids. Bedridden, he spent his time verbally abusing Bentoiu, who was similarly immobilized by a
prostatectomy. While in Securitate custody, the former Jewish Commissioner was subjected to several inquiries. His written statements were kept under key, in special files. Romanian-born
Israeli historian
Jean Ancel presumes that the Securitate had vested interest in allowing Lecca to produce a personal version of Romania's World War II history. The Securitate, Ancel notes, shared Lecca's goal of shifting focus from Romania's Holocaust complicity. Radu Lecca was eventually transferred to
Aiud Prison, 1958. According to his physician, at Aiud's "Zarca" hospital, the paralysis had spread to other parts of his body, and eventually affected his speech. Probably with Securitate instructions, Lecca reportedly sought to repatriate his Swiss wealth; Schweizerische Volksbank is believed to have refused his request, motivating that the record of accounts had since been destroyed. ==Posterity==