Iron Guard

The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given in English to an ultra-nationalist, anti-Semitic, fascist movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II.

Sima's brief ascendancy

In the first months of World War II, Romania was officially neutral. However, especially after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939, which stipulated, among other things, the Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia, earlier French and British pledges were worth no more to Romania than to Poland. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Romania granted refuge to members of Poland's fleeing government, and even after the assassination of C?linescu, King Carol tried to maintain neutrality, but France's surrender and Britain's retreat from Europe rendered meaningless their assurances to Romania. A lean toward the Axis Powers was probably inevitable.

Related Topics:
World War II - Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - August 23 - 1939 - French - British - Poland - Axis Powers

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This political alignment was obviously favorable to the surviving legionnaires. Ion Gigurtu's government, formed July 4, 1940 was the first to include a Legion member, but by the time the movement achieved any formal power, most of its charismatic leadership were already dead: Horia Sima, a particularly virulent anti-Semite who had become the nominal leader of the movement after Codreanu's death, was one of the few prominent legionnaires to survive the carnage of the preceding years.

Related Topics:
Ion Gigurtu - July 4 - 1940 - Horia Sima

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On September 4, 1940, the Legion formed a tense alliance with General (later Marshall) Ion Antonescu to form a "National Legionary State" government, which forced the abdication of Carol II in favor of his son Mihai, and leaned even more strongly toward the Axis. (Romania would formally join the Axis in June 1941.) Horia Sima became vice-president of the Council of Ministers.

Related Topics:
September 4 - 1940 - Ion Antonescu - Mihai - 1941

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Once in power, the Legion ratcheted up the level of already harsh anti-Semitic legislation and pursued, with impunity, a campaign of pogroms and of political assassinations, not to mention showing their own skill at clientelism and at outright blackmail of the commercial and financial sectors. More than 60 former dignitaries or officials were executed in Jilava prison while awaiting trial; historian and former prime minister Nicolae Iorga and economist Virgil Madgearu, also a former government minister, were assassinated without even the pretense of an arrest.

Related Topics:
Jilava - Nicolae Iorga - Virgil Madgearu

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The Iron Guard were particularly infamous for the virulence with which they participated in what was later to become known as the Holocaust. In The Destruction of the European Jews, Raul Hilberg writes, "There were... instances when the Germans actually had to step in to restrain and slow down the pace of the Romanian measures." The annihilation of the Jews of eastern Romania (including Bessarabia, Bucovina, Transnistria, and the city of Ia?i) had more the character of a pogrom than of the well-organized brutality of the transports and camps.

Related Topics:
Holocaust - Raul Hilberg - Bessarabia - Bucovina - Transnistria - Ia?i - Pogrom

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However, the Legion soon overplayed their hand. On January 24, 1941 Antonescu successfully suppressed a Legion-inspired military coup, resulting in the Legion being forced out of a governing role and losing its government protection. Horia Sima and many other legionnaires took refuge in Germany; others were imprisoned.

Related Topics:
January 24 - 1941

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See also Romania during World War II.

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