Iron Guard

The **Iron Guard** (Romanian: _Garda de Fier_) was a Romanian pro-Nazi militant group founded by Romanian ultranationalist Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899 – 1938) in 1930 during the Great Depression and rise of fascism in Europe.

## Founding

When Codreanu was at university in 1922, he was one of the founders of the Association of Christian Students, allied with the League of National Christian Defense (Romanian: _Liga Apărării Național Creștine_, LANC) between 1923 and 1927. In 1927, he broke with the LANC to form the Legion of the Archangel Michael, the military wing of which became the Iron Guard.

The Iron Guard was noted for its violent antisemitism and mystical Christian nationalism. This earned them support from radical nationalist peasants, intellectuals and the Romanian Orthodox Church (Romanian: _Biserica Ortodoxă Română_). Student mobilization contributed to Iron Guard's rise.

## Rise

In 1937, the Iron Guard became the third-largest party in Romania's parliament by winning 15.81% of votes and 66 out of 387 seats.
It also became the third-largest far-right movement in Europe, with 200,000 members within Romania. Due to the Iron Guard's violent extremism, it faced crackdown in 1938 and 1941 respectively, the first time under King Carol II (where Iron Guard's founder was executed) and the second time under the Nazi-backed Ion Antonescu.

Antonescu was an Iron Guard member himself, appointed by King Carol II as the Prime Minister on 5 September 1940. He recruited some Iron Guard members into his cabinet and ran the short-lived totalitarian National Legionary State (Romanian: _Statul Național-Legionar_, SNL) from 14 September 1940 to 14 February 1941. After the SNL ended, Antonescu continued ruling Romania as a tyrant and killed as many as 400,000 Jews until 23 August 1944, when he was overthrown in a coup led by King Michael I.

## Antisemitism

As mentioned, the Iron Guard was violently antisemitic. They believed the Jews to be Freemasons who controlled everything.
They instigated numerous antisemitic riots, one of which was the Bucharest pogrom on 21–23 January 1941, which killed 125+ Jews.

## Downfall

Horia Sima, the Iron Guard leader, did not get along with the Nazi-backed Prime Minister Ion Antonescu. Antonescu was wary of the Iron Guard's influence as a paramilitary. He persuaded Sima to make him the Iron Guard's leader. However, Sima refused and demanded all major offices to be held by Iron Guard members instead. This angered Antonescu.

During the Bucharest pogrom, the Iron Guard launched a concurrent rebellion against Antonescu. Antonescu unleashed a crackdown, outlawed the Iron Guard and threw 9,000 Iron Guard members into jail. Some of them, including Iron Guard's leader Horia Sima, fled to Nazi Germany and received protection from Hitler. Many jailed members were later released by Antonescu to participate in the Iași pogrom and the broader Holocaust in the Romanian-occupied zone.

### Horia Sima in exile

Horia Sima fled Romania with the help of the Nazi SS. Sima and his allies were resettled in Berkenbrück, Germany. In 1942, he escaped to Italy, but was sent back to Nazi custody by Italy's dictator Benito Mussolini. The Nazis found Sima troublesome. They placed him and his allies in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Sima was later moved to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he remained until August 1944, when Romania defected to the Allies. The Nazis tried to make him found a pro-Nazi Romanian government-in-exile, but the Nazis were soon defeated by the Allies.

After WWII, Sima fled to Spain – under Franscisco Franco's anti-communist dictatorship. Many Iron Guard ex-members cut ties with Sima as they blamed him for their movement's failure, though he continued leading successor groups throughout the Cold War.

#### Death

Sima lived in Spain until he died in 1993.

## Ideology

The beliefs of the Iron Guard are classifiable as follows.

### Political

- Fascism
- Antisemitism
- Christian nationalism tied to the Romanian Orthodox Church

### Economic

- Agrarianism
- Anti-capitalism
- Anti-communism

### Cultural

- Collectivism
- Traditionalism

## Related pages

- Odessa massacre
- Slovak Republic (1939–1945)
- Catholic Church and the Independent State of Croatia