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 (NCDL), and founded the Legion of the Archangel Michael.
The Legion differed from other fascist movements in that it had its mass base among the peasantry and students, rather than among 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 Great Depression, Romanian universities were producing far more graduates than the number of available jobs and the Great Depression had further drastically limited the opportunities for employment by the intelligentsia, who turned to the Iron Guard out of frustration. Many Orthodox Romanians, having obtained a university degree, which they expected to be their ticket to the middle class, were enraged to find that the jobs they were hoping for did not exist, and came to embrace the Legion's message that it was the Jews who were blocking them from finding the middle-class employment they wanted.
Beyond that, Romania had traditionally been dominated by a Francophile elite, who preferred to speak French over Romanian in private and who claimed that their policies were leading Romania to the West with the National Liberal Party, in particular, maintaining that their economic policies were going to industrialize Romania. The Great Depression seemed to show the literal bankruptcy of these policies and many of the younger Romanian intelligentsia, especially university students, were attracted by the Iron Guard's glorification of Romanian genius and its leaders who boasted that they were proud to speak Romanian. The Romanian-born Israeli historian Jean Ancel wrote from the mid-19th century onward, that Romanian intelligentsia had a schizophrenic attitude towards the West and its values.
Romania had been a strongly Francophile country starting in 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), and from that time onwards, 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 anti-semitic views about Romania's Jewish minority. Despite their anti-Semitism, most of the Romanian intelligentsia believed that France was not only Romania's Latin sister, but also a big Latin sister that would guide its little Latin sister Romania along the correct path. 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.
In contrast to the traditional idea that Romania would follow the path of its Latin sister France, Codreanu promoted a xenophobic, exclusive ultra-nationalism, where Romania would follow its own path and rejected the French ideas about universal values and human rights. In a marked departure from the traditional ideas held by the elite about making Romania into the modernized and Westernized France of Eastern Europe, the Legion demanded a return to the traditional Eastern Orthodox values of the past and glorified Romania's peasant culture and folk customs as the living embodiment of Romanian genius.
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 to dress in the style of the latest fashions of Paris. 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 who denounced the entire elite as irredeemably corrupt.
With Codreanu as a charismatic leader, the Legion was known for skilful propaganda, including a very capable use of spectacle. Utilizing marches, religious processions, patriotic and partisan hymns and anthems, along with volunteer work and charitable campaigns in rural areas, in support of anti-communism, the League presented itself as an alternative to corrupt parties. 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 in unexpected protean forms: Freemasonry, Freudianism, homosexuality, atheism, Marxism, Bolshevism, and the civil war in Spain, were undermining society.
We are Romanian Legionaries! We are more than a unit, we are a FAMILY! We keep together not only the love for the war but also the adventures we have together. We are closely linked to each other because it unites the same spirit, the same style and principles of life. On the battlefield we feel our best, we feel safe...
We always accept people who want to join us on the battlefield!
ONLY ROMANIANS!
FOUNDED IN 19.03.2019 / DISBANDED IN 25.08.2019
The Iron Guard (Romanian: Garda de fier , pronounced ɡarda de fier) is the name most commonly given to a fascist movement and political party in Romania founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael (Legiunea Arhanghelului Mihail) or the Legionnaire movement (Mișcarea Legionară). The League was ultra-nationalist, antisemitic, antiziganist, anti-communist, anti-capitalist and promoted Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In March 1930 Codreanu formed the Iron Guard as a paramilitary political branch of the Legion, and in 1935, the Legion changed its official name to the Totul pentru Ţară party (literally Everything For the Country Party). It existed into the early part of World War II. Its members were called Greenshirts because of the predominantly green uniforms they wore.
When Marshal Ion Antonescu came to power in September 1940, he brought the Iron Guard into the government, creating the National Legionary State. In January 1941, however, following the Legionnaires' rebellion, Antonescu used the army to suppress the movement, destroying the organization, but its then commander, Horia Sima, and some other leaders escaped to Germany.
