Hitler's Foreign Executioners (17 page)

Martyrdom suited Codreanu. His fanatical disciple and heir, Sima, fled to Germany where he tirelessly promoted the ‘Captain’s’ posthumous political canonisation and sought revenge. On 21 September 1939, he dispatched a guardist squad to the Ministry of the Interior where they shot dead Călinescu, the minister who had ordered Codreanu’s murder. The six assassins fled to the local radio station where they announced: ‘The Captain has been avenged!’ and promptly gave themselves up. The gendarmes took the six men back to the ministry building and executed them, leaving their bodies to rot for several days where Călinescu had been killed.

In the aftermath of the Bucharest bloodbath, King Carol set about tightening his political grip. He ignored his ministers and handed draconian new powers
to the secret police. Any potential opponent of the king was put under surveillance. Hidden microphones were installed in private homes and offices. Romania plunged ever deeper into a climate of fear. But the well spring of terror was the king himself. He resembled a Shakespearean monarch haunted by his past misdeeds and the spirits of his victims. And the most disquieting spectre that stalked the king’s nightmares was Corneliu Codreanu. The resilient power of the murdered ‘Captain’ and his Legionary movement would force King Carol ever closer to the Reich.

As Hitler’s armies marched into Poland then began to threaten Belgium and France, Carol conceded the stark truth that to hold the Reich at bay he would need to make peace with the Iron Guard. At the beginning of 1940, the king began releasing Legionary prisoners and in May Codreanu’s anointed successor Horia Sima returned to Romania.

In Bucharest, Sima was summoned to meet the head of the Romanian Intelligence Service, Mihai Moruzov, who intimated that the king wanted to strike a deal. On 13 June, Sima issued orders to the guard to co-operate with the king and, after protracted negotiations, signed a ‘declaration of obedience’. From this union sprang a new government party, the ‘Party of the Nation’, led by the pro-German Ion Gigurtu, who appointed Sima Minister of Cults and Arts. Although two other Sima allies also became ministers, the king had an attack of cold feet and vetoed any further guardist appointments. Three days later Sima resigned. On 1 September he called on the king to resign.

The day after Sima joined the government, the king faced a fresh crisis – also engineered by Germany. Hitler’s pact with Stalin was, by the summer of 1940, fraying as the Soviets stepped up territorial demands in Eastern Europe. On 26 June, Stalin sent an ultimatum to King Carol insisting that Romania cede Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. At the same time, he pressed the Hungarian government to reclaim half of Transylvania. These opportunist machinations racked up tensions between the Reich and the Soviets. Hitler had already made the decision to break the pact and attack the Soviet Union but could not yet afford to show his hand. Even though Romanian oil lubricated the German war machine, Hitler, for now, chose to accede to Stalin’s demands and in effect wrench Bessarabia and northern Bukovina out of Romanian hands.

This land grab was a body blow for King Carol, but a death sentence for thousands of Romanian Jews who lived in the ceded territories. As twenty-four Soviet divisions marched into Bessarabia, hard on the heels of the humiliated Romanians, guardists spread tales that Romanian Jews had welcomed the Soviet forces and insulted the Romanian troops. ‘The Jews are to blame! ’cried the Legionaries. As Romanian troops prepared to cross the Pruth River, now the Soviet border, they
began to attack Jews and burn their homes. In the town of Dorohoi, a full-scale pogrom erupted. Romanian soldiers even began shooting their Jewish comrades.

Then it was Hungary’s chance to seize a few Romanian morsels. With the connivance of Ribbentrop and the Italian Foreign Minister Ciano, Admiral Miklos Horthy gobbled up vast chunks of Transylvania – the Vienna Award. This was the final straw. On the streets of Bucharest, humiliated Romanians wept openly. The national mood became increasingly volatile. As Romanian divisions retreated to their garrisons, blocking roads and cramming into railway carriages, huge crowds gathered in Bucharest and other cities, demanding that the king, who had caved in so easily to Hitler’s demands, abdicate. Guardist thugs began firing shots under the windows of the royal palace.

From his headquarters in Berlin, SS Chief Himmler followed events in Romania closely. On 31 August, he sent Waffen-SS commander ‘Sepp’ Dietrich to Bucharest, where he had meetings with Sima to thrash out strategy once the king had been forced to abdicate. At the beginning of September, as the crisis deepened, Sima manoeuvred to seize power. Somewhat ineptly, he tried to persuade the German minister Fabricius that the Gigurtu government intended to resist the Vienna Agreement. We have no evidence that Dietrich had suggested this ruse, but Sima clearly believed that he had German backing. But Himmler was playing a devious game by secretly opposing Hitler. In any event, Sima’s scam was exposed and he once more fled Bucharest. Himmler’s clumsy intervention did not impress Hitler. He had other plans. He needed a strong man, not a fanatic; a strong man with the right ideas. Antonescu was a professed anti-Semite who forged close bonds with Codreanu and the guardist movement. Instead of resenting the loss of Romanian territories, Antonescu looked forward to retrieving them as a military ally of the Reich. He ticked all the boxes.

In Bucharest, at the beginning of a warm and muggy September, King Carol anxiously paced the echoing corridors of the royal palace. He could not shut out the furious chants of the huge crowds that surged along the grand Calea Victoriei into Palace Square. From his window, the king noticed that many demonstrators wore the bright green shirts of the legion – and he called Gigutu and ordered him to execute a few imprisoned Legionaries. He refused.
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One of his advisors Valer Pop, who unknown to Carol was feeding inside information to the Germans, urged him to call on Antonescu for support. On 3 September, the king gave in and summoned Antonescu to the palace. He refused to offer full powers but agreed to ‘take guidance’. Antonescu refused point blank. By now, the palace was to all intents and purposes under siege. Guardist agitators ratcheted up the pressure, and the following day Antonescu was recalled and offered ‘all necessary power’. In the meantime
Fabricius cabled Berlin confirming that Antonescu was ‘firmly resolved to carry out our important demands here’.
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The king hoped that a deal with Antonescu would allow him to remain on the throne. But outside the palace, news of the Carol’s offer set off loud volleys of rifle fire. The guardist mob surged close to the palace insisting that the king abdicate. Horia Sima had by now returned to Bucharest. On the evening of 4 September, Antonescu met Sima and a ‘Legionary Forum’ to discuss ways of ending the stalemate. On 5 September, the guardists returned to the streets in even greater numbers. At 9.30 a.m. Antonescu returned again to the palace to deliver a final ultimatum. It was at last checkmate. At dawn the following morning, King Carol II, that much unloved monarch, handed Romania’s poisoned crown to his son Michael. Two weeks later, Antonescu, prompted by the German minister Fabricius, proclaimed himself Conducător (leader) of the Romanian state and chief of the Legionary Party.

The reactionary Legion finally held the reins of power. Romania was ruled by a ‘National Legionary State’. Antonescu appointed Horia Sima vice-president of the Council of Ministers – in effect his deputy. On 23 November, the Legionary state of Romania joined the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan. A few days later, Antonescu authorised the exhumation of the remains of Codreanu and other martyrs from beneath the courtyard of Jilava prison and gave them a grand state burial. Peasants and workers journeyed from all over Romania to celebrate the posthumous triumph of their heroes. A vast procession wound its way to the Bellu cemetery, known to many Romanians as the ‘Garden of Souls’. Marshall Antonescu and Sima marched side by side. The sight of Codreanu’s decayed remains provoked a hysterical reaction from some of the mourners. An enraged Legionary gang broke into Jileva prison and began hacking to death inmates whom they believed to be linked to Codreanu’s murder. When he heard about this bloody episode, Himmler sent Sima a congratulatory telegram: he was doing what needed to be done. Legionary propagandists promised that the new Romanian state would ‘make the country seem like the holy sun in heaven’.
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But as Legionary violence escalated, threatening to topple the new pro-German regime, Hitler faced a dilemma. The planned attack on the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, depended on Romanian oil. Wehrmacht strategy assumed Romanian troops would join the invasion in the south-east. Hitler observed the chaos unfolding in Romania with alarm. He concluded that General Antonescu needed to apply the lessons of the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ – when Hitler, in league with the SS, had eliminated the leadership of the troublesome Brownshirts. In short, Antonescu must do away with Sima and his volatile Legionaries.

Hitler’s backing for Antonescu was either not communicated to Himmler or the SS chief and his paladins chose to ignore it and persisted in stoking up anti-Antonescu factions. Sima, for his part, plainly mimicked SS strategy. On 6 September, he had established a new ‘Legionary Police’ to defend the regime and take vengeance on its enemies. He reorganised Codreanu’s Corps of Legionary Workers as a paramilitary unit – the
Garnizoana
. Sima regarded these new squads as Romanian versions of German Einsatzgruppen. In late October 1940 Himmler sent RSHA representatives to Bucharest to reinforce bonds with the Iron Guard and bolster the new Legionary Police. Sima promised that ‘the time of revenge on all opponents of the Iron Guard’ was near.
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The Legionary terror began on 27 November.
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Murder squads began assassinating former members of King Carol’s administration, including the Prime Minster Nicolae Iorga. Shortly afterwards, Sima’s squads began to take ‘revenge’ on Romanian Jews: the legionary state, which was infested with Iron Guard ministers and officials, imposed illegal fines and taxes, and Legionary police units carried out arbitrary arrests, then torture, rapes and public degradations inspired by German practice in occupied Poland. In rural areas, army units also took part in anti-Jewish actions. While Antonescu was, of course, no friend to Romanian Jews, and would demand the deportation of ‘foreign Jews’ before the end of the year, he could not afford to let Sima’s terror campaign destabilise the legionary state, and at the end of November he ordered the Legionary Police to disarm. This was not a humanitarian gesture. As well as public mayhem, Antonescu feared that the legion was growing rich on the plunder and pillage of Jewish businesses and homes. A Legion with bloated coffers would be a dire threat indeed to his own grip on power. Addressing Legion ministers Antonescu ranted: ‘Do you really think we can replace all Yids immediately? Challenges to the state should be addressed one by one, as in a game of chess.’

On 14 January 1941 Antonescu was summoned to meet Hitler. Sima refused to accompany him – rank-and-file Legionaries had never forgiven the Germans for handing over Bessarabia and Bukovina to Stalin. This was a mistake: Antonescu’s plan was secretly to get Hitler’s backing to crush the legion. At the Berghof, Antonescu demanded: ‘What am I supposed to do with the fanatics?’ As the two dictators watched storm clouds gather over the mighty flanks of Mt Watzman, Hitler replied without hesitation, ‘You have to get rid of them … revolution is not a condition to be perpetuated’. He reminded Antonescu that in the summer of 1934 he had been forced to quash the troublesome Brownshirts: ‘You have to get rid of fanatical militants who think that by destroying everything they are doing their duty.’
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Later at a conference in the Berghof’s great hall, Hitler’s counsel was reinforced by Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and OKW Supreme Commander Wilhelm Keitel,
who warned Antonescu that he could not afford to let the Iron Guard ‘infection’ spread to the Romanian army. SS Chief Himmler had not been invited.

As Antonescu bonded with Hitler, Sima agitated against Antonescu, egged on by Himmler. On 21 January he ordered a call-up of all the legionary militias. As thick snow fell on Bucharest, armed workers seized government buildings and the radio station and threw up barricades in the streets. As the legionary uprising gripped Bucharest, Sima and the Iron Guard vented their fury on Jews. On 22 January, the Minister of the Interior ordered the burning of Jewish districts in Bucharest. Legionaries, students, priests, the anti-Semitic intelligentsia and even women and children descended on the Jewish districts.
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Vigilantes raped Jewish women in front of their families. They beat, tortured and killed rabbis, community leaders and gentile citizens caught by the mobs and denounced as ‘Yids’. Sima’s squads detailed at least 2,000 Jews, aged from 15 to 85, in police stations, the Prefectura, the legion headquarters, the town hall and the old Codreanu farm. Many were tortured. In his journal, Mihail Sebastian described in detail the most egregious incident. In the Bucharest suburb of Straulesti, a Legionary mob rounded up some 200 Jews and hauled them into a farm abattoir: ‘[they] hanged [them] by the neck on hooks normally reserved for beef carcasses. A sheet of paper was stuck to each corpse: “Kosher meat”’
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Later, it was reported, Sima’s Legionary killers ‘chopped up the bodies’.
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The Legionaries rampaged at will through Bucharest’s Jewish quarter; the Romanian authorities took no action for at least seventy hours. Rabbi Tzwi Gutman and ninety other Jews were dragged to the Jilava Forest, stripped naked in freezing snow then shot at point-blank range. The Legionaries hacked at their victims’ mouths to find gold fillings. Astonishingly Rabbi Gutman, who had been shot twice, survived. His two sons died. The Legionary mobs incinerated one of the most beautiful of all European synagogues; the Cahal Grande was consumed by a raging inferno that ‘lit the capital’s sky’. Legionaries danced around the flames and pushed three Jewish women into the inferno.
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