HORIA SIMA

HE WHO KEPT THE LEGION ALIVE
Ovidiu Gules, Timisoara GVE-letter, May 25, 1997

On July 3, 1906, in the village Mandra, near Fagaras - Southern Transylvania, Horia Sima was born. When he was about five, his father died. He had a hard childhood, he became a peasant at a very early age. When he went to school, the teachers detected in him a little genius. His love for knowledge was carefully cultivated, the same as his religious education. In 1927, few months after Corneliu Codreanu founded the Legion of St. Michael the Archangel in Iasi, he was a brilliant student at the University of Bucharest, following Nae Ionescu's class of Literature and Philosophy. In November '27 he joined the Legion, entering one of its first cuibs [nests].       After graduating he chooses to establish as a profesor in Banat, the Western province. He teached at Lugoj and Caransebes. He prepared his students not only professionaly but also for the life of struggle requiered by the nationalist movement. So he created a high density of young generations devouted to the Legion. Because of his results, Corneliu Codreanu [the Captain] gave him the rank of Legionary Commander and named him the Legionary Chief of Banat. In less than a decade he raised the counties of Banat on the top of the Legionary fight. In 1937, after the Legionary success in the elections [Arad county, Northern Banat, was the Number One county with the Legionary votes], the Captain was worried about the probable repression that will be unchained by Carol II and his Jewish allies. Everybody was happy because of the victory at the polls but the Captain. It was at the Green House in Bucharest [the Legionary Headquarters]; all the leaders were ordered to come and talk in private with the Captain about the new situation. There were great men of the Iron Guard there, each entered in the Captain's bureau and spent there about ten to twenty minutes receiving instructions. Among them was one, less known in Bucharest, he spent more than an hour in private with the Captain. When he was dismissed, he briefly dissapeared. People were intrigued: "-Who is this one?", asked they the Captain. "-He is my man for the tough times!", the Captain answered. It was Horia Sima.

And the tough times came. The Captain and most of the elite were arrested, the democracy abolished [when democracy helps the Iron Guard it has to be abolished] and the dictatorship of pro-Soviet pro-Jewish Carol II proclaimed. The war between the nation and the state got in it's final act. An underground Commanding Group was now coordinating the Iron Guard's activity. Horia Sima was among the five of the Group. He had the chance to show his conspiracy qualities creating squads prepared to react if the police would harm the Captain. While in prison, Corneliu Codreanu ordered the Legionaries not to surrend but to resist and, if necessary, to fight back. It was necessary after November 30, 1938, when the red beasts [under the order of Armand Calinescu] assasinated Corneliu Codreanu together with 13 of his best comrades. In January 1939, an accident unveiled the plan to attack the Royal Palace with fire launchers. Because of treason, many Legionaries were caught by the police, but also the state knew that only by pointing the gun he can stand over the nation by fear. Early in 1939, Horia Sima had to run to Germany. He will be back in the summer, condcucting one of the most important actions of our history. Armand Calinescu, Carol's PM, planned with the British Intelligence to blow up the Prahova oil fields so that the Germans will never get on them [it was a strategic issue for Germany]. While Germany was attacking Poland, Armand C. ordered the Brits to blow up the oil fields. What could have been the consequences for Romania? The Wehrmacht would immediately attacked Romania and the Russians too, from the East. The Molotov - Ribentropp agreement was already signed. Under that circumstances, Romania would have shared the fate of Poland: being erased out of the Europe's map [Hungary and Bulgaria dearly wishing to break us apart]. So, PM Armand Calinescu's plan was extremely dangerous to Romania's national security and he had to be stoped, by any means. Horia Sima was there, disguised in a peasant who stoped the official car by 'accident' with his chariot. Then the Team of Miti Dumitrescu entered in action and shot the traitor to dead. Besides this geostrategical issue, there was on the top priorities the REVENGE for the Captain's assasination. Carol was so furious that he ordered more than 250 Legionaries to be shot at once - most of them were kept unburried for three days long in the main cities downtowns. After a short while, Horia Sima will leave again for Germany.

In the spring of 1940, Horia Sima will come back this time with the declared intention to overthrow - by any means - the pro-Soviet government. He was caught on the Serbian - Romanian border and sent to Bucharest. They intended to kill him after torture. But the astonishing German advance over France and the fall of Paris made them think twice. Horia Sima was gambling as a smart poker player who has nothing in his cards [because the Germans prefered a weak Romania at the moment disposed at any bargain and not a Legionary Romania with pretentions]. The Freemasons in Bucharest were thinking that Horia Sima was sent by Hitler [nonsense] and thus they started to negociate with him. He obtained all the prisoners out of camps and jails, the end of repression. He asked to be the new PM and to form his Legionary Govt. Instead Carol gave him a bureau of Secretary of State for religion. After three days he resigned and retired in the underground to set up the revolution. Meanwhile Carol agreed with the dismantling of Romania: he gave the Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia to Soviet Russia, the Northern Transylvania to Hungary, the Southern Dobroudja to Bulgaria without any opposition.

On September 3, 1940, the Iron Guard is attacking the Radio Station Bod near Brasov, one Military Unit in Brasov, the telecommunications centers in many cities. In Bucharest, the Legionaries crushed a lorry full of petrol on the Royal Palace and spread the rumor that the Royal Palace is burning. The population, unconfortable because of Carol's territorial cessions without resistance, filled the streets. Rivers of people came to Bucharest downtown shouting: 'HORIA SIMA, GIVE US TRANSYLVANIA BACK!' In three days, the Army took the side of the Revolution and Carol was forced to abdicate and to run in exile. The National Legionary State was proclaimed on September 14, 1940, with Gen. Antonescu as Conducator and PM, Horia Sima as vice President of the Govt. and King Michael head of the state. Some enemies are accusing the Legionary government of totalitarianism. It is false indeed, because there was a Monarchy backed by a mixed Military and Legionary govt.

This marriage wasn't to last very long. Only for five months. Antonescu was a French educated military with great personal ambitions and nothing more [he considered the state was him and thus he loved the state by slefloving his person]. In 1938, when Carol II proclaimed the abolishment of democracy, Gen. Antonescu was nominated for the Defense Ministry. In this position he threatened the Iron Guard that he will order fire if there will be rebellions against the tyranny of the King. Seing him as a dangerous person, Carol marginalized and rejected the General. As a revenge, he chose to play the Legion's part and to get rid of Carol. Now he wanted to get rid of Horia Sima and to transform the Iron Guard in some ordinary military units. All the spirit of Codreanu valued nothing compared with his ambitions. Antonescu found good ground at Berlin. The German superficiality in Foreign Affairs made him the favorite, the Germans swalloed all his lies against the Legionaries [including that they would have been "Russian agents", not only untrue but stupid accusation]. In January 1941, Antonescu starts a putsch to overthrow Horia Sima and the Iron Guard. It was a total failure. Everywhere in Romania the Army fraternized with the Legion. Seeing himself alone, he asked for the German panzers to back him. So, in order to avoid a confrontation between the Legion and the Wehrmacht, Horia Sima ordered the retreat.

Horia Sima together with about 400 Legionaries were in Germany as political prisoners during the war. In December 1942, disagreeing with the German wrong doings on the Eastern front and feeling that Antonescu started a duplicitary policy in order to betray Germany, Horia Sima will conspiratively run in Italy, to meet Mussolini and to obtain his support for regaining power in Romania for the Legion. But Gestapo was too fast. He is arrested and prepared to be shot. In a moment of lucidity, Hitler switched his rage and ordered the Legionaries to be sent to the concentration camps of Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. There the SS threatened with death the Legionaries in order to reject Horia Sima as their leader. This attempt fell down, less than 5% reacted as the Germans estimated; the overwhelming majority remained trustful to Horia Sima.

After King Michael's treason of August 23, 1944 [a direct consequence of the German treason against the Iron Guard in 1941, and of the uncovered credit accorded by Berlin to Antonescu who had no political support], Hitler reconsidered his attitude and granted the new offer of the Iron Guard to fight along with Germany against the Russians. Horia Sima stated that he is fighting exclusevily on the East. The National Romanian Govt. of Vienna was formed under Horia Sima's rule, together with the Romanian National Army. Despite he was betrayed by his ally, Horia Sima chose to enter on the side of Germany in the last months of the war, knowing that almost everything was lost. He couldn't accept that the Romanian soldier, after three years of fighting together with the Germans on the Russian front, deserves the fate and the name of the traitor. The govt. in Bucharest represented the Soviet occupant and the anti-Romanian interests. Horia Sima's govt. in Vienna guarded the spirit of honour and European comradeship. During the war, about 400 Legionaries were sent behind the frontline in the occupied Romania and they were creating the structures of the guerrilla war in the Carpathians and Transylvanian Alps which the Iron Guard carried out until 1957. A Regiment of the National Romanian Army fought on the Oder defending Berlin.

After the war, Gen. Franco's Spain hosted Horia Sima. There he wrote most of his works: over 25 titles on doctrine, history and politics.

In 1951, Horia Sima collaborated with the US and French intelligence which gave him airplanes and military bases from which armed groups of Legionaries were sent behind the Iron Curtain to fight against the Soviets. The missions had good results. In 1953, after a too large scale action, they were caught and executed after a resounding communist trial in Bucharest.

In 1990, immediately after Ceausescu's fall, Horia Sima settled his new plan. The one we are now living in. The young Romanian generations of the bloody Revolution of '89 learned a lot about the Legion and discovered it as the eternal core of our nation.

Horia Sima is the one who kept alive this spirit of Faith, Honour and Justice until our days.

He passed away in exile, May 25, 1993, at 87 years, by a heart attack.

God Bless his memory!    

HORIA SIMA, PRESENT!      

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