Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Quotes

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu , commonly known as Corneliu Codreanu, was a Romanian politician who was the founder and charismatic leader of the Iron Guard , an ultranationalist, antisemitic, antimagyar, and antigypsy organization active throughout most of the interwar period. Generally seen as the main variety of local fascism, and noted for its Romanian Orthodox-inspired revolutionary message, the Iron Guard grew into an important actor on the Romanian political stage, coming into conflict with the political establishment and democratic forces. The Legionnaires traditionally referred to Codreanu as Căpitanul , and he held absolute authority over the organization until his death. He is cited on the list of the 100 Greatest Romanians.

Codreanu, who began his career in the wake of World War I as an anticommunist and antisemitic agitator associated with A. C. Cuza and Constantin Pancu, was a co-founder of the National-Christian Defense League and assassin of the Iaşi Police prefect Constantin Manciu. Codreanu left Cuza to found a succession of far-right movements, rallying around him a growing segment of the country's intelligentsia and peasant population. Outlawed by successive Romanian cabinets on several occasions, his Legion assumed different names and survived in the underground, during which time Codreanu formally delegated leadership to Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul. Following Codreanu's instructions, the Legion carried out assassinations of politicians it viewed as corrupt, including Prime Minister Ion G. Duca and his former associate Mihai Stelescu. Simultaneously, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu advocated Romania's adherence to a military and political alliance with Nazi Germany.

He registered his main electoral success during the 1937 suffrage, but was blocked out of power by King Carol II, who came to favor rival fascist alternatives around the National Christian Party and the National Renaissance Front. The rivalry between Codreanu and, on the other side, Carol and moderate politicians like Nicolae Iorga ended with Codreanu's imprisonment at Jilava and eventual assassination at the hands of the Gendarmerie. He was succeeded as leader by Horia Sima. In 1940, under the National Legionary State proclaimed by the Iron Guard, his killing served as the basis for violent retribution.

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's views influenced the modern far-right. Groups claiming him as a forerunner include Noua Dreaptă and other Romanian successors of the Iron Guard, the International Third Position, and various neofascist organizations in Italy and other parts of Europe. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. September 1899 – 30. November 1938
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu: 66   quotes 20   likes

Famous Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Quotes

“The young man who joins a political party is a traitor to his generation and to his race.”

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Quotes about people

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu: Trending quotes

“Wherever the Legionary’s hand and soul show up, a garden appears.”

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), The Legion

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Quotes

“Those who think that the Jews are poor unfortunates, arrived here by chance, carried by the wind, led by fate, and so on, are mistaken. All the Jews who exist on the face of the earth form a great community, bound by blood and Talmudic religion. They are parts of a truly implacable state, which has laws, plans and leaders who formulate these plans and carry them through. The whole thing is organised in the form of a so-called 'Kehillah'. This is why we are faced, not with isolated Jews, but with a constituted force, the Jewish community. In any of our cities or countries where a given number of Jews are gathered, a Kehillah is immediately set up, that is to say the Jewish community. This Kehillah has its leaders, its own judiciary, and so on. And it is in this small Kehillah, whether at the city or at the national level, that all the plans are formed : how to win the local politicians, the authorities; how to work one's way into circles where it would be useful to get admitted, for example, among the magistrates, the state employees, the senior officials; these plans must be carried out to take a certain economic sector away from a Romanian's hands; how an honest representative of an authority opposed to the Jewish interests could be eliminated; what plans to apply, when, oppressed, the population rebels and bursts in anti-Semitic movements.”

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

“It is a new form of leadership of states, never encountered yet. I don't know what designation it will be given, but it is a new form. I think that it is based on this state of mind, this state of high national consciousness which, sooner or later, spreads to the periphery of the national organism. It is a state of inner light. What previously slept in the souls of the people, as racial instinct, is in these moments reflected in their consciousness, creating a state of unanimous illumination, as found only in great religious experiences. This state could be rightly called a state of national oecumenicity. A people as a whole reach self-consciousness, consciousness of its meaning and its destiny in the world. In history, we have met in peoples nothing else than sparks, whereas, from this point of view, we have today permanent national phenomena. In this case, the leader is no longer a 'boss' who 'does what he wants', who rules according to 'his own good pleasure': he is the expression of this invisible state of mind, the symbol of this state of consciousness. He does not do what he wants, he does what he has to do. And he is guided, not by individual interests, nor by collective ones, but instead by the interests of the eternal nation, to the consciousness of which the people have attained. In the framework of these interests and only in their framework, personal interests as well as collective ones find the highest degree of normal satisfaction.”

On the form of government he plans on creating.
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

“Romania is dying because of a lack of men, not a lack of programs.”

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Similar authors

Emil M. Cioran photo
Emil M. Cioran 531
Romanian philosopher and essayist
Herta Müller photo
Herta Müller 28
German-Romanian novelist, poet and essayist
Les Brown photo
Les Brown 24
American politician
Pietro Mennea photo
Pietro Mennea 1
Italian sprinter and politician
Bertil Ohlin photo
Bertil Ohlin 11
Swedish economist and politician
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva photo
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 10
Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil
Salvador Allende photo
Salvador Allende 16
Chilean physician and politician
Margaret Thatcher photo
Margaret Thatcher 348
British stateswoman and politician
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo
Arnold Schwarzenegger 52
actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heri…
Antonio Gramsci photo
Antonio Gramsci 22
Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and lingu…