Corneliu Zelea Codreanu: Use

“I started with an impulse of my heart, with that instinct of defense which even the least of the worms has, not with the instinct of personal self-preservation, but of defense of the race to which I belong. This is why I have always had the feeling that the whole race rests on our shoulders, the living, and those who died for the Fatherland, and our entire future, and that the race struggles and speaks through us, that the hostile flock, however huge, in relation to this historical entity, is only a handful of human detritus which we will disperse and defeat… The individual in the framework and in the service of his race, the race in the framework and in the service of God and of the laws of the divinity: those who will understand these things will win even though they are alone. Those who will not understand will be defeated.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

God , Hostility , Law , Feeling

“Besides, large-scale general plans : 1) they will seek to break the bonds between earth and heaven, doing their best to spread, on a large scale, atheistic and materialistic theories, degrading the Romanian people, or even just its leaders, to a people separated from God and its dead, they will kill them, not with the spear, but by cutting the roots of their spiritual life; 2) they will then break the links of the race with the soil, material spring of its wealth, attacking nationalism and any idea of Fatherland and homeland; determined to succeed, they will seek to seize the press; 4) they will use any pretext, since in the Romanian people there are dissensions, misunderstandings, and quarrels, to divide them into as many antagonistic parties as possible; 5) they will seek to monopolise more and more the means of existence of Romanians; 6) they will systematically drive them to dissoluteness, annihilating family and moral force without forgetting to degrade and daze them through alcoholic drinks and other poisons. And, in truth, anyone who would want to kill and conquer a race could do it by adopting this system.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

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

Life , God , People , Alcohol

“I could not define how I entered into the struggle. Probably like a man who, walking the street, with his preoccupations, his needs and his own thoughts, surprised by the fire which is consuming a house, takes off his jacket and rushes to give help to those who are the prey of flames. With the common sense of a young man of twenty or so, this is the only thing I understood in all I was seeing : that we were losing the Fatherland, that we would no longer have the Fatherland, that, with the unwitting support of the miserable, impoverished and exploited Romanian workers, the Jewish horde would sweep us away.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

Support , Sense , Help , Housing

“Prayer is decisive element of victory. Wars are won by those who have managed to attract from elsewhere, from the skies, the mysterious forces of the invisible world and to secure their support. These mysterious forces are the souls of the dead, the souls of our ancestors, who once were, like us, linked to our clods, to our furrows, who died for the defense of this land and are still linked today to it by the memory of their lives and by us, their sons, their grandsons, their great grandsons. But, above the souls of the dead, there is God. Once these forces are attracted, they are of considerable power, they defend us, they give us courage, will, all the elements necessary to victory and which make us win. They bring in panic and terror among the enemies, paralyse their activity. In the last analysis, victories do not depend only on material preparation, on the material forces of the belligerents, but on their power to secure the support of spiritual forces. The fairness and the morality of actions and the fervent, insistent call for them in the form of rite and collective prayer attract such forces.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

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

God , War , World , Soul

“At Posada, Calugareni, on the Olt, jiu and. Cerna rivers, at Turda; in the mountains of the unhappy and forgotten Moti of Vidra, all the way to Huedin and Alba-Iulia (the torture place of Horia and his brothers-in-arms), there are everywhere testimonies of battles and tombs of heroes. All over the Carpathians, from the Oltenian mountains at Dragoslavele and at Predeal, from Oituz to Vatra Dornei, on peaks and in valley bottoms, everywhere Romanian blood flowed like rivers. In the middle of the night, in difficult times for our people, we hear the call of the Romanian soil urging us to battle. I ask and I expect an answer: By what right do the Jews wish to take this land from us? On what historical argument do they base their pretensions and particularly the audacity with which they defy us Romanians, here in our own land? We are bound to this land by millions of tombs and millions of unseen threads that only our soul feels, and woe to those who shall try to snatch us from it.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

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

People , Way , Feeling , Soul

“Then legionaries wrote down several maxims I collected either from the Gospels or from other writings. They embelished our walls. Here are some of them: "God carries us on His victorious chariot." "Whoever wins…. I shall be his God." "He who does not have a sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one." "Fight bravely for faith." "Avoid carnal pleasures, for they kill the soul." "Be vigilant." "Do not destroy the hero that is in you." "Brothers in fortune… as in misfortune." "Whoever knows how to die, will never be a slave."”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

"I await the resurrection of my Fatherland and the destruction of the hordes of traitors," etc.
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), The Legion

God , Pleasure , Faith , Soul

“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.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

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

Fate , Religion , Law , Way

“On November 8, the feast of Saints Archangels Michael and Gabriel, we were discussing the possible name for this youth organization. I said: "Let it be 'Michael the Archangel'." My father said: "There is in the church, on the left hand door of the altar, an icon of St. Michael." "Let us go see it!" Mota, Garneata, Corneliu Georgescu, Radu Mironovici, Tudose and I went to look at it and we were truly amazed. The icon appeared to us of unsurpassed beauty. I was never, attracted by the beauty of any icon. But now, I felt bound to this one with all my soul and I had the feeling the Archangel was alive. Since then, I have come to love that icon. Any time we found the church open, we entered and prayed before that icon. Our hearts were filled with peace and joy.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

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

Love , Youth , Peace , Beauty

“The ultimate goal is not life. It is resurrection. The resurrection of nations in the name of Jesus Christ the Savior. Creation and culture are only means--not the purpose--of resurrection. Culture is the fruit of talent, which God implanted in our nation and for which we are responsible. A time will come when all the world's nations will arise from the dead, with all their dead, with all their kings and emperors. Every nation has its place before God's throne. That final moment, "resurrection from the dead," is the highest and most sublime goal for which a nation can strive. The nation is thus an entity that lives even beyond this earth. Nations are realities also in the other world, not only on this one. To us Rumanians, to our nation, as to every nation in the world, God assigned a specific mission; God has given us a historical destiny. The first law that every nation must abide by is that of attaining that destiny, of fulfilling the mission entrusted to it.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

Life , God , World , Law

“But the most important of all is the spiritual patrimony, because it alone bears the seal of eternity, it alone transcends all times. The ancient Greeks are with us today not because of their physiques, no matter how athletic--those are only ashes now--nor because of their material wealth, if they had such, but because of their culture.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

Time , Wealth

“The Jews are our enemies and as such they hate, poison, and exterminate us. Romanians who cross into their camp are worse than enemies: they are traitors. If I had but one bullet and were faced by both an enemy and a traitor, I would let the traitor have it.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

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

Hate

“From this Legionary school a new man will have to emerge, a man with heroic qualities; a giant of our history to do battle and win over all the enemies of our Fatherland, his battle and victory having to extend even beyond the material world into the realm of invisible enemies, the powers of evil. Everything that our mind can imagine as more beautiful spiritually; everything the proudest that our race can produce, greater, more just, more powerful, wiser, purer, more diligent and more heroic, this is what the Legionary school must give us! A man in whom all the possibilities of human grandeur that are implanted by God in the blood of our people be developed to the maximum. This hero, the product of Legionary education, will also know how to elaborate programs; will also know how to solve the Jewish problem; will also know how to organize the state well; will also know how to convince other Romanians; and if not, he will know how to win, for that is why he is a hero. This hero, this Legionary of bravery, labor, and justice, with the powers God implanted in his soul, will lead our Fatherland on the road of its glory.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

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

God , People , World , Education

“To you, who have been struck, maligned or martyred, I can bring the news, which I wish to carry more than the frail value of a casual rhetorical phrase: soon we shall win. Before your columns, all our oppressors will fall. Forgive those who struck you for personal reasons. Those who have tortured you for your faith in the Romanian people, you will not forgive. Do not confuse the Christian right and duty of forgiving those who wronged you, with the right and duty of our people to punish those who have betrayed it and assumed for themselves the responsibility to oppose its destiny. Do not forget that the swords you have put on belong to the nation. You carry them in her name, In her name you will use them for punishment-unforgiving and unmerciful. Thus and only thus, will you be preparing a healthy future for this nation.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

People , Faith , Forgiveness , Future

“In Romania, particularly since the war, democracy has created for us, through this system of elections, a "national elite" of Romano-Jews, based not on bravery, nor love of country, nor sacrifice, but on betrayal of country, the satisfaction of personal interest, the bribe, the traffic of influence, the enrichment through exploitation and embezzlement, thievery, cowardice, and intrigue to knock down any adversary. This "national elite," if it continues to lead this country, will bring about the destruction of the Romanian state.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

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

Love , War , Democracy , Betrayal