Again, Chaos

Ion Zelea Codreanu was corn and grew up in Rumanian Moldavia, a passionate, tormented patriot, who won a reputation as the greatest Jew-baiter in the most anti-Semitic town of the most anti-Semitic country in Europe. After World

War I his son Corneliu turned the father's theorizing into practice, founded the wild-eyed, green-shirted Iron Guard--mystic, antiSemitic, pro-Nazi but also ferociously patriotic. When Corneliu was slain by King Carol's orders in 1938, canonized by his followers, old Ion Codreanu, then 66, felt duty bound to step from the background into active leadership of the most jingoistic faction of the Iron Guard.

Since Carol's fall and Premier General Ion Antonescu's ascent to power, the Codreanist Guards have watched the results of German occupation with growing anger. Horia Sima, leader of the moderate Guardists, was looked on as a traitor for accepting the Vice Premiership. Antonescu himself only joined the Guard after his coup, was hooted down as the German cat's-paw who had given Transylvania to the Hungarians. For the extremist Guards did not fancy the Nazis at close quarters. Among other things for which the Germans were blamed was a 300-400% rise in food prices.

This situation played right into British and Russian hands. Moscow was out to plague German interest in the Balkans. Britain was out to disrupt Germany's Rumanian oil supply and to hamper spring planting.

Last week the Guard, possibly urged on by British or Russian agents provocateurs, broke loose. Still sobbing for breath after last year's man-&-heaven-made catastrophes, but with an infinite capacity for ever-new violence, Rumania plunged into another bloody exploit. The final push came from the gun of a mysterious Greek assassin named Dimitrius Sarando--whom Berlin described as carrying a Turkish passport, U. S. money, U. S. and British letters, and operating under British Secret Service orders. He killed a German General Staff officer, Major Doering.

Pitchforks v. Tanks. At once Premier Antonescu demanded the resignation of Interior Minister General George Petrovicescu for failing to keep order, kicked all Iron Guardists out of the police force. Rebel Guardists barricaded themselves in the Bucharest Prefecture and began firing on the soldiers sent to drive them out. More Guardists in the streets went after Army tanks, jammed the treads with pitchforks and horse blankets. Soon troops opened artillery fire against the rebels, now barricaded in apartment houses, behind overturned busses and taxis.

Fighting mad, Antonescu took to the radio, slapped down an ultimatum to the rebels: "We must re-establish order and tranquillity in 24 hours, because I have not been and I do not want to be tomorrow the instrument of tyranny, or the bridge leading to anarchy." Troops marched into Bucharest's Greek colony, arrested ten of its leaders as hostages for Major Doering's assassin.

For three days Rumania's borders were tight as a clenched fist. Around the Balkan rumor circuit wild reports grew and multiplied. The only direct word from Rumania came over the radio, as rebel and Government spokesmen seized and recaptured the transmitters. The rioters seemed to be anti-everything. The Bucharest broadcast was interrupted by a voice shouting down Premier Antonescu, accusing him of selling out to the Germans. Another announcement ordered Guardists to "reserve your energies for the fight against the Jews, the Freemasons and the Communists and for the forthcoming fight for Transylvania." A warning from the Brasov station threatened: "There are many more Doerings to come."

Anti-Semitism broke out. Shops and houses in Bucharest's ghetto were plundered, synagogues destroyed, Jews rounded up and machine-gunned. Some estimates put casualties as high as 6,000.

"Loyal Shadow." Not until the fourth day did the newsline from Bucharest reopen, with a communique from Premier Antonescu announcing the suppression of the revolt, the establishment of an Army-keyed Government for as long as he considered an emergency to exist. Ordering up all reservists for a month's training, imposing a drastic 10 p.m. curfew law, Antonescu cinched his dictatorship tighter with a buckle of new decrees. All utilities and communications were taken over by the Army. All public meetings were outlawed. Rumanian and, for the first time, German troops and mechanized units patrolled the bullet-scarred streets, mopping up the last rebel nests.

Strong Man Antonescu set about punishing the rebels, ruthlessly guided by membership lists seized at Iron Guard headquarters. A military court was set up, directed to try all those captured within 24 hours of their arrest, to carry out all sentences within the succeeding ten hours. To the Iron Guardists still at large he offered only one alternative: "If you are true Iron Guards, punish yourselves with true legionary punishment [that by tradition is suicide] or otherwise you may be sure that I shall apply mass punishment."

Then, in a compelling manifesto of bitterness mixed with sadness. Premier Antonescu told his countrymen: "In the pages of history there does not exist a page of greater ingratitude. In the Premier's office I worked like a slave early and late. . . . They organized against me with the help of former Minister of Interior Petrovicescu. ... I tried without success to stop the rebellion . . . I--who made the coup d'etat of Sept. 6 without shedding a drop of blood. . . ." Significantly, he concluded: "I make it a duty and an honor to declare to the nation in these days of greatest sadness that I have behind me the loyal shadow of the great Fuehrer and the honor of German might, which guaranteed our borders." Even more significantly he placed the full blame for the revolt on Scapegoat Horia Sima, who had apparently joined the Codreanists to maintain his Guardist prestige. The onetime Vice Premier was hunted down by Rumanian troops, was variously reported as arrested, as hiding, as fleeing into Germany. For rabble-rousing old Ion Codreanu, Antonescu had no word of censure, fearing to stir up the fanatical Guardists again in support of their No. 1 martyr's father. The Government had regained precarious control, but had left flourishing the roots of disorder.

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