Corneliu Zelea Codreanu - 122nd anniversary of the captain' | Forteresse Europe

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu -
122nd anniversary of the captain's birth!

He was born on 13 September 1899 in Huși, the eldest of the seven sons of professor Ion Zelea Codreanu (three times deputy, from a former family of foresters). Between 1912 and 1916, he studied at the military high school of the "Dealul" monastery.
Later, between 1916 and 1919, he continued his military studies at the Military Infantry School in Botoșani.
It was during this time that he learned to love the trench and to hate bourgeois comfort, receiving a military education that would mark him throughout his life.
He then attended the Faculty of Law in Iasi.
In 1919, he joined the National Guard of Conscience, a militant anti-communist organisation led by the worker Constantin Pancu and promoter of national Christianity.
With great courage, he successfully opposed the opening of the university year without religious services.
Elected president of the Law Students' Society on 10 May 1922, he founded the Christian Students' Association.
In the autumn of 1922, he left to study in Berlin and Jena, but returned in winter to take part in the great student movements of December 1922. The main point of the young Romanians' demands was the "numerus clausus", i.e. the limitation of the number of places allocated to Jews in universities to the percentage they actually represented in the Romanian population.
Together with Professor A.C.Cuza, he founded the National League for Christian Defence (LANC) in 1923.
In the same year, together with Ion Moța, Corneliu Georgescu, Vernichescu, Ilie Gârneață, Radu Mironovici, Leonida Bardac and Tudose Popescu, he organises the revolt against the stateless bankers and the corrupt leaders of Romanian politics. The plan is betrayed by Vernichescu from Cluj. He was released and found innocent by the courts.
In 1924, he shot in self-defence the police prefect Manciu from Iasi, accused of unimaginable abuses against nationalist high school and university students. He was acquitted a year later in the Turnu Severin case.
On 24 June 1927, together with Ion Moța, Corneliu Georgescu, Ilie Gârneață and Radu Mironovici, he founded the Archangel Michael Legion.
In 1930, he organised two large marches in Bessarabia, with the aim of calming communist agitation. The youth organisation of the Iron Guard was formed, and the legionnaires were not the only ones to join it. It was dissolved three times without reason between 1931 and 1933.
He was elected deputy for Neamt in 1931 and in 1935 he organised the legionary trade, a unique form of fundraising for the movement and at the same time a parallel alternative to bourgeois capitalist materialism.
He also founded the All for the Patriot Party, a political expression of the legionary movement.
He was arrested on the night of 16-17 April 1938 for having insulted Nicolae Iorga in a public letter, calling him "dishonest in spirit" because, after having supported the young Romanian patriots, the historian had turned his back on them in order to enter the good graces of King Carol II. He was sentenced to six months in prison. In May, he was tried again and sentenced to ten years of hard labour.
On the night of 29-30 November 1938, he was murdered by gendarmes together with other important legionaries, Nicadorii and Decemvirii, while they were being transported to Jilava.
After the creation of the National Legionary State in September 1940, the captain's body was dug up and reburied as a Christian burial ground at the Casa Verde in Bucharest, the headquarters of the movement.
The grave was destroyed by the communist regime and today we do not know the final resting place of the man who marked the interwar generation with his example of sacrifice, dedication, orthodox life, and deep love for all that is Romanian.
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