From Hitler to Codreanu


Book Description

This book examines fascist ideology in seven leaders of parties and movements in the interwar period. It makes use of the conceptual morphological approach, focused on core and adjacent concepts, as well as on the interlinkages between them. With such an approach, the book seeks to offer an innovative perspective on fascism and arrive at a conceptual configuration of fascist ideology, capable of highlighting its main concepts and combinations. Furthermore, it examines the major texts of seven leaders from Germany, Italy, the UK, Portugal, Spain, France and Romania – Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Oswald Mosley, Rolão Preto, Primo de Rivera, Marcel Déat, and Corneliu Codreanu. With the conceptual approach, the book reasserts the possibility of finding a definition of generic fascism at the same time as depicting the ideological varieties espoused by each leader. This title will be of interest to students and scholars of fascism, extremism and the far right.




For My Legionaries


Book Description

This powerful testimony begins in the author's high school days. He called a group of his classmates together for a secret meeting in the Dobrina Forest. The year was 1919. He asked them, "What are we going to do if the Bolsheviks invade us?" They took a vow to fight to the death in defence of their Christian Romania. Passionately Orthodox, Captain Corneliu Codreanu led his men in what would become a vast movement of resistance against "Judeo-communism," as he called it. Codreanu's autobiographical masterpiece (* For My Legionaries *) mirrors * Mein Kampf * yet Codreanu was ahead of Adolf Hitler in undertaking the jewish problem. Hitler just came from fighting WWI and was still reeling from the jewish swindle of Versailles when Codreanu burst onto the nationalist scene at the University of Iasi. In September 1919, Codreanu entered Iasi as a law student. He saw the bolshevik menace surrounding him everywhere. Communists were fanning the flames of revolution among Romanian factory workers as they had done in Russia. They were attempting the same process by marxist propaganda, industrial sabotage and agitation of the workers against their government. The author, like Hitler, wastes not a word. He delves immediately into the facts, hard as granite. Truth is a punch in the kisser. Sometimes you can't pretty it up. Nor soften the blow.




For My Legionaries


Book Description

For My Legionaries (Romanian: Pentru legionari) is an autobiographical book by Iron Guard leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu first published in 1936. The book has been described by historian Irina Livezeanu as being to Codreanu what Mein Kampf was to Adolf Hitler. It was first published in Sibiu, as it was not allowed to pass censorship in Bucharest.The book is a first-person narrative describing Codreanu's leadership role in a series of political movements, "The Guard of the National Conscience," "League of National Christian Defence," "the Legion of the Archangel Michael," and finally, the Iron Guard. His goal within these movements was to defend the newly established Greater Romania against a set of demonised enemies, particularly, the Soviet Union and the Jewish people. The naratives are interspersed with quotations from Romanian intellectuals, as well as clippings from contemporary newspapers.[3]




For My Legionaries


Book Description

For My Legionaries is the passionate autobiography of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, a Romanian patriot from the early 20th Century who founded the Legion of Michael the Archangel, also known as The Iron Guard. This unprecedented movement saw itself as a crusade in the modern world, battling against liberalism, political corruption, Communism, and the threat of foreign cultural domination from Jewish organizations. Combining Christian spirituality, ethnic nationalism, supra-personal devotion to one's people and king, and a warrior ethos, which culminated in confrontations with the police and army, assassinations, public trials, and murder. This new edition of For My Legionaries is distinguishable from previous editions by the inclusion of 100 pages of new text, footnotes, appendices and photographs which are a crucial aid to understanding the book and its context. With an introduction by Kerry Bolton, and a historical overview of the entire history of the Legionary Movement from its beginnings to the present time by Lucian Tudor, this edition of For My Legionaries is the most comprehensive edition published to date.




Fascism: A Very Short Introduction


Book Description

What is fascism? Is it revolutionary? Or is it reactionary? Can it be both? Fascism is notoriously hard to define. How do we make sense of an ideology that appeals to streetfighters and intellectuals alike? That is overtly macho in style, yet attracts many women? That calls for a return to tradition while maintaining a fascination with technology? And that preaches violence in the name of an ordered society? In the new edition of this Very Short Introduction, Kevin Passmore brilliantly unravels the paradoxes of one of the most important phenomena in the modern world—tracing its origins in the intellectual, political, and social crises of the late nineteenth century, the rise of fascism following World War I, including fascist regimes in Italy and Germany, and the fortunes of 'failed' fascist movements in Eastern Europe, Spain, and the Americas. He also considers fascism in culture, the new interest in transnational research, and the progress of the far right since 2002. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.




Hitler's Forgotten Ally


Book Description

This book is the first complete study in English of Antonescu's part in the Second World War. Antonescu was a major ally of Hitler and Romania fielded the third largest Axis army, joined the Tripartite Pact in November 1940 as a sovereign state and participated in the attack on the Soviet Union of 22 June 1941 as an equal partner of Germany.




Holy Legionary Youth


Book Description

Founded in 1927, Romania’s Legion of the Archangel Michael was one of Europe’s largest and longest-lived fascist social movements. In Holy Legionary Youth, Roland Clark draws on oral histories, memoirs, and substantial research in the archives of the Romanian secret police to provide the most comprehensive account of the Legion in English to date. Clark approaches Romanian fascism by asking what membership in the Legion meant to young Romanian men and women. Viewing fascism "from below," as a social category that had practical consequences for those who embraced it, he shows how the personal significance of fascism emerged out of Legionaries’ interactions with each other, the state, other political parties, families and friends, and fascist groups abroad. Official repression, fascist spectacle, and the frequency and nature of legionary activities changed a person’s everyday activities and relationships in profound ways. Clark’s sweeping history traces fascist organizing in interwar Romania to nineteenth-century grassroots nationalist movements that demanded political independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It also shows how closely the movement was associated with the Romanian Orthodox Church and how the uniforms, marches, and rituals were inspired by the muscular, martial aesthetic of fascism elsewhere in Europe. Although antisemitism was a key feature of official fascist ideology, state violence against Legionaries rather than the extensive fascist violence against Jews had a far greater impact on how Romanians viewed the movement and their role in it. Approaching fascism in interwar Romania as an everyday practice, Holy Legionary Youth offers a new perspective on European fascism, highlighting how ordinary people "performed" fascism by working together to promote a unique and totalizing social identity.




The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust


Book Description

Offering a multidimensional approach to one of the most important episodes of the twentieth century, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust offers readers and researchers a general history of the Holocaust while delving into the core issues and debates in the study of the Holocaust today. Each of the book's five distinct parts stands on its own as valuable research aids; together, they constitute an integrated whole. Part I provides a narrative overview of the Holocaust, placing it within the larger context of Nazi Germany and World War II. Part II examines eight critical issues or controversies in the study of the Holocaust, including the following questions: Were the Jews the sole targets of Nazi genocide, or must other groups, such as homosexuals, the handicapped, Gypsies, and political dissenters, also be included? What are the historical roots of the Holocaust? How and why did the "Final Solution" come about? Why did bystanders extend or withhold aid? Part III consists of a concise chronology of major events and developments that took place surrounding the Holocaust, including the armistice ending World War I, the opening of the first major concentration camp at Dachau, Germany's invasion of Poland, the failed assassination attempt against Hitler, and the formation of Israel. Part IV contains short descriptive articles on more than two hundred key people, places, terms, and institutions central to a thorough understanding of the Holocaust. Entries include Adolf Eichmann, Anne Frank, the Warsaw Ghetto, Aryanization, the SS, Kristallnacht, and the Catholic Church. Part V presents an annotated guide to the best print, video, electronic, and institutional resources in English for further study. Armed with the tools contained in this volume, students or researchers investigating this vast and complicated topic will gain an informed understanding of one of the greatest tragedies in world history.




Through Hitler's Back Door


Book Description

Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia were all German allies in the Second World War, unlike the other countries of Europe which had either been forcibly occupied by the Nazis or remained neutral. SOE Missions mounted within their borders were thus doubly hazardous for they were conducted in enemy-populated territory, heavily policed by military forces and gendarmerie. Furthermore all these states had well developed and experienced security services, usually supplemented by Gestapo and Abwehr units. A further complication to the activities of SOE in these countries was that they had all been effectively conceded by Western Allies to Russia; not surprisingly therefore, operations in the Soviet sphere of influence were to prove diabolically difficult.This is a story about the courage of individuals in the face of overwhelming odds. Hunger, ill-health, exhaustion, cold and treachery all combined to make life for those members of SOE who parachuted into these Fascist outposts of Fortress Europe as insufferable as it was dangerous. For weeks on end, the SOE missions moved continually at night, chased by enemy troops, betrayed by local villagers, awaiting air drops that never came and listening out for orders that were rarely specific. Thus the picture that emerges of SOE activities in these countries is one of heroic proportions, with courage, dedication and daring displayed by every mission.Although nearly all SOE personnel were either killed or captured, the impact of their clandestine operations served as a persistent irritant, continuously undermining Germanys strategic and political assumptions about the loyalty of her allies.




Children of the Night


Book Description

A vivid, brilliant, darkly humorous and horrifying history of some of the strangest dictators that Europe has ever seen. 'A witty and page-turning narrative full of grotesque characters' Misha Glenny 'Will leave you astonished, exhausted and curious... An unapologetic page turner' Spectator 'Essential reading for anyone interested in Romania past and present' John Simpson 'An engaging introduction to the rich history [of Romania]' New Statesman Balanced precariously on the shifting fault line between East and West, Romania's past is one of the great untold stories of modern Europe. The country that gave us Vlad Dracula, and whose citizens consider themselves descendants of ancient Rome, has traditionally preferred the status of enigmatic outsider. But it has experienced some of the most disastrous leaderships of the last century. After a relatively benign period led by a dutiful King and his vivacious British-born Queen, the country oscillated wildly. Its interwar rulers form a gallery of bizarre characters: the corrupt and mentally unbalanced King Carol; the fascist death cult led by Corneliu Codreanu; the vain General Ion Antonescu. After 1945 power was handed to Romania's tiny communist party, under which it experienced severe repression, purges and collectivisation. Then in 1965, Nicolae Ceau?escu came to power. And thus began the strangest dictatorship of all.