Political assassination attempts in Romania

Colonel Precup appears to be wearing a decoration with a triangular-shaped ribbon, caracteristic to the Austrian and Serbian awards. Since he served in the Austro-Hungarian air force in WWI it is quite plausible that it was an Austrian award. Does anyone have details about it?

According to an article in Magazin istoric first initiative to raise a monument to Armand Călinescu dates to October 1939, but organisation problems and the evolution of internal and international events in the following years postponed it until 21 September 1991.

Goldstein also tried to assassinate Argetoianu, only a month before the Senate attack. An "IED" placed between Chitila and Ciocanesti train stations destroyed 50% of Argetoianu's minsterial train wagon:

http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_20413/atent...munistilor.html

I think one should add here the politically-motivated assassination in 1938 of Corneliu Codreanu, the head of the legionary movement. At that time Corneliu Codreanu was serving a ten year prison sentence for treason. On the night of 29/30 November 1938, Corneliu Codreanu and 13 other condemned legionaries (the Nicadors who assassinated the prime minister I. G. Duca in 1933 and the Decemvirs who assassinated Mihai Stelescu in 1936, a contender to the leadership of the legionary movement) were being transferred from Râmnicu Sărat to Bucharest. The official communiqué released on 30 November 1938 stated that the legionaries have been shot to death while attempting to escape. The 14 bodies have then been hurriedly buried in the Jilava prison. An inquiry made by the Legionary Police in the autumn of 1940 claimed that the 14 legionaries have in fact been strangled to death during the transfer.

I did not forget about them, as I did not forget about the 65 dignitaries assassinated by legionaries in the Jilava prison during the previous night (26/27 November 1940). It has to be mentioned that all these assassinations have a particular characteristic in the fact that they took place at a time when political assassinations had almost become state policy.

During the night 26/27 November 1940, 64 former dignitaries of Carol II rule have been assassinated by legionaries in the Jilava prison. They have previously been arrested by the Legionary Police being accused that they have contributed to the death of Corneliu Codreanu and other members of the legionary movement during Carol II's reign. They were being held in the Jilava prison under legionary guard waiting to be indicted and sent to court. Since there has been more than two months since their arrest, among the legionaries it was rumoured that general Antonescu was waiting for finding the proper moment and the proper reason to release them.

On the mentioned night a group of legionaries (not part of the prison guard) started to dig in the yard of the prison in the attempt to exhume the remains of Codreanu and the 13 others legionaries killed two years before. It was claimed that when reaching the remains of the 14 bodies, the legionaries have been shocked by the state in which they have found them (what could they have expected after two years of decay?) and out of frustration decided to seek revenge from the detainees who they considered responsible for the killings. They burst into the cells and assassinated the 64 detainees in a frenzy of shooting. Among the victims were former prime ministers, ministers, judges, leaders of the Romanian Secret Service and other military commanders. An incomplete list of the victims can be found here.

The calls to the leadership of the legionary movement to condemn the assassinations and to punish the perpetrators have only been met by issuing excuses for the killings on the grounds that the detainees were guilty of similar deeds or that the action has been quite spontaneous. However, the rumours that the detainees were to be released and the fact that the diggers came armed for the dig seem to suggest a planned action.

I did not forget about them, as I did not forget about the 65 dignitaries assassinated by legionaries in the Jilava prison during the previous night (26/27 November 1940). It has to be mentioned that all these assassinations have a particular characteristic in the fact that they took place at a time when political assassinations had almost become state policy.

Following the killing of the Jilava detainees, on the evening of 27 November 1940, two legionary teams have taken Nicolae Iorga and Virgil Madgearu from their homes and assassinated them. There are reports that the assassins have also desecrated the bodies of the two. In the attempt to exonerate the legionary movement from these killings it was suggested that the two teams were some sort of renegade legionaries escaped from central control, that they have been acting under the orders from the Soviets or that the deeds have been carried out by students failed at exams by the two professors. However it is quite significant that as with the Jilava assassinations, the leadership of the legionary movement failed to condemn the killings or punish the perpetrators. In fact many legionaries regarded Iorga as the moral author of and the instigator to the killing of Codreanu and complained for not including him among the Jilava detainees. In this light it becomes relatively unimportant who were the members of the death teams carrying the assassinations since they had the approval of the legionary leadership (at least).

Today we comemorate 144 years since the assasination of Prime Minister Barbu Catargiu, the first Prime minister of unified Romania (17/29 jan. - 8/20 jun. 1862) - and the first political assasination in modern Romanian history. (Not a very good start for Romanian political life, IMHO).

On 8/20 June 1862 the Prime Minister Barbu Catargiu was shot twice at close range when departing from the Parliament. One of the bullets hit him in the back of the head and killed him. The perpetrator was never caught, although a person named Gheorghe Bogati was suspected of carrying out the deed.

My grandmother told me another one:
Carol II was a notorious womanizer. He inspected highschools with girls (most of the highschools, in those days, were "girls only" or "boys only"), he spotted the prettiest girl, then his men kidnapped her.
Once he kidnapped the daughter of a general. Well, the general was not pleased at all regarding the "honor" incurred to his daughter, so near countless witnesses, he aimed his pistol toward the king and fired, but the bullets missed Carol II.
To cool off the scandal, Carol II made the general to be diplomat overseas, and sent his family, including the "honored" girl, as far from Romania as possible.

Would you please care to give the names of the people involved? The idea of this thread was to present the details of real (and verifiable) assassination attempts on Romanian political figures. In the present format your story seems unfortunately nothing else than hearsay and hence does not fit in here.

I cannot offer more details.
Yes, it is a hearsay, as mentioned from the very beginning.
Logically, such thing would be discovered somehow in the 43 years of Communist rule, and the Communists, especially under Ana Pauker, would not miss the chance to make it public.

Here is a reference to the post war activity of Precup, from Jurnalul National.

Some more about the Precup plot: it seems that he was not satisfied with the rewards he got after helping Carol II reclaim his throne. As a result, he revealed some information about the king's comeback to a foreign newspaper. This has tensioned his relations with the king even further, to the point when Precup had a violent dispute with Gen. Ilasievici, an important man in Carol II's entourage.

Besides Precup, some other officers involved in the plot were Maj. Fleseriu, Cpt. Nicoara and Slt. Nastase. The Romanian Secret Service, led by Mihail Moruzov, was fully informed of the conspiracy from the start and arrested the plotters. This was a very important success for Moruzov's service, whose importance skyrocketed. The Secret Service started to get more funds and to report its findings directly to the king.

The Precup affair was also a great failure for the Secret Service's domestic competitor, the Safety Police (Siguranta Statului). A very interesting information can be found in one of the confidential reports sent by Siguranta to Carol II, which mentions that even if Moruzov was very successful in preventing the conspiracy, "he has used NKVD double agents and information from them in an irresponsable and dangerous way".

On 8/20 June 1862 the Prime Minister Barbu Catargiu was shot twice at close range when departing from the Parliament. One of the bullets hit him in the back of the head and killed him. The perpetrator was never caught, although a person named Gheorghe Bogati was suspected of carrying out the deed.

Anyway, this first political crime is still very unclear, and the instigations were stopped due the political reasons.

for more details see Al Mihai Stoenescu "Istoria loviturilor de stat in Romania" vol 1.

For Sid,
Yes. It's closer to the University Municipal Hospital than the Cotroceni Palace (one of the Royal residences).

This post has been edited by mateias on December 14, 2007 04:53 pm