SPP - Documentary

ATTEMPTS AT THE ROMANIAN DIGNITARIES

The modern and contemporary history of Romania, especially until the ’40s knew a lot of attempts whose targets were dignitaries or important political leaders of the country.

Here is a short, chronological presentation of the main attempts:

Modern age started with a political assassination, that is the one whose victim was Tudor Vladimirescu, in 1821, as a consequence of a plot set up by the members of “Eteria” and by the so-called Romanian friends.
After the event of the Union in 1859, the first victim of an attempt was Barbu Catargiu who was a prime minister at that time; he was assassinated out of ideological reasons, in 1862.
On December 2^nd 1880, prime minister, I.C.Brătianu was slightly wounded by a perpetrator armed with a knife, on his way out of the Deputy Chamber. The assassin, Ivan Petraru, a former teacher, wanted to kill the prime minister out of love for the country. I.C.Brătianu was again the target of an attempt on September 6^th, 1886. The attacker shot with a revolver but he did not hit the target because of a police sergeant. The attacker was an NCO and, in case the attempt succeeded, he was to get 5000 lei from Iosiv Oroveanu, a leader of the opposition.
In 1918, Lenin ordered the assassination of King Ferdinand but the Army arrested and executed Simon Rosal, the commissioner who was to kill the dignitary.
In 1919, Buharin and Zinoviev ordered the Terrorist Section of “Komintern“, to assassinate marshal Averescu. On December 8^th 1920, the paid assassins blew up a bomb in the Senate of Romania. As a consequence of that, Dumitru Radu, the bishop of Ardeal, was killed and general Coadă, the Chairman of the Senate, Dimitrie Greceanu, the Minister of Justice, bishop Nifon and Virgil Budescu, the Secretary of the Senate were seriously wounded.
On December 29^th, 1933, prime minister I.G. Duca was shot in the back of his neck, on the platform of the station in Sinaia by Niki Constantinescu, one of the members of “the team of death”.
In the same year, 1933, there took place an assassination attempt at king Carol the 2^nd, during the stopover in Budapest, on his way to Warsaw.
In 1936 there was an attempt to kill Nicolae Titulescu by poisoning. He had been warned about this fact by the “II-eme Bureau”.
The Legionary Student Contest in April 1936 in Tg. Mureş, contest which introduced the idea of the assassinate as the main political arm, decided to sentence to death “all the enemies of the Legion” and to set up “death squads” that swore to carry out the “legionary sentence”. Corneliu Zelinski Codreanu made the following statement: “We state openly that we will shoot with our revolvers at those who brought us there”.
On February 13^th 1939 there took place an assassination attempt of Armand Călinescu; it consisted in planting an explosive device under a bridge over Dâmboviţa that the dignitary was to cross on his way. But the plan was foiled.
In 1939 records have it that the Chief of The Military Magistrates in Cernăuţi underwent attempted murder by the NKDV agent, Leonid Lututovici.
In the same year, there was planned the assassination of king Carol the II^nd and of other ministers that were with him at the time. The legionary assailants were arrested and killed on January 4^th.
On September 21^st, 1939, Armand Călinescu, the prime minister of Romania was killed. The next day, the police forces surrounded the secret house of the assailants, captured and transported them to the place of the attempt where they were shot to death and their bodies were left lying in the street.
In 1940, during the legionary governing, the assassination of the political adversaries turned into a state policy. Within a very short while, a significant number of politicians, former dignitaries — Virgil Madgearu, Nicolae Iorga, Nicolae Moruzov — fell under the bullets of the assassins.

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