Impending inclusion of the Iron Guard, nearly 800 members of which were released yesterday, in the Rumanian Front of National Rebirth was enthusiastically greeted by German propaganda organs today as paying the way for intensification of Nazi influence and anti-Semitic tendencies in the Balkans.
The Berlin, Breslau and Munich radio stations broadcast an announcement that “the last fortress of Jewish capitalism is now destroyed. The reconciliation between King Carol and the Iron Guard, establishing a new order in Rumania, gives full satisfaction to Germany.”
The new developments in the Rumanian political situation came as a bombshell to the Jewish community there, which was deeply alarmed, according to private reports from Bucharest.
Restoration of the Iron Guard and inclusion within the Government party, if not within the Government itself, was expected to result in a new wave of anti-Semitic terrorism, of which Rumania had been free only since the suppression of the Iron Guard following the assassination of Premier Armand Calinescu on Sept. 21, 1939.
Fears were widespread that the new development would mean a renewal of violent anti-Semitism while, in a wider sphere, it was taken as indicating that in the future Rumania must be more compliant with Nazi demands since failure to accede would result in Iron Guard internal disturbances, bombings and assassinations at Berlin’s order.
The Iron Guard’s association with Berlin has always been most strong. Scores of its leaders who took refuge in Germany after the organization was suppressed are expected to return to Rumania to carry out the Nazis’ instructions.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
