The resignation of Rumanian Vice-Minister Dr. Dimbandi and the threat of the entire cabinet to resign as a protest against the sensational acquittal by a military court of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, leader of the anti-Semitic Iron Guard and forty-five of his associates on the charge of having murdered Premier Ion G. Duca, has greatly alarmed the Rumanian Jews.
From official sources the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned later that Premier George Tatarescu presented his resignation to King Carol today, but the king refused to accept the resignation. The Premier was indignant over the action of the Bucharest court martial which acquitted Codreanu.
Anti-Semitic circles are overjoyed at the acquittal of the men and even the actual assassins, Constantinescu, Caranica and Bellinachi, were calm when they were sentenced to life imprisonment. A statement was issued by the outlawed Iron Guard which declared that the verdict gave renewed moral strength for proclaiming that the “spiritual rebirth of Rumania was at hand.”
However, Jewish circles here find comfort in the fact that King Carol, who was never an anti-Semite, has strength enough to curb the Iron Guard, which declares that it supports the king.
It was pointed out that the murder tactics of the Iron Guard are foreign to the mass of Rumanians and will prove a potent factor in helping the government to curb the Rumanian militarists who are held responsible for the acquittal of Codreanu and his followers.
A special conference of the cabinet, which was held immediately after the acquittal of Codreanu and an interview which Premier George Tatarescu had with King Carol, voted for a law forbidding secret political organizations employing violence. The measure is one of a number designed “for the protection of the State.”
The Rumanian parliament hurried the cabinet bill through before adjourning for Easter.
The assassins of Premier Duca, and the leaders of the Iron Guard, were tried by a military court made up of four Rumanian generals and one judge.
Codreanu fled from Rumania after the murder, disguised as a woman. He had openly advocated the murder in his paper. A few days before the trial of the assassinsbegan, he and a group of his followers, including General Cantacuzenu, who had written Premier Duca that he would shoot him on sight, were arrested as they were entering the building in which the trial was to take place. They said that they had come to surrender.
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.
