Horia Sima

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Portrait of Horia Sima

Horia Sima (born July 3, 1906 in Mândra , Transylvania , Austria-Hungary , † May 25, 1993 in Madrid , Spain ) was the leader of the fascist and anti-Semitic Iron Guard in Romania since 1938 . From July to September 1940 he was Minister of Culture and Cults in the government of Ion Gigurtu . After the forced abdication of King Carol II , Sima and General Ion Antonescu established the dictatorship of the so-called "National Legionary State", in which Sima served as vice-premier from September 1940 to January 1941.

During their brief participation in government, the Iron Guard led by Simas in Romania carried out a large number of political murders and anti-Jewish pogroms . After the January uprising was put down in 1941, Sima fled into exile in Germany, where he became Prime Minister of a pro-Nazi Romanian shadow government from December 1944 to May 1945.

Origin and youth

From 1926 to 1932 Horia Sima studied literature and philosophy at the University of Bucharest . He then worked as a teacher of logic and philosophy at a secondary school. In October 1927 he joined the newly formed Iron Guard and was responsible for the Banat .

Rise in the Iron Guard

After the arrest of the founder of the Iron Guard , Corneliu Zelea Codreanu , Sima took over their leadership. Subsequently - in November 1938 - several imprisoned members of the Iron Guard, including Codreanu, were murdered on the orders of the government. In the spring of 1939 Sima fled first to Yugoslavia , then to the German Reich . In revenge for the executions of November 1938, some members of the Iron Guard committed an assassination attempt on the Romanian Prime Minister Armand Călinescu on September 21, 1939 at Sima's instigation .

After returning from exile, Sima joined the cabinet of Gheorghe Tătărescu on June 28, 1940, first as State Secretary to the Minister of Education , and then from July 4, 1940, together with two other members of the Iron Guard, as Minister of Religion and Art in the Ion cabinet Gigurtu , but gave up four days later. In September 1940, King Charles II abdicated and the Iron Guard entered into an alliance with General Ion Antonescu . Thereupon Sima became vice-premier and leader of the National Legion ( Romanian Statul Național-Legionar ). From 1940 he worked increasingly with the Third Reich . A wave of xenophobia and anti-Semitism swept Romania. As a member of the government, Sima initiated a series of brutal pogroms and attacks against Jews and opposition politicians. In January 1941, during the "Rebellion of the National Legion" and the Bucharest pogroms, Ion Antonescu presented Adolf Hitler with the choice between the war-ready wing of the Romanian government and the Iron Guard. Hitler decided to support Antonescu and the Guard was ousted.

In exile

The fallen Sima was held together with other members of the Iron Guard in the rest home of Berkenbrück near Berlin. On December 16, 1942, he fled from there to Italy . Hitler was upset because this could seriously strain relations with the Romanian government. The angry "Führer" forbade Heinrich Himmler to enter the Führer headquarters until Simas was regained. On the instructions of Minister Galeazzo Ciano , Sima was immediately expelled to Germany. There he was housed as an "honorary prisoner" in a special wing of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1943 . In the meantime, he was sentenced to death in absentia by members of the Romanian government.

During his internment, Sima was confronted with dissidents within the Iron Guard , which led to divisions within the same.

In August 1944, when Romania switched sides in World War II and cooperated with the Allies , Sima was released. Under his leadership should be in Vienna a Romanian exile Nazi - puppet government be formed in the still of the Soviet Union should be actively occupy parts of Romania. This plan was abandoned because of the rapid advance of the Soviet troops. As the Red Army drew nearer, he fled under the pseudonym Josef Weber . From then on he lived in Italy , Paris and Spain under General Franco . In 1946 he was sentenced to death again in Romania. At the same time, the criminal police became aware of him through his activities in Germany and Romania. Even in exile, Sima continued to be anti-communist . He retained considerable influence on the (anti-communist) Romanian diaspora .

He was buried side by side with his wife Elvira Sima in Torredembarra near Barcelona .

literature

  • Stanley G. Payne : A History of Fascism, 1914-1945 . UCL Press, London 1997, ISBN 1-85728-595-6 , pp. 391-397 (English).
  • Eugen Weber : Varieties of Fascism: Doctrines of Revolution in the Twentieth Century, Volume 73 by Van Nostrand Anvil Books . Van Nostrand, 1964, p. 191 (English).
  • Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera: The Green Shirts and the Others: a history of Fascism in Hungary and Romania . Center for Romanian Studies, Iași 2001, ISBN 973-9432-11-5 , p. 548 (English).
  • Philip Rees: Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 . Simon & Schuster, 1990, ISBN 0-13-089301-3 , pp. 418 (English).
  • Mariana Hausleitner : Sima Horia , in: Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Volume 2/2, 2009, p. 772ff.

Web links

Commons : Horia Sima  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andrej Angrick : "Aktion 1005" - removal of traces of Nazi mass crimes 1942–1945. Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3268-3 , vol. 1, p. 335 with note 909.
  2. ^ Henrik Eberle, Matthias Uhl: Das Buch Hitler . Bastei Lübbe, 4th edition September 2007, page 293, ISBN 978-3-404-64219-9 .
personal data
SURNAME Sima, Horia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Josef Weber
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian leader of the Iron Guard
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Mândra
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1993
Place of death Madrid , Spain