For my legionaries by Corneliu Codreanu

THE TESTIMONY OF GENDARME SARBU ABOUT THE EXECUTION OF CORNELIU CODREANU

The testimony of gendarme Sârbu before the investigative commission of the Romanian Court of Cassation in Bucharest, in November 1940, follows:

"We left Bucharest that night (November 29 to November 30) in two police vans from the police prefecture. We were accompanied by the gendarme majors, Dinulescu and Macoveanu.

Arrived in Ramnicul-Sarat we pulled in at the Gendarmerie where Majors Dinulescu and Macoveanu made contact with Major Scarlat Rosianu, of Jewish origin, commander of the Legion of Gendarmes at Ramnicul-Sarat.

Not having received a precise order, the gendarmes did not take the legionaries into custody. All of us were ordered to get back into the vans. We started back toward Bucharest. On the way, however, we were overtaken by Major Dinulescu who barked out: "Back to Ramnicul-Sarat!"

We turned around, but stopped in the village of Baltati, several kilometers this side of Ramnicul-Sarat, where we were quartered overnight. Here, we were given wine to drink, expensive cigarettes and fancy food.

Early next day we headed for Ramnicul-Sarat.

Arrived at the prison, all of us went into one of the cells where Majors Dinulescu and Macoveanu instructed us as to how we were to execute the legionaries.

Placing the driver of our van in a kneeling position, they threw a rope around his neck from behind, showing us how easily one can be thus executed.

Everything was over in a few minutes. Then the gendarmes stepped out one by one in the prison yard and each received a legionary in custody.

I got one who was stronger and taller than the others; I learned later that he was the Captain, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu.

We then took them to the vans. There, the legionaries' hands were tied to the bench behind them and their legs to the lower part of the bench in front of them, in such a way that they could not move in either direction.

Ten of them were thus bound in the first van and four in the second, I was in the first van with the ten, behind the Captain; each gendarme was seated behind the legionary in his charge.

In our hands we held the ropes. Then we left.

Major Dinulescu was in my van, Major Macoveanu in the other.

A tomb-like silence was kept for we were not permitted to speak, either among ourselves or the legionaries to one another.

When we reached the Tancabesti woods, Major Dinulescu, who was to give the code signal for the moment of execution, turned his flashlight on and off three times.

This was the moment for the execution, but, I don't know why, none of us moved. Then Major Dinulescu stopped the van, got out, and went back to the one behind.

There, Major Macoveanu was more authoritative; the legionaries had already been strangled.

The Captain turned his head slightly toward me and whispered: "Comrade, permit me to talk to my comrades." But at that very moment, even before be bad finished his plea, Major Dinulescu stepped onto the van's running board, and stepping inside, revolver in band, rasped out, "Execute!"

Upon this the gendarmes threw their ropes...

With drawn curtains the vans continued on their way to Jilava.

When we got there, it was seven o'clock in the morning. There, we were expected by Colonel Zeciu; Dan Pascu, the prison's commandant; Colonel Gherovici, the legal medic; Lt.-Colonel Ionescu, and others.

The grave was already dug.

Pulled out of vans the corpses of the legionaries were then laid on the ground face down and shot in the back to thus simulate being shot while trying to escape.

Then we were gathered into a room of the Jilava prison where the colonel gave us a talk, saying: "You did your duty; you are not ordinary assassins."

Several days later I was summoned into Colonel Gherovici's office, who, seeing me, said: "You are mighty strong; you could have killed three at the same time." He then handed me a piece of paper to be signed by me, stating that I received the sum of 20,000 lei as medical help, I told him: "I am not ill, Colonel." He answered: "Listen here Sarbu! Don't you see how bad you look? And keep your mouth shut, for, if you don't, I'll fill it up with dirt," pointing to a Mauser pistol on his desk. Then I, as were the other gendarmes, was sent on furlough".

COMRADES,

If these last 14 years of our youth have not been too full of good times and joys, a great satisfaction lights my conscience now: a legionary Romania has thrust its roots, like those of a tree, into the flesh of our hearts. It grows from pain and sacrifice, and our hungry eyes watch it bloom, lighting the horizons and the future centuries with its splendor and majesty. This majesty overwhelmingly rewards, not only our small sacrifices, but any human suffering, be it most terrible.

DEAR COMRADES,

To you, who have been struck, maligned or martyred, I can bring the news, which I wish to carry more than the frail value o f a casual rhetorical phrase: soon we shall win.

Before your columns, all our oppressors will fall. Forgive those who struck you for personal reasons. Those who have tortured you for your faith in the Romanian people, you will not forgive. Do not confuse the Christian right and duty of forgiving those who wronged you, with the right and duty of our people to punish those who have betrayed it and assumed for themselves the responsibility to oppose its destiny. Do not forget that the swords you have put on belong to the nation. You carry them in her name. In her name you will use them for punishment-unforgiving and unmerciful.

Thus, and only thus, will you be preparing a healthy future for this nation.

Carmen Sylva, April 5, 1936

A people is not led according to its will; the democratic formula; nor according to the will of one individual: the dictatorial formula. But according to laws. I do not talk here of man-made laws. There are norms, natural laws of life; and there are norms, natural laws of death. Laws of life and laws of death. A nation is headed for life or death according to its respect for one or the other of these laws.

There remains one question to be answered: Who, in a nation, can understand or know intuitively these norms? People? The multitude? If this were the case I believe that too much is expected. Multitudes do not understand much simpler laws. These must be explained to them by repeated insistence in order to be understood-yes, even by punishment if need be.

Here are a few examples of laws that are imperatively necessary to the life of the people, which multitudes understand only with difficulty: that in case of contagious illness, the sick must be isolated and a general disinfection is needed; that sunlight must enter homes, therefore a house should have large windows; that if cattle are better fed and cared for they yield more for man's nutrition, etc.

If the multitude does not understand or understands only with difficulty several laws that are immediately necessary to its life, how can it be imagined by someone that it -which in a democracy must be led through itself-could understand the most difficult natural laws; or that it would know intuitively the most subtle and imperceptible norms of human leadership, norms that project beyond itself, its life, its life's necessities, or which do not apply directly to it but to a more superior entity, the nation?

For making bread, shoes, ploughs, farming, running a streetcar, one must be specialized. Is there no need for specialization when it comes to the most demanding leadership, that of a nation? Does one not have to possess certain qualities?

The conclusion: A people is not capable of governing itself. It ought to be governed by its elite. Namely, through that category of men born within its bosom who possess certain aptitudes and specialties. Just as the bees raise their "queen" a people must raise its elite.

The multitude likewise, in its needs, appeals to its elite, the wise of the state.

Supporters could be found for any "ideas," or votes for anyone running for public office. But this does not depend on the people's understanding of those "ideas," "laws" or "candidates" but on something entirely different: on the adroitness of individuals to win the goodwill of the multitudes. There is nothing more capricious and unstable in opinions than the multitude. Since the war, this multitude was, in turn, Averescan, Liberal, Nationalistic, National-Peasant, Iorgan, etc. hailing each, only to spit on each a year later, thus recognizing its own error, disorientation and incapacity. Its criterion for selection is: "Let us try some others." Thus, the choosing is done not according to judgement and knowledge, but haphazardly and trusting to luck.

Here are two opposite ideas, one containing truth, the other the lie. Truth-of which there can be but one-is sought. The question is put to a vote. One idea polls 10,000 votes, the other 10,050. Is it possible that 50 votes more or less determine or deny truth? Truth depends neither on majority nor minority; it has its own laws and it succeeds, as has been seen, against all majorities, even though they be crushing.

Finding truth cannot be entrusted to majorities, just as in geometry Pythagoras' theorem cannot be put to the multitude's vote in order to determine or deny its validity; or just as a chemist making ammonia does not turn to multitudes to put the amounts of nitrogen and hydrogen to a vote; or as an agronomist, who studied agriculture and its laws for years, does not have to turn to a multitude trying to convince himself of their validity by their vote.

b) To what extent the individual in question conforms through aptitudes and knowledge to these laws.

If the multitude wishes to choose its elite, it must necessarily know the national organism's laws of leadership and the extent candidates to this leadership conform by qualifications and knowledge to said laws.

However, the multitude can know neither these laws nor the candidates. That is why we believe that the leading elite of a country cannot be chosen by the multitude. To try to select this elite is like determining by majority vote who the poets, writers, mechanics, aviators or athletes of a country ought to be.

Thus democracy, based on the principle of election, choosing its elite itself, commits a fundamental error from which evolves the entire state of wrong, disorder and misery in our villages. We touch here upon a capital point; because it is from this error of democratic conception that we could say all the other errors originate.

When the masses are called to choose their elite they are not only incapable of discovering and choosing one but choose moreover, with few exceptions, the worst within a nation.

Not only does democracy remove the national elite, but it replaces it with the worst within a nation. Democracy elects men totally lacking in scruples, without any morals; those who will pay better, thus those with a higher power of corruption; magicians, charlatans, demagogues, who will excel in their fields during the electoral campaign. Several good men would be able to slip through among them, even politicians of good faith. But they would be the slaves of the former.

The real elite of a nation would be defeated, removed, because it would refuse to compete on that basis; it would retreat and stay hidden.

most corrupt, most unhealthy it has, is it not permitted a person to ask why the state is headed for ruin?

Here then is the cause of all other evils: immorality, corruption and lust throughout the country; thievery and spoliation in the state's wealth; bloody exploitation of the people; poverty and misery in its homes; lack of the sense of duty in all functions; disorder and disorganization in the state; the invasion from all directions of foreigners with money, as coming to buy bankrupt stores whose wares are being sold for a pittance. The country is auctioned off: "Who pays higher?" In the last analysis this is where democracy is going to take us.

In Romania, particularly since the war, democracy has created for us, through this system of elections, a "national elite" of Romano-Jews, based not on bravery, nor love of country, nor sacrifice, but on betrayal of country, the satisfaction of personal interest, the bribe, the traffic of influence, the enrichment through exploitation and embezzlement, thievery, cowardice, and intrigue to knock down any adversary.

This "national elite," if it continues to lead this country, will bring about the destruction of the Romanian state.

Who is to make this substitution? Who is to place this real elite in its place of leadership? I answer: anyone but the multitude. I admit any system except "democracy" which I see killing the Romanian people.

The new Romanian elite, as well as any other elite in the world, must be based on the principle of social selection. In other words, a category of people endowed with certain qualities which they then cultivate, is naturally selected from the nation's body, namely from the large healthy mass of peasantry and workingmen, which is permanently bound to the land and the country. This category of people becomes the national elite meant to lead our nation.

When can a multitude be consulted, and when must it be? It ought to be consulted before the great decisions that affect its future, in order to say its word whether it can or cannot, whether it is spiritually prepared or not to follow a certain path. It ought to be consulted on matters affecting its fate. This is what is meant by the consultation of the people; it does not mean the election of an elite by the people.

But I repeat my question: "Who indicates everyone's place within an elite and who sizes up everyone? Who establishes the selection and consecrates the members of the new elite?" I answer: "The previous elite. "

The latter does not choose or name, but consecrates each in his place to which he elevated himself through his capacity and moral worth. The consecration is made by the elite's chief in consultation with his elite.

Thus a national elite must see to it that it leaves an inheriting elite to take its place, an elite not based, however, on the principle of heredity but only on that of social selection applied with the greatest strictness.

According to the principle of social selection, continually refreshed by elements from within the nation's depths, an elite keeps itself always vigorous.

The main historical mistake has been that where an elite was created on the basis of the principle of selection, it dropped next day the very principle which gave it birth, replacing it with the principle of heredity thus consecrating the unjust and condemned system of privileges through birth.

It was as a protest against this mistake; for the removal of a degenerated elite; and for the abolition of privilege through birth, that democracy was born.

The abandonment of the principle of selection led to a false and degenerate elite which in turn led to the aberration of democracy.

The principle of selection removes alike both the principle of election and that of heredity. They cancel each other out. There is a conflict between them; for, either there is a principle of selection and in that case the opinion and vote of the multitude do not matter, or the latter votes in certain candidates and in that case selection no longer operates.

Likewise, if the principle of social selection is adopted, heredity plays no part. These two principles cannot go together unless the heir corresponds to the laws of selection.

And if a nation has no real elite-a first one to designate the second? I answer by a single phrase which contains an indisputable truth:

I have been asked whether our activity so far has followed along the same lines as those of the Christian Church. I answer:

We make a great distinction between the line we follow and that of the Christian Chruch. The Church dominates us from on high. It reaches perfection and the sublime. We cannot lower this plane in order to explain our acts.

We, through our action, through all our acts and thoughts, tend toward this line, raising ourselves up toward it as much as the weight of our sins of the flesh and our fall through original sin permit. It remains to be seen how much we can elevate ourselves toward this line through our worldly efforts.

"Human rights" are not limited only by the rights of other humans but also by other rights. There are three distinct entities:

A new great error of democracy based on "human rights" is that of recognizing and showing an interest in only one of these three entities, the individual; it neglects the second or ridicules it, and denies the third.

All of them have their rights and their duties, the right to live and the duty of not infringing on the right to life of the other two. Democracy takes care of assuring only the rights of the individual. That is why in democracy we witness a formidable upset. The individual believes he can encroach, with his unlimited rights, on the rights of the whole collectivity, which he thinks he can trample and rob; hence, in democracy, one witnesses this rending scene, this anarchy in which the individual recognizes nothing outside his personal interest.

In its turn, national collectivity exhibits a permanent tendency to sacrifice the future -the rights of the nation- for its present interests. That is why we witness the pitiless exploitation and the alienation of our forests, mines, oil reserves, forgetting that there are hundreds of Romanian generations, our children's children to come after us, who likewise expect to live and carry on the life of our nation.

This upheaval, this breach of relationship brought about by democracy constitutes veritable anarchy, an upsetting of the natural order, and is one of the principal causes of the state of unrest in today's society.

Harmony can be re-established only by the reinstatement of natural order. The individual must be subordinated to the superior entity, the national collectivity, which in turn must be subordinated to the nation. "Human rights" are no longer unlimited, but limited by the rights of national collectivity, these in turn being limited by those of the nation.

Finally, it would seem that in a democracy at least the individual enjoying so many rights lives wonderfully. But in reality, and this is democracy's ultimate tragedy, the individual has no right, for where is the freedom of assembly in our country, the freedom to write, the freedom of conscience? The individual lives under terror, a state of siege, censorship; thousands of people are arrested, some being killed for their faith, as under the most tyrannical leaders.

Where is "the right of the sovereign multitude" to decide its fate, when meetings are forbidden and when -thousands of people are prevented from voting, maltreated, threatened with death, killed?

You will say: "Yes, but these people want to change the Constitution, limit our liberties, enthrone another form of government!"

I ask: "Can democracy claim that a people is not free to decide its own destiny, to change its Constitution, its form of government, as it pleases; to live with greater or fewer freedoms as it chooses?"

In reality man has no rights in a democracy. fie did not lose them for the benefit of either the national collectivity or the nation, but in favor of a politico financier caste of bankers and electoral agents.

Finally, the last beneficence to the individual. Masonic democracy through an unparalleled perfidy masquerades as an apostle for peace on this earth while at the same time proclaiming war between man and God.

The perfidy consists in using the words of our Savior "Peace among men" in order to change into an apostle for "peace" while condemning Him and showing Him as mankind's enemy. And more, this perfidy consists also in that they pretend to want to save people's lives while in fact they lead them to their death; feigning to save their lives from war, condemn them- devilishly -to eternal damnation.