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Dumitru Coroamă

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Dumitru Coroamă (July 19, 1885, Hangu, Neamț County – 1956, Moreni) was a Romanian soldier and fascist activist, who held the rank of major-general of the Romanian Army during World War II. He was especially known for his contribution to the 1940 establishment of the National Legionary State by the far-right Iron Guard, with which he had been secretly involved for a decade. After beginnings as a schoolteacher in his native Neamț County, Coroamă had become an officer of the 15th Dorobanți Regiment, first earning distinction during World War I. Coroamă helped organize the defense of Western Moldavia, then participated in the Hungarian–Romanian War, establishing Romanian control in Bistrița and Baia Mare. He received the Order of the Star of Romania and the Order of Michael the Brave.

While stationed in Piatra Neamț during the interwar, Coroamă took up various political and cultural activities, overseeing the Romanian Scouts and setting up a Military Club. He was also involved in establishing a local branch of the Iron Guard. He was moved around to the garrison in Satu Mare, also becoming a General in 1934. Despite his commitment to the revolutionary ideology of the Guard, he was well-liked by King Carol II, and in 1937 became commander of the Royal Palace garrison. This allowed him to sabotage Carol's attempt to use Palace troops against the Guard, and helped in toppling Carol. In the aftermath of the coup, Coroamă was mistrusted and marginalized by Conducător Ion Antonescu. Given command of the 4th Army Corps in Iași, he witnessed the clashes between Antonescu and his Guard colleagues, peaking during the Legionary Rebellion of 1941. Coroamă took a moderate stance, and his mediation helped Antonescu to restore order in Iași without bloodshed. However, Coroamă remained isolated by government, and had to resign. Later in 1941, as Nazi Germany and Romania opened an Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, Coroamă advised against continuing the offensive beyond Bessarabia. When this was ignored, he left military life altogether.

Coroamă returned to public life after the Royal Coup of 1944, participating in conspiracies against Soviet occupation. Reportedly, he was one of the Romanian generals prepared to support Germany during Operation Spring Awakening; he later switched his allegiance toward the Romanian National Committee and worked to consolidate a national network of anti-communist resistance groups, including Guardist ones. Arrested by the communist regime in May 1948, he spent six years doing penal labor, and was reportedly tortured. He died in Bucharest within two years of his release.

Biography

Early decades and rise

Coroamă was born on July 19, 1885 at Hangu, Neamț County; he was the eighth of ten children born to Toma and Ecaterina Coroamă. After graduating primary school in Schitu, he studied at Petru Rareș National College, and worked as a substitute schoolteacher in Bukovina, at Broșteni and Frumosu, and then in Neamț, at Farcașa.[1] Opting for a career in the Romanian Land Forces, he took graduate diplomas from the Infantry Officers' School (1907) and the War School, emerging as a Sub-lieutenant.[2]

Assigned to the 15th Dorobanți Regiment in Piatra Neamț, Coroamă first saw action during the Second Balkan War of 1913.[3] He was again called to action during the campaign of World War I, overseeing defensive maneuvers on the fortified lines of the Trotuș, Oituz, and Uz.[1] By 1916, Coroamă was a Captain,[4] and in full command the 3rd Infantry Battalion.[1] He earned distinction following the Battle of Mărășești: he was cited on October 11, 1916 for his "initiative and energy in holding on to a difficult position", and, on December 27, was made a Knight of the Order of the Star of Romania.[4] He continued to receive other distinctions, including the Order of Michael the Brave 3rd Class[3] (presented by Eremia Grigorescu) and various medals of the Allied countries.[1] He was later an Officer of the Star of Romania.[3]

On December 6, 1918, Coroamă, by then a Major, led his troops into Transylvania, arriving by train at Bistrița (see Union of Transylvania with Romania). Upon arrival, he met with the Hungarian Republican administration, which he did not immediately depose. When the incumbent mayor, Gábor Ajtai Nagy, asked him to "spare the city", Coroamă replied that this his only mandate was to reestablish order "together with city leaders".[5] He was subsequently in charge of the Romanian garrison for the entire County of Bistrița.[6] Following the outbreak of a Hungarian–Romanian War, Coroamă led the assault battalion that secured Baia Mare on January 6, 1919.[7] An accidental ecrasite explosion[8] wounded Coroamă in the train station of Dej.[3] He was badly hurt, and had to be sent to Cluj for recovery.[8]

Coroamă's interwar career saw him returning to Piatra Neamț, where he was made Garrison Commander.[1] In October 1927, he was promoted to Colonel[2] and in 1929 was officially made Commander of the 15th Regiment.[3] The interval also witnessed Coroamă's involvement in far-right politics. In 1930, together with his wife, he established a Piatra Neamț chapter of the Iron Guard and sponsored its network of "Cross Brotherhoods". The family home featured a portrait of the Guardist leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, whom Coroamă had met during the previous war.[9] The building was flooded and suffered damages during the heavy rains of May 1930,[10] but was swiftly restored.[11]

King Carol II appointed Coroamă Brigadier General in late 1934,[11] after he had taken the final exams with top honors.[12] During the early 1930s, he had involved himself with the Romanian Scouting Movement, presiding upon its meetings in Neamț County and directing its propaganda efforts.[13] He also founded a Military Club and provided lectures detailing his own front-line experience.[11] In 1935, he was reassigned to lead the 16th Infantry Brigade of Satu Mare.[3] In November 1936, he presented military honors to Carol and Crown Prince Michael, who passed through Satu Mare on their way back from a state visit in Czechoslovakia.[14]

1940 coup and 1941 rebellion

In November 1937,[2] Coroamă became General Officer Commanding 1st Guard Division at the Royal Palace in Bucharest, in service to Carol II. However, he secretly supported the Iron Guard's leader Horia Sima, who was in conflict with Carol's National Renaissance Front.[15][16] Sima's rise had been made possible by Carol's decision to arrest, and then assassinate, Codreanu. Coroamă's contacts with Sima were at the core of an enduring controversy between Guard factions: Codreanu's loyalist cells, which distrusted Sima, also viewed Coroamă as an agent of the Front and an appeaser. They noted in particular Coroamă's acknowledgement that he had mediated a September 1938 encounter between Sima and Carol's spymaster, Mihail Moruzov.[17] As acknowledged by Sima, by May 1940 there were other encounters involving all three men. During these parlays, they agreed that the Iron Guard should merge into the Front, which, on Coroamă's suggestion, was to be renamed "Front of the Nation".[18]

Coroamă rose to prominence after the events of autumn 1940, when the Second Vienna Award, which lost Romania rule over Northern Transylvania, engendered a political crisis. In this context, he cooperated with Sima on the Iron Guard's attempt to seize power, and came into contact with another authoritarian figure, General Ion Antonescu, who was reluctantly appointed Premier by Carol. In early September, as a sign of his cooperation with Sima, Antonescu appointed Coroamă to the post of General Officer in charge of the Capital's Military Command, replacing the loyalist Gheorghe Argeșanu.[15][16][19] Soon afterward, Antonescu was told that two other loyalist generals, Gheorghe Mihail and Paul Teodorescu, were planning to have him killed.[15][16] He consequently demanded Carol's abdication. In tandem, General Coroamă refuse to comply with the royal order of shooting down Guardists who marched in front of the Palace.[1][15][16][20] According to one account, his resistance persuaded Antonescu to follow suit, and allowed form a bloodless transition.[1]

Coroamă himself confessed that he was an active participant in the coup, bringing up reserve troops to support the Guard. For this reason, Carol arrested him; Antonescu ordered his release, thus signaling to the king that he was no longer in control of the country.[19] An anecdote relayed by the old-regime politician Constantin Argetoianu presents another version of events, claiming that Antonescu had asked Coroamă to storm the area outside the Palace, though "without firing a shot." Also according to Argetoianu, Coroamă never showed up for duty, and claimed that he was "besieged in my own house" by the Guardists, who had mistaken him for the detested Argeșanu, also a mustachioed general. Coroamă's "inane" request was to have dispatches aired by Radio Bucharest, informing his assailants that "General Coroamă and General Argeșanu both wear mustaches"; an amused Antonescu urged him to "shave it off".[21]

Like other Guardists, Coroamă was dissatisfied with Antonescu's regime, or "National Legionary State". Already on September 9, 1940,[2] he was sent over as General Officer of the 4th Army Corps, stationed at Iași, which equated with a demotion.[1][21] Coroamă survived Antonescu's violent split with the Guard and the Legionary Rebellion of January 1941. As reported by diarist Mihail Sebastian, rumor spread that Coroamă and Corneliu Dragalina were marching on Bucharest to assist Sima against Antonescu.[22] However, Coroamă had again resumed his mitigating position and, alongside other Iași Guardists, including Ilie-Vlad Sturdza, he fought to pacify the city and minimize bloodshed. According to Nazi German diplomatic cables, he did so because he feared that the Soviet Union would profit from the unrest and invade Romania.[23] Coroamă also sought an understanding with the Guardist leader, Gheorghe Grijincu, asking him to return control over government buildings, and also to pledge resistance in case of a Soviet attack.[24] Another army leader, Constantin Sănătescu, noted that despite his standing as a "Guard sympathizer" Coroamă "behaved well, managing to peacefully quell the rebellion".[25]

Repression and imprisonment

In February, following the resumption of government control over Iași, Coroamă was sent to the reserves.[2][4][21][25] Sănătescu, who took over as commander of the 4th Army Corps in January 1941, claimed that his predecessor had been sacked following a quarrel with Antonescu.[25] He continued to be marginalized as Romania opened an Eastern Front: Coroamă supported the retaking of Bessarabia, but argued that Romania should only send an expeditionary corps to assist Germany beyond that stage. Antonescu ignored this advice, pushing Coroamă to resign from the army and return to civilian life in Piatra Neamț.[1] By 1944, a Soviet offensive had pierced into Romania, prompting the Royal Coup which toppled Antonescu. When Romania formally joined the Allied Powers, Coroamă was an alleged double-dealer, resuming his contacts with Sima, who now headed a pro-Nazi government in exile. During Operation Spring Awakening in March 1945, generals Coroamă, Dragalina, Sănătescu, Petre Dumitrescu, and Radu Korne were reportedly involved in a Nazi-organized plot to overthrow the Soviet occupation forces.[26]

Such initiatives failed and, over the following three years, the country underwent steady communization, ultimately reemerging as a communist state. As reported by the Guardist Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu in a 1999 interview, "in 1946–1947" Coroamă integrated with the anti-communist resistance, though as an army representative rather than as a Guard member. Ogoranu identifies Coroamă and Dragalina as members of the resistance coordinating committee, answering to the National Peasants' Party and the Romanian National Committee; Guardist cells were represented therein by Nicolae Petrașcu.[27] Gavrilă Ogoranu also recalled that in autumn 1947 Coroamă, who was based in Sibiu, traveled to Sâmbăta de Sus Monastery and met Arsenie Boca, with whom he planned various anti-communist activities.[28]

On May 15, 1948,[2] as the new regime inaugurated its hunt for Guardists, Coroamă became a political prisoner at Jilava.[1] He was then sentenced to eight years in "labor colonies".[2] Coroamă was sent to do penal work at Ocnele Mari, alongside other former members of the Guard—including Petre Țuțea and Ioan Victor Vojen; they joined a selection of former political rivals, including Mihail Manoilescu, Aurel Leucuția, and Petre Pandrea.[1] In his samizdat memoirs, Pandrea would include an account of "Carol II's odyssey, with its exact details", claiming that it was partly sourced from "things confessed to me by Mihail Manoilescu and General Coroamă".[29]

Reportedly, Coroamă was slated for persecution by a Romani man of the Securitate, who made him perform pointless physical exercise and beat him repeatedly.[1] He was relocated to Aiud prison, Gherla, and Văcărești, being ultimately released in June 1954. By then, he had been deemed to ill to survive detention, and was dropped off by Securitate officials at the home of a Bucharest relative; this was to be his last domicile.[1] Coroamă died in 1956.[4] Eight years later, his body was reburied at Eternitatea Cemetery in Piatra Neamț. This final ceremony was attended by fellow generals Nicolae Dăscălescu and Ilie Crețulescu, but also by Securitate agents monitoring dissent.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n (in Romanian) N. Sava, "Generalul Dumitru Coroamă: 'Majestate, nu pot să execut ordinul de a trage în tineretul țării!'", in Ceahlăul, July 19, 2014
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Trașcă, p. 230
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Extrase din memoriile originale ale foștilor comandanți", in În Slujba Patriei, January 2007, p. 8
  4. ^ a b c d Traian D. Lazăr, "Azi căpitan, mâine...", in Magazin Istoric, June 2018, pp. 60–61
  5. ^ Ioana Dragotă, "Școala civilă de stat pentru fete Baia Mare (1893–1948).—Radiografie istorică.—Partea a III-a. Trecerea în administrația românească", in Bibliotheca Septentrionalis, Vol. XVI, Issue 2, 2008, p. 81
  6. ^ Victor Moldovan, Memoriile unui politician din perioada interbelică. Vol. I, pp. 81, 423. Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2016. ISBN 978-973-595-971-5
  7. ^ Liviu Tătaru, "Actul Marii Uniri de la 1 decembrie 1918. Desfășurări în Lăpuș, Chioar, Codru și zona Baia Mare", in Bibliotheca Septentrionalis, Vol. XXV, Issue 2, December 2017, p. 58
  8. ^ a b Cornel Țucă, "Activitatea Senatului Național Român (Cluj) oglindită în notițele Sidoniei Docan", in Document, Issue 1/2009, p. 30
  9. ^ Silvian-Emanuel Man, "Alegerile parlamentare din județul Neamț în anul 1931 în documente de arhivă", in Zilele Cercetării Științifice Studențești din Universitatea Constantin Brâncuși, Issue IV, 2012, p. 153
  10. ^ Neptun, "Inundațiile catastrofale din orașul Piatra-Neamț", in Avântul, Issue 56/1930, p. 2
  11. ^ a b c A. A. Rotundu, "Colonelul Coroamă", in Avântul, Issue 150/1934, p. 1
  12. ^ "D-l colonel Coroamă a reușit întâiul pe țară la examenul de general", in Avântul, Issue 143/1934, p. 1
  13. ^ I. Fuioagă, "În sprijinul cercetășiei", in Avântul, Issue 122/1934, p. 1
  14. ^ Claudiu Petru Porumbăceanu, "Dezvoltarea relațiilor de bună vecinătate la frontiera de nord vest a României cu Cehoslovacia în perioada 1934—1937", in Diana Kinces (ed.), Relații româno-ucrainene. Istorie și contemporaneitate. Румунсько-українські відносини. Історія і сучасність, p. 8. Satu Mare: Editura Muzeului Sătmărean, 2015
  15. ^ a b c d Dennis Deletant, Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania, 1940-1944, pp. 49–50. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ISBN 978-1-4039-9341-0
  16. ^ a b c d Z. Ornea, Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească, p. 327. Bucharest: Editura Fundaţiei Culturale Române, 1995. ISBN 978-973-9155-43-4
  17. ^ Mihai Demetriade, "Victor Biriș, cel mai important agent de influență din penitenciarul Aiud (1957–1963)", in Caietele CNSAS, Issues 1–2/2012, p. 87
  18. ^ Miskolczy, p. 926
  19. ^ a b Miskolczy, p. 937
  20. ^ Miskolczy, p. 936
  21. ^ a b c Constantin Argetoianu, Însemnări zilnice. Volumul IX: 21 aprilie—31 decembrie 1941, p. 31. Bucharest: Editura Machiavelli, 2008.
  22. ^ Mihail Sebastian, Journal, 1935–1944, p. 312. London: Random House, 2003. ISBN 978-0-7126-8388-3
  23. ^ Trașcă, pp. 226–234
  24. ^ Trașcă, pp. 232–233
  25. ^ a b c Constantin Sănătescu, Jurnal, p. 25. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1993. ISBN 978-973-28-0381-3
  26. ^ Mircea Tănase, "1945 — ripostă sovietică la operațiunile 'Parașutiștii' și 'Deșteptarea Primăverii'", in Cetatea Bihariei. Revistă de Cultură și Istorie Militară, Issue 1/2007, pp. 62–63
  27. ^ Teodor Gheorghe Păiușan, "Forme organizate și spontane ale rezistenței anticomuniste și la colectivizare din Valea Crișului Alb", in Doru Sinaci, Emil Arbonie (eds.), Administrație românească arădeană. Studii și comunicări. Volumul III, pp. 272–273. Arad: Vasile Goldiș University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-973-664-521-1
  28. ^ Eugen Șahan, "Aspecte din rezistența românească împotriva sovietizării în perioada martie 1944—1962", in Romulus Rusan (ed.), Instaurarea comunismului. Între rezistență și represiune (Analele Sighet 2). Comunicări prezentate la simpozionul de la Sighetu Marmației (9—11 iunie 1995), p. 175. Bucharest: Fundația Academia Civică, 2016
  29. ^ Petre Pandrea, Memoriile mandarinului valah. Jurnal I: 1954–1956, p. 92. Bucharest: Editura Vremea, 2011. ISBN 978-973-645-440-0

References

  • Ambrus Miskolczy, "A Vasgárda útja a hatalomhoz", in Hadtörténelmi Közlemények, Vol. 129, Issue 4, 2014, pp. 909–940.
  • Ottmar Trașcă, "Rebeliunea legionară în viziunea Consulatului german din Iași, 19–25 ianuarie 1941", in Archiva Moldaviae, Vol. II, 2010, pp. 235.
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