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The number of legionnaires killed during the rebellion was approximately 200, [2] albeit Horia Sima would later claim there had been 800 legionnaire casualties. [3] After the rebellion was suppressed, Antonescu addressed the public on the radio, telling them "the truth", but never mentioning the pogrom.
The suppression of the Rebellion also provided some data on the military equipment used by the Iron Guard, amounting to 5,000 firearms (revolvers, rifles and machine guns) and numerous grenades in Bucharest alone. [30] The Legion also possessed a small armored force of two armored police cars and two Malaxa UE armored tracked carriers. [31]
A police report noted that a car belonging to a monastery in Bucharest was used to transport legionnaires dressed-up as monks. [ 60 ] The Holy Synod was quick to condemn the Legionary Rebellion and publicly paint it as a diabolical temptation that had led the Iron Guard to undermine the state and the Conducător .
Death was a central part of the Iron Guard's ideology. Its members, known as "Legionnaires", were officially asked "to embrace death" if needed; in practice, they were supposed to be ready to both give and embrace death—in other words, to be willing to assassinate their political enemies at the risk of their own lives.
In January 1941, Sima initiated and led the Legionnaires' Rebellion against Conducător Ion Antonescu and the Romanian Army, for which he was sentenced to death, as well as the Bucharest pogrom, the largest and most violent pogrom against Jews in the history of Muntenia.
At the start of 1941, in Bucharest alone, the Legionnaires had 5,000 guns (rifles, revolvers and machine guns) as well as numerous hand grenades. [56] Included in their small arms was the MP28/II submachine-gun supplied by Himmler's SD . [ 57 ]
In the Apuseni Mountains region of Transylvania, the most active group was led by Leon Șușman, a former member of the Iron Guard who had been sentenced for his participation in the Legionnaires' rebellion and Bucharest pogrom. The group mainly hid in the woods and acquired part of its armament from an Iron Guard band that the Germans ...
Although hostile to the Guard's new leader, Horia Sima, [4] [5] he became involved in the January 1941 confrontation between Sima's Legionnaires and Ion Antonescu.In early 1941, the conflict for power turned into an Iron Guard-led failed rebellion and a pogrom against the Jewish population in Bucharest where over one hundred Jews and Romanians were massacred.