Codreanu left Cuza to found a succession of movements on the far right, rallying around him a growing segment of the country's intelligentsia and peasant population, and inciting pogroms in various parts of Greater Romania.

[4] Just prior to Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's 1938 trial, his ethnic origins were the subject of an anti-Legionary propagandistic campaign organized by the authorities, who distributed copies of a variant of his genealogy which alleged that he was of mixed ancestry, being the descendant of not just Ukrainians, Germans, and Romanians, but also Czechs and Russians, and that several of their ancestors were delinquents.

Codreanu's wedding to Elena Ilinoiu in June 1925 in Focșani was the major social event in Romania that year; it was celebrated in lavish, pseudo-royal style and attended by thousands, attracting enormous media attention.

[44] Codreanu gathered former members of the League who had spent time in prison, and put into practice his dream of forming the Legion (November 1927, just days after the fall of a new Averescu cabinet, which had continued to support now-rival Cuza).

[37] Based on the Frăția de Cruce, Codreanu designed the Legion as a selective and autarkic group, paying allegiance to him and no other, and soon expanded it into a replicating network of political cells called "nests" (cuiburi).

[47] The Legion introduced Orthodox rituals as part of its political rallies,[48] while Codreanu made his public appearances dressed in folk costume[49] — a traditionalist pose adopted at the time only by him and the National Peasant Party's Ion Mihalache.

[68] Codreanu also voiced his thoughts on the issue of Romanian expansionism, which show that he was pondering the incorporation of Soviet lands over the Dniester (in the region later annexed under the name of Transnistria) and planning a Romanian-led transnational federation centred on the Carpathians and the Danube.

In all probability, the 'Great Jewish Council' is planning the creation of a new Palestine on a strip of land, starting out on the Baltic Sea, embraces a part of Poland and Czechoslovakia and half of Romania right across to the Black Sea...The worse thing that Jews and politicians have done to us, the greatest danger that they have exposed our people to, is not the way they are seizing the riches and possessions of our country, destroying the Romanian middle class, the way they swamp our schools and liberal professions, or the pernicious influence they are having on our whole political life, although these already constitute mortal dangers for a people.

[74] American historian of fascism Stanley G. Payne, who noted that the Legion benefited from the 400% increase in university enrolment ("proportionately more than anywhere else in Europe"), has described the Captain and his network of disciples as "a revolutionary alliance of students and poor peasants", which centred on the "new underemployed intelligentsia prone to radical nationalism".

[83] Nevertheless, the wave of violence and a planned march into Bessarabia signalled the outlawing of the party by Premier Gheorghe Mironescu and Minister of the Interior Ion Mihalache (January 1931); again arrested, Codreanu was acquitted in late February.

[84] Having been boosted by the Great Depression in Romania and the malcontent it engendered,[85] in 1931, the Legion also profited from the disagreement between King Carol II and the National Peasants' Party,[further explanation needed] which brought a cabinet formed around Nicolae Iorga.

The situation degenerated after Codreanu expressed his full support for Adolf Hitler and Nazism (even to the detriment of Italian fascism,[88] and probably an added source for the conflict between the Captain and Stelescu).

[97] Some time after the start of Gheorghe Tătărescu's premiership and Ion Inculeț's leadership of the Internal Affairs Ministry, repression of the Legion ceased, a measure which reflected Carol's hope to ensure a new period of stability.

[100] 1937 was marked by the deaths and ostentatious funerals of Ion Moța (by then, the movement's vice president) and Vasile Marin, who had volunteered on Francisco Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War and had been killed in the battle at Majadahonda.

Shortly afterwards, Codreanu went on record stating his contempt for Romania's alliances in Eastern Europe, in particular the Little Entente and the Balkan Pact, and indicating that, 48 hours after his movement came into power, the country would be aligned with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

[3] The new government alliance, unified as the National Christian Party, gave itself a blue-shirted paramilitary corps that borrowed heavily from the Legion — the Lăncieri[111] — and initiated an official campaign of persecution of Jews, attempting to win back the interest the public had in the Iron Guard.

[112] After much violence, Codreanu was approached by Goga and agreed to have his party withdraw from campaigning in the scheduled elections of 1938,[113] believing that, in any event, the regime had no viable solution and would wear itself out — while attempting to profit from the king's authoritarianism by showing his willingness to integrate any possible one-party system.

The system relied instead on the new Constitution of 1938, the financial backing received from large business, and the winning over of several more or less traditional politicians, such as Nicolae Iorga and the Internal Affairs Minister Armand Călinescu (see National Renaissance Front).

[3] Nicolae Iorga replied by filing a complaint with the Military Tribunal[3][117] and by writing Codreanu a letter which advised him to "descend in [his] conscience to find remorse" for "the amount of blood spilled over him".

[118] Upon being informed of the indictment, Codreanu urged his followers not to take any action if he was going to be sentenced to less than six months in prison, stressing that he wanted to give an example of dignity; however, he also ordered a group of Legionnaires to defend him in case of an attack by the authorities.

[3] He was arrested together with 44 other prominent members of the movement, including Ion Zelea Codreanu, Gheorghe Clime, Alexandru Cristian Tell, Radu Gyr, Nae Ionescu, Șerban Milcoveanu and Mihail Polihroniade, on the evening of 16 April.

[3][120] According to historian Ilarion Țiu, the trial and verdict were received with general apathy, and the only political faction believed to have organized a public rally in connection with it was the outlawed Romanian Communist Party, some of whose members gathered in front of the tribunal to express support for the conviction.

[126] Mayall, who states the Legion "was inspired in large measure by National Socialism and fascism", argues that Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's vision of "omul nou", although akin to the "new man" of Nazi and Italian doctrines, is characterized by an unparalleled focus on mysticism.

"[129] Historiographer Lucian Boia notes that Codreanu, his rival Carol II, and military leader Ion Antonescu were each in turn perceived as "savior" figures by the Romanian public, and that, unlike other such examples of popular men, they all preached authoritarianism.

[132] Under the leadership of Horia Sima, the Iron Guard eventually came to power for a five-month period in 1940–1941, proclaiming the fascist National Legionary State and forming an uneasy partnership with Conducător Ion Antonescu.

[124] Codreanu's wife Elena withdrew from the public eye after her husband's killing, but, after the communist regime took hold, was arrested and deported to the Bărăgan, where she grew close to women aviators of the White Squadron.

[141] Evola's disciple and prominent neofascist activist Franco Freda published several of Codreanu's essays at his Edizioni di Ar,[142] while their follower Claudio Mutti was noted for his pro-Legionary rhetoric.

[149][150][151] In the early 2000s, Gigi Becali, a Romanian businessman, owner of the Steaua București football club, and leader of the right-wing New Generation Party, stated that he admired Codreanu and made attempts to capitalize on Legionary symbols and rhetoric, such as adopting a slogan originally coined by the Iron Guard: "I vow to God that I shall make Romania in the likeness of the holy sun in the sky".

[166] Mircea Eliade, whose early Legionary sympathies became a notorious topic of outrage, was indicated by his disciple Ioan Petru Culianu to have based Eugen Cucoanes, the main character in his novella Un om mare ("A Big Man"), on Codreanu.

[143] The neofascist Claudio Mutti claimed that Codreanu inspired the character Ieronim Thanase in Eliade's Nouăsprăzece trandafiri ("Nineteen Roses") story, a view rejected by Călinescu.