One of several far-right factions competing unsuccessfully against the Iron Guard for support, the group made little headway, and existed at times as a satellite of the National-Christian Defense League.

Tătărescu, a retired colonel of the Romanian Air Force, former military attache to Berlin,[2] and author of patriotic plays, had made his start in politics with the left-wing Peasants' Party.

[13] Demanding Jewish quotas and nationalization, it allowed non-Romanian Christians their civil rights, except for holding political office, and proposed corporatism instead of the parliamentary regime.

[17][3] At this stage, the Colonel denied that the PNSR was connected with either the "Hitlerite National-Socialist movement" or the National Fascist Party in Italy, or that it supported dictatorship and racism in any form—he only acknowledged that the Romanian, German and Italian groups were similar in their geopolitical outlook and their anticommunism.

[19] At that stage, the PNSR's "somewhat important members" included Theodor M. Vlădescu, Nicolae Bogdan, and a former Romanian Police Commissioner, Constantin Botez Voinea;[17] shoemaker Ion R. Petringenaru Moțu was described by the Zionist paper Új Kelet as "one of the pillars of this faction".

[24] It then formed a cartel with the LANC, running under its swastika logo;[25] under the terms of this agreement, Tătărescu and Bibiri Sturia headlined the candidates' lists in Cetatea Albă and Tighina Counties, respectively.

[29] The nationalist newspaper Curentul congratulated the PNSR for having helped the LANC consolidate its position nationally, but also noted that, only due to a "defective electoral law", none of the Nazi candidates had been elected.

[31] An April 1932 note in Adevărul suggests that the Guard, which was facing a government ban, considered reserving the "National Socialist Party" title for itself, and was therefore jealous of Tătărescu's styling.

[39] There were parallel by-elections for a Senate seat in Bălți County, during which the PNSR endorsed lawyer I. N. Georgescu Zinca as its candidate; he came in last, with 870 votes, while the LANC man, Vladimir Novițcki, came in second, with 3,924.

[43] In June 1933, Tătărescu and Bibiri Sturia, alongside "Bălan, a former tax collector who has been found guilty of embezzlement", arrived in for another PNSR congress at Tighina—also organizing an additional rally in Bulboaca.

"[4] Also in May 1933, Tătărescu stated his commitment to Germany, writing that the Germans of Romania were his party's natural allies, "the avant-garde of the great national revolution that is currently taking place up North".

[47] After the NSDAP's seizure of power, Alfred Rosenberg, head of its foreign political office, promoted and financially supported the PNSR, inviting Tătărescu to attend a meeting with Adolf Hitler in autumn 1933.

[49][50] This wing had stronger chapters in Sălaj and Bihor, respectively led by Cleja and lawyer Ciprian Hubic, and was joined by Mihail Kreutzer, who claimed to represent the Satu Mare Swabians.

[51] By April 1933, Brandsch was openly anti-Nazi and was attempting to establish a democratic movement of the Saxons and the Germans in general; Roth, meanwhile, "encouraged the formation of National Socialist battalions".

[49] The latter had previously led a League of Conscious Youth (Liga Tineretului Conștient), and, alongside Iron Guard leaders, had been investigated by the authorities for his alleged involvement in Gheorghe Beza's attempt to assassinate Constantin Angelescu.

The broadcast was covered at home by the PNȚ's center-left daily, Dreptatea, which described the PNSR fan base as "people of no consequence and no social use, no precise ethnicity, no honest employment, and in general nobodies with no sort of training".

Calling itself "a lay army for the affirmation of Christianity",[64] it demanded a new social and economic order reflecting "brotherly cooperation" and "Christ's teachings", and, more generically, a culture of "manly spiritualism" that looked back to the days the Zalmoxis.

"[66] Speaking at the regional Steel Shield gathering in Carei, on October 29, 1933, Tătărescu defined his economics as "positive, active, anticommunist and anti-Masonic socialism, reclaiming the people's right to work and bread for all".

[68] The Shield reiterated the proposal to expel from the country those Jewish families who were supposedly foreign, and also urged segregation against native Jews; at the same time, it argued for "brotherly and permanent collaboration" with the local Germans.

[64] PNSR antisemitism was by then becoming internationally famous: in a January 1934 piece, The Sydney Morning Herald noted that "the National Socialist Group under the leadership of Stephan Tataresco" was one of the four "powerful anti-Semitic organisations in Rumania."

[54] According to Candea, by mid 1933 the group was not just tolerated, but also tacitly encouraged by the lower echelons of police in Bessarabia: when Lvovschi, the Jewish owner of a Tighina cinema, tied to unglue PNSR posters on his walls, the public guards took him into custody (though he was promptly released by a supervising officer).

[82] In April 1934, the government also clamped down on the Steel Shield, having discovered that the Colonel was laundering his German sponsorship through a contract with IG Farben, in complicity with Artur Adolf Konradi.

The pact had Vaida's followers focused on campaigning in Transylvania and the Banat, while Tătărescu was taking charge of all other regions, as head of the Numerus Valachicus National Movement (its central office located at the old PNSR headquarters on Precupeții Vechi).

A poster carrying Tătărescu's signature "features a call for all those who feel that they belong to the Romanian National Socialist Party to travel to Timișoara and participate in the public gathering at which Alexandru Vaida will repeat his speech from last Sunday."

It noted that, after his experience with the "hilarious Hitlerian party", Tătărescu had quit Nazism, though not the camp of "far-right extremists", and had "learned how to grow enviably rich in his little brother's shadow.

[99] Around that time, Cleja, signing himself as "Ion C. Șbîru", argued for a corporatist variety he described as "national-social solidarism", producing a government program and hoping to ally the entire public around "Nation, County and King".

[55][119] As the Carol regime tried to organize a defense of the borders with a general mobilization, Petringenaru Moțu was found to be running a draft evasion racket, benefiting as many as 1,200 youths; he was arrested and put on trial in August 1940.

Antonescu sealed Romania's alliance with the Axis Powers, but was under pressure from Berlin to form a new version of the Iron Guard; as an alternative, Romanian government officials proposed to set up a new National Socialist Party.

[123] In late 1941, Martinescu-Asău was a contributor to Pan M. Vizirescu's "workers' magazine", Muncitorul Național-Român;[124] he himself was leader of the Labor and Light (Muncă și Lumină) organization, which networked with Maria Antonescu within the Patronage Council.

[125] Among the former PNSR leaders, Vlădescu enjoyed a very good rapport with Ion Antonescu, being allowed to "Romanianize" to his name a Bucharest factory, and being sponsored in publishing a propaganda book that he presented to Hitler as a gift.