Nicolae Malaxa

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Nicolae Malaxa (December 22 [O.S. December 10] 1884 – 1965) was a Romanian engineer and industrialist.

Contents 1 Biography 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References

[edit] Biography

Born in a family of Greek origins in Huşi, he studied engineering in Iaşi (at the University of Iaşi) and Karlsruhe (at the Polytechnic University).

He founded his first business, a rolling stock manufacture, in 1921. According to Time, Malaxa "parlayed a shoestring into a chain of arms factories and a partnership in Rumania's largest iron works".^[1] By the end of the 1930s, the Malaxa factories were mass-producing steam locomotives, Diesel locomotives, trainsets, rolling stock, steel pipes, and were one of the biggest industrial groups in Southeastern Europe, and the main provider of equipment for the Romanian Railways during the period. In several of his locomotive designs, Malaxa used innovative solutions (in locomotive design — those developed in by George Constantinescu on the basis of his Theory of Sonics; in factory design — in collaboration with Horia Creangă).^[2]

He was chairman of the Ford Motor Company's Romanian section, and arguably the richest man in Romania at the time.^[3]

Malaxa was close to the authoritarian King Carol II. Together with Aristide Blank and Max Auschnitt, he was one of the major businessmen present in the king's camarilla (see National Renaissance Front);^[4] such political connections also implied that his success was partly ensured by preferential deals agreed with the state, and in some cases by the placement of inferior products on a captive market.^[5] Around 1939, Carol's son Michael was rumored to be in a relationship with Lulu Malaxa (Nicolae's daughter).^[6] Just after Carol fell from power in 1940, Malaxa was briefly imprisoned on charges that he had resorted to extortion in previous years.^[7]

Malaxa, who probably sympathised with Nazi ideology, had financed the activities of the Romanian far right Iron Guard organisation as early as the mid-1930s,^[8] and especially throughout the National Legionary State the latter established.^[9] During the Rebellion and Pogrom it provoked in January 1941, the Guard made use of arms manufactured by Malaxa, as well of his house (turned into a citadel and attacked by the Romanian Army)^[10] — he was consequently put on trial by Ion Antonescu's government.^[11] He subsequently placed his industrial empire in the service of Nazi Germany during World War II,^[12] and later collaborated with Hermann Goering in confiscating the assets of the Jewish Auschnitt (who had been arrested and prosecuted on false charges).^[13]

In 1946, at the onset of the Soviet occupation of Romania, he used his opportunity to flee after being sent on an economic mission by King Michael, and settled in New York City, where his family joined him after being expelled by the Petru Groza government.^[14] Malaxa and his son Constantin (1922–1999) had their Romanian citizenship revoked in by the Communist regime in 1948.^[15]

Alongside accusations involving his endorsement of the Iron Guard, it was alleged that he had been collaborating with the Romanian Communist Party during his last years in Romania. In 1955, while Malaxa was visiting Argentina, the Immigration and Naturalization Service briefly revoked his reentry permit.^[16] Both charges were again voiced by Democratic Party politicians during Richard Nixon's 1962 electoral campaign for Governor in California, after focus was placed on the friendship and business connections between Nixon and Malaxa.^[17] A government investigation dismissed the accusations,^[18] but, in 1979, his pro-Nazi past was again investigated by The Washington Post (which claimed that high-ranking American officials close to Malaxa had been involved in a cover-up).^[19]

Suspicions regarding Malaxa's alleged communism, dismissed early in the era of McCarthyism by Nicolae Rădescu (former Prime Minister of Romania),^[20] were investigated in 1958 by the United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, and centered on rich gifts he had sent to Communist leaders such as Ana Pauker — Malaxa defended himself by arguing that these had been sent in order to ensure his family's safe passage into America.^[21]

He apparently never applied for American citizenship, and died at his residence in New Jersey.^[22]

[edit] See also

• Malaxa, the car developed at Malaxa's plant.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• The New York Times:
  • "Nazis Get Steel Works", February 22, 1941
  • "Rumanians Lose Citizenship", October 6, 1948
  • Nicolae Rădescu, "Malaxa Record Cited"
  • "Nixon Is Accused of Aid to Ex-Nazi", October 7, 1962
  • "Nixon-Malaxa Link Denied by Attorney", October 10, 1962
• Time:
  • "New Order", February 10, 1940
  • "«God Help Your Majesty»", September 16, 1940
• The Washington Post:
  • "Carol Lunches with Michael's Girl Friend, Pretty Commoner", July 1, 1939
  • "Rumania Tries Arms Maker in Guard Revolt", January 29, 1941
  • "Romania's 'Ford' Wins Conditional Reentry to U.S.", December 17, 1955
  • "Malaxa Wins Permanent Home in U.S.", September 9, 1958
  • Jack Anderson, "Nixon Helped Rich Nazi Stay in U.S.", November 16, 1979
• Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919-1941: Mistica ultranaţionalismului, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993
• (Romanian) Anca Vlada, "Nicolae Malaxa, un industriaş vizionar" ("Nicolae Malaxa, a Visionary Industrialist"), in Curierul Naţional, August 11, 2005