Nicolae Malaxa

Template:Short description Template:Infobox person Nicolae Malaxa (Template:OldStyleDate – 1965) was a Romanian engineer and industrialist.

Biography

Born in a family of Greek origin in Huși,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Malaxa studied engineering in Iași (at the University of Iași) and Karlsruhe (at the Polytechnic University). Late in his life, Petre Pandrea, a Romanian intellectual who was for long a member of the Communist Party and later became a victim of the Communist regime, wrote a memoir which, in part, dealt with Malaxa's biography, recording it with a dose of hostility. In it, he indicated that Malaxa's father died a young man, and that Nicolae was kept in university with money earned by his mother and sister.<ref name=pandrea65>Pandrea, p. 65.</ref> Pandrea, who called Malaxa "a mama's boy" and argued that this had shaped his character, also noted that, after graduation and contrary to his family's wishes, the engineer married a divorcée (who had been married to one of his early business partners).<ref name=pandrea65/> Malaxa married Nadia Craescu on February 20, 1918; the couple had two children: Irina (born on August 11, 1919), and Constantin (born on April 23, 1922).<ref name="CIA">Template:Cite web</ref> In time, Pandrea claimed, tensions grew between the two Malaxas, after the "Puritan" Nicolae came to resent his "frivolous" wife.<ref>Pandrea, p. 67.</ref>

Malaxa joined the Romanian Railways Company as a constructions engineer.<ref name=pandrea65/> Pandrea implied that this went against procedure, and was the result of Malaxa having befriended Chairman Alexandru Cottescu.<ref name=pandrea65/> The same source indicated that Malaxa continued to engage in business ventures, and that, upon the end of World War I and the Romanian Campaign, he was living in Iași and managing a grape-selling business.<ref name=pandrea65/> In 1918–1919, he quit his job at the Company and started a new business dealing with rolling stock maintenance — the venture was instantly successful, a fact which Pandrea attributed to the infrastructure's decay under the previous occupation by the Central Powers.<ref>Pandrea, pp. 65-66.</ref> Thus, Malaxa revitalized rail vehicles left into disrepair, which he sold back to the state at ten times the investment.<ref name=pandrea66>Pandrea, p. 66.</ref>

File:Ampflwang - Eisenbahn- und Bergbaumuseum, Dampflok 57.2770 (b).JPG

Malaxa Factory steam locomotive with serial number 299

According to Time, Malaxa "parlayed a shoestring into a chain of arms factories and a partnership in Rumania's largest iron works".<ref name=neworder>"New Order", in Time, February 10, 1940.</ref> 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).<ref>Template:In lang Anca Vlada, "Nicolae Malaxa, un industriaș vizionar" ("Nicolae Malaxa, a Visionary Industrialist"), in Curierul Național, August 11, 2005.</ref> Owning much of Romania's steel industry through his strong presence in Reșița,<ref name=jordanpopfr>Nicole Jordan, The Popular Front and Central Europe: The Dilemmas of French Impotence, 1918-1940, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992, p. 127, Template:ISBN.</ref> he was chairman of the Ford Motor Company's Romanian section, and arguably the richest man in Romania at the time.<ref name=permahome>"Malaxa Wins Permanent Home in U.S.", in The Washington Post, September 9, 1958.</ref>

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);<ref name=neworder/><ref name=godmaj>" "God Help Your Majesty" ", in Time, September 16, 1940.</ref><ref name="pandrea6667"/><ref>Veiga, p. 128.</ref> 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.<ref>Veiga, pp. 212-213.</ref> According to Pandrea, Malaxa had made a habit of manipulating state officials into granting him preferential credits, which explained his interest in supporting Carol's moves.<ref name=pandrea66/> Reportedly, Malaxa and his wife were especially close to the king's mistress, Elena Lupescu, and even became related through marriage (after Lupescu's nephew, an engineer, married the niece of Malaxa's wife).<ref name=pandrea6667>Pandrea, pp. 66-67.</ref>

Around 1939, Carol's son Michael was rumored to be in a relationship with Irina (Lulu) Malaxa (Nicolae's daughter).<ref name=godmaj/><ref>"Carol Lunches with Michael's Girlfriend, Pretty Commoner", in The Washington Post, July 1, 1939.</ref> Petre Pandrea also alleged that, soon after turning 17, the virgin Lulu had been raped by Carol on board his Luceafărul yacht — before her father decided to intervene, remove her from the circle of friends, and send her to study in Paris.<ref name=pandrea6667/> (Two years later, she married George Emil Palade, the future Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner.<ref name="CIA"/>) Pandrea also claimed that this was the origin of the notorious conflict between the engineer and Auschnitt, alleging that the latter's wife, was Carol's third mistress and resented Lulu's apparent success.<ref name=pandrea66/> He also claimed that Elena Lupescu was cheating on the king with his secretary Ernest Urdăreanu, who was also an important figure of the camarilla and who kept close contacts with the Malaxas.<ref name=pandrea66/>

Unlike most other large industries in the country, Malaxa's was not tied to British, French or Czechoslovak interests.<ref name=jordanpopfr/> Instead, Nicolae Malaxa maintained business links with Nazi Germany as early as 1935.<ref name=jordanpopfr/> At a time when Nazi Germany was gaining more influence in Romania, Nicolae Malaxa collaborated with Hermann Göring in confiscating the assets of the Jewish Auschnitt (who had been arrested and prosecuted on false charges in September 1939),<ref>Veiga, pp. 267, 278.</ref> and subsequently placed his industrial empire in the service of the Reichswerke during World War II.<ref name=permahome/><ref>"Nazis Get Steel Works", in The New York Times, February 22, 1941.</ref><ref>Veiga, p. 267.</ref>

Just after Carol fell from power in 1940, Malaxa was briefly imprisoned on charges that he had resorted to extortion in previous years.<ref name=godmaj/> Probably sympathizing with Nazi ideology, he had financed the activities of all political parties, including the Romanian far right Iron Guard organization as early as the mid-1930s,<ref name=neworder/><ref>Veiga, p. 222.</ref> and especially throughout the National Legionary State the latter established.<ref>Veiga, p. 306.</ref> 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)<ref name=neworder/><ref name=triesarms>"Rumania Tries Arms Maker in Guard Revolt", in The Washington Post, January 29, 1941.</ref> — he was consequently put on trial by Ion Antonescu's government.<ref name=triesarms/>

In February 1945, several months after the August 1944 coup d'état which toppled Antonescu, and following the start of Soviet occupation, his Bucharest factories were at the center of mysterious and violent events.<ref name=cramptoneeur20>R. J. Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, Routledge, London, 1994, p. 229, Template:ISBN.</ref> At the time, independent Premier Nicolae Rădescu had come into conflict with the rising Romanian Communist Party, and his frequent speeches to his supporters were disrupted by organized workers.<ref name=cramptoneeur20/> This occurred in Malaxa's plant, and the incident ended with shots being fired and several people killed.<ref name=cramptoneeur20/> The Communist Party claimed that they had been targeted by the Army, acting on orders from Rădescu, despite the fact that bullets recovered from the bodies were not of the kind used by the military.<ref name=cramptoneeur20/> Aggravated by another of Rădescu's addresses, in which he deemed Communists "foreigners without God or a nation", and under pressure from Andrey Vyshinsky (sent to Bucharest by Joseph Stalin to demand from King Michael the resignation of Rădescu), the crisis ended with the appointment of a new cabinet endorsed by the Communist Party and the Soviet Union and presided by Ploughmen's Front leader Petru Groza.<ref name=cramptoneeur20/><ref name="Bucurescu">Template:Cite web</ref>

Malaxa 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 Groza government.<ref name=permahome/> Malaxa and his son Constantin (1922–1999) had their Romanian citizenship revoked in by the Communist regime in 1948.<ref>"Rumanians Lose Citizenship", in The New York Times, October 6, 1948.</ref> In May of that year, he met with the ousted Nicolae Rădescu, and financed him money to start issuing an anti-communist magazine titled Luceafărul (of which philosopher Mircea Eliade was editor).<ref>Mircea Eliade, Autobiography, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1990, p. 126, Template:ISBN.</ref>

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 a CIA report from January 1953 he was labelled a "financial shark," a "slippery fence rider, who plays both ends against the middle for personal reasons," and "the most perfidious man in Romania."<ref name="Vladimirov">Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1955, while Malaxa was visiting Argentina, the Immigration and Naturalization Service briefly revoked his reentry permit.<ref>"Romania's 'Ford' Wins Conditional Reentry to U.S.", in The Washington Post, December 17, 1955.</ref> 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.<ref>"Nixon Is Accused of Aid to Ex-Nazi", in The New York Times, October 7, 1962.</ref> A government investigation dismissed the accusations,<ref name=nixmallink>"Nixon-Malaxa Link Denied by Attorney", in The New York Times, October 10, 1962.</ref> 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).<ref>Jack Anderson, "Nixon Helped Rich Nazi Stay in U.S.", in The Washington Post, November 16, 1979.</ref>

Suspicions regarding Malaxa's alleged communism, dismissed early in the era of McCarthyism by Rădescu,<ref>"Malaxa Record Cited", in The New York Times, November 1, 1952.</ref> 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.<ref name=permahome/>

Having apparently never applied for American citizenship,<ref name="nixmallink"/> Malaxa died at his residence in New Jersey.<ref name=permahome/>

Malaxa Factory products

File:Malaxa UE.jpg

Malaxa produced Renault Chenillette

• Malaxa produced a version of the French Renault Chenillette
• *Malaxa, the car developed at Malaxa's plant

See also

• FAUR, the later name of Malaxa's rolling stock plant
• I.O.R., optics company co-founded by Malaxa

References

• Petre Pandrea, "Cronică valahă cu inginerul Malaxa" ("Wallachian Chronicle with Engineer Malaxa"), in Magazin Istoric, May 2002.
• Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919-1941: Mistica ultranaționalismului ("History of the Iron Guard, 1919-1941: The Mistique of Ultra-Nationalism"), Bucharest, Humanitas, 1993 (Romanian-language version of the 1989 Spanish edition La mística del ultranacionalismo (Historia de la Guardia de Hierro) Rumania, 1919–1941, Bellaterra, Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Template:ISBN).