Opposing War. Iuliu Maniu and the Special Intelligence Service (March–June 1943)

The article Opposition at war. Iuliu Maniu in the attention of the Special Intelligence Service (March – June 1943) presents aspects of Iuliu Maniu’s political activity as they were recorded for three months, between March and June 1943, in the follow up reports made by Special Intelligence Service’ officers, but also of other operative structures for political surveillance. Even though the special dialogue between the leader of the National Peasants’Party and Marshal Ion Antonescu, the head of the state, worked during the war years, the political supervision of Iuliu Maniu also continued in everyday life, with an almost German rigor. Unedited documents from the former Romanian secret services’archives come to complete the biography of the one who, with an exemplary attitude, proved to be, in times of peace and war, a valiant defender of democracy and human rights, principles for which he will pay with his life, in Sighet prison, in 1953, after he had been unjustly convicted by a military tribunal orchestrated by the communists at the request of the „Big Brother from East”.