Florin Grecu, Historia.ro, June 11, 2025
Rüdiger von Kraus was born in Brașov in 1948, but emigrated to the US in 1976. The author completed a master’s degree at Harvard University with a thesis on his family and is a member of the American Historical Association and the Romanian Jockey Club. Rüdiger von Kraus recently launched the book Malaxa in America, translated by Dorina Tătăran, Corint Istorie Publishing House, Bucharest, 2025, pp. 220, at the Romanian Jockey Club in Bucharest, as well as at the Bucharest International Book Fair, May 28-June 1, 2025, alongside historians Bogdan Bucur and Andrei Pogăciaș.
Rüdiger von Kraus, in his book on Malaxa’s biography in America, structured in 18 chapters, uses numerous sources from the archives of the FBI, CIA, Emergency Immigration Program, with references to US Congress documents, but also sources from the Central National Historical Archives of Romania, as well as secondary literature based on specialist works and contemporary press such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
How did Malaxa evolve on his Romanian path to wealth?
Nicolae Malaxa (1884-1965), coming from a Greek family, studied chemistry in Iași and engineering in Karlsruhe and, upon returning home, founded a vegetable oil factory and an oil press in Bârlad (p.195). He later joined the Romanian Railways (CFR), where he worked as a second-class engineer during World War I. At CFR, he met Max Aușnit, who was the director of the Reșița Factory, which supplied rolling stock for CFR. The two made financial transactions that obviously benefited them, to the detriment of CFR. Malaxa and Aușnit began a partnership that led to rivalries, enmities, and even denunciations, even in America, as we shall see (p. 196).
In 1923, Malaxa partnered with Alexandru Perițianu, founding the Romanian Machine Factory – Locomotive and Car Repair Workshops – Inginer Malaxa & Co. Malaxa replaced the steam engines of the CFR with diesel engines through a seven-year contract with the Romanian state, but the price of train travel charged by Malaxa was twice as high as that charged in Germany and France, which brought his company huge profits (p. 199). Malaxa presented documents showing low profits, the result of double accounting, until 1942, when the Antonescu regime no longer tolerated corrupt behavior and practices and flawed government contracts.
The peak of Malaxa’s business was the creation of the Seamless Pipe Factory in Tohani Vechi (pp. 204-205), which was later presented by Nixon in America as a project of national importance. However, Malaxa’s project was not successful. In interwar Romania, Malaxa enjoyed the support of King Carol II, with whom the industrialist had weekly one-hour discussions (p. 206).
Because he never aspired to power and was not a threat to politicians, Malaxa, a great poker player who deliberately lost games with members of the royal camarilla, became an intermediary for those who had such political intentions and ambitions, managing to influence political power without actually exercising it. For example, he helped a general rise to a high position, becoming undersecretary of state at the Ministry of National Defense, as in the case of General Alexandru Glatz, who ensured a positive attitude toward the quantity of weapons proposed by industrialists (p. 206).
Malaxa, in interwar Romania, used methods based on corruption to create relationships through which he offered gifts to close relatives whose influence he needed. For example, he offered 500,000 lei to the daughter of Victor Iamandi, who was Minister of Justice (p. 207), but once in America, such practices were no longer possible for Malaxa, with the exception of Nixon, who presented the Romanian industrialist’s business plan for seamless pipes. Malaxa was trying to obtain American citizenship.
Malaxa’s Eastern practices from the interwar period continued under communism. Thus, to ensure that he had the support of the communist leaders, Malaxa gave Dej a Cadillac car, as well as jewelry for the birthday of Ana Pauker, the foreign minister at the time (p. 72). During his trials in the US to obtain citizenship, Malaxa claimed that these gifts to the communists were given with the aim of freeing his family, who had in any case left the country on a ship exporting timber (pp. 136-138).
Malaxa’s opponents in America, Crețianu and Vișioianu, tried on various occasions to show that Malaxa was a communist, being the only communist industrialist rewarded for his actions (p. 133), but the INS investigators did not consider these accusations plausible. As undersecretary of the Treasury, Emil Ghilezan, a former member of the PNȚ, was called by Malaxa as a witness, making money in property transactions (p. 134).
Malaxa also tried to buy off the staff of the Romanian legation in the US. Pamfil Ripoșanu, former advisor to the legation and FBI informant, revealed that Malaxa paid Mihail Ralea $4,000 a month, which allowed the sociologist’s family to enjoy a standard of living that they could not have afforded on his civil servant’s salary (p. 77).
Brief description of the context prior to immigration to America
It should be noted that with the establishment of the royal dictatorship on February 27, 1938, and the decree of December 15, 1938, establishing the single party as the only political organization in the state, the National Renaissance Front, Nicolae Malaxa was appointed to the FRN’s National Superior Council, which formulated the Front’s political directives, presented its demands to the government, made observations on the running of public administration, and approved candidates for parliamentary, administrative, and professional elections. The FRN’s National Superior Council was composed of 150 members, 50 for each of the three occupations provided for in the Constitution. Royal advisors and founding members took part in the meetings of the National Superior Council at any time. The members of the Directorate and the National Superior Council were appointed by royal decree for a term of two years on the proposal of the Council of Ministers 1. The members of the National Superior Council of the FRN were: 1) Lucian Blaga, 2) Mircea Concicov, 3) Gh. Dinopol, 4) Grigore Duca, 5) I.D Enescu, 6) Iuliu Haţiegan, 7) Hans Hedrich, 8) Nicolae Malaxa, 9) Ion Marinescu, 10) Istrate Micescu, 11) D. Mociorniţă, 12) Alexandru Romalo, 13) Anibal Teodorescu, 14) Aurel Vlad, 15) Gr. Prieţeanu, 16) Helmut Wolff2.
During the royal dictatorship, Nicolae Malaxa was not only a member of the Superior Council of the National Renaissance Front, but also a senator appointed by Carol II in the corporatist parliament, in the Trade and Industry Category.
During the communist period, interwar practices continued through the buying of the goodwill of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Ana Pauker, but the industrialist Malaxa sensed that he would not be able to succeed in business under the communist regime. Therefore, in June 1948, the industrial assets of the Malaxa factories were nationalized, and the communists subsequently revoked his Romanian citizenship. The millions earned in the interwar period could no longer be made in the US, starting in 1946, when he landed at New York’s La Guardia airport on a trade mission on June 17, 1946. The mission, approved by the Petru Groza government, consisted of Max Aușnit, Aionica Weiss, Jacques Bochori, Dan Dragomirescu, Lazăr Stoicescu, Marcel Petreanu, and Nicolae Malaxa. The reason was that after World War II, America was the only country that could offer loans for the reconstruction of the Romanian railways destroyed by the war (p. 131).
Malaxa in America
Malaxa was the victim of hostility between Romanian refugees in the US, who launched a congressional inquiry into Malaxa’s immigration status, a series of legal and press events, presented by Rüdiger von Kraus in his book, which physically exhausted him and depleted the fortune of the greatest Romanian industrialist of the interwar period.
Upon arriving in the US, Nicolae Malaxa was investigated by the INS, FBI, and CIA, but he also denigrated part of the Romanian diaspora, including his former rival Max Aușnit, who did the same, which is where the problems regarding Malaxa’s citizenship began with the US judicial authorities.
Thus, journalist Walter Winchell launched a press campaign against Malaxa, accusing him of offering money to the Iron Guard. Frank Wisner, who represented Max Aușnit, accused him of financially supporting right-wing associations such as the owner of the controversial bi-monthly Patria in Munich and the publication Vestitorul in Salzburg, Austria. CIA sources identified at least six Iron Guard publications supported by Malaxa through Rădescu (p. 140). Rădescu was the president of the Romanian National Committee. For financial reasons, on September 14, 1950, General Rădescu, Grigore Gafencu, Nicolae Caranfil, Fărcășanu, supported by Malaxa, broke away from the Committee and formed the Association of Free Romanians in the United States, also known as the Malaxa group (p. 105).
Investigators of the Malaxa case noted that there were two camps among those who were called to testify. The first camp consisted of members of the Romanian National Committee, and the second was composed of those who had separated to form the Alliance of Free People. Max Aușnit joined the Romanian National Committee against Malaxa, who accused the industrialist, producing a letter from Albert Goring delaying the takeover of the Reșița Workshops by the Nazis, but investigators determined that the letter did not reveal Malaxa’s voluntary affiliation with the Nazis (p. 123). The CIA obtained information about the bribery schemes used by Malaxa in Romania regarding the Malaxa Pipe Factory. This was an example of using tariffs to enrich the entourage of King Carol II rather than to protect national industry (p. 140). These deals had no place on American soil.
During the royal dictatorship or authoritarian monarchy, 1938-1940, Malaxa used his influence to have people loyal to him appointed to key positions, such as director general of the State Railways and even minister of communications, thus managing to secure contracts for himself. Malaxa’s corrupt interwar practices were not maneuvers that Wisner wanted to see in America (p. 141). Malaxa found understanding with the new CIA chief Allen Dulles, as he had been one of the Romanian industrialist’s lawyers (p. 142).
Arrested with the defeat of the Legionary Movement’s rebellion by the Antonescu government, Malaxa’s factories were confiscated, but he was released after three weeks and was unable to regain physical control of his holdings until 1945. Immediately after August 23, 1944, Malaxa offered his services to Moscow, according to his accusers in the US. Thus, “Malaxa is just a puppet manipulated from behind the Iron Curtain. The reward, if any, is in rubles, not dollars. These accusations, from Walter Winchell’s article, were a blow to Malaxa in his attempt to obtain US residency” (p. 59).
Malaxa’s investigations and trials in New York earned him the enmity and accusations of collaboration with his brother Hernamm Göring, the businessman Albert, and more specifically of collaboration with the Nazi regime. Malaxa’s detractors’ malicious association of him with Albert Göring would haunt the industrialist in his attempt to obtain US residency, but a letter received from Albert Göring would have a positive effect on his hearing before the INS in 1951 (p. 53). One aspect that did not come up in the INS hearing was that the royalists hired an advertising agency in an attempt to discredit Malaxa in America (p. 152).
Accusations continued against Malaxa of financially supporting the Iron Guard and using illegal means and methods for permanent resistance, as well as collaborating with the new communist authorities. Malaxa avoided expulsion from the United States thanks to his wealth, which he used to pay for legal assistance from lawyers who lobbied on his behalf. Seeing that he was unable to do business in the US, he tried for nine months to do so in Argentina.
Regarding Malaxa’s links with the guards and the accusations made by the Antonescu regime that he had supplied the Legionary Movement with weapons and ammunition during the Legionary rebellion in January 1941, the industrialist, manufacturer, and arms dealer was accused of turning his mansion into a fortress for the legionaries. Thus, in a secret note published in the New York Times on January 29, 1941, it was stated that Malaxa’s secretary had allowed the guards access to weapons in his residence, and this accusation required a plausible denial, by means of a telephone call to Antonescu’s office announcing that his home had been taken over by rebels against his will, a denial used in the internal proceedings initiated by the Antonescu government (pp. 46-47) and in the hearings in America (p. 131).
Nicolae Malaxa was unable to do business in the US as he had done in interwar Romania; his machinations and monopolistic business practices were not accepted, and his fortune, which had begun to dwindle, went on to lawsuits, expensive homes, and costly lawyers, defenders who managed to prevent the industrialist Malaxa from being expelled from the US, even though he had associated himself with the then Californian senator Richard Nixon in order to obtain permanent residence so that he could conduct business on American soil.
On September 26, 1953, Attorney General Herbert Brownell granted Malaxa residency (p. 158), but allegations continued that the industrialist had obtained his visa to enter the country through fraud (p. 167), using his company Western Tube Corporation as a front to obtain permanent residency. Thus, John Shelley asked Nixon to explain his connection with a man who had been a leading Nazi and Communist collaborator (pp. 190-191).
On September 9, 1958, The New York Times reported that the Department of Justice, through Attorney General William P. Rogers, had given final approval for the immigration decision, allowing Malaxa to remain a resident of the United States. This ended three years of controversy between the 74-year-old industrialist Malaxa and the Immigration Service over his pre-war and wartime associations with Nazi and Communist groups (p. 175).
Malaxa, suffering from heart problems, died in mid-June 1965 in New Jersey, his death being discreetly mentioned in the press alongside his negative Nazi and Communist past.
Although he was not a politician, Malaxa managed to gain the support of interwar Romanian politicians through gifts and corruption, which did not happen in America, where, with the exception of Nixon, his attempts were limited to the Romanian diaspora, which even King Michael, who had gone into exile, found divided.
Rüdiger von Kraus’s book reveals that Malaxa in America was unable to carry out any of the lucrative business deals he was skilled at and had successfully conducted in interwar Romania. Malaxa’s corrupt interwar practices were not the kind of maneuvers Wisner wanted to see in America (p. 141).
Rüdiger von Kraus’s book entitled Malaxa in America, published by Corint Istorie, is a bibliographical reference for researchers of the interwar period, but also for the general public.
Notes:
1 Universul, Year 56, No. 4, January 6, 1939, “Regulations for the establishment of the FRN,” p. 9.
2 Ibid., p. 9.
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