---
title: "Sextil Pușcariu"
chunk: 7/9
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextil_Pușcariu"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:03:14.223615+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Berlin institute ===
A year into World War II, Hungarian territorial demands received backing from Germany, limiting Romania's choices. In August 1940, Pușcariu attended a crisis meeting of Transylvanian notabilities. He took a conciliatory position, supporting a voluntary exchange of territories with Hungary. Following the Nazi-mediated Second Vienna Award, a large area, defined as "Northern Transylvania", was re-annexed by Hungary. The political crisis originating from this event also had the unlikely consequence of bringing the Iron Guard to power, producing the "National Legionary State". Slightly earlier, in August 1940, Pușcariu had proposed the founding of the Berlin-headquartered Romanian Institute in Germany, becoming its first president and serving until 1943. The purpose of this body was to counter Hungarian propaganda, particularly as related to Northern Transylvania.
Pușcariu, who made generous financial contributions to the Guard's coffers, based his hiring at the institute on whether applicants belonged to the movement, and according to one of his employees there, was a member of the Guard's senate. Grigore Manoilescu, who had returned to politics as an Iron Guard figure, became the institute's director; Maximilian Hacman, former rector at Cernăuți, was an old friend; among the younger hires was Constantin Noica. The order for establishing the institute came on 16 August—still during the National Renaissance Front regime—from the Foreign Ministry, led by Mihail Manoilescu. Meanwhile, Pușcariu, as a symbol of continuity, was offered a renewed mandate as rector of the University of Cluj, which had moved to Sibiu due to the Vienna Award; he accepted and took office in October. Upon relocating to Berlin, he delegated his powers to his ally Procopovici, and later to Iuliu Hațieganu.
Pușcariu's institute was headquartered in a 26-room building in western Berlin, endowed with furniture of the highest quality ordered by Pușcariu and hosting large receptions attended by politicians and cultural figures. For instance, Education Minister Bernhard Rust paid a visit lasting over six hours in July 1942. Pușcariu held forth on the topic of Romanians' continuous presence in the Danubian space, particularly in Transylvania, and according to an internal memorandum, the visit ended with "exceptionally cordial" remarks toward his country. Pușcariu, in writings and interviews, made flattering remarks about the Nazi regime, calling it "a new chapter in world history" and "a new world, a new era in the life of the German state". Nazi Party figures were invited to receptions, including one in 1941 to commemorate Moța and Marin.
Meanwhile, Pușcariu undertook to spread knowledge of Romania and its culture in Germany. The institute was subordinate to the Romanian Propaganda Ministry, and as early as 1931, Pușcariu had written an article expressing his concern at the fact that Romania's external propaganda was much weaker than that of its neighbors. He sought to have Romanian works staged in Germany, succeeding, for instance, in having Sabin Drăgoi's opera Năpasta and George Ciprian's play The Man and His Mule presented in Elbing in late 1942. In 1940, it was known that Romania did not enjoy a very positive image in Germany, with the country's consul in Cologne noting that its inhabitants were seen as "gypsies or at best Balkan people, with very primitive habits". Pușcariu attempted to change this through numerous articles appearing in speciality publications that he was able to have printed due to his connections in Germany. The propaganda books and articles that came out under Pușcariu's supervision intended to show Germans that Romanians were an Aryan people, that Romania deserved to win back its lost territories thanks to its alliance with Germany, that Russians were a communist people desiring to use Bessarabia as a beachhead to attack the rest of Europe, while Romanians had been anti-communist since the Hungarian–Romanian War began in 1918 and viewed the disputed province as a line of defense.
He made similar arguments in Basarabia, an ample 1941 article in Revista Fundațiilor Regale journal that chronicled the province's history from antiquity until its return to Romania during Operation Barbarossa. Expounding on what he saw as Imperial Russian neglect and contempt for the Bessarabia Governorate, he contrasted this with "the land rendered arable by the hard-working arms" of Romanians. Pușcariu also brought up the 271 AD withdrawal of the Roman army into Dacia Ripensis, which left the agricultural population of Roman Dacia vulnerable to barbarian attack, comparing it with the previous year's departure of the Romanian Army from Bessarabia and subsequent Soviet occupation. He suggested that the 3rd century barbarians were "surely not more inhuman than the Bolsheviks who overran Bessarabia in 1940". As an old adherent of Sămănătorism, Pușcariu strongly promoted the peasant as a symbol of Romanianism. He disseminated photographs of ordinary people from Bukovina, made unrealized plans for books on Romanian art and investigated the possibility of founding or reactivating Romanian language programs at a number of leading German universities. For his activities, he was awarded the Order of the German Eagle.
By 1940, Pușcariu's public offices and various job benefits afforded him a comfortable lifestyle; he collected some 62,000 lei in regular payments from his work in Romania, and an "undisclosed" salary for his activities abroad. However, his work there soon became the focus of investigation, particularly after the Legionnaires' rebellion, which resulted in the Iron Guard's removal from power in early 1941. As early as October 1940, the Education and Culture Ministries had noted Pușcariu's "dictatorial" powers in hiring personnel, but were overruled by General Ion Antonescu, the country's Conducător, in December. The following February, financial issues appeared, with an investigation sought by Mihai Antonescu into the reportedly exorbitant sums being spent by the institute. Pușcariu ended up losing his rector's position at Sibiu and was accused of carrying on a months' long campaign against Ion Antonescu following the Guard's ouster. He often expressed the view that Heinrich Himmler would install the Guard back in power, and that the latter would then depose Antonescu.
After an audit in 1941–1942, the institute received just over a third of the 15 million lei budgeted; a half for 1942–1943; but zero of the 10 million in 1943. These moves were due not only to Pușcariu's Guard background, but also to his political maneuvers that raised the question of the institute being shut down. The budget cuts were a signal for him to resign and return to Romania. Although for a time he was able to finance the institute out of his salary at the University of Berlin, as well as—it appears—another, unknown source, he did ultimately depart in mid-1943. Nevertheless, Pușcariu gave formal approval to Antonescu's core policies, including Romania's war on the Eastern Front.