Report on the outcome of the criminal investigation into the accused Steinhardt Aurelian (12 January 1960)

Report on the outcome of the criminal investigation into the case of the defendant Nicu Steinhardt.

R.P.R.

Ministry of the Interior

Top Secret

Copy No…

Date: 12.1.1960

 

18.866/N

Approved

(ss./indescribable)

Report on the results of the criminal investigation against the defendant Steinhardt Aurelian

Following the investigations carried out against Noica Constantin, Paleologu Alexandru, Strelisker Beatrice and Dimitriu Paul, it was established that, within the framework of their hostile activities, they organised clandestine meetings attended by several reactionary elements, at which they disseminated and commented in a praising manner on some of their own hostile writings, as well as writings by Romanian refugees from the West, which had been smuggled into the country or stolen from the Special Fund of the Library of the Romanian Academy. On the basis of these writings, they made vitriolic comments against realist-socialist literature and the regime in the Romanian P.R..

Steinhardt Nicu Aurel, in addition to those mentioned above, also participated in these meetings and in the distribution of the hostile writings, for which he was arrested on 4 January 1960.

Result of the criminal investigation:

Steinhardt Nicu Aurel, born in Bucharest on 29 July 1912, son of Oscar and Antoinette, lawyer by profession, […] having known Noica Constantin since 1925, they maintained a close relationship until around the time of the anti-Soviet war, when Noica Constantin went abroad.

In 1954, Steinhardt Nicu, having been told by Strelisker Beatrice that Noica Constantin was in Câmpulung Muscel, went to that town and they re-established contact. On that occasion, he was introduced to Paleologu Alexandru, who at that time was hiding in Câmpulung under the name of Crăifăleanu Ion, and together they discussed and decided that Noica Constantin should write a work interpreting the writings of the German philosopher Hegel, which he would then distribute to his circle of friends.

In the summer of 1957, Noica Constantin, having completed the above-mentioned work, which he called Povestiri din Hegel (Stories from Hegel), began to distribute it in exchange for money, being helped in the distribution of the work by Paleologu Alexandru, Enescu Teodor, Strelisker Beatrice and Steinhardt Nicu.

In the autumn of 1957, Steinhardt Nicu, Dimitriu Paul, Paleologu Alexandru and Rădulescu Mihai, who were aware of Noica Constantin’s links with the traitors Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade, who were in France, decided to reproduce several copies of Cioran Emil’s “Letter to a friend from afar”, which had been published in the West and was actually addressed to Noica Constantin. For this purpose, Paul Dimitriu took from the Special Fund of the Library of the Academy of the P.R.R. the French magazine N.R.F., in which Cioran Emil’s writing was contained, and multiplied it with the help of Strelisker Beatrice. The multiplied copies were then distributed among numerous elements.

Steinhardt Nicu organised clandestine meetings at the homes of Strelisker Beatrice, Paleologu Alexandru and Rădulescu Mihai, and regularly took part in the hostile discussions that took place at the meetings and in the “popularisation” of the hostile writings of the fugitives Cioran Emil and Eliade Mircea, entitled The Temptation to Exist and The Forbidden Forest, which had been smuggled into the country by the Acterian Sadova Măria. Having received these writings, Steinhardt Nicu, after reading them, distributed them to other people, such as Al. George Sergiu, Paleologu Alexandru (arrested) and Neuman Manole (not arrested).

In view of the above, and considering that the acts committed by Nicu Aurel Steinhardt fulfil the constitutive elements of the offence referred to in Article 209(2)(a) of the Criminal Code, the Court finds that the offences committed by Nicu Aurel Steinhardt do not fall within the scope of Article 209(2)(b) of the Criminal Code. “a” and “b” paragraph II of the CP. of the R.P.R.,

Proposal

the criminal investigation be closed and that the accused Steinhardt Nicu Aurel be tried.

Agreed: Head of Service, Colonel N. Dumitrescu

Security Criminal Investigation, Captain Onea M.

Agreed: Head of Directorate, Colonel Butyka Fr.

(AMJ, DM, criminal files, file no. 118988, volume 9, pp. 24-25; document reproduced in Nicu Steinhardt in the Securitate files (1959-1989), edited by Clara Cosmineanu, Nemira Publishing House, Bucharest, 2005, pp. 83-85).