Nicolae Ceaușescu received the highest award of the Federal Republic of Germany for heads of state in 1971: the special grade of the Grand Cross. By this year, he had met many international decision-makers. The US President Richard Nixon visited him in Bucharest and many monuments such as by Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer etc. in the Romanian capital confirm the strong attention that Ceaușescu received during his reign in Romania.
But in 1971, after he increasingly adopted the personality cult practiced there on his trips to China and - above all - North Korea, his development took an unfavorable direction. His origins as the son of a smallholder, his only four years of primary school and the subsequent apprenticeship as a Schumacher did not seem to be suitable for maintaining the expected respect on the world stage. For example, academic degrees were obtained (probably with the help of ghostwriters) in distance learning (which also happened to his wife Elena, for whom academic degrees and doctoral degrees were simply invented). He collected medals, titles and offices, awards of all kinds, and let his "court diaries" immortalize them in their poems with all sorts of names: here Ceaușescu "titles such as Great Commander, Titan of the Titans, glorious oak from Scorniceşti or son of the sun He also called himself "the chosen one", "our earthly god" or "genius of the Carpathians". " [Wikipedia] His wife Elema was celebrated as a loving mother of the nation and his youngest son Nicu Ceauşescu was introduced to the state as the designated "heir to the throne".
So it is not surprising if this couple asked for an appropriate living environment, e.g. a villa in Bucharest, in which marble and gold were processed to the same extent as the population became impoverished and starved. At the end of 1989, the couple let the "Securitate" secret service put down the uprisings across the country by force of arms and when Ceauşescu spoke and booed in front of 100,000 people in Bucharest on December 21, 1989, he had the live broadcast on television interrupted and the Securitate opened fire on the crowd.
Another attempt at speech by Ceaușescu from the balcony of the party headquarters in Bucharest on December 22, 1989 ended with the common escape from the angry crowd. The couple were eventually arrested by the military in Wallachia's former capital, Tîrgoviște, and sentenced to genocide by means of a "speed trial" previously instituted by Ceaușescu himself. The couple were executed on December 25, 1989, while Nicolae sang the Internationale and Elena shouted to the soldiers "I'm your mother".
The Ceauşescu's villa surprisingly survived the uprisings in Bucharest unscathed. It can be viewed (prerequisite: passport and confirmed date). A visit is not only highly recommended for those interested in history.
(Note. The photos shown are not for sale or cannot be licensed.)
