Mișu Dulgheru

Mișu Dulgheru (born Mihai Dulberger; January 16, 1909 – April 11, 2002) was a Romanian communist activist and spy. A clerk by trade, he rose through the secret police as the Romanian Communist Party consolidated its hold on power between 1944 and 1947, while from 1948 through 1952, he played an important role as an officer in the new Securitate. Subsequently, arrested as part of a wider purge, he was released after an investigation lasting over two years, but never regained his earlier prestige. Late in life, he left his native country for Israel and, later, Canada.

Biography

Beginnings and detention Born into a Jewish family in Tecuci, his parents were Olga and Sache, a small businessman. He completed three grades of secondary school and two of commercial school, becoming a clerk and an accountant. In January 1940, Liza was hired as a typist at the Soviet commercial office in Bucharest, with Mișu, upon her recommendation, soon following as an accountant. The couple were arrested in June 1941, at the start of Operation Barbarossa, and interned at the Târgu Jiu camp. There, they quickly fell into the communist circle.

Secret police years While at Târgu Jiu, Dulgheru became a protégé of Soviet agent Vania Didenko (alias Ion Vidrașcu), He joined the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) in August 1944, after it became legal as a result of the Royal coup d'état against the country's pro-Axis dictator, Ion Antonescu. Unlike his more brutish colleagues, he was cultivated, attractive and well-dressed, perceived as spontaneous and elegant, rarely resorting to physical abuse during interrogations.

Downfall and later life Dulgheru was, at the same time, an NKVD agent, and he held high-level positions within the new Securitate secret police from its beginnings. He helped coordinate the trial against those involved in the Danube–Black Sea Canal project's failure and helped investigate Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu. He also investigated a group of financiers tried in 1948, and the Protestant pastor Richard Wurmbrand. He was accused of having protected Emil Calmanovici (a businessman known for the financial support he had given to the Communist Party), and he was charged with sabotaging the prosecution of arrested Zionists.

Dulgheru was under investigation for two years and three months. While detained, he was allowed plenty of food, clean clothes and medicines, and was not tortured. he was reduced to the rank of a common soldier. He emigrated to Israel with his family in the early 1980s, and was still alive a decade later; In 2009, the High Court of Cassation and Justice ruled that military prosecutors should open proceedings against Dulgheru for his involvement in the 1948 death under torture of Alcibiades Diamandi; investigators began probing the case in 2013.