Danube
"Danube" is an Old European river name derived from a Proto-Indo-European "*dānu". Other river names from the same root include the Dunaj, Dzvina/Daugava, Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr, Dysna, Tana and Tuoni. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, "dānu" means "fluid, drop", in Avestan, the same word means "river". In the Rigveda, "Dānu" once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers." The Finnish word for Danube is Tonava, which is most likely derived from the word for the river in Swedish and German, "Donau". Its Sámi name "Deatnu" means "Great River". It is possible that "dānu" in Scythian as in Avestan was a generic word for "river": "Dnieper" and "Dniestr", from "Danapris" and "Danastius", are presumed to continue Scythian "*dānu apara" "far river" and "*dānu nazdya-" "near river", respectively.
Nazi rule over the Danube River
Before World War II, international trade and commerce at the mouths of the Danube River, as well as many of the physical works needed to keep vessels from running aground, were regulated by an international agency called the European Commission of the Danube, founded in 1856. By the time the Hitlerian invasions began in 1938 the commission was composed of the riparian (river-bordering) states, plus France, Great Britain, and Italy, the chief commercial nations of Europe at that time. Above Brăila, the river was under the control of the International Danube Commission, a body composed only of the riparian states.