Did Romania participate in WWII?
Hungary–Romania relations
During World War II, Hungary and Romania became allies and participated in the war against the Soviet Union. But after the coup on 23 August 1944 Romania switched sides and fought against Hungary. Consequently, Soviet and Romanian troops invaded Hungary, occupied Northern Transylvania by October 1944 and re-established the Romanian administration in the region in March 1945. The 1947 Treaty of Paris reaffirmed the borders between Romania and Hungary as originally defined in Treaty of Trianon 27 years earlier, thus confirming the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania.
Rehabilitation of war criminals in post-Communist Romania
After the fall of Communism in Romania, between 1995 and 2004, a number of war criminals were rehabilitated by the Romanian Supreme Court. The rehabilitation process was part of the general efforts made by Romania to distance itself from its Communist past, as those convicted were sentenced after the country fell under Soviet influence in the wake of World War II. However, as a former Axis country during the Second World War, these rehabilitation initiatives put Romania at odds with the West (the United States in particular), as the former was seeking to join NATO and EU. Thus, the number of acquittals was relatively small, and rehabilitation initiatives ceased altogether in 2004, after Romania joined NATO.
World War I
Romania had been allied with the Central Powers since 1882. When the war began, however, it declared its neutrality, arguing that because Austria-Hungary had itself declared war on Serbia, Romania was under no obligation to join the war. On August 4, 1916, Romania and the Entente signed the Political Treaty and Military Convention, that established the coordinates of Romania's participation in the war. In return, it received the Allies' formal sanction for Transylvania, Banat and other territories of Austria-Hungary to be annexed to Romania. The action had large popular support. On 27 August 1916, the Romanian Army launched an attack against Austria-Hungary, with limited Russian support. The Romanian offensive was initially successful in Transylvania, but a Central Powers counterattack by the drove them back. As a result of the Battle of Bucharest, the Central Powers occupied Bucharest on 6 December 1916. Fighting in Moldova continued in 1917, but Russian withdrawal from the war in late 1917 as a result of the October Revolution meant that Romania was forced to sign an armistice with the Central Powers on 9 December 1917.
Military history of Romania
The Romanian People's Republic (1947–1965) and the Socialist Republic of Romania (1965–1991) were active belligerents in the following military conflicts:
Constantin Brătescu
Constantin Brătescu (March 8, 1892 – April 13, 1971) was a Romanian Major-General during World War II. In 1941, he served first as Chief Propaganda Section General Staff (Romania's Propaganda Minister) and then as a Romanian liaison officer to the German Military Mission, meaning that he served as a German military officer during Operation Barbarossa and the Axis Invasion of the Soviet Union. Starting in 1942 Brătescu was a Romanian General Officer (at the rank of Major-General) and commanded the 1st Cavalry Division throughout the campaign against the Soviets, fighting in such engagements as Operation Barbarossa, Operation Blue, and the Battle of Stalingrad. Following the surrender of Friedrich Paulus' 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad, Brătescu became a prisoner of war and was held captive from 1943 to 1948. Finally, in 1948, he was released after five years of imprisonment and subsequently retired from active service. Bratescu ultimately died twenty-three years later, in 1971, at the age of seventy-nine.
History of Romania
On 20 August 1944 the Soviet Red Army crossed the border into Romania. On 23 August 1944 Antonescu was toppled and arrested by King Michael I of Romania, who joined the Allies and declared war on Germany. On 31 August 1944 the Soviet Red Army entered Bucharest. Despite Romania's change of sides its role in the defeat of Nazi Germany was not recognized by the Paris Peace Conference of 1947.
Vasile Morțun
As Interior Minister, Morțun took part in the Crown Council meeting of August 1914, supporting Romania's neutrality in World War I; and in the session of August 1916, where he backed Romania's entry into the war on the side of the Allies. During the two years of neutrality, he led counterespionage efforts against the Central Powers, who had numerous spies working in the country, and coordinated efforts by the Romanian Police to lay the groundwork for the eventual seizure of Transylvania from Austria-Hungary. Once Romania entered the war, the ministry was involved in securing provisions for the army and ensuring public order, including in newly occupied territories.
Strategic bombing during World War II
The first airstrikes against Romania occurred after Romania joined the Third Reich in June 1941 during their invasion of the Soviet Union. In the following two months, Soviet Air Forces conducted several attacks against the King Carol I Bridge, destroying one of its spans and damaging an oil pipeline. However, after the successful Axis powers Crimean Campaign and overall deterioration of the Soviet position, Soviet attacks against Romania ceased.
List of international subsidiaries of IBM
IBM's Romanian subsidiary was Compania Electrocontabila Watson, incorporated in 1938 in Bucharest. Its customers included railroads, census, statistics offices, and the communication ministry. Bucharest had an IBM Swift Press card printing facility as well. The company helped the Romanian Central Statistical Institute in the Romanian Census of 1941 April, including the special 'Jewish census'. A problem occurred when there were not enough machines to do the job. Lier, with the help of US Commercial Attache Sam Woods and the Romanian Commercial Attache, got the Nazi government (including the Devisenstelle) to ship some machines from German-occupied Poland to Romania. The census proceeded. In Dec 1941 the US entered the war and Romania came under General Rule 11 so interaction with IBM NY and IBM Geneva was restricted. After the war in 1945 IBM submitted requests to the State Department to secure its Romanian bank accounts, and sent compensation claims for damaged equipment.
Romanians
During World War II, the Kingdom of Romania lost territory both to the east and west, as Northern Transylvania became part of Hungary through the Second Vienna Award, while Bessarabia and northern Bukovina were taken by the Soviets and included in the Moldavian SSR, respectively Ukrainian SSR. The eastern territory losses were facilitated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop German-Soviet non-aggression pact.
Little Entente
During World War II, Romania, along with the Independent State of Croatia and the Slovak State formed an alliance similar to the Little Entente, with the purpose of stopping any further Hungarian expansion. The alliance was formed by Romania's Marshal Ion Antonescu.
Romanian Military Police
In World War II starting on 22 June 1941, as part of Axis troops, the Gendarmerie/military police performed following main activities:
History of Romania
In August 1914, when World War I broke out, Romania declared neutrality. Two years later, under the pressure of the Allies (especially France desperate to open a new front), on 14/27 August 1916 it joined the Allies, for which Romania was promised support for the accomplishment of national unity, including recognition of Romanian rights over Transylvania (which was at that time part of Austria-Hungary); Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary.
Romania in World War II
In Romania proper, Soviet occupation following World War II facilitated the rise of the Communist Party as the main political force, leading ultimately to the forced abdication of the King and the establishment of a single-party people's republic in 1947.
Romania in World War II
After the tide of war turned against the Axis, Romania was bombed by the Allies from 1943 onwards and invaded by advancing Soviet armies in 1944. With popular support for Romania's participation in the war faltering and German-Romanian fronts collapsing under the Soviet onslaught, King Michael of Romania led a "coup d'état" that deposed the Antonescu regime and put Romania on the side of the Allies for the remainder of the war. Despite this late association with the winning side, Greater Romania was largely dismantled, losing territory to Bulgaria and the Soviet Union, but regaining Northern Transylvania from Hungary.
Romanian Land Forces
On July 6, 1916, Romania declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary, following the initial success of the Brusilov Offensive (a major Russian offensive against the armies of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front). The Romanian armies entered Transylvania (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), together with Russian forces. However, German forces under the command of General Erich von Falkenhayn stalled the attack in November, 1916, and drove back the Romanians. At the same time, Austrian and Turkish troops invaded southern Romania, forcing the country into a two-front war. The Central Powers drove deep into Romania and conquered the south of the country (Wallachia, including Bucharest) by the end of 1916. The Romanian forces, led by Marshal Constantin Prezan, retreated into the north-east part of Romania (Moldavia). In the summer of 1917 however, Prezan, aided by the future Marshal, General Ion Antonescu, successfully defended the remaining unoccupied territories against German and Austro-Hungarian forces led by Field Marshal August von Mackensen. General Alexandru Averescu led the Second Army in the victories of the Battle of Mărăşti (July 22 to August 1, 1917) and the Battle of Mărăşeşti (August 6 to September 8, 1917). As a result of the Russian Revolution, Romania was left isolated and unable to continue the war, and was forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers. Later on, in 1919, Germany agreed, in the Treaty of Versailles Article 259, to renounce all the benefits provided to it by the Treaty of Bucharest in 1918. After the successful offensive on the Thessaloniki front, which put Bulgaria out of the war, Romania re-entered the war on November 10, 1918, a day before its end in the West.
Invasion of Yugoslavia
While Romania did not take part in the actual invasion of Yugoslavia, it did provide artillery support for the German forces invading from its territory. Operating on orders from the 3rd Section of the Romanian General Staff, Romanian artillery opened fire against Yugoslav barges on the Danube on 6 April. Romanian and German units from the Romanian bank of the Danube repeatedly exchanged fire with Yugoslav forces between 6 and 11 April. The main Romanian force was at Liubcova, consisting in a battery of 120 mm/L10 naval howitzers in a fortified position. Nearby, there was also a section (2 pieces) of 120 mm/L35 naval howitzers as well as a section of 47 mm light naval guns. The Yugoslavs retaliated with their Air Force. Two Bristol Blenheims raided Arad, badly damaging one of the German fighters stationed there before being both shot down. For its contribution, Romania was rewarded with six ex-Yugoslav aircraft captured by the Germans. These machines, delivered free of charge, were however inoperative. The Romanians cannibalized three of them in order to make the other three operational. The three operational aircraft were all Hawker Hurricanes.
Romanian Navy during World War I
In early November, Russian-Romanian forces in Dobruja started a general offensive to recapture land lost to the Central Powers during the Second Battle of Cobadin. The Romanian Navy contributed to the offensive, with the monitor "Catargiu" landing 50 marines to occupy the town of Hârșova on 8 November, after it was abandoned by the retreating enemy. On 10 November, supporting the continuing Allied advance, two Romanian river torpedo boats landed troops at Topalu to occupy the village. On 3 December, the Romanian river torpedo boat "Căpitan Valter Mărăcineanu" was sunk on the Danube by an Austro-Hungarian mine with 1 sailor killed. On 8 December, the Navy joined the ground troops as they started retreating towards the Danube Delta, stopping near Măcin. The Romanian warships spent the last days of 1916 covering the Russians as they retreated North into Russia.
Romanian armies in the Battle of Stalingrad
In October, Romania joined the Axis and expressed its availability for a military campaign against the Soviet Union, in order to recapture the provinces ceded in June. After a highly successful summer campaign in 1941 as part of Army Group South, the Romanian Armed Forces regained the territory between the Prut and Dniestr rivers. General Antonescu decided to continue to advance alongside the Wehrmacht, disregarding the Romanian High Command's doubts over the possibility of sustaining a mobile warfare campaign deep inside Soviet territory. In October 1941, the Romanian Fourth Army occupied Odessa after a protracted siege which caused more than 80,000 casualties on the Romanian side, severe destruction and many casualties among the civilian population (the Odessa massacre). The spring and summer of 1942 saw the Third and Fourth Romanian Armies in action in the Battle of Crimea and the Battle of the Caucasus. By the fall of 1942, the two armies were poised to join the attack on Stalingrad.
Romanians
During the 1870s, the United Romanian Principalities (then led by Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen Domnitor Carol I) fought a War of Independence against the Ottomans, with Romania's independence being formally recognised in 1878 at the Treaty of Berlin. Although the newly founded Kingdom of Romania initially allied with Austria-Hungary, Romania refused to enter World War I on the side of the Central Powers, because it was obliged to wage war only if Austria-Hungary was attacked. In 1916, Romania joined the war on the side of the Triple Entente.
Michael I of Romania
Although the country's alliance with the Nazis was ended, the "coup" sped the Red Army's advance into Romania. The armistice was signed three weeks later on 12 September 1944, on terms the Soviets virtually dictated. Under the terms of the armistice, Romania recognized its defeat by the USSR and was placed under occupation of the Allied forces, with the Soviets, as their representative, in control of media, communication, post, and civil administration behind the front. The coup effectively amounted to a "capitulation", an "unconditional" "surrender". It has been suggested that the "coup" may have shortened World War II by six months, thus saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
Allies of World War II
At the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, as well as their dependent states, such as British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. After the start of the German invasion of North Europe until the Balkan Campaign, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, and Yugoslavia joined the Allies. After first having cooperated with Germany in invading Poland whilst remaining neutral in the Allied-Axis conflict, the Soviet Union perforce joined the Allies in June 1941 after being invaded by Germany. The United States provided war materiel and money all along, and officially joined in December 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. China had already been in a prolonged war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, but officially joined the Allies in 1941.
Săliștea
During World War II, more than 250 people from Cioara fought in the Romanian Army, of which 45 died in action. After the war, 65 children from Bessarabia, including their teacher, found refuge in the commune.
Sandu Tudor
As noted by Neagu Rădulescu, "Credința" came to an abrupt "sad end", which Tudor took shame in recounting. An focused on his new passion, aviation, and bragged about having survived a plane crash. He maintained his religious focus during World War II. The Ion Antonescu dictatorship joined in Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union. Romania's war on the Eastern Front gave an impetus to Romanian monastic life, by restoring the Romanian church's direct contacts with Russian Orthodoxy. The country witnessed the arrival of Russian monks, including one trained at the prestigious Optina Monastery. He was Ivan Kulygin (known to Romanians as "Ivan Kulîghin", "Ivan Kulâghin", or "Ivan Străinul", lit. "Ivan the Foreigner"), a victim of the Soviet regime, who took refuge to Romania after the Battle of Stalingrad.
Former administrative divisions of Romania
This territory was administered by Romania briefly in 1941-1944, when the country was governed by a military dictatorship allied with Nazi Germany. It consisted of formerly proper Soviet territory between Dniester and Southern Bug rivers. Nowadays, most of it is in Ukraine, with small parts in the Republic of Moldova (Transnistria). This territory was kept under Romanian military occupation, and was not annexed by Romania. It was divided into 13 counties:In 1913, as a result of the Second Balkan War, Romania acquired Southern Dobruja from Bulgaria, annexing this historical region within Romania's borders. In 1940, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy forced Romania to return it to Bulgaria ("see Treaty of Craiova"). Romania did not reclaim this area neither after the end of World War II nor at the fall of communism.
Socialist Republic of Romania
When King Michael, supported by the main political parties, overthrew Ion Antonescu in August 1944, breaking Romania away from the Axis and bringing it over to the Allied side, Michael could do nothing to erase the memory of his country's recent active participation in the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Romanian forces fought under Soviet command, driving through Northern Transylvania into Hungary proper, and on into Czechoslovakia and Austria. However, the Soviets treated Romania as conquered territory, and Soviet troops remained in the country as occupying forces under the pretext that Romanian authorities could not guarantee the security and stability of Northern Transylvania.
Crusade Against Communism Medal
The Medalia "Cruciada împotriva comunismului" ("Crusade Against Communism medal", in reference to Operation Barbarossa) was a Romanian military award of World War II. It was instituted on April 1, 1942 by the Royal Decree No. 1014, of King Michael I of Romania. It was commissioned to recognise the distinguished service of Romanian and other Axis Powers military and civilian personnel operating on both the Eastern and Home fronts.
Romania in World War II
In summer 1940 a series of territorial disputes were diplomatically resolved unfavorably to Romania, resulting in the loss of most of the territory gained in the wake of World War I. This caused the popularity of Romania's government to plummet, further reinforcing the fascist and military factions, who eventually staged a coup that turned the country into a dictatorship under "Mareșal" Ion Antonescu. The new regime firmly set the country on a course towards the Axis camp, officially joining the Axis powers on 23 November 1940. As a member of the Axis, Romania joined the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, providing equipment and oil to Nazi Germany as well as committing more troops to the Eastern Front than all the other allies of Germany combined. Romanian forces played a large role during fighting in Ukraine, Bessarabia, Stalingrad and elsewhere. Romanian troops were responsible for the persecution and massacre of up to 260,000 Jews in Romanian-controlled territories, though most Jews living within Romania survived the harsh conditions. According to historian and author Mark Axworthy, the second Axis army in Europe, arguably, belonged to Romania, though, this is disputed since many would agree that this position goes to the Italian army.
History of Romania
After the negotiated retreat of Soviet troops, Romania, under the new leadership of Nicolae Ceauşescu, started to pursue independent policies, including the condemnation of the Soviet-led 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia (Romania being the only Warsaw Pact country not to take part in the invasion), the continuation of diplomatic relations with Israel after the Six-Day War of 1967 (again, the only Warsaw Pact country to do so), and the establishment of economic (1963) and diplomatic (1967) relations with the Federal Republic of Germany. Also, close ties with the Arab countries (and the PLO) allowed Romania to play a key role in the Israel-Egypt and Israel-PLO peace processes by intermediating the visit of Egyptian president Sadat in Israel.
Romania in World War II
The cohabitation between the Iron Guard and Antonescu was never an easy one. On 20 January 1941, the Iron Guard attempted a coup, combined with a pogrom against the Jews of Bucharest. Within four days, Antonescu had successfully suppressed the coup. The Iron Guard was forced out of the government. Sima and many other legionnaires took refuge in Germany; others were imprisoned. Antonescu abolished the National Legionary State, in its stead declaring Romania a "National and Social State."
Dudeștii Noi
During World War I, 127 persons died or were missing in action. Following the collapse of the k.u.k. monarchy, the Banat Republic was proclaimed in 1918. In 1918–1919 (confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 and Treaty of Trianon of 1920), most of the Banat and Neubeschenowa became now part of Romania. The first National Socialist labour camp of the Hitler Youth of Banat was held in Neubeschenowa during the summer of 1933. During World War II, 37 men die in the service of the Romanian army, and 83 men in the German Army. After Romania changed sides and joined the Allies, 19 families fled in September 1944, and all remaining inhabitants were evacuated to the neighbouring community of "St. Andreas" during September 29 – October 10. During the organised Expulsion of Germans from Romania after World War II, 297 men and women were deported for reconstruction works to Ukraine in January and February 1945, of which 68 died in the coal mines as forced labourers. The remaining German population was expropriated. The first Romanian colonists arrived in July, and in 1947 almost every house in Neubeschenowa was occupied by Romanians. 1951–1956 saw the deportation of 62 families to the Bărăgan Plain to a makeshift shanty town by the name of Bumbacâri , north-east of Bucureşti, after the Soviet model of the Gulag. 22 of the 170 deported did not return.
History of the Jews in Romania
On the current territory of Romania, between 290,000 and 360,000 Romanian Jews survived World War II (355,972 persons, according to statistics from the end of the war). During the communist regime in Romania, there was a mass emigration to Israel, and in 1987, only 23,000 Jews lived in Romania.
First Battle of the Jiu Valley
Romania joined the First World War on 27 August 1916, after signing the 1916 Treaty of Bucharest. After a failed offensive into Transylvania, the Central Powers began looking for means of crossing the mountains into Wallachia and knock Romania out of the war. One of the routes chosen was along the Jiu Valley.
History of Romania
During the Second World War, Romania tried again to remain neutral, but on 28 June 1940, it received a Soviet ultimatum with an implied threat of invasion in the event of non-compliance. Under pressure from Moscow and Berlin, the Romanian administration and the army were forced to retreat from Bessarabia as well from Northern Bukovina to avoid war. This, in combination with other factors, prompted the government to join the Axis. Thereafter, southern Dobruja was awarded to Bulgaria, while Hungary received Northern Transylvania as result of an Axis arbitration.
In 1940, Romania lost territory in both east and west: In June 1940, after receiving an ultimatum from the Soviet Union, Romania ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina ("see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia"). Two thirds of Bessarabia were combined with a small part of the USSR to form the Moldavian SSR. Northern Bukovina and Budjak were apportioned to the Ukrainian SSR. In August 1940, Northern Transylvania was awarded to Hungary by Germany and Italy through the Second Vienna Award. Southern Dobruja was also lost to Bulgaria shortly after Carol's abdication.
Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
Overall, the desire to regain the lost territories was the deciding factor leading to the entry of Romania into World War II on the side of the Axis against the Soviet Union.
Romania in World War II
The Romanian Army ended the war fighting against the Wehrmacht alongside the Red Army in Transylvania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Austria and Czechoslovakia, from August 1944 until the end of the war in Europe. In May 1945, the First and Fourth armies took part in the Prague Offensive. The Romanian Army incurred heavy casualties fighting Nazi Germany. Of some 538,000 Romanian soldiers who fought against the Axis in 1944–45, some 167,000 were killed, wounded or went missing.
Romania in World War II
In the aftermath of World War I, Romania, which fought with the Entente against the Central Powers, had greatly expanded its territory, incorporating the regions of Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina, largely as a result of the vacuum created by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. This led to the achievement of the long-standing nationalist goal of creating a Greater Romania, a national state that would incorporate all ethnic Romanians. However, the newly gained territories also included significant Hungarian, German, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Russian minorities, which put Romania at odds with several of her neighbors. This occasionally led to violent conflict, as exemplified by the Hungarian–Romanian War and the Tatarbunary uprising. To contain Hungarian irredentism, Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia established the Little Entente in 1921. That same year Romania and Poland concluded a defensive alliance against the emergent Soviet Union, and in 1934 the Balkan Entente was formed with Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey, which were suspicious of Bulgaria.
Romania in World War II
The report commissioned and accepted by the Romanian government in 2004 on the Holocaust concluded:
"Of all the allies of Nazi Germany, Romania bears responsibility for the deaths of more Jews than any country other than Germany itself. The murders committed in Iasi, Odessa, Bogdanovka, Domanovka, and Peciora, for example, were among the most hideous murders committed against Jews anywhere during the Holocaust. Romania committed genocide against the Jews. The survival of Jews in some parts of the country does not alter this reality."
World War II by country
Haiti remained neutral in World War II until the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Thus, in late 1941, Haiti declared war on Japan (8 December), Germany (12 December), Italy (12 December), Bulgaria (24 December), Hungary (24 December) and Romania (24 December). Out of these six Axis countries, only Romania reciprocated, declaring war on Haiti on the same day (24 December 1941). Haiti gave food supplies to Allied forces and hosted a detachment of the United States Coast Guard but did not contribute troops, however "five" Haitians from the Haitian Air Force were integrated into the U.S. military (Tuskegee Airmen division) and fought in the war. The President of Haiti, Élie Lescot, introduced several unpopular emergency measures during the war, which critics claimed were designed to increase his power. Lescot was deposed the year after the war ended.
First Army (Romania)
The last offensive the First Army took part in World War II was the Prague Offensive in May 1945. During the Prague Offensive, the First Army operated together with the Romanian Fourth Army as part of the Soviet 2nd Ukrainian Front. Marshal Ivan Koniev, the commander of the First Ukrainian Front, was the main Soviet commander in the area. Together with Marshal Georgy Zhukov's First Byelorussian Front, Koniev had launched the great attack on April 16 that resulted in the fall of Berlin and Soviet victory on the Eastern Front.
Romania in World War II
Under the 1947 Treaty of Paris, the Allies did not acknowledge Romania as a co-belligerent nation but instead applied the term "ally of Hitlerite Germany" to all recipients of the treaty's stipulations. Like Finland, Romania had to pay $300 million to the Soviet Union as war reparations. However, the treaty specifically recognized that Romania switched sides on 24 August 1944, and therefore "acted in the interests of all the United Nations". As a reward, Northern Transylvania was, once again, recognized as an integral part of Romania, but the border with the USSR was fixed at its state on January 1941, restoring the pre-Barbarossa status quo (with one exception). Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Eastern territories became part of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.
Romania in World War II
Eight days later Nazi Germany invaded the Second Polish Republic. Expecting military aid from Britain and France, Poland chose not to execute its alliance with Romania in order to be able to use the Romanian Bridgehead. Romania officially remained neutral and, under pressure from the Soviet Union and Germany, interned the fleeing Polish government after its members had crossed the Polish–Romanian border on 17 September, forcing them to relegate their authority to what became the Polish government-in-exile. After the assassination of Prime Minister Armand Călinescu on 21 September King Carol II tried to maintain neutrality for several months longer, but the surrender of the Third French Republic and the retreat of British forces from continental Europe rendered the assurances that both countries had made to Romania meaningless.
Geography of Romania
Romania's exterior boundaries are a result of relatively recent events. At the outbreak of World War I, the country's territory included only the provinces of Walachia, Moldavia, and Dobruja. This area, known as the Regat or the Old Kingdom, came into being with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-nineteenth century. At the end of World War I, Romania acquired Transylvania and the Banat. Some of this territory was lost during World War II, but negotiations returned it to Romania. Although this acquisition united some 85 percent of the Romanian-speaking population of Eastern Europe into one nation, it left a considerable number of ethnic Hungarians under Romanian rule. Disputes between Hungary and Romania regarding this territory would surface regularly, as both considered the region part of their national heritage. Questions were also periodically raised as to the historical validity of the Soviet-Romanian border. Bukovina and Bessarabia, former Romanian provinces where significant percentages of the population are Romanian-speaking, were part of the Soviet Union from the end of World War II to its dissolution, and subsequently part of the (formerly Soviet) states of Ukraine and Moldova. Despite ongoing and potential disputes, however, since 1989 Romania has no territorial claims to make.
Ion Antonescu
In June of that year, Romania joined the attack on the Soviet Union, led by Germany in coalition with Hungary, Finland, the State of Slovakia, the Kingdom of Italy and the Independent State of Croatia. Antonescu had been made aware of the plan by German envoys, and supported it enthusiastically even before Hitler extended Romania an offer to participate. On 18 June 1941, Antonescu gave orders to his generals about "cleansing the ground" of Jews when Romanian forces entered Bessarabia and Bukovina. Right from the start, Antonescu proclaimed the war against the Soviet Union to be a "holy war", a "crusade" in the name of Eastern Orthodox faith and the Romanian race against the forces of "Judo-Bolshevism". The propaganda of the Antonescu regime demonized everything Jewish as Antonescu believed that Communism was invented by the Jews, and all of the Soviet leaders were really Jews. Reflecting Antonescu's anti-Slavic feelings, despite the fact that the war was billed as a "crusade" in defense of Orthodoxy against "Judeo-Bolshevism", the war was not presented as a struggle to liberate the Orthodox Russians and Ukrainians from Communism; instead rule by "Judeo-Bolshevism" was portrayed as something brought about the innate moral inferiority of the Slavs, who thus needed to be ruled by the Germans and the Romanians. The Romanian force engaged formed a "General Antonescu Army Group" under the effective command of German general Eugen Ritter von Schobert. Romania's campaign on the Eastern Front began without a formal declaration of war, and was consecrated by Antonescu's statement: "Soldiers, I order you, cross the Prut River" (in reference to the Bessarabian border between Romania and post-1940 Soviet territory). A few days after this, a large-scale pogrom was carried out in Iași with Antonescu's agreement; thousands of Jews were killed in the bloody Iași pogrom. Antonescu had followed a generation of younger right-wing Romanian intellectuals led by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu who in the 1920s-30s had rejected the traditional Francophila of the Romanian elites and their adherence to Western notions of universal democratic values and human rights. Antonescu made it clear that his regime rejected the moral principles of the "demo-liberal world" and he saw the war as an ideological struggle between his spiritually pure "national-totalitarian regime" vs. "Jewish morality". Antonescu believed that the liberal humanist-democratic-capitalist values of the West and Communism were both invented by the Jews to destroy Romania. In a lengthy speech just before the war, Antonescu attacked democracy in the most violent terms as it allowed Jews equal rights and thus to undercut the Romanian "national idea". As such, Antonescu stated what was needed was a "new man" who would be "tough", "virile" and willing to fight for an ethnically and religiously "pure" Romania. Despite his quarrel with Sima, much of Antonescu's speech clearly reflected the influence of the ideas of the Iron Guard that Antonescu had absorbed in the 1930s. Antonescu's anti-Semitism and sexism went so far that he tacitly condoned the rape of Jewish women and girls in Bessarabia and northern Bukovinia by his forces under the grounds that he was going take away all of the property that the Jews had "stolen" from the Romanians, and as far he was concerned, Jewish females were just another piece of property. Since the Jewish women were going to exterminated anyway, Antonescu felt there was nothing wrong about letting his soldiers and gendarmes have "some fun" before shooting them.
After becoming the first Romanian to be granted the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, which he received from Hitler at their August 6 meeting in the Ukrainian city of Berdychiv, Ion Antonescu was promoted to Marshal of Romania by royal decree on August 22, in recognition for his role in restoring the eastern frontiers of Greater Romania. In a report to Berlin, a German diplomat wrote that Marshal Antonescu had syphilis and that "among [Romanian] cavalry officers this disease is as widespread as a common cold is among German officers. The Marshal suffers from severe attacks of it every several months." Antonescu took one of his most debated decisions when, with Bessarabia's conquest almost complete, he committed Romania to Hitler's war effort beyond the Dniester—that is, beyond territory that had been part of Romania between the wars—and thrust deeper into Soviet territory, thus waging a war of aggression. On August 30, Romania occupied a territory it deemed "Transnistria", formerly a part of the Ukrainian SSR (including the entire Moldavian ASSR and further territories). Like the decision to continue the war beyond Bessarabia, this earned Antonescu much criticism from the semi-clandestine PNL and PNȚ. Insofar as the war against the Soviet Union was a war to recover Bessarabia and northern Bukovina-both regions that been a part of Romania until June 1940 and that had Romanian majorities-the conflict had been very popular with the Romanian public opinion. But the idea of conquering Transnistria was not as that region had never been part of Romania, and a minority of the people were ethnic Romanian. Soon after the takeover, the area was assigned to a civil administration apparatus headed by Gheorghe Alexianu and became the site for the main component of the Holocaust in Romania: a mass deportation of the Bessarabian and Ukrainian Jews, followed later by transports of Romani Romanians and Jews from Moldavia proper (that is, the portions of Moldavia west of the Prut).
Carol II of Romania
When World War II began with the German and Soviet invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, followed up by British and French declarations of war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Carol proclaimed neutrality. In doing so, Carol violated the letter of the treaty of alliance with Poland signed in 1921 and the spirit of treaty of alliance signed with France in 1926. Carol justified his policy on the grounds that neutrality provided the only hope of preserving the independence of Romania in light of the alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union established in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 and French unwillingness to mount an invasion of Germany. As usual with Carol, he sought to play a careful balancing act between competing major powers, on one hand signing a new economic treaty with Germany, while on the other hand allowing for a considerable period of time for the Polish troops to cross into Romania without interning them, as international law required. The Poles instead were allowed to travel to Constanța to board ships to take them to Marseille to continue the fight against Germany from France. The Romanian Bridgehead remained a key escape route for thousands of Poles in the desperate days of September 1939. It was only after receiving a number of furious complaints from Fabricius about the passage of Polish soldiers across Romania that Carol finally started to intern the fleeing Poles.
Romania
During World War II, Romania tried again to remain neutral, but on 28 June 1940, it received a Soviet ultimatum with an implied threat of invasion in the event of non-compliance. Again foreign powers created heavy pressure on Romania, by means of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression from 23 August 1939. As a result of it the Romanian government and the army were forced to retreat from Bessarabia as well as from northern Bukovina in order to avoid war with the Soviet Union. The king was compelled to abdicate and appointed general Ion Antonescu as the new prime minister with full powers in ruling the state by royal decree. Romania was prompted to join the Axis military campaign. Thereafter, southern Dobruja was ceded to Bulgaria, while Hungary received Northern Transylvania as result of an Axis powers' arbitration.
Romanian anti-communist resistance movement
The rebels had links with the CIA, which conducted parachute missions in Romania in the early post-war years. At the beginning of 1949, the CIA through its OPC began to recruit displaced Romanians from Germany, Austria, and Yugoslavia. Gordon Mason, the CIA station chief in Bucharest from 1949–51, said that the smuggling of weapons, ammunition, radio transmitters, and medicine were organized. Agents smuggled into Romania by the CIA were to help organize the sabotage of factories and transport networks. In particular, a two-man team was parachuted into Romania by the CIA on 2 October 1952 near Târgu Cărbunești in Oltenia. Three American-trained agents were sent in June 1953 to the Apuseni Mountains, who were later captured, but not executed, as the Romanian authorities intended to use them as double agents. In the Oradea-Satu Mare region, three airdropped agents were killed, one of them in a firefight and two others later executed.
Social Democratic Party of Romania (1910–18)
The party's anti-militarist stance led it to condemn both Romania's participation in the Second Balkan War and, after the start of World War I, the "social patriotic" stance of Western social-democratic parties. Accordingly, it proposed a federalist solution for the complicated ethnic situation in the Balkans, and, after some internal debates, joined the Zimmerwald movement. Neutral at first, by 1916 Romania's government was increasingly open to participation in the war on the Entente side, and decided to crack down on the socialist movement, brutally repressing a pacifist demonstration in Galați in June. The PSD was banned outright when the country declared war on the Central Powers later that year.
Socialist Republic of Romania
As World War II ended, Romania, a former Axis member, was occupied by the Soviet Union, the sole representative of the Allies. On 6 March 1945, after mass demonstrations by communist sympathizers and political pressure from the Soviet representative of the Allied Control Commission, a new pro-Soviet government that included members of the previously outlawed Romanian Workers' Party was installed. Gradually, more members of the Workers' Party and communist-aligned parties gained control of the administration and pre-war political leaders were steadily eliminated from political life. In December 1947, King Michael was coerced to abdicate and the People's Republic of Romania was declared.
World War II casualties
Romania
Panteley Kiselov
Bulgaria entered the World War on the side of the Central Powers in 1915. The 4th Division was again part of the Third Army which was tasked with the defense of the Danube against possible Romanian incursions. In late August 1916 Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary. In returned Bulgaria fulfilled the obligations to its allies and declared war on Romania on 1 September 1916. On the same day Kiselov was promoted to major general.
Henri Stahl
Stahl was drafted into the Romanian Land Forces in 1916, when Romania entered World War I as an enemy of Austria-Hungary. He was a reserve lieutenant in the 6th (Mihai Viteazu) Regiment. He saw action during the early stages of the Romanian Campaign, but was badly wounded in the trenches during the battles of September 1916. Losing consciousness, he was dragged away and rescued by his peasant batman, and was under treatment at Gerota hospital when Iorga dedicated him an encomium in "Neamul Românesc" (September 23, 1916). He was a convalescent in Ploiești when the Central Powers occupied southern Romania.
History of Romania
During the war, Romania was the most important source of oil for Nazi Germany, prompting multiple bombing raids by the Allies. By means of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, Romania recovered Bessarabia and northern Bukovina from the Soviet Russia, under the leadership of general Ion Antonescu.
The Antonescu regime played a major role in the Holocaust, following to a lesser extent the Nazi policy of oppression and massacre of the Jews and Romas, primarily in the Eastern territories Romania recovered or occupied from the Soviet Union (Transnistria) and in Moldavia. According to an international commission report released by the Romanian government in 2004, Antonescu's dictatorial government of Romania was responsible for the murder in various forms including deportations to concentration camps and executions by the Romanian Army and Gendarmerie and the German Einsatzgruppen of some 280,000 to 380,000 Jews on Romanian territories and in the war zones of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria.
Romania during World War I
Despite initial successes, the Romanian forces (aided by Russia) suffered massive setbacks, and by the end of 1916 only Moldavia remained. After several defensive victories in 1917, with Russia's withdrawal from the war following the October Revolution, Romania, almost completely surrounded by the Central Powers, was also forced to drop out of the war; it signed the Treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers in May 1918. On 10 November 1918, just one day before the German armistice and after all the other Central Powers had already capitulated, Romania re-entered the war after the successful Allied advances on the Macedonian Front.
Amicii URSS
During the early stages of World War II, when government in Romania was taken over by the Iron Guard fascist and pro-Nazi Germany movement ("see National Legionary State"), PCR leaders Teohari Georgescu and Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu worked together to reactivate the society, profiting from friendly relations between the new authorities and the Soviet Union; their attempt came to an abrupt end in 1941, when Ion Antonescu's triumph against the Guard provoked a collateral move against communist activists ("see Legionnaires' Rebellion and Bucharest Pogrom").
Ion Șiugariu
His later university years coincided with Romania's participation in World War II, and Șiugariu was briefly called up twice during this period. In July 1942, he obtained a passport and crossed into Hungarian-occupied Northern Transylvania, seeing his parents for the last time in Băița. Considered undesirable by the temporary authorities due to his political stance, he had to take a 12 km walk daily to the gendarmes' post for visa purposes. He attempted a second trip later that year, but was denied approval. In January 1943, he became a reserve officer and was sent to Ploiești for training, then to an infantry regiment in Bacău, in the Moldavia region. That July, during a two-week leave, he married pharmacy student Lucia Stroescu in Râmnicu Vâlcea. In 1944, after the King Michael Coup, he participated in the Romanian Army's push into Central Europe, reaching the Czechoslovak Front. He was killed in early 1945 during the battle for the Slovak town of Brezno. The same year, he was posthumously decorated with the Order of the Crown. Devastated by the news, his 56-year-old father died of double pneumonia a month after his son. In 1956, he was reburied in the Romanian military cemetery at Zvolen.
Horses in World War II
The Romanian cavalry was the largest mounted force amongst German's allies. Romania began the war with six brigades and reformed them into divisions in 1942. A half-hearted modernisation introduced one motorised regiment in each division; prior to deployment in Southern Russia the 7th Cavalry Division was fully motorized. Four divisions were destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad. Two divisions were trapped in Crimea and escaped the Crimean Offensive of 1944 with a loss of all hardware.
Bombing of Romania in World War II
The bombing of Romania in World War II comprised two series of events: until August 1944, Allied operations, and, following the overthrow of Ion Antonescu's dictatorship, operations by Nazi Germany.
Romania in World War II
Throughout the Antonescu years, Romania supplied Nazi Germany and the Axis armies with oil, grain, and industrial products. Also, numerous train stations in the country, such as Gara de Nord in Bucharest, served as transit points for troops departing for the Eastern Front. Consequently, by 1943 Romania became a target of Allied aerial bombardment. One of the most notable air bombardments was Operation Tidal Wave — the attack on the oil fields of Ploiești on 1 August 1943. Bucharest was subjected to intense Allied bombardment on 4 and 15 April 1944, and the Luftwaffe itself bombed the city on 24 and 25 August after the country switched sides.
Gherman Pântea
During the first years of World War II, Romania was caught between the hostile governments of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union ("see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Romania in World War II"). In that context, the Soviets communicated an ultimatum to Romania, and occupied Bessarabia (June 1940). Pântea and his family escaped to Bucharest, where the refugee politician continued his work with the Bessarabian Circle. Later that year, German pressures resulted in the loss of Northern Transylvania, which confirmed the break-up of Greater Romania. By then, the Bessarabian Circle represented a 120,000-strong refugee community, having Inculeț and Daniel Ciugureanu as Presidents, Bosie-Codreanu and Pântea as Vice Presidents.
Ștefan Plavăț
Plavăț returned to Timișoara in the first years of World War II, rejoining the Workshops, and becoming a leading member of the local clandestine organisation of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). As Romania's dictator Ion Antonescu had joined Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Plavăț and others participated in the sabotage of the war production of the Axis. Arrested along other workers of the Workshops in autumn 1942, he was ultimately released due to lack of evidence.
Visarion Puiu
Romania entered World War II in 1941, and Puiu served as Metropolitan of occupied Transnistria at Odessa from 16 November 1942 to 14 December 1943. There, he reopened churches closed by the Soviet authorities, helped the needy, the poor and children, and educated people in the Orthodox faith. He disregarded the ongoing extermination of the Jews in the region by the Romanian authorities. In August 1944, he was in Zagreb (present-day Croatia) for the ordination of an Orthodox bishop there, accompanied by a handful of Romanian priests. He sent the priests back to Romania, sure they would be safe, but decided to flee to the west, fearing punishment from the Soviets for his wartime religious activity in Transnistria. Indeed, a People's Tribunal, the Romanian counterpart of the Nuremberg military tribunals, sentenced him to death "in absentia" for war crimes on 21 February 1946.
Romania
Modern Romania was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. Following World War I, when Romania fought on the side of the Allied powers, Bukovina, Bessarabia, Transylvania as well as parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș became part of the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. In June–August 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Second Vienna Award, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, and Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In November 1940, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact and, consequently, in June 1941 entered World War II on the Axis side, fighting against the Soviet Union until August 1944, when it joined the Allies and recovered Northern Transylvania. Following the war, under the occupation of the Red Army's forces, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards democracy and a market economy.
World War II by country
After the war, Romania forcibly became a people's republic as the country fell under the Soviet sphere of influence and joined the Warsaw Pact.
Romania in World War II
Half of the estimated 270,000 to 320,000 Jews living in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Dorohoi County in Romania were murdered or died between June 1941 and the spring of 1944, of wich between 45,000 and 60,000 Jews were killed in Bessarabia and Bukovina by Romanian and German troops, within months of the entry of the country into the war during 1941. Even after the initial killings, Jews in Moldavia, Bukovina and Bessarabia were subject to frequent pogroms, and were concentrated into ghettos from which they were sent to Transnistria, including camps built and run by the Romanian authorities.
List of main Romanian Navy warships of World War II
This is a list of main warships operated by the Romanian Navy during the Second World War. It includes major surface warships and submarines. Each surface warship in this list is armed with at least two main guns of a caliber greater than 4 inches (102 mm) or with torpedo tubes, and has a range of over 1,200 km (650 nautical miles). The fore-mentioned range is the minimum required for a journey along the maximum East-West extent of the Black Sea, which amounts to a distance of 1,175 km (730 miles or 635 nautical miles). The Black Sea was the naval front where the Royal Romanian Navy operated throughout the war.
Ion Antonescu
Carol's regime slowly dissolved into crisis, a dissolution accelerated after the start of World War II, when the military success of the core Axis Powers and the non-aggression pact signed by Germany and the Soviet Union saw Romania isolated and threatened ("see Romania during World War II"). In 1940, two of Romania's regions, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, were lost to a Soviet occupation consented to by the king. This came as Romania, exposed by the Fall of France, was seeking to align its policies with those of Germany. Ion Antonescu himself had come to value a pro-Axis alternative after the 1938 Munich Agreement, when Germany imposed demands on Czechoslovakia with the acquiescence of France and the United Kingdom, leaving locals to fear that, unless reoriented, Romania would follow. Angered by the territorial losses of 1940, General Antonescu sent Carol a general note of protest, and, as a result, was arrested and interned at Bistrița Monastery. While there, he commissioned Mihai Antonescu to establish contacts with Nazi German officials, promising to advance German economic interest, particularly in respect to the local oil industry, in exchange for endorsement. Commenting on Ion Antonescu's ambivalent stance, Hitler's minister to Romania, Wilhelm Fabricius, wrote to his superiors: "I am not convinced that he is a safe man."
Unification of Romania and Moldova
In 1940, during World War II, Romania agreed to an ultimatum and ceded Moldova to the Soviet Union, which organized it into the Moldavian SSR. In the middle of 1941, Romania joined Hitler's Axis in the invasion of the Soviet Union, recovering Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, as well as occupying the territory to the east of the Dniester it dubbed "Transnistria". By the end of World War II the Soviet Union had reconquered all of the lost territories, reestablishing Soviet authority there. The Soviets strongly promoted the Moldovan ethnic identity, against other opinions that viewed all speakers of the Romanian language as part of a single ethnic group, taking advantage of the incomplete integration of Bessarabia into the interwar Romania.
Romania's foreign policy in the years preceding the outbreak of the World War I
The Balkan Wars constituted the most severe test of the alliance of Romania with Austria-Hungary. In the Second Balkan War the actions of Romania did not receive any support from the Habsburg Empire, which had as a main objective the assimilation of Bulgaria into the Triple Alliance. In the same time, a warming of the official relationships between Romania and France has produced after France supported and approved the actions of Romania and the terms of the treaty of Bucharest. "The Balkan crisis of 1912–1913 completed the alienation of Romania in relation to Austria-Hungary and the Triple Alliance. [...] In the spring of 1914, the approach between Romania and Triple Entente was a real fact".
Caraș-Severin County
After World War I, StEG, Banat and most Austro-Hungarian property were taken over by a company named UDR. During the last years of World War II, when Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany, a partisan group, led by Ștefan Plavăț, was active in the mountainous area of the county. The arrival of the communist regime in Romania after World War II and that regime's campaign of nationalization of the mining industry brought tremendous social upheaval in the area.
Romanian Land Forces
During April–May 1944 the Romanian forces led by General Mihai Racoviţǎ, together with elements of the German Eighth Army were responsible for defending Northern Romania during the Soviet First Jassy-Kishinev Offensive, and took part in the Battles of Târgu Frumos. In late August 1944, the Red Army entered eastern Romania. On August 23, 1944, a coup led by King Michael I of Romania deposed Marshal Antonescu and set up a pro-Soviet government. It has been estimated that the royal coup shortened the war by six months. Romania soon declared war on Nazi Germany, and the First and Fourth Armies were pressed into action. After the expelling of the last Wehrmacht remnants from Romania, the Romanian Armies took part in the Siege of Budapest and the Prague Offensive of May 1945.
Miron Constantinescu
In World War II, authorities were alarmed by his alleged contacts with the Soviet Union and NKVD agents, at the time when Ion Antonescu's regime allied itself with Nazi Germany and took part in Operation Barbarossa ("see Romania during World War II"). Eventually, he was arrested and interned, initially in the camp in Târgu Jiu. Although, like Preoteasa, he was originally close to Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (who was himself an intellectual isolated among PCR members), Constantinescu associated with Gheorghiu-Dej/Emil Bodnăraș faction while in detention, endorsing successful moves against rival leader Ștefan Foriș.
RWD 13
After the outbreak of World War II, 28 Polish RWD-13 were evacuated to Romania (23 RWD-13 and 5 RWD-13S). After the fall of Poland, they were taken over by Romanian civil and military aviation. After Romania joined the war on the Axis side and took part in the attack on the USSR, RWD-13 were used as liaison aircraft by the Air Force. Especially famous were air ambulances, used by the "Escadrila Albă" (White Squadron), flown by women. Twenty-one survived the war and the remaining ones were used in Romania until the 1950s.
Romania in World War II
In a radio broadcast to the Romanian nation and army on the night of 23 August King Michael issued a cease-fire, proclaimed Romania's loyalty to the Allies, announced the acceptance of an armistice (to be signed on September 12) offered by Great Britain, the United States, and the USSR, and declared war on Germany. The coup accelerated the Red Army's advance into Romania, but did not avert a rapid Soviet occupation and capture of about 130,000 Romanian soldiers, who were transported to the Soviet Union, where many perished in prison camps. The armistice was signed three weeks later on 12 September 1944, on terms virtually dictated by the Soviet Union. Under the terms of the armistice, Romania announced its unconditional surrender to the USSR and was placed under occupation of the Allied forces with the Soviet Union as their representative, in control of media, communication, post, and civil administration behind the front. Some attribute the postponement of a formal Allied recognition of the "de facto" change of orientation until 12 September (the date the armistice was signed in Moscow) to the complexities of the negotiations between the USSR and UK.
Carol II of Romania
Forced under Soviet and subsequently Hungarian, Bulgarian, and German pressure to surrender parts of his kingdom to foreign rule, Carol was finally outmaneuvered by the pro-German administration of Ion Antonescu and abdicated in favour of his son Michael in September 1940. He went into exile with Lupescu, initially in Mexico, but ultimately settled in Portugal. In Mexico City, he purchased a house in one of the city's more expensive districts. During World War II, Carol tried to set up a Free Romania movement based in Mexico to overthrow General Antonescu. Carol had hopes that his Free Romania movement would be recognized as a government-in-exile, and would ultimately lead to his restoration as king. But the closest Carol ever came to having his Free Romania movement recognized came in 1942, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho allowed Carol to stand besides him while reviewing his troops. Carol would have liked to operate out of the United States, but the American government refused him permission to enter. Carol was in contact nonetheless with two Eastern Orthodox priests living in Chicago who organized an unsuccessful campaign in the Romanian-American community to pressure the American government to recognize the "Free Romania" committee as the legitimate government of Romania. To advance his cause, Carol published a magazine in America called "The Free Romanian" and published several books in both Romanian and English.
Petrochemical industry in Romania
Romania was the largest European producer of oil in World War II. The oil extracted from Romania was essential for Axis military operations. The petrochemical industry near Ploieşti was bombed heavily by American bombers (see Operation Tidal Wave). After the war, a heavy reconstruction and expansion was done under the communist regime. Since then, most of the industry has been privatized.
Romanian Navy during World War I
The last action of the Romanian Navy during the War took place after Romania re-declared war on the Central Powers on 10 November 1918. In the early hours of 11 November, hours before the Allied Armistice with Germany was signed, the monitor "Kogălniceanu" together with the river torpedo boat "Trotușul" supported the blood-less occupation of Brăila, after the Germans retreated from the city. The Romanians captured 77 assorted German vessels abandoned in the city's port.
Peter Georgescu
During World War II, Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, fighting side by side with the Wehrmacht until 1944, when it joined the Allied powers and faced occupation by the Red Army forces. Following the war, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact.
Nazi rule over the Danube River
Romania entered World War II on November 23, 1940, by signing the Tripartite Pact of the Axis powers. Bulgaria signed on January 3, 1941, and German troops entered the country the next month.
Kingdom of Romania
Romania delayed in entering World War I, but ultimately declared war on the Central Powers in 1916. The Romanian military campaign ended in stalemate when the Central Powers quickly crushed the country's offensive into Transylvania and occupied Wallachia and Dobruja, including Bucharest and the strategically important oil fields, by the end of 1916. In 1917, despite fierce Romanian resistance, especially at Mărăşeşti, due to Russia's withdrawal from the war following the October Revolution, Romania, being almost completely surrounded by the Central Powers, was forced to also drop from the war, signing the Armistice of Focșani and next year, in May 1918, the Treaty of Bucharest. But after the successful offensive on the Thessaloniki front which put Bulgaria out of the war, Romania's government quickly reasserted control and put an army back into the field on November 10, 1918, a day before the war ended in Western Europe. Following the proclamation of the union of Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania on December 1, 1918, by the representatives of Transylvanian Romanians gathered at Alba Iulia, Transylvania was soon united with the Kingdom, as was Bessarabia earlier in 1918, since the power vacuum in Russia caused by the civil war there allowed "Sfatul Țării", or National Council, to proclaim the Union of Bessarabia with Romania. War with the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 resulted in the occupation of Budapest by Romanian troops and the end of Béla Kun's Bolshevik regime.
History of Transylvania
Although Kings Carol I and Ferdinand I were from the German Hohenzollern dynasty, the Kingdom of Romania refused to join the Central Powers and remained neutral at the outbreak of World War I. In 1916 Romania joined the Triple Entente by signing a secret military convention recognising Romania's rights over Transylvania. King Ferdinand's wife, Marie (who had British and Russian parentage) was highly influential during these years.
Naval history of World War II
The Romanian Navy was the largest Axis naval force during the naval war in the Black Sea. When the country joined the war in mid-1941, its main force comprised 5 destroyers (two "Regele Ferdinand"-class and two "Mărăști"-class plus the sea-going torpedo boat "Sborul"), 1 submarine ("Delfinul"), 1 minelaying frigate ("Amiral Murgescu"), five sea-going monitors (four "Mihail Kogălniceanu"-class and one "Sava"-class), three coastguard cruisers (all "Bistrița"-class), six escort corvettes (four of the French-built "Sublocotenent Ghiculescu"-class plus the converted torpedo boats "Năluca" and "Smeul"). Two more submarines, "Marsuinul" and "Rechinul", were launched a short while prior to Romania's entry into the war, but they were commissioned only in May 1943. Also acquired in 1943 were five Italian CB-class midget submarines. By May 1944, two Romanian motor torpedo boats ("Viscolul" and "Vedenia") were fitted for escort service.
Military history of Romania
Romania reached its zenith during the inter-war period. After World War II, it was reduced to its modern borders and fell in the Soviet sphere of influence. The revolution of 1989 ended Communism and the geopolitical mutations in the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union paved the way for European integration, economically, politically, and militarily. Today, the Romanian army participates in peacekeeping missions with its NATO allies in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere.
Western Allied Campaign in Romania
The Western Allied Campaign in Romania consisted of war declarations and aerial operations during the Second World War by 8 Western Allied countries against Romania which itself was primarily engaged on the Eastern Front in fighting against the Soviet Union.
Romania in World War II
On 22 June 1941, German armies with Romanian support attacked the Soviet Union. German and Romanian units conquered Bessarabia, Odessa, and Sevastopol, then marched eastward across the Russian steppes toward Stalingrad. Romania welcomed the war because they were allies with Germany. In a morbid competition with Hungary to curry Hitler's favor and hoping to regain northern Transylvania, Romania mustered more combat troops for the Nazi war effort than all of Germany's other allies combined. Hitler rewarded Romania's loyalty by returning Bessarabia and northern Bukovina and by allowing Romania to annex Soviet lands immediately east of the Dniester, including Odessa. Romanian jingoes in Odessa even distributed a geography showing that the Dacians had inhabited most of southern Russia. After recovering Bessarabia and Bukovina (Operation München), Romanian units fought side by side with the Germans onward to Odessa, Sevastopol, Stalingrad and the Caucasus. The total number of troops involved on the Eastern Front with the Romanian Third Army and the Romanian Fourth Army was second only to that of Nazi Germany itself. The Romanian Army had a total of 686,258 men under arms in the summer of 1941 and a total of 1,224,691 men in the summer of 1944. The number of Romanian troops sent to fight in the Soviet Union exceeded that of all of Germany's other allies combined. A "Country Study" by the U.S. Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress attributes this to a "morbid competition with Hungary to curry Hitler's favor... [in hope of]... regaining northern Transylvania."
Romania in World War II
Romanian soldiers and gendarmes also worked with the "Einsatzkommandos", German killing squads, tasked with massacring Jews and Roma in conquered territories, the local Ukrainian militia, and the SS squads of local Ukrainian Germans (Sonderkommando Russland and Selbstschutz). Romanian troops were in large part responsible for the Odessa massacre, in which from October 18, 1941, until mid-March 1942, Romanian soldiers in Odessa, aided by gendarmes and police, killed up to 25,000 Jews and deported more than 35,000.
National Liberal Party-Brătianu
After the outbreak of World War II, Romania was, despite its neutrality, a target for the hostility of both Germany and the Soviet Union after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ("se Romania during World War II"). Gheorghe I. Brătianu attempted to determine more Axis sympathy towards Greater Romania's borders by discussing the matter with the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop—consequently, he was placed under surveillance by Siguranţa Statului, on Carol's direct orders. In 1940, Greater Romania was disestablished through the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, the cession of Northern Transylvania to Hungary, and that of Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria. Although being, as himself later pointed out, "a Germanophile", Gheorghe I. Brătianu signed his name to a protest regarding the German-enforced Arbitration, and later stated that he had "preferred Germany's hostility to its scorn".
Diplomatic history of World War I
Romania, a small rural Orthodox nation of 7,500,000 people in 54,000 square miles of territory, was neutral for the first two years of the war. It had the major oil fields in Europe, and Germany eagerly bought its petroleum, as well as food exports. King Carol favored Germany but after his death in 1914, King Ferdinand and the nation's political elite favored the Entente. For Romania, the highest priority was taking Transylvania from Hungary, thus adding ca. 5,200,000 people, 54% (according to 1910 census) or 57% (according to the 1919 and 1920 censuses) of them Romanians. The Allies wanted Romania to join its side in order to cut the rail communications between Germany and Turkey, and to cut off Germany's oil supplies. Britain made loans, France sent a military training mission, and Russia promised modern munitions. The Allies promised at least 200,000 soldiers to defend Romania against Bulgaria to the south, and help it invade Austria. In August 1916 Romania entered the war on the Allied side. The Romanian army was poorly trained, badly equipped and inadequately officered. Romania did invade Austria-Hungary, but was soon thrown back, and faced a second front when Bulgarian troops, supported by German and Ottoman forces, invaded in Dobruja. By the end of 1916, two-thirds of the country (including the capital Bucharest) were occupied by the Central Powers and only Moldavia remained free. The Allied promises proved illusory, and when Romanian oilfields were threatened, the British destroyed the Ploiești oilfields to keep them out of German hands. On July 22, 1917, the Romanians launched a joint offensive with Russia against the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army, around Mărăști and the lower part of the Siret river, which resulted in the Battle of Mărăști. Although there was some initial success, a counter-offensive by the Central Powers in Galicia stopped the Romanian-Russian offensive. The subsequent German and Austrian-Hungarian push to knock Romania out of the war was stopped at Mărășești and Oituz by the Romanian and Russian forces. When Russia collapsed in late 1917, the Romanian cause was hopeless, and Romania had no choice but to conclude the Armistice of Focșani on 9 December 1917 and in May 1918 the Treaty of Bucharest. It demobilized its surviving soldiers; nearly half the 750,000 men (335,706) it had recruited were dead, and the economy was ruined. On 10 November 1918, as the Central Powers were all surrendering, Romania again joined the Allied side. On 28 November 1918, the Romanian representatives of Bukovina voted for union with the Kingdom of Romania, followed by the proclamation of a Union of Transylvania with Romania on 1 December 1918 by the representatives of Transylvanian Romanians gathered at Alba Iulia, while the representatives of the Transylvanian Saxons approved the act on 15 December at an assembly in Mediaș. A similar gathering was held by the minority Hungarians in Cluj, on 22 December, to reaffirm their allegiance to Hungary. The Romanian control of Transylvania, which had also a minority Hungarian-speaking population of 1,662,000 (31.6%, according to the census data of 1910), was widely resented in the new nation state of Hungary. This started the Hungarian-Romanian War of 1919 between Romania and the Hungarian Soviet Republic, which also waged parallel conflicts with Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The conflict with Romania ended with a partial Romanian occupation of Hungary.
Anti-Romanian sentiment
Another historical event which contributed to the future implementation of the anti-Romanian feelings was Romania’s behaviour in World War II, when the Romanian regime allied itself with Nazi Germany.
Romania in World War II
This is a list of battles and other combat operations in World War II in which Romanian forces took part.
Romanian armor during the War comprised a mix of various imported or captured designs that were refurbished as well as several Romanian-produced vehicles.
Southern Transylvania
Southern Transylvania was a region of the Kingdom of Romania between 1940 and 1944, during World War II. The region of Transylvania, belonging entirely to Romania when the war started in 1939, was split in 1940 between Romania and Hungary, with the latter taking Northern Transylvania in the aftermath of the Second Vienna Award.
Romanian submarines of World War II
During the Second World War, the Royal Romanian Navy operated a total of 9 submarines: three fleet submarines and six midget submarines. These vessels fought on the Axis side during the war. Only two of them survived the war and continued to serve in the Romanian Navy until the 1960s.
Romanian Volunteer Corps in Russia
During 1916, Romania entered World War I as an Entente country, in alliance with the Russian Empire against Austria-Hungary and the other Central Powers. After a while, Romania began investigating the fate and loyalties of Austria-Hungarian Romanians who were held in Russian POW camps. Estimates for that period place the total population of Bukovinan and Transylvanian Romanians in such facilities, throughout Russia, at 120,000 or 130,000. Meanwhile, in Romania itself there were several thousand Romanian refugees from Austria-Hungary who immediately signed up for service in the Romanian Armed Forces.
World War II by country
With the entry of Soviet troops into Romania and a royal coup in August 1944, a pro-Allied government was installed, and after Germany and Hungary declared war on Romania, the country joined the Allies as a co-belligerent for the remainder of the war. The total number of troops deployed against the Axis was 567,000 men in 38 army divisions. The Romanian Army was involved in the siege of Budapest and reached as far as Czechoslovakia and Austria.
Ion Antonescu
As the Soviet Union recovered from the initial shock and slowed down the Axis offensive at the Battle of Moscow (October 1941 – January 1942), Romania was asked by its allies to contribute a larger number of troops. A decisive factor in Antonescu's compliance with the request appears to have been a special visit to Bucharest by Wehrmacht commander Wilhelm Keitel, who introduced the "Conducător" to Hitler's plan for attacking the Caucasus ("see Battle of the Caucasus"). The Romanian force engaged in the war reportedly exceeded German demands. It came to around 500,000 troops and thirty actively involved divisions. As a sign of his satisfaction, Hitler presented his Romanian counterpart with a luxury car. On December 7, 1941, after reflecting on the possibility for Romania, Hungary and Finland to change their stance, the British government responded to repeated Soviet requests and declared war on all three countries. Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and in compliance with its Axis commitment, Romania declared war on the United States within five days. These developments contrasted with Antonescu's own statement of December 7: "I am an ally of the [German] Reich against [the Soviet Union], I am neutral in the conflict between Great Britain and Germany. I am for America against the Japanese."
List of Romanian-built warships of World War II
In 1907, despite lacking a dry dock, the Romanian shipyard at Galați was able to co-build a class of four 700-ton river monitors for the Romanian Danube Flotilla: the "Mihail Kogălniceanu" class. The four vessels of this class were built in sections at STT in Austria-Hungary, transported to Romania then assembled and launched at Galați. Each monitor had an overall armour thickness of 70-75 mm. During World War II, all four monitors were fitted for service at sea as anti-submarine escorts, each being armed with three 120 mm naval guns in single armored turrets, one 76 mm naval/AA gun, two 47 mm naval guns and two depth charge throwers (one of 760 mm and the other of 700 mm). The four warships were in service throughout both world wars. "Mihail Kogălniceanu" engaged in battle and damaged two Soviet river monitors during the first month of "Operation Barbarossa". She also shot down one Soviet aircraft on 29 June 1941.
World War II
At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy and Germany as the Axis Powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three. The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined. Romania and Hungary would make major contributions to the Axis war against the Soviet Union, in Romania's case partially to recapture territory ceded to the Soviet Union.
Romania
Romania remained neutral for the first two years of World War I. Following the secret Treaty of Bucharest, according to which Romania would acquire territories with a majority of Romanian population from Austria-Hungary, it joined the Entente Powers and declared war on 27 August 1916. After initial advances the Romanian military campaign quickly turned disastrous for Romania as the Central Powers occupied two-thirds of the country within months, before reaching a stalemate in 1917. The October Revolution and Russian withdrawal from the War left Romania alone and surrounded, and a cease fire was negotiated at Focșani that December.
Second Romanian Campaign of World War I
The First Romanian Campaign ended in victory for the Central Powers, forcing Romania to sign the Treaty of Bucharest and drop out of the war in May 1918. This treaty was deeply resented by the Romanians, who re-declared war on the Central Powers on 10 November 1918.
Leopold Steinbatz
World War II in Europe had begun on Friday, 1 September 1939, when German forces invaded Poland. Steinbatz was transferred to 2. "Staffel" (6th squadron) of the "Ergänzungsgruppe" of "Jagdgeschwader" 52 (JG 52—52nd Fighter Wing), a supplementary and training fighter group of JG 52. There he first met Hermann Graf, his future wingman on the Eastern Front. In August 1940, Steinbatz was transferred to 9. "Staffel" (9th squadron) of JG 52, a squadron of III. "Gruppe" (3rd Group) and was then assigned to the "Luftwaffenmission Rumänien" ("Luftwaffe" Mission Romania) under the command of "Generalleutnant" Wilhelm Speidel. The military mission from Germany supported General Ion Antonescu in the reorganization of his country's armed forces. III./JG 52 was transferred to Bucharest in mid-October and temporarily renamed I./"Jagdgeschwader" 28 (I./JG 28) until 4 January 1941.
Coastal batteries of Romania
The only time in World War II when the coastal batteries were used in combat was on 26 June 1941, when the Soviet Black Sea Fleet attacked Constanța. The attack was repelled by the Romanian destroyers "Regina Maria" and "Mărășești" supported by coastal artillery, the "Tirpitz" battery damaging the Soviet destroyer leader "Kharkov".