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Romania World War II
On April 13, 1939, France and Britain pledged to ensure
the
independence of Romania, but negotiations on a similar
Soviet
guarantee collapsed when Romania refused to allow the Red
Army to
cross its frontiers. On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union
and Nazi
Germany signed a nonaggression pact containing a secret
protocol
giving the Soviet Union the Balkans as its sphere of
influence.
Freed of any Soviet threat, Germany invaded Poland on
September 1
and ignited World War II. The Nazi-Soviet pact and
Germany's
three-week blitzkrieg against Poland panicked Romania,
which
granted refuge to members of Poland's fleeing government.
Romania's
premier, Armand Calinescu, proclaimed neutrality, but Iron
Guards
assassinated him on September 21. King Carol tried to
maintain
neutrality for several months more, but France's surrender
and
Britain's retreat from Europe rendered meaningless their
assurances
to Romania, and therefore Carol needed to strike a deal
with
Hitler.
Romania suffered three radical dismemberments in the
first year
of the war that tore away some 100,000 square kilometers
of
territory and 4 million people. On June 26, 1940, the
Soviet Union
gave Romania a twenty-four-hour ultimatum to return
Bessarabia and
cede northern Bukovina, which had never been a part of
Russia;
after Germany's ambassador in Bucharest advised Carol to
submit,
the king had no other option. In August Bulgaria reclaimed
southern
Dobruja with German and Soviet backing. In the same month,
the
German and Italian foreign ministers met with Romanian
diplomats in
Vienna and presented them with an ultimatum to accept the
retrocession of northern Transylvania to Hungary; Carol
again
conceded. These territorial losses shattered the
underpinnings of
Carol's power. On September 6, 1940, the Iron Guard, with
the
support of Germany and renegade military officers led by
the
premier, General Ion Antonescu, forced the king to
abdicate. Carol
and his mistress again went into exile, leaving the king's
nineteen-year-old son, Michael V (1940-47), to succeed
him.
Antonescu soon usurped Michael's authority and brought
Romania
squarely into the German camp. His new government quickly
enacted
stricter anti-Semitic laws and restrictions on Jewish,
Greek, and
Armenian businessmen; widespread bribery of poor and
corrupt
Romanian officials, however, somewhat mitigated their
harshness.
With Antonescu's blessing, the Iron Guard unleashed a
reign of
terror. In November 1940, Iron Guards thirsty for
vengeance broke
into the Jilava prison and butchered sixty-four prominent
associates of King Carol on the same spot where Codreanu
had been
shot. They also massacred Jews and tortured and murdered
Nicolae
Iorga. Nazi troops, who began crossing into Romania on
October 8,
soon numbered over 500,000; and on November 23 Romania
joined the
Axis Powers. Hitler now cast Romania in the role of
regular
supplier of fuel and food to the Nazi armies. Because the
Iron
Guard's disruptive violence no longer served Hitler's
ends, German
and Romanian soldiers began rounding up and disarming
ill-disciplined members. In January 1941, however, the
Iron Guard
rebelled and street battles erupted. During this fighting,
Iron
Guards murdered 120 helpless Jews and mutilated their
bodies.
German and Romanian troops finally crushed the Iron Guard
after
several weeks.
On June 22, 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. 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.
During the war, Antonescu's regime severely oppressed
the Jews
in Romania and the conquered territories. In Moldavia,
Bukovina,
and Bessarabia, Romanian soldiers carried out brutal
pogroms.
Troops herded at least 200,000 Jews from Bukovina and
Bessarabia--who were considered Soviet traitors--across
the
Dniester and into miserable concentration camps where many
starved
or died of disease or brutality. During the war, about
260,000 Jews
were killed in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and in the camps
across the
Dniester; Hungary's Nazi government killed or deported
about
120,000 of Transylvania's 150,000 Jews in 1944. Despite
rampant
anti-Semitism, most Romanian Jews survived the war.
Germany planned
mass deportations of Jews from Romania, but Antonescu
balked. Jews
acted as key managers in Romania's economy, and Antonescu
feared
that deporting them en masse would lead to chaos; in
addition, the
unceasing personal appeals of Wilhelm Filderman, a Jewish
leader
and former classmate of Antonescu, may have made a crucial
difference.
Romania supplied the Nazi war effort with oil, grain,
and
industrial products, but Germany was reluctant to pay for
the
deliveries either in goods or gold. As a result, inflation
skyrocketed in Romania, and even government officials
began
grumbling about German exploitation. Romanian-Hungarian
animosities
also undermined the alliance with Germany. Antonescu's
government
considered war with Hungary over Transylvania an
inevitability
after the expected final victory over the Soviet Union. In
February
1943, however, the Red Army decimated Romania's forces in
the great
counteroffensive at Stalingrad, and the German and
Romanian armies
began their retreat westward. Allied bombardment slowed
Romania's
industries in 1943 and 1944 before Soviet occupation
disrupted
transportation flows and curtailed economic activity
altogether.
Data as of July 1989
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