Harvey, Collision of Empires: Britain in Three World Wars, 1793–1945, Continuum International Publishing Group, London, 1992.
After graduation, in 1904, Antonescu joined the Romanian Army with the rank of Second Lieutenant.
After the war, he was executed. A Romanian Army career officer who made his name during the 1907 peasants' revolt and the World War I Romanian Campaign, the antisemitic Antonescu sympathized with the far-right and fascist National Christian and Iron Guard groups for much of the interwar period.
Antonescu also developed a reputation for questioning his commanders and for appealing over their heads whenever he felt they were wrong. During the repression of the 1907 peasants' revolt, he headed a cavalry unit in Covurlui County.
The following year, Antonescu was promoted to Lieutenant, and, between 1911 and 1913, he attended the Advanced War School, receiving the rank of Captain upon graduation.
The following year, Antonescu was promoted to Lieutenant, and, between 1911 and 1913, he attended the Advanced War School, receiving the rank of Captain upon graduation.
In 1913, during the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria, Antonescu served as a staff officer in the First Cavalry Division in Dobruja. ===World War I=== After 1916, when Romania entered World War I on the Allied side, Ion Antonescu acted as chief of staff for General Constantin Prezan.
In 1913, during the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria, Antonescu served as a staff officer in the First Cavalry Division in Dobruja. ===World War I=== After 1916, when Romania entered World War I on the Allied side, Ion Antonescu acted as chief of staff for General Constantin Prezan.
Romanian Cassandra: Ion Antonescu and the Struggle for Reform, 1916-1941 (East European Monographs, 1993) Petru Weber, "Die Wahrnehmung des »Domestic Holocaust« im Rumänien der Nachkriegsjahre", in Regina Fritz, Carola Sachse, Edgar Wolfrum (eds.), Nationen und ihre Selbstbilder.
He contributed to the tactics used during the Battle of Mărășești (July–August 1917), when Romanians under General Eremia Grigorescu managed to stop the advance of German forces under the command of Field Marshal August von Mackensen.
Duca, who wrote that "his [Antonescu's] intelligence, skill and activity, brought credit on himself and invaluable service to the country." Another event occurring late in the war is also credited with having played a major part in Antonescu's life: in 1918, Crown Prince Carol (the future King Carol II) left his army posting to a commoner.
He participated in the political campaign to earn recognition at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 for Romania's gains in Transylvania.
As of 2019, Romania has nine streets named after Antonescu; locations include Constanța, Râmnicu Sărat and Bechet. ==Awards and decorations== Antonescu received a number of awards and decorations throughout his military career, most notable being the Order of Michael the Brave, which was personally awarded to him by King Ferdinand I during the Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919.
Philip Morgan, Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945, Routledge, London, 2003.
"To arm an ally: French arms sales to Romania, 1926–1940." Journal of Strategic Studies 19.2 (1996): 231-259. Ottmar Trașcă, "Ocuparea orașului Odessa de căre armata română și măsurile adoptate față de populația evreiască", in the Romanian Academy George Bariț Institute of History's Historica Yearbook 2008, pp. 377–425 Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919–1941: Mistica ultranaționalismului, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993.
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.
The Israeli historian Jean Ancel wrote that Antonescu's frequent changes of mood were due to the syphilis he contracted as a young man, a condition he suffered from for the rest of his life. He became attache in Paris in 1922.
In 1923, he made the acquaintance of lawyer Mihai Antonescu, who was to become his close friend, legal representative and political associate. After returning to Romania in 1926, Antonescu resumed his teaching in Sibiu, and, in the autumn of 1928, became Secretary-General of the Defense Ministry in the Vintilă Brătianu cabinet.
This verdict was followed by two sets of appeals, which claimed that the restored and amended 1923 Constitution did not offer a framework for the People's Tribunals and prevented capital punishment during peacetime, while noting that, contrary to the armistice agreement, only one power represented within the Allied Commission had supervised the tribunal.
Antonescu himself recounted having contemplated using the death penalty against "sects" who would not allow military service, and ultimately deciding in favor of deporting "recalcitrant" ones. ==Legacy== ===Consequences of the Antonescu trial=== The period following Antonescu's fall returned Romania to a democratic regime and the 1923 Constitution, as well as its participation in the war alongside the Allies.
In 1923, he made the acquaintance of lawyer Mihai Antonescu, who was to become his close friend, legal representative and political associate. After returning to Romania in 1926, Antonescu resumed his teaching in Sibiu, and, in the autumn of 1928, became Secretary-General of the Defense Ministry in the Vintilă Brătianu cabinet.
"To arm an ally: French arms sales to Romania, 1926–1940." Journal of Strategic Studies 19.2 (1996): 231-259. Ottmar Trașcă, "Ocuparea orașului Odessa de căre armata română și măsurile adoptate față de populația evreiască", in the Romanian Academy George Bariț Institute of History's Historica Yearbook 2008, pp. 377–425 Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919–1941: Mistica ultranaționalismului, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993.
In 1923, he made the acquaintance of lawyer Mihai Antonescu, who was to become his close friend, legal representative and political associate. After returning to Romania in 1926, Antonescu resumed his teaching in Sibiu, and, in the autumn of 1928, became Secretary-General of the Defense Ministry in the Vintilă Brătianu cabinet.
During the late 1930s, his political stance brought him into conflict with King Carol II and led to his detainment.
These assignments coincided with the rule of Carol's underage son Michael I and his regents, and with Carol's seizure of power in 1930.
The regime of King Carol had been notorious for been the most corrupt regime in Europe during the 1930s, and when Carol fled Romania, he took with him the better part of the Romanian treasury, leaving the new government with enormous financial problems.
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.
According to Gledhill and King: "Romanian liberals had been critical of their government's warm relationship with Hitler, which had been developing throughout the 1930s, but the [1940] Soviet attack on Romanian territory left them with little chance but to support Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union." Other authors also cite the Greater Romanian agenda of the Antonescu executive as a reason behind the widespread acquiescence.
In 1936, to the authorities' alarm, Army General and Iron Guard member Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul arranged a meeting between Ion Antonescu and the movement's leader, Corneliu Codreanu.
Antonescu is reported to have found Codreanu arrogant, but to have welcomed his revolutionizing approach to politics. ===Defense portfolio and the Codreanu trials=== In late 1937, after the December general election came to an inconclusive result, Carol appointed Goga Prime Minister over a far right cabinet that was the first executive to impose racial discrimination in its treatment of the Jewish community.
However, his major contribution in office was in relation to an internal crisis: as a response to violent clashes between the Iron Guard and the PNC's own fascist militia, the Lăncieri, Antonescu extended the already imposed martial law. The Goga cabinet ended when the tentative rapprochement between Goga and Codreanu prompted Carol to overthrow the democratic system and proclaim his own authoritarian regime (see 1938 Constitution of Romania, National Renaissance Front).
The deposed Premier died in 1938, while Antonescu remained a close friend of his widow, Veturia Goga.
Antonescu's mandate ended on March 30, 1938.
Codreanu himself was taken into custody and discreetly killed by the Gendarmes acting on Carol's orders (November 1938). 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).
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.
Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2004.
Romania in the Second World War: 1939-1945 (East European Monographs, 2000). Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, Routledge, London, 1993.
Antonescu nevertheless rose to political prominence during the political crisis of 1940, and established the National Legionary State, an uneasy partnership with the Iron Guard's leader Horia Sima.
In 1940, two of Romania's regions, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, were lost to a Soviet occupation consented to by the king.
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.
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." ===Rise to power=== Romania's elite had been intensely Francophile ever since Romania had won its independence in the 19th century, indeed so Francophile that the defeat of France in June 1940 had the effect of discrediting the entire elite.
On 2 September 1940, Valer Pop, a courtier and an important member of the camarilla, first advised Carol to appoint Antonescu as Prime Minister as the solution to the crisis.
When Carol proved reluctant to make Antonescu Prime Minister, Pop visited the German legation to meet with Fabricius on the night of 4 September 1940 to ask that the German minister phone Carol to tell him that the Reich wanted Antonescu as Prime Minister, and Fabricius's promptly did just that.
Carol yielded and, on September 5, 1940, the general became Prime Minister, and Carol transferred most of his dictatorial powers to him.
On October 6, he presided over the Iron Guard's mass rally in Bucharest, one in a series of major celebratory and commemorative events organized by the movement during the late months of 1940.
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.
His arguments on the matter involved a spurious claim that, during the 1940 retreat from Bessarabia, the Jews had organized themselves and attacked Romanian soldiers.
Many young German Romanian men opted to join the Schutzstaffel as early as 1940 and, in 1943, an accord between Antonescu and Hitler automatically sent ethnic Germans of recruitable age into the Wehrmacht. The regime was characterized by the leader's attempts to regulate even remote aspects of public life, including relations between the sexes.
In various of his early 1940s statements, Ion Antonescu favorably mentions the Axis goal of eliminating the Jewish presence in the event of victory.
Political humor of the 1940s preserved distinct images of the Romanian leader.
; see: *Letiția Guran, Alexandru Ștefan, "Romanian Literature under Stalinism", pp. 112–124 *John Neubauer et al., "1945", pp. 143–177 Dennis Deletant, Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania, 1940–1944, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2006.
After entering Romania into an alliance with Nazi Germany and ensuring Adolf Hitler's confidence, he eliminated the Guard during the Legionary Rebellion of 1941.
Immediately after coming into office, Antonescu himself expanded the anti-Jewish and Nuremberg law-inspired legislation passed by his predecessors Goga and Ion Gigurtu, while tens of new anti-Jewish regulations were passed in 1941–1942.
On 14 January 1941 during a German-Romanian summit, Hitler informed Antonescu of his plans to invade the Soviet Union later that year and asked Romania to participate.
Antonescu again sought backing from the PNȚ and PNL to form a national cabinet, but his rejection of parliamentarism made the two groups refuse him. Antonescu traveled to Germany and met Hitler on eight more occasions between June 1941 and August 1944.
The German military presence increased significantly in early 1941, when, using Romania as a base, Hitler invaded the rebellious Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Greece (see Balkans Campaign).
In parallel, Romania's relationship with the United Kingdom, at the time the only major adversary of Nazi Germany, erupted into conflict: on February 10, 1941, British Premier Winston Churchill recalled His Majesty's Ambassador Reginald Hoare, and approved the blockade of Romanian ships in British-controlled ports.
On 12 June 1941, during another summit with Hitler, Antonescu first learned of the "special" nature of Operation Barbarossa, namely, that the war against the Soviet Union was to be an ideological war to "annihilate" the forces of "Judeo-Bolshevism," a "war of extermination" to be fought without any mercy; Hitler even showed Antonescu a copy of the "Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia" he had issued to his forces about the "special treatment" to be handed out to Soviet Jews.
During his summit with Hitler in June 1941, Antonescu told the Führer that he believed it was necessary to "once and for all" eliminate Russia as a power because the Russians was the most powerful Slavic nation and that as a Latin people, the Romanians had an inborn hatred of all Slavs and Jews.
On 18 June 1941, Antonescu gave orders to his generals about "cleansing the ground" of Jews when Romanian forces entered Bessarabia and Bukovina.
In September 1941, Antonescu ordered Romanian forces to take Odessa, a prize he badly wanted for reasons of prestige.
Much to Antonescu's intense fury, the Red Army were able to halt the Romanian offensive on Odessa and 24 September 1941 Antonescu had to reluctantly ask for the help of the Wehrmacht with the drive on Odessa.
On 16 October 1941 Odessa fell to the German-Romanian forces.
In the fall of 1941, Antonescu planned to deport all of the Jews of the Regat, southern Bukovina and southern Transylvania into Transnistria as the prelude to killing them, but this operation was vetoed by Germany, who complained that Antonescu had not finished killing the Jews of Transnistria yet.
The Conducător had also created an intra-Axis alliance against Hungary along with Croatia and Slovakia. 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.
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.
Romania's oil was the Reich's only source of natural oil after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 to August 1944 (Germany also had synthetic oil plants operating from 1942 onwards), and as such for economic reasons, Romania was always treated as a major ally by Hitler.
In addition to early annexation plans to the Southern Bug (reportedly confessed to Bossy in June 1941), the Conducător is known to have presented his ministers with designs for the region's colonization.
In April 1941, he let his ministers know that he was considering letting "the mob" deal with the Jews, "and after the slaughter, I will restore order." Lucian Boia notes that the Romanian leader was indeed motivated by antisemitic beliefs, but that these need to be contextualized in order to understand what separates Antonescu from Hitler in terms of radicalism.
In a summer 1941 address to his ministers, Antonescu stated: "The Satan is the Jew.
However, as early as February 1941, Antonescu was also contemplating the ghettoization of all Jewish Romanians, as an early step toward their expulsion.
After a February 1941 inspection, Antonescu singled out Bucharest's Romani community for alleged offences committed during the blackout, and called on his ministers to present him with solutions.
Accordingly, Antonescu formally outlawed all political forces in February 1941, codifying penal labor as punishment for most public forms of political expression.
In 1941, he disestablished participative government in localities and counties, replacing it with a corporatist structure appointed by prefects whom he named.
In stages between August and October 1941, he instituted civilian administration of Transnistria under Governor Gheorghe Alexianu, whose status he made equivalent to that of a cabinet minister.
In late August 1941, in Tighina, Antonescu called a secret conference attended by himself, the governors of Bessarabia and Bukovina and the governor-designate of Transnistria to discuss his plans regarding the Jews in those regions. Many deaths followed, as the direct results of starvation and exhaustion, while the local German troops carried out selective shootings.
On 11 October 1941, the chief of the Federation of Jewish Communities, Wilhelm Filderman issued a public letter to Antonescu asking him to stop the deportations, writing: "This is death, death for no reason except that they are Jews." Antonescu replied to Filderman in a long letter explaining that because the entire Jewish community of Bessarabia had allegedly collaborated with the Soviets during the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, his policies were a justified act of revenge.
On 11 November 1941, Antonescu sent Filderman a second letter stating no Jews would be allowed to live in the "liberated territories" and as for the Jews of the Regat: We decided to defend our Romanian rights because our all-too-tolerant past was taken advantage of by the Jews and facilitated the abuse of our rights by foreigners, particularly the Jews...We are determined to put an end to this situation.
At a Cabinet meeting on 16 December 1941 to discuss the fate of the Jews of Transnistria, Antonescu stated: The question of the Yids is being discussed in Berlin.
Economic exploitation was institutionalized in late 1941-early 1942, with the creation of a Central Jewish Office.
Small numbers of Romanian Jews left independently for the Palestine as early as 1941, but British opposition to Zionist plans made their transfer perilous (one notorious example of this being the MV Struma).
As the Romanian administrators abandoned Transnistria, most survivors from the group returned on their own in summer 1944. ===Antonescu and the Final Solution projects=== Ion Antonescu and his subordinates were for long divided on the issue of the Final Solution, as applied in territories under direct Nazi control from 1941.
In August 1941, in preparation for the Final Solution's universal application, Hitler remarked: "As for the Jewish question, today in any case one could say that a man like Antonescu, for example, proceeds much more radically in this manner than we have done until now.
Author George Călinescu also stood out against the official guidelines, and, in 1941, took a risk by publishing a synthesis of Romanian literature which emphasized Jewish contributions, while composer George Enescu pleaded with Antonescu personally for the fate of Romani musicians.
Pogromul de la Iași, 29 iunie 1941, Polirom, Iași, 2005.
Rebecca Ann Haynes, " 'A New Greater Romania'? Romanian Claims to the Serbian Banat in 1941", in Central Europe, Vol.
The Conducător had also created an intra-Axis alliance against Hungary along with Croatia and Slovakia. 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.
I am for America against the Japanese." A crucial change in the war came with the Battle of Stalingrad in June 1942 – February 1943, a major defeat for the Axis.
Romania's oil was the Reich's only source of natural oil after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 to August 1944 (Germany also had synthetic oil plants operating from 1942 onwards), and as such for economic reasons, Romania was always treated as a major ally by Hitler.
The situation was further aggravated in 1942, as USAAF and RAF were able to bomb the oil fields in Prahova County (see Bombing of Romania in World War II, Operation Tidal Wave).
To improve the Romanian army's effectiveness, the Mareșal tank destroyer was developed starting in late 1942.
In 1942, he commissioned the Romanian Central Institute for Statistics to compile a report on Romani demography, which, in its edited form, provided scientifically racist conclusions, warning the Conducător about alleged Romani-Romanian miscegenation in rural Romania.
The last wave of Jewish deportations, occurring in June 1942, came mainly from the Cernăuți area in Northern Bukovina. Also in the summer of 1942, Ion Antonescu became a perpetrator of the Porajmos, or Holocaust-related crimes against the Romani people, when he ordered the Transnistrian deportation of Romanian Romani from the Old Kingdom, transited through camps and resettled in inhumane conditions near the Southern Bug.
Economic exploitation was institutionalized in late 1941-early 1942, with the creation of a Central Jewish Office.
In one such instance, he reversed his own 1942 decision to impose the wearing of yellow badges, which nevertheless remained in use everywhere outside the Old Kingdom and, in theory, to any Romanian Jews elsewhere in Axis-controlled Europe.
In the late stages of the war, Antonescu was attempting to shift all blame for crimes from his regime while accusing Jews of "bring[ing] destruction upon themselves". The regime permitted non-deported Romanian Jews and American charities to send [aid] into Transnistrian camps, a measure it took an interest in enforcing in late 1942.
But I will not rest or be idle until we too have gone all the way with the Jews." By summer 1942, German representatives in Romania obtained Antonescu's approval to deport the remaining Jewish population to extermination camps in occupied Poland.
The transports had already been announced to the Romanian Railways by autumn 1942, but the government eventually decided to postpone these measures indefinitely as was done with most other deportations to Transnistria.
In August 1942, Antonescu had worked out plans with the SS for deporting all of the Jews of the Regat or the "Old Kingdom" to the German-run death camps in Poland, but then cancelled the deportation.
A prominent case was that of Iosif Iacobici, the Chief of the Romanian General Staff, whose objection to the massive transfer of Romanian troops to the Eastern Front resulted in his demotion and replacement with Ilie Șteflea (January 1942).
In August 1942, King Michael received a manifesto endorsed by intellectuals from various fields, deploring the murders in Transnistria, and calling for a realignment of policies.
The Heroes' Cult organization received expropriation rights to Bucharest's Jewish cemetery in 1942, and proposed to replace it with a major monument of this category, but that plan was eventually abandoned.
Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2004.
Michelle Kelso, "Gypsy Deportations from Romania to Transnistria, 1942–44", in Karola Fings, Donald Kenrick (eds.), In the Shadow of the Swastika: Volume 2: The Gypsies during the Second World War, University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield, 1999, pp. 95–130.
I am for America against the Japanese." A crucial change in the war came with the Battle of Stalingrad in June 1942 – February 1943, a major defeat for the Axis.
Romania's armies alone lost some 150,000 men (either dead, wounded or captured) and more than half of the country's divisions were wiped out. The loss of two entire Romanian armies who all either killed or captured by the Soviets produced a major crisis in German-Romanian relations in the winter of 1943 with many people in the Romanian government for the first time questioning the wisdom of fighting on the side of the Axis.
Outside of the elites, by 1943 the continuing heavy losses on the Eastern Front, anger at the contempt which the Wehrmacht treated their Romanian allies and declining living standards within Romania made the war unpopular with the Romanian people, and consequently the Conducător himself.
He is known to have been suffering from digestive problems, treating himself with food prepared by Marlene von Exner, an Austrian-born dietitian who moved into Hitler's service after 1943. Upon his return, Antonescu blamed the Romanian losses on German overseer Arthur Hauffe, whom Hitler agreed to replace.
In early 1943, Antonescu authorized his diplomats to contact British and American diplomats in Portugal and Switzerland to see if were possible for Romania to sign an armistice with the Western powers.
A major clash between Michael and Antonescu took place during the first days of 1943, when the 21-year-old monarch used his New Year's address on national radio to part with the Axis war effort. ===Ouster and arrest=== In March 1944, the Soviet Red Army broke the Southern Bug and Dniester fronts, advancing on Bessarabia.
Many young German Romanian men opted to join the Schutzstaffel as early as 1940 and, in 1943, an accord between Antonescu and Hitler automatically sent ethnic Germans of recruitable age into the Wehrmacht. The regime was characterized by the leader's attempts to regulate even remote aspects of public life, including relations between the sexes.
According to Romanian historian Viorel Achim, although it had claimed the existence of a "Gypsy problem", the Antonescu regime "did not count it among its priorities." By 1943, Antonescu was gradually allowing those deported to return home.
While tolerating contacts between Maniu and the Allies, Antonescu arrested the clandestine British envoys to Romania, thus putting a stop to the 1943 Operation Autonomous.
In 1943, Filderman himself was deported to Mohyliv-Podilskyi, but eventually allowed to return. ===Political underground=== Organized resistance movements in Antonescu's Romania were comparatively small-scale and marginal.
Kent, The Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: The Roman Catholic Church and the Division of Europe, 1943–1950, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 2002.
This was made possible by the fact that Romania, as a junior ally of Nazi Germany, was able to avoid being occupied by the Wehrmacht and preserve a degree of political autonomy. Aerial attacks on Romania by the Allies occurred in 1944 and Romanian troops suffered heavy casualties on the Eastern Front, prompting Antonescu to open peace negotiations with the Allies, ending with inconclusive results.
On August 23, 1944, the king led a coup d'état against Antonescu, who was arrested; after the war he was convicted of war crimes, and executed in June 1946.
He married Maria Niculescu, for long a resident of France, who had been married twice before: first to a Romanian Police officer, with whom she had a son, Gheorghe (died 1944), and then to a Frenchman of Jewish origin.
Antonescu again sought backing from the PNȚ and PNL to form a national cabinet, but his rejection of parliamentarism made the two groups refuse him. Antonescu traveled to Germany and met Hitler on eight more occasions between June 1941 and August 1944.
Romania's oil was the Reich's only source of natural oil after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 to August 1944 (Germany also had synthetic oil plants operating from 1942 onwards), and as such for economic reasons, Romania was always treated as a major ally by Hitler.
A major clash between Michael and Antonescu took place during the first days of 1943, when the 21-year-old monarch used his New Year's address on national radio to part with the Axis war effort. ===Ouster and arrest=== In March 1944, the Soviet Red Army broke the Southern Bug and Dniester fronts, advancing on Bessarabia.
Another participating group at this stage was the old Romanian Social Democratic Party. Large-scale Allied bombings of Bucharest took place in spring 1944, while the Soviet Red Army approached Romanian borders.
After Transnistria's 1944 evacuation, Antonescu himself advocated the creation of new camps in Bessarabia.
By January 1944, the central authorities ordered local ones not to send back apprehended fugitives, instructed them to provide these with some food and clothing, and suggested corporal punishment for Romani people who did not adhere to a behavioural code.
As the Romanian administrators abandoned Transnistria, most survivors from the group returned on their own in summer 1944. ===Antonescu and the Final Solution projects=== Ion Antonescu and his subordinates were for long divided on the issue of the Final Solution, as applied in territories under direct Nazi control from 1941.
In early 1944, he issued an order to shoot illegal immigrants, which was probably never enforced by the Border Police (who occasionally turned in Jewish refugees to the German authorities).
Capital punishment was used against various partisan-like activists, while the vast majority of communist prisoners in Rîbnița were massacred in March 1944.
While maneuvering for control within the PCR during and after 1944, "prison" communists destroyed a third group, formed around the PCR's nominal leader Ștefan Foriș (whom they kidnapped and eventually killed).
Another such document of April 1944 called for an immediate peace with the Soviet Union.
Arrested in September 1944 and held 1945–1946 in Soviet custody, she was re-arrested at home in 1950, tried and ultimately found guilty of economic crimes for her collaboration with the Central Jewish Office.
It was also popular at the time to see the 1944 Coup exclusively as the onset of communization in Romania, while certain sections of the public opinion revived the notion of "Jewish Bolshevism", accusing Jews of having brought communism to Romania.
Shortly after Germany surrendered in May 1945, the group was moved to Lubyanka prison.
The first such local trial took place in 1945, resulting in the sentencing of Iosif Iacobici, Nicolae Macici, Constantin Trestioreanu and other military commanders directly involved in planning or carrying out the Odessa massacre. Antonescu was represented by Constantin Paraschivescu-Bălăceanu and Titus Stoica, two public defenders whom he had first consulted with a day before the procedures were initiated.
Arrested in September 1944 and held 1945–1946 in Soviet custody, she was re-arrested at home in 1950, tried and ultimately found guilty of economic crimes for her collaboration with the Central Jewish Office.
This began in 1945, when Jewish journalists Marius Mircu and Maier Rudrich contributed first-hand testimonies.
Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II.
On August 23, 1944, the king led a coup d'état against Antonescu, who was arrested; after the war he was convicted of war crimes, and executed in June 1946.
Speaking in 1946, Antonescu claimed to have followed the pro-German path in continuation of earlier policies, and for fear of a Nazi protectorate in Romania. During the National Legionary State period, earlier antisemitic legislation was upheld and strengthened, while the "Romanianization" of Jewish-owned enterprises became standard official practice.
He was returned to Bucharest in spring 1946 and held in Jilava prison.
He was subsequently interrogated by prosecutor Avram Bunaciu, to whom he complained about the conditions of his detainment, contrasting them with those in Moscow, while explaining that he was a vegetarian and demanding a special diet. ===Trial and execution=== In May 1946, Ion Antonescu was prosecuted at the first in a series of People's Tribunals, on charges of war crimes, crimes against the peace and treason.
Together with his co-defendants Mihai Antonescu, Alexianu and Vasiliu, the former Conducător was executed by a military firing squad on June 1, 1946.
According to separate works by historians Dennis Deletant and Adrian Cioroianu, the flaws of Antonescu's 1946 trial notwithstanding, his responsibility for war crimes was such that he would have been equally likely to be found guilty and executed in a Western Allied jurisdiction.
During the rigged general election of 1946 and for years after Ion Antonescu's execution, the Romanian Communist Party and its allies began using the implications of his trial as an abusive means of compromising some of their political opponents.
In 1946–1948, the Jewish community leader Matatias Carp published Cartea neagră ("The Black Book"), a voluminous and detailed account of all stages of the Holocaust.
Nevertheless, during the same period, Attorney General Sorin Moisescu followed a since-deprecated special appeal procedure to overturn sentences passed against Antonescu and other 1946 defendants, which he eventually withdrew. To a certain degree, such pro-Antonescu sentiments were also present in post-1989 historiography.
His 1946 trial was notably attended and documented by George Călinescu in a series of articles for Națiunea journal.
However, it also saw the early stages of a communist takeover—which culminated with King Michael's forced abdication on December 30, 1947 and the subsequent establishment of Communist Romania.
Arrested in September 1944 and held 1945–1946 in Soviet custody, she was re-arrested at home in 1950, tried and ultimately found guilty of economic crimes for her collaboration with the Central Jewish Office.
The often singular brutality of Romanian-organized massacres was a special topic of reflection for Jewish Holocaust escapee and American political theorist Hannah Arendt, as discussed in her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Five years later, she was sent into internal exile, and died of heart problems in 1964.
Beginning in the early 1970s, when the new policies were consecrated by the July Theses, Ceaușescu tolerated a nationalist, antisemitic and Holocaust denialist intellectual faction, illustrated foremost by Săptămîna and Luceafărul magazines of Eugen Barbu and Corneliu Vadim Tudor, by poet Adrian Păunescu and his Flacăra journal, and by novelist Ion Lăncrănjan.
During the war, Soviet agitprop portrayed Antonescu and the other secondary Axis leaders as villains and servile dog-like creatures, representations notably present in musical theater and puppetry shows, as well as in press cartoons. Marin Preda's 1975 novel Delirul displays the Ceaușescu regime's ambiguous relationship with Antonescu.
Although an outspoken nationalist, Eugen Barbu produced a satirical image of Antonescu in his own 1975 novel, Incognito, which was described by Deletant as "character assassination". During the 1990s, monuments to Antonescu were raised and streets were named after him in Bucharest and several other cities.
Wingfield, Maria Bucur (eds.), Gender & War in Twentieth-century Eastern Europe, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2006, pp. 171–192 Christopher Chant, The Encyclopedia of Codenames of World War II, Routledge & Kegan Paul Books Ltd., London, 1987.
Monty Noam Penkower, The Jews Were Expendable: Free World Diplomacy and the Holocaust, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1988.
Other official texts made more radical claims, openly denying that Antonescu's regime was antisemitic, and that all those killed were victims of Germany or of circumstance. ===Debates of the 1990s=== Romanians' image of Antonescu shifted several times after the 1989 Revolution toppled communism.
Aleksander Gella, Development of Class Structure in Eastern Europe: Poland and Her Southern Neighbors, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1989.
Padraic Kenney, The Burdens of Freedom: Eastern Europe since 1989, Zed Books, London, 2006.
Ramet (ed.), The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989, Penn State University Press, University Park, 1999, pp. 213–232.
Other official texts made more radical claims, openly denying that Antonescu's regime was antisemitic, and that all those killed were victims of Germany or of circumstance. ===Debates of the 1990s=== Romanians' image of Antonescu shifted several times after the 1989 Revolution toppled communism.
Polls carried out in the 1990s show the Conducător was well liked by portions of the general public.
Although an outspoken nationalist, Eugen Barbu produced a satirical image of Antonescu in his own 1975 novel, Incognito, which was described by Deletant as "character assassination". During the 1990s, monuments to Antonescu were raised and streets were named after him in Bucharest and several other cities.
Sections of both governing and opposition groups contemplated the idea of rehabilitating the wartime leader, and, in May 1991, Parliament observed a moment of silence in his memory.
Nationalism and Polity in Nineteenth-Century Romania, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1991.
16), Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick & London, 1992.
Harvey, Collision of Empires: Britain in Three World Wars, 1793–1945, Continuum International Publishing Group, London, 1992.
Also during that interval, in 1993, filmmaker and Social Democratic politician Sergiu Nicolaescu produced Oglinda, which depicts Antonescu (played by Ion Siminie) apologetically.
Romania in the Second World War: 1939-1945 (East European Monographs, 2000). Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, Routledge, London, 1993.
"To arm an ally: French arms sales to Romania, 1926–1940." Journal of Strategic Studies 19.2 (1996): 231-259. Ottmar Trașcă, "Ocuparea orașului Odessa de căre armata română și măsurile adoptate față de populația evreiască", in the Romanian Academy George Bariț Institute of History's Historica Yearbook 2008, pp. 377–425 Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919–1941: Mistica ultranaționalismului, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993.
Romanian Cassandra: Ion Antonescu and the Struggle for Reform, 1916-1941 (East European Monographs, 1993) Petru Weber, "Die Wahrnehmung des »Domestic Holocaust« im Rumänien der Nachkriegsjahre", in Regina Fritz, Carola Sachse, Edgar Wolfrum (eds.), Nationen und ihre Selbstbilder.
The rehabilitation trend was also represented at an October 1994 commemorative exhibit at the National Military Museum.
Extrema dreaptă românească, Editura Fundației Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1995.
In his bid for the office of President during the 1996 election, Vadim Tudor vowed to be a new Antonescu.
Foot (2001) pp 954–959. Stanislaw Frankowski, "Post-Communist Europe", in Peter Hodgkinson, Andrew Rutherford (eds.), Capital Punishment: Global Issues and Prospects, Waterside Press, Winchester, 1996, pp. 215–242.
Rosenzveig (eds.), The World Reacts to the Holocaust, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1996, pp. 225–252.
Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996.
Romania and World War II ( Center for Romanian Studies, 1996). White, George W.
While the FSN-supported Romanian President Ion Iliescu publicly opposed attempts to rehabilitate Antonescu and acknowledged the "crimes he committed against the Jews", it was his successor, Emil Constantinescu, a representative of the Democratic Convention, who in 1997 became the first Romanian officeholder to recognize the collective responsibility of Romanian authorities.
Lucian Boia, Istorie și mit în conștiința românească, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1997.
Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford etc., 1997.
Michelle Kelso, "Gypsy Deportations from Romania to Transnistria, 1942–44", in Karola Fings, Donald Kenrick (eds.), In the Shadow of the Swastika: Volume 2: The Gypsies during the Second World War, University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield, 1999, pp. 95–130.
Ramet (ed.), The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989, Penn State University Press, University Park, 1999, pp. 213–232.
Romania in the Second World War: 1939-1945 (East European Monographs, 2000). Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, Routledge, London, 1993.
Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture, Hoover Press, Stanford, 2000.
David Nicholls, Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, 2000.
Roper, Romania: The Unfinished Revolution, Routledge, London, 2000.
Constructing Group Identity in Southeastern Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2000.
Routledge's 2002 Companion to Fascism and the Far Right uses the terms "para-fascist" to define Antonescu, adding: "generally regarded as an authoritarian conservative [Antonescu] incorporated fascism into his regime, in the shape of the Iron Guard, rather than embodying fascism himself." "Para-fascist" is also used by Griffin, to denote both Antonescu and Carol II.
Kent, The Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: The Roman Catholic Church and the Division of Europe, 1943–1950, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 2002.
His involvement in the Holocaust was officially reasserted and condemned following the 2003 Wiesel Commission report. ==Biography== ===Early life and career=== Born in the town of Pitești, north-west of the capital Bucharest, Antonescu was the scion of an upper-middle class Romanian Orthodox family with some military tradition.
Official Romanian estimates made in 2003 by the Wiesel Commission mention that between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were killed by Romanian authorities under Antonescu's rule.
Philip Morgan, Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945, Routledge, London, 2003.
He was the first Romanian to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, being awarded it by Hitler himself. ==Notes== ==References and further reading== Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Polirom, Iași, 2004.
Viorel Achim, The Roma in Romanian History, Central European University Press, Budapest, 2004.
Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2004.
Publishers, London, 2004, pp. 158–179.
Marcel Cornis-Pope, John Neubauer (eds.), History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, John Benjamins, Amsterdam & Philadelphia, 2004.
Michlic, introduction to The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004, pp. 1–43.
Outside of this context, the publicized display of Antonescu's portraits and racist slogans by football hooligans during Liga I's 2005–2006 season prompted UEFA intervention (see Racism Breaks the Game).
Pogromul de la Iași, 29 iunie 1941, Polirom, Iași, 2005.
*" 'The New Jewish Invasion' – The Return of the Survivors in Transnistria", in David Bankier (ed.), The Jews are Coming Back: The Return of the Jews to Their Countries of Origin after WWII, Berghahn Books, Providence, 2005, pp. 231–256.
O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc, Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005.
2, November 2005, pp. 99–120; republished by University College London's Library Services Radu Ioanid, "Romania", in David S.
Antonescu's SMERSH interrogations were recovered from the Russian archives and published in 2006.
Despite the renewed condemnation and exposure, Antonescu remained a popular figure: as a result of the 2006 Mari Români series of polls conducted by the national station TVR 1, viewers nominated Antonescu as the 6th greatest Romanian ever.
Wingfield, Maria Bucur (eds.), Gender & War in Twentieth-century Eastern Europe, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2006, pp. 171–192 Christopher Chant, The Encyclopedia of Codenames of World War II, Routledge & Kegan Paul Books Ltd., London, 1987.
; see: *Letiția Guran, Alexandru Ștefan, "Romanian Literature under Stalinism", pp. 112–124 *John Neubauer et al., "1945", pp. 143–177 Dennis Deletant, Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania, 1940–1944, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2006.
Padraic Kenney, The Burdens of Freedom: Eastern Europe since 1989, Zed Books, London, 2006.
Katzenstein (eds.), Religion in an Expanding Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006.
The Court of Appeals decision was overturned by the Romanian Supreme Court in May 2008.
"To arm an ally: French arms sales to Romania, 1926–1940." Journal of Strategic Studies 19.2 (1996): 231-259. Ottmar Trașcă, "Ocuparea orașului Odessa de căre armata română și măsurile adoptate față de populația evreiască", in the Romanian Academy George Bariț Institute of History's Historica Yearbook 2008, pp. 377–425 Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919–1941: Mistica ultranaționalismului, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993.
Postdiktatorische Gesellschaften in Europa, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, 2008, pp. 150–167.
As of 2019, Romania has nine streets named after Antonescu; locations include Constanța, Râmnicu Sărat and Bechet. ==Awards and decorations== Antonescu received a number of awards and decorations throughout his military career, most notable being the Order of Michael the Brave, which was personally awarded to him by King Ferdinand I during the Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919.
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