“The German front collapsed from within”: how Romania’s exit from the alliance with Germany accelerated the fall of Nazism

On August 31, 1944, during the Bucharest-Arad offensive operation, units of the 6th Panzer and 53rd Army of the 2nd Ukrainian Front and the 1st Romanian Volunteer Division named after Tudor Vladimirirescu entered the Romanian capital. Bucharest residents met Red Army soldiers with flowers and Soviet flags.

As follows from the documents published by the RF Ministry of Defense, units of the 6th Panzer Army provided complete encirclement and liquidation of the entire Bessarabian enemy grouping.

Exhausted by the war and demoralized by defeats, Romania began to lose the territories from which it exported food. This caused a decadent mood among the Romanian population and led to an increase in the popularity of the underground forces operating underground.

After the arrest of Marshal Ion Antonescu, Bucharest announced its intention to cease hostilities against the USSR and conclude a truce with member countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. As a result, Romania withdrew from the alliance with Germany and declared war on Berlin.

Rapprochement with Germany

The process of rapprochement between Romania and Germany began in 1940. Adolf Hitler in exchange for oil supplied the Romanians with weapons seized in the warehouses of Eastern European countries.

In September, King Karol II was overthrown by former defense minister Ion Antonescu and the pro-Nazi Iron Guard movement. Mihai I became the new monarch, however, Antonescu was entrusted with the most important powers to govern the state.

• King Mihai I
• © Wikimedia commons

In the autumn of 1940, German troops were introduced into Romania to protect oil fields. Bucharest officially joined the Tripartite Pact, previously signed by Berlin, Rome and Tokyo.

The military historian Yuri Knutov told RT in an interview that "for help in the war against the USSR, Hitler promised Antonescu Bessarabia and Southern Ukraine."

“However, the ambitions of the Romanian dictator were even greater. His supporters demanded land right up to the Urals, ”the expert emphasized.

• Ion Antonescu
• globallookpress.com
• © Scherl

At the beginning of 1941, half a million German military contingent was transferred to Romania. Subsequently, he was concentrated on the border of the USSR together with the 600 thousandth Romanian group.

However, the Soviet troops that were part of the Odessa Military District, like the Black Sea sailors, were well prepared for the war. Trying to break into the territory of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the German-Romanian forces were not only stopped, but also driven back. Soviet troops counterattacked and landed troops on the territory of Romania. Only in the second half of July did the units of the Red Army, the NKVD and the Danube Flotilla finally depart from the Romanian border, since the command was afraid of their encirclement from the north.

From August to October 1941, Romanian troops participated in attempts to capture Odessa. During these battles, they lost dead, missing and wounded about 90 thousand people. As a result of the offensive in the southern part of the Ukrainian SSR, Hitler gave Romania Bessarabia and Bukovina, on the territory of which governors of the same name were created, as well as Transnistria - the lands between the Southern Bug and the Dniester, which, according to Antonescu, were supposedly settled by “Russified Romanians”.

• Romanian troops at the front in the USSR. 1941
• © Wikimedia commons

A brutal occupation regime was established in the occupied Soviet territories. They were used as a raw materials appendage, from which all possible resources were pumped out. The population receiving 150-200 g of bread per day was on the verge of death. To keep him humble, a corporal punishment system was introduced. About 200 thousand local residents died from starvation, disease, and torture in the regions occupied by Romanians.

In addition, at the command of Antonescu, Jews from all regions controlled by the dictator were brought to concentration camps built on the territory of Transnistria. During the occupation, about 250-270 thousand Jews were exterminated.

Later, Romanian troops participated in the battles near Uman, the capture of the Crimea and the siege of Sevastopol. In Crimea, conflicts began to arise between the Nazis and Romanians. German soldiers were dismissive of their allies and even beat them. So, the Nazi command tried to prevent the Romanians from entering Sevastopol during the last assault on the city.

“Objectively, the fighting qualities of the Romanian soldiers forcibly recruited from the peasants were low. According to the memoirs of veterans, sometimes SS men drove Romanian servicemen into battle with clubs, ”Knutov said.

Nevertheless, the shortage of German personnel forced Hitler to carefully build relations with Antonescu. Romanian troops were involved by the Nazi command in the battles of Kharkov, the Don, Volga and the North Caucasus. In the fall of 1942, the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies were abandoned along with aircraft near Stalingrad, where their losses amounted to over 150 thousand people.

The end of the Antonescu regime

Since the summer of 1943, the defeat of the Nazi forces assumed an avalanche-like character. Romanians suffered heavy losses in Ukraine and the Crimea. In the spring of next year, Soviet troops knocked them out of the interfluve of the Southern Bug and the Dniester.

King Mihai I began secret negotiations with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and with the Communist Party of Romania. The successful offensive of the Red Army during the Iasi-Chisinau operation in the second half of August 1944 caused a panic in Bucharest.

On August 23, Mihai I, on the pretext of discussing the course of hostilities, summoned Antonescu. After the dictator refused to withdraw the country from the war, a group of servicemen led by General Konstantin Senatescu arrested him.

Bucharest-Arad operation

George Emelianenko, an employee of the scientific and methodological department of the Victory Museum, said in an interview with RT that, despite the fall of the Antonescu regime, German troops were still in Romania, which could prevent her from leaving the war.

“Romania was of particular strategic value to Nazi Germany, as its oil fields provided fuel to German troops. Therefore, the Germans expected to keep its territory under control, ”the expert emphasized.

On August 30, 1944, Soviet troops launched an offensive against the German-Hungarian units remaining in Romania as part of the Bucharest-Arad operation.

“The troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front under the command of Rodion Malinovsky, the 3rd Ukrainian Front under the command of Fyodor Tolbukhin, as well as the forces of the Black Sea Fleet and the Danube Flotilla took part in the hostilities. In addition, support to the Soviet units was provided by the 1st Volunteer Romanian Division named after Tudor Vladimirirescu, formed in the USSR from Romanian prisoners of war, ”said Emelianenko.

On August 31, Soviet troops and units formed from Romanian prisoners of war entered Bucharest.

• Romanian volunteers
• © Wikimedia commons

“To emphasize that Romania is now becoming an ally, Red Army units were quickly withdrawn from the capital,” said Yuri Knutov.

On September 12, members of the anti-Hitler coalition and Romania signed a ceasefire in Moscow. Bucharest pledged to enter the war against Germany under Soviet command, to recognize the pre-war border with the USSR, and to transfer German military property to the Soviet Union. At the same time, Romania got back the territory of Northern Transylvania.

According to Knutov, in September the Germans rebuilt the torn front from the borders of Ukraine to Yugoslavia, but strategically the war was already virtually lost.

“The German front was crumbling from within. Under the influence of events in Romania, political unrest began in Hungary, the inhabitants of Yugoslavia and Slovakia perked up. The positions of Germany fell down, ”the historian noted.

In turn, Emelianenko said that during the Bucharest-Arad operation, soldiers of the Red Army and Romania repelled powerful counterattacks by German and Hungarian troops. However, the enemy failed to seize the initiative, and by the turn of September-October, the Soviet and Romanian units completely controlled the territory of the country, reaching the borders with Hungary.

“Following the results of the Bucharest-Arad operation, Soviet and Romanian troops completely cleared the territory of Romania from German and Hungarian forces, depriving the enemy of access to its oil fields,” the expert emphasized.

According to him, Romanian oil was of key value to the German war machine, so the loss of access to it was a serious blow for the Nazis.

“The Bucharest-Arad operation finally secured Romania’s withdrawal from the war on the side of the Axis countries and its participation in hostilities on the side of the Allies. Thanks to the rapid advancement of the Soviet troops, the Nazis were not able to restore a loyal government in Romania and force it to continue the war on the side of the Nazi bloc, ”the expert noted.

Emelianenko also indicated that prerequisites had been created for the further offensive of Soviet troops in the west and southwest. The successes of the Red Army in Romania were crucial for the course of the war on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front.