Editing Ion Antonescu (section)

===Legionary Rebellion and Operation Barbarossa===
[[File:Joachim von Ribbentrop and Ion Antonescu at party Munich.jpg|thumb|Antonescu with German foreign minister [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] in June 1941]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B03212, München, Staatsbesuch Jon Antonescu bei Hitler.jpg|thumb|Antonescu and [[Adolf Hitler]] at the ''[[Hochschule für Musik und Theater München|Führerbau]]'' in [[Munich]] (June 1941). [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] and ''[[Generalfeldmarschall]]'' [[Wilhelm Keitel]] in the background]]

Antonescu's plan to act against his coalition partners in the event of further disorder hinged on Hitler's approval,<ref name= r1/><ref name= pddlroutl/><ref>''Final Report'', pp. 62–63, 113; Browning, p. 211; Deletant, pp. 62–68; Griffin (1993), p. 127; Harvey, p. 497; Morgan, pp. 85–86, 188; Nicholls, p. 225; Ornea, pp. 338–339, 342, 345; Roper, p. 8; Veiga, pp. 295–297, 327</ref><ref name="dslill228">D. S. Lewis, ''Illusions of Grandeur: Mosley, Fascism and British Society, 1931–81'', [[Manchester University Press]], Manchester, 1987, p. 228. {{ISBN|0-7190-2355-6}}.</ref> a vague signal of which had been given during ceremonies confirming Romania's adherence to the Tripartite Pact.<ref name=r1/><ref>Veiga, p. 296</ref> A decisive turn occurred when Hitler invited Antonescu and Sima both over for discussions: whereas Antonescu agreed, Sima stayed behind in Romania, probably plotting a ''coup d'état''.<ref name=r1/><ref>Deletant, pp. 63–65; Ornea, pp. 342–343; Veiga, pp. 296–297</ref> While Hitler did not produce a clear endorsement for clamping down on Sima's party, he made remarks interpreted by their recipient as oblique blessings.<ref>Deletant, pp. 64, 299; Veiga, p. 297</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceA">Ancel, Jean "Antonescu and the Jews" pp. 463–479 from ''The Holocaust and History The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined'' edited by Michael Berenbaum and Abraham Peck, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998 p. 466.</ref> By this time, Hitler had come to the conclusion that while Sima was ideologically closer to him, Antonescu was the more competent leader capable of ensuring stability in Romania while being committed to aligning his country with the Axis.

The Antonescu-Sima dispute erupted into violence in January 1941, when the Iron Guard instigated a series of attacks on public institutions and [[Bucharest pogrom |a pogrom]], incidents collectively known as the "[[Legionnaires' rebellion and Bucharest pogrom|Legionary Rebellion]]."<ref name= r1/><ref>''Final Report'', pp. 43, 46, 62–63, 103, 112–115, 181, 208, 382; Ancel (2005 a), pp. 33, 402–403, 408; Browning, pp. 211–212; Deletant, pp. 64–68, 71–72; Ioanid, pp. 232, 236; Ornea, pp. 219, 250, 284, 343–348; Penkower, pp. 148–149; Veiga, pp. 297–304, 312–313</ref> This came after the mysterious assassination of Major Döring, a German agent in Bucharest, which was used by the Iron Guard as a pretext to accuse the ''Conducător'' of having a secret anti-German agenda,<ref>Deletant, pp. 64–65, 299; Ornea, p. 343</ref> and made Antonescu oust the Legionary [[Ministry of Administration and Interior (Romania)|Interior Minister]], [[Constantin Petrovicescu]], while closing down all of the Legionary-controlled "Romanianization" offices.<ref>''Final Report'', p. 186; Deletant, pp. 64–65, 105–106; Ornea, p. 343; Veiga, pp. 297–298</ref> Various other clashes prompted him to demand the resignation of all Police commanders who sympathized with the movement.<ref>Deletant, pp. 64–65; Ornea, p. 343; Veiga, p. 298</ref> After two days of widespread violence, during which Guardists killed some 120 Bucharest Jews,<ref name=r1/><ref>''Final Report'', pp. 43, 46, 103, 112–115, 208, 382; Ancel (2005 a), pp. 402–403; Browning, pp. 211–212; Deletant, pp. 66, 71–72, 299–300; Ioanid, p. 232; Veiga, pp. 298–299, 301</ref> Antonescu sent in the Army, under the command of General [[Constantin Sănătescu]].<ref name=r1/> German officials acting on Hitler's orders, including the new Ambassador [[Manfred Freiherr von Killinger]], helped Antonescu eliminate the Iron Guardists, but several of their lower-level colleagues actively aided Sima's subordinates.<ref>''Final Report'', pp. 62–63, 125; Harvey, p. 497; Veiga, pp. 301–302, 313</ref> Goebbels was especially upset by the decision to support Antonescu, believing it to have been advantageous to "the Freemasons."<ref>''Final Report'', p. 63; Harvey, pp. 497–498</ref>

After the purge of the Iron Guard, Hitler kept his options open by granting [[political asylum]] to Sima—whom Antonescu's courts [[Capital punishment in Romania|sentenced to death]]—and to other Legionaries in similar situations.<ref>''Final Report'', pp. 63, 382; Browning, pp. 211–212; Harvey, p. 498</ref> The Guardists were detained in special conditions at [[Buchenwald concentration camp|Buchenwald]] and [[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]] [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]].<ref>Browning, p. 212; Deletant, p. 87; Harvey, p. 498; Morgan, p. 188; Veiga, pp. 301–302</ref> In parallel, Antonescu publicly obtained the cooperation of ''Codreanists'', members of an Iron Guardist wing which had virulently opposed Sima, and whose leader was Codreanu's father [[Ion Zelea Codreanu]].<ref>Ornea, pp. 329–331, 346–348</ref> Antonescu again sought backing from the PNȚ and PNL to form a national cabinet, but his rejection of [[Parliamentary system|parliamentarism]] made the two groups refuse him.<ref>Deletant, pp. 68, 301</ref>

Antonescu traveled to Germany and met Hitler on eight more occasions between June 1941 and August 1944.<ref>Deletant, p. 280</ref> Such close contacts helped cement an enduring relationship between the two dictators, and Hitler reportedly came to see Antonescu as the only trustworthy person in Romania,<ref name=r1/><ref name="d62">Deletant, p. 62.</ref> and the only foreigner to consult on military matters.<ref>''Final Report'', pp. 65, 168; Deletant, pp. 1, 280; Harvey, p. 498</ref> The American historian [[Gerhard Weinberg]] wrote that Hitler after first meeting Antonescu "...was greatly impressed by him; no other leader Hitler met other than Mussolini ever received such consistently favourable comments from the German dictator. Hitler even mustered the patience to listen to Antonescu's lengthy disquisitions on the glorious history of Romania and the perfidy of the Hungarians—a curious reversal for a man who was more accustomed to regaling visitors with tirades of his own."<ref>Weinberg, Gerhard ''A World At Arms'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 pp. 195–196.</ref> In later statements, Hitler offered praise to Antonescu's "breadth of vision" and "real personality."<ref name="adh498">Harvey, p. 498.</ref> A remarkable aspect of the Hitler-Antonescu friendship was neither could speak other's language. Hitler only knew German, while the only foreign language Antonescu knew was French, in which he was completely fluent.<ref>Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011 p. 214</ref> During their meetings, Antonescu spoke French, which was then translated into German by Hitler's interpreter [[Paul Schmidt (interpreter)|Paul Schmidt]] and vice versa, since Schmidt did not speak Romanian either. 

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 (Glücksburg)|Kingdom of Greece]] (''see [[Balkans Campaign (World War II)|Balkans Campaign]]'').<ref>''Final Report'', pp. 63–64; Deletant, pp. 61–63, 75–76, 304</ref> In parallel, Romania's relationship with the United Kingdom, at the time the only major adversary of Nazi Germany, erupted into conflict: on 10 February 1941, [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Premier]] [[Winston Churchill]] recalled [[List of diplomats from the United Kingdom to Romania|His Majesty's Ambassador]] [[Reginald Hoare]], and approved the [[blockade]] of Romanian ships in British-controlled ports.<ref>Deletant, pp. 26–27, 75</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Antonescu completely accepted Hitler's ideas about Operation Barbarossa as a "race war" between the Aryans, represented by the Nordic Germans and Latin Romanians on the Axis side vs. the Slavs and Asians, commanded by the Jews on the Soviet side.<ref name="Ancel, Jean pp. 325-326">Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, pp. 325–326</ref> Besides anti-Semitism, there was an extremely strong current of anti-Slavic and anti-Asian racism to Antonescu's remarks about the "Asiatic hordes" of the Red Army.<ref name="Ancel, Jean, p. 325">Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, p. 325</ref> The Asians Antonescu referred were the various Asian peoples of the Soviet Union, such as the [[Kazakhs]], [[Kalmyks]], [[Mongols]], [[Uzbeks]], [[Buryats]], etc. 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 were the most powerful Slavic nation and that as a Latin people, the Romanians had an inborn hatred of all Slavs and Jews.<ref name="Ancel, Jean, p. 325"/> Antonescu went on to tell Hitler: "Because of its racial qualities, Romania can continue to play its role as an anti-Slavic buffer for the benefit of Germany."<ref name="Ancel, Jean, p. 325"/> Ancel wrote that Romanian anti-Slavic racism differed from the German variety in that the Romanians had traditionally feared the Slavic peoples whereas the Germans had traditionally held the Slavic peoples in contempt.<ref>Ancel, Jean, ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, p. 326</ref> In Antonescu's mind, the Romanians as a Latin people had attained a level of civilization that the Slavs were nowhere close to, but theoretically the Slavic Russians and Ukrainians might be able to reach under Romanian auspices, although Antonescu's remarks to Hitler that "We must fight this race (i.e. the Slavs) resolutely" together, "with the need for 'colonization' of Transnistria," suggests that he did think this would happen in his own lifetime.<ref name="Ancel, Jean pp. 325-326"/> Subsequently, the Romanians assigned to Barbarossa were to learn that as a Latin people, the Germans considered them to be their inferiors, albeit not as inferior as the Slavs, Asians and Jews who were viewed as ''[[untermensch]]en'' ("sub-humans").<ref name="Ancel, Jean pp. 325-326"/> Hitler's promise to Antonescu that after the war, the Germanic and Latin races would rule the world in a partnership turned out to be meaningless.<ref name="Ancel, Jean, p. 325"/>

[[File:Signal 16-1941..jpg|thumb|King Michael I and Antonescu at the border, on the river Prut, watching the deployment of the Romanian Army in 1941]]
In June of that year, Romania joined the attack on the Soviet Union, led by Germany in coalition with Hungary, [[Finland]], the [[Slovak Republic (1939–1945)|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.<ref>Deletant, pp. 78–80, 83</ref> On 18 June 1941, Antonescu gave orders to his generals about "cleansing the ground" of Jews when Romanian forces entered Bessarabia and Bukovina.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> 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 "Judeo-Bolshevism".<ref>Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: [[University of Nebraska Press]], 2011, p. 436.</ref> 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.<ref name="Ancel, Jean page 437">Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, p. 437.</ref> Reflecting Antonescu's anti-Slavic feelings, despite the fact that the war was billed as a "crusade" in defence 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.<ref name="Ancel, Jean page 437"/> The Romanian force engaged formed a ''General Antonescu Army Group'' under the effective command of German general [[Eugen Ritter von Schobert]].<ref>''Final Report'', p. 253; Deletant, pp. 80, 83</ref> Romania's campaign on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|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).<ref>Deletant, p. 80</ref> 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]].<ref name=r2/><ref>''Final Report'', pp. 120–126, 200, 204, 208–209, 243–244, 285–286, 315, 321, 323, 327–329; Ancel (2005 a), ''passim''; Deletant, pp. 130–140, 316–317; Ioanid, p. 233; Trașcă, pp. 398–399; Weber, p. 167</ref> 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 [[Francophile|Francophila]] of the Romanian elites and their adherence to Western notions of universal democratic values and human rights.<ref>Ancel, Jean "Antonescu and the Jews" pp. 463–479 from ''The Holocaust and History The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined'' edited by Michael Berenbaum and Abraham Peck, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998 pp. 464, 467.</ref> 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".<ref name="ReferenceB">Ancel, Jean "Antonescu and the Jews" pp. 463–479 from ''The Holocaust and History The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined'' edited by Michael Berenbaum and Abraham Peck, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998 p. 467.</ref> Antonescu believed that the liberal humanist-democratic-capitalist values of the West and Communism were both invented by the Jews to destroy Romania.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> 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".<ref name="ReferenceB"/> 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.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> 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.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> 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.<ref name="Ancel, Jean pages 438-439">Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, pp. 438–439</ref> 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.<ref name="Ancel, Jean pages 438-439"/>

After becoming the first Romanian to be granted the [[Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross]], which he received from Hitler at their 6 August meeting in the [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] city of [[Berdychiv]], Antonescu was promoted to [[Marshal of Romania]] by royal decree on 22 August, in recognition for his role in restoring the eastern frontiers of [[Greater Romania]].<ref name=d83,86,280,305>Deletant, pp. 83, 86, 280, 305</ref> 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."<ref name="Ancel pages 463-479"/> 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]].<ref name=r2/><ref>''Final Report'', p. 320; Boia, pp. 270–271; Deletant, pp. 51, 84–87, 90–91, 254; King, pp. 93–94; Trașcă, pp. 377–380</ref> On 30 August, Romania occupied a territory it deemed "[[Transnistria (World War II)|Transnistria]]", formerly a part of the [[Ukrainian SSR]] (including the entire [[Moldavian ASSR]] and further territories).<ref name=r2/><ref>Achim, pp. 171, 184; Browning, p. 277; Deletant, pp. 86–87; King, pp. 93–94; Trașcă, p. 380sqq</ref> Like the decision to continue the war beyond Bessarabia, this earned Antonescu much criticism from the semi-clandestine PNL and PNȚ.<ref name=r2/> 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.<ref name=":0">Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, pp. 334–335.</ref> 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.<ref name=":0"/> 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 Jews|Bessarabian]] and [[History of the Jews in Ukraine|Ukrainian Jews]], followed later by transports of [[Roma minority in Romania|Romani Romanians]] and Jews from Moldavia proper (that is, the portions of Moldavia west of the Prut).

The accord over Transnistria's administration, signed in [[Tighina]], also placed areas between the Dniester and the [[Dnieper]] under Romanian military occupation, while granting control over all resources to Germany.<ref>Deletant, p. 166; Trașcă, p. 384</ref> In September 1941, Antonescu ordered Romanian forces to take Odessa, a prize he badly wanted for reasons of prestige.<ref>Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, p. 334.</ref> Russians had traditionally been seen in Romania as brutal aggressors, and for Romanian forces to take a major Soviet city and one of the largest Black Sea ports like Odessa would be a sign of how far Romania had been "regenerated" under Antonescu's leadership. 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.<ref name="Ancel, Jean page 335">Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, p. 335.</ref> On 16 October 1941 Odessa fell to the German-Romanian forces. The Romanian losses had been so heavy that the area around Odessa was known to the Romanian Army as the Vale of Tears.<ref name="Ancel, Jean page 335"/> Antonescu's anti-Semitism was sharpened by the Odessa fighting as he was convinced that the only reason why the Red Army had fought so fiercely around Odessa was that the average Russian soldier had been terrorized by bloodthirsty Jewish commissars into fighting hard.<ref name="Ancel, Jean page 335"/> When [[Wilhelm Filderman]] wrote a letter to Antonescu complaining about the murder of Jews in Odessa, Antonescu wrote back: "Your Jews, who have become Soviet commissars, are driving Soviet soldiers in the Odessa region into a futile bloodbath, through horrendous terror techniques as the Russian prisoners themselves have admitted, simply to cause us heavy losses".<ref name="Ancel, Jean page 335"/> Antonescu ended his letter with the claim that Russian Jewish commissars had savagely tortured Romanian POWs and that the entire Jewish community of Romania, Filderman included were morally responsible for all of the losses and sufferings of the Romanians around Odessa.<ref name="Ancel, Jean page 335"/> 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.<ref name="Ancel, Jean pages 459-460">Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, pp. 459–460.</ref> This veto was largely motivated by bureaucratic politics, namely if Antonescu exterminated all of the Jews of Romania himself, there would be nothing for the SS and the ''Auswärtiges Amt'' to do.<ref name="Ancel, Jean pages 459-460"/> Killinger informed Antonescu that Germany would reduce its supplies of arms if Antonescu went ahead with his plans to deport the Jews of the ''Regat'' into Transnistria and told him he would be better off deporting the Jews to the death camps in Poland that the Germans were already busy building.<ref>Ancel, Jean ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011, p. 304.</ref> Since Romania had almost no arms industry of its own and was almost entirely dependent upon weapons from Germany to fight the war, Antonescu had little choice, but to comply with Killinger's request.