1930s and the Antonescu era on the banks of the
Prut River, 1941 A
regency, which included his uncle,
Prince Nicolae, Patriarch
Miron Cristea, and the country's Chief Justice (
Gheorghe Buzdugan, and from October 1929,
Constantin Sărăţeanu) functioned on behalf of the five-year-old Michael, when he succeeded Ferdinand in 1927. In 1930,
Carol II returned to the country at the invitation of politicians dissatisfied with the regency in the context of the
Great Depression, and was proclaimed king by the
Parliament. Michael was demoted to
crown prince with the title "Grand
Voivode of
Alba Iulia". In November 1939, Michael joined the
Romanian Senate, as the
1938 Constitution guaranteed him a seat there upon reaching the age of eighteen. Just days after the
Second Vienna Award, the pro-
Nazi anti-
Soviet regime of Prime Minister Marshal
Ion Antonescu staged a coup d'état against Carol II, whom he claimed to be "anti-German". Antonescu suspended the Constitution, dissolved the Parliament, and re-installed the 18-year-old Michael as king, by popular acclaim in September 1940. (Although the Constitution was restored in 1944, and the Romanian Parliament in 1946, Michael did not subsequently take a formal oath nor have his reign approved retroactively by Parliament.) Michael was
crowned with the
Steel Crown and
anointed King of Romania by the
Orthodox Patriarch of Romania,
Nicodim Munteanu, in the
Patriarchal Cathedral of
Bucharest, on the day of his accession, 6 September 1940. Although King Michael was formally the Supreme Head of the Army, named
Conducător ("Leader of the people"), and entitled to appoint the
Prime Minister with full powers, in reality he was forced to remain a figurehead for most of the
war, until August 1944. Michael had lunch with
Adolf Hitler twice—once with his father in
Bavaria in 1937, and with his mother in
Berlin in 1941. He also met
Benito Mussolini in Italy in 1941.
Turning against Nazi Germany from
Soviet occupation, featuring Michael and dictator Antonescu below the text
Un an de la desrobire ("A year since liberation"), a portrait of
Stephen the Great and the fortress of
Bender in the background In 1944,
World War II was going badly for the
Axis powers, but Antonescu was still in control of Romania. By August 1944, the Soviet conquest of Romania had become inevitable, and was expected in a few months. On 23 August 1944, Michael joined the pro-
Allies politicians, a number of army officers, and armed Communist-led civilians In a radio broadcast to the Romanian nation and army, Michael issued a ceasefire just as the Red Army was penetrating the
Moldavian front, However, this 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. Although the country's alliance with
Nazi Germany was ended, the coup sped the
Red Army's advance into Romania. an "unconditional" "surrender". At the end of the war, King Michael was awarded the highest degree (Chief Commander) of the American
Legion of Merit by
U.S. President Harry S. Truman. He was also decorated with the Soviet
Order of Victory by
Joseph Stalin "for the courageous act of the radical change in Romania's politics towards a break-up from Hitler's Germany and an alliance with the
United Nations, at the moment when there was no clear sign yet of Germany's defeat", according to the official description of the decoration. With the death of
Michał Rola-Żymierski in 1989, Michael became the sole surviving recipient of the Order of Victory.
Reign under Communism In March 1945, political pressures forced King Michael to appoint a pro-Soviet government headed by
Petru Groza. For the next two-plus years, Michael functioned again as little more than a figurehead. Between August 1945 and January 1946, during what was later known as the "royal strike", King Michael tried unsuccessfully to oppose the Groza government by refusing to sign its decrees. In response to Soviet, British, and American pressures, King Michael eventually gave up his opposition to the communist government and stopped demanding its resignation. He did not
pardon Mareșal Antonescu, the former Prime Minister, who was sentenced to death "for betrayal of the Romanian people for the benefit of Nazi Germany, for the economic and political subjugation of Romania to Germany, for cooperation with the
Iron Guard, for murdering his political opponents, for the
mass murder of civilians and
crimes against peace". Nor did King Michael manage to save such leaders of the opposition as
Iuliu Maniu and the
Bratianus, victims of Communist political trials, as the Constitution prevented him from doing so without the counter-signature of Communist Justice Minister
Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (who himself was later eliminated by
Gheorghiu-Dej's opposing Communist faction). The memoirs of King Michael's aunt
Princess Ileana quoted
Emil Bodnăraș—her alleged lover, Romania's Communist minister of defence, and a Soviet spy—as saying: "Well, if the King decides not to sign the death warrant, I promise that we will uphold his point of view." Princess Ileana was sceptical: "You know quite well (...) that the King will never of his free will sign such an unconstitutional document. If he does, it will be laid at your door, and before the whole nation your government will bear the blame. Surely you do not wish this additional handicap at this moment!"
Forced abdication In November 1947, King Michael travelled to London for the wedding of his cousins, Princess Elizabeth (later
Queen Elizabeth II) and
Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, an occasion during which he met
Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma (his second cousin once removed), who was to become his wife. According to his own account, King Michael rejected any offers of
asylum and decided to return to Romania, contrary to the confidential, strong advice of the British Ambassador to Romania. Early on the morning of 30 December 1947, Michael was preparing for a New Year's party at
Peleș Castle in
Sinaia, when Groza summoned him back to Bucharest. Michael returned to
Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest, to find it surrounded by troops from the
Tudor Vladimirescu Division, an army unit completely loyal to the Communists. Groza and Communist Party leader
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej were waiting for him, and demanded that he sign a pre-typed instrument of abdication. Unable to call in loyal troops, due to his telephone lines allegedly being cut, Michael signed the document. Later the same day, the Communist-dominated government announced the abolition of the monarchy, and its replacement by a
People's Republic, broadcasting the King's pre-recorded radio proclamation of his own abdication. On 3 January 1948, Michael was forced to leave the country, followed over a week later by Princesses
Elisabeth and Ileana, who collaborated so closely with the Soviets that they became known as the King's "Red Aunts". He was the last monarch behind the
Iron Curtain to lose his throne. Michael's own account of the abdication varied over time, and was gradually embellished, especially after 1990. Thus, in accounts published in 1950 and 1977, Michael only mentioned seeing armed groups with machine-guns on their shoulders around the palace, while in much later accounts these were described as "heavy artillery, ready to fire at any moment". The story of the supposed blackmail also evolved: in the 1950 account, Groza tried to negotiate some form of material compensations for the abdication, noting he could not guarantee for Michael's life in case he refused, and his refusal could lead to thousand of arrests and possibly a civil war; in a hearing before the
United States House of Representatives in 1954, Michael mentioned Groza's generic threats regarding his personal security, bloodshed and ruin of the country, as well as "vague hints" of persecution, with Groza suggesting the government had a large dossier on Michael; the possible arrest of thousands and a generic threat of bloodshed is also mentioned in the 1977 account; however, beginning with 1990, Michael claimed that Groza threatened to shoot 1,000 students that had already been arrested for publicly showing their attachment to the throne. Thus, while according to a
Time article published in 1948, Groza threatened to arrest thousands of people and order a bloodbath unless Michael abdicated, In historian
Ioan Scurtu's opinion, the new account was created in order to leverage the recent
Revolution of 1989, presented at the time as a revolution of the youth and the students. Another new element in Michael's account after 1990 was that Groza had threatened him at gunpoint; in earlier accounts Michael mentioned that Groza had shown him the pistol he was carrying only after Michael signed the abdication. According to a few articles in
Jurnalul Național, Michael's abdication was negotiated with the Communist government, which allowed him to leave the country with the goods he requested, accompanied by some of the royal retinue. with whatever properties he desired, including gold and rubies. Hoxha also wrote that pro-Communist troops surrounded the palace, to counter army units who were still loyal to the King. In March 1948, Michael denounced his abdication as illegal, and contended he was still the rightful
King of Romania. According to
Time magazine, he would have done so sooner, but for much of early 1948, he had been negotiating with the Communists over properties he had left in Romania. There are reports that Romanian Communist authorities allowed King Michael to depart with 42 valuable Crown-owned paintings in November 1947, so that he would leave Romania faster. were reportedly sold through the famed art dealer
Daniel Wildenstein. One of the paintings belonging to the Romanian Crown, which was supposedly taken out of the country by King Michael in November 1947, returned to Romania in 2004 as a donation made by John Kreuger, the former husband of King Michael's daughter Irina. In 2005, Romanian Prime Minister
Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu denied these accusations about King Michael, stating that the Romanian government has no proof of any such action by King Michael and that, prior to 1949, the government had no official records of any artwork taken over from the former royal residences. However, according to some historians, such records existed as early as April 1948, having been, in fact, officially published in June 1948. According to Ivor Porter's authorized biography,
Michael of Romania: The King and The Country (2005), which quotes
Queen Mother Helen's daily diary, the Romanian royal family took out paintings belonging to the Romanian Royal Crown, on their November 1947 trip to London to the wedding of the future Queen Elizabeth II; two of these paintings, signed by
El Greco, were sold in 1976. According to declassified
Foreign Office documents that were the subject of news reports in 2005, when he left Romania, the exiled King Michael's only assets amounted to 500,000
Swiss francs. Recently declassified Soviet transcripts of talks between Joseph Stalin and the Romanian Prime Minister
Petru Groza show that shortly before his abdication, King Michael received from the communist government assets amounting to 500,000
Swiss francs. King Michael, however, repeatedly denied that the Communist government had allowed him to take into exile any financial assets or valuable goods besides four personal automobiles loaded on two train cars. ==Marriage==