Armed resistance Anti-German sentiment remained very strong in
Romania, both among civilians and soldiers, following the harsh
Central Power occupation during
World War I, and the fact that, since its arrival in Romania in October 1940, the
Wehrmacht behaved like a conqueror, multiplying military requisitions, although the Antonescu regime was
Nazi Germany's ally. The partisans were actually peasants starved due to military requisitions and who were fleeing from conscription, anti-fascist townspeople, Jews fleeing the
pogroms of the Iron Guard,
forced labor and deportation to
Transnistria, as well as deserters. Anti-fascist soldiers secretly procured them weapons; between June 1941 and August 1944, 8,600 court-martial sentences were handed down for such actions. As happened in France,
the attack on the USSR in June 1941 brought to light the
Communist Party and made it join the opponents of fascism.
Romanian allied divisions entering Bucharest, end of August 1944.
Bottom: King Michael I reviewing of the troops, beginning of September 1944 The
"Tudor Vladimirescu" and
"Horea, Cloșca și Crișan" divisions fought in the Soviet Union against the Germans. Their numbers increased during the
campaign against the USSR (June 1941 - August 1944), due to the large number of deserters and Romanian prisoners captured by the
Red Army. The "Tudor Vladimirescu" Division was commanded by generals
Nicolae Cambrea and . The "Horea, Cloșca și Crișan" Division was commanded by general
Mihail Lascăr, who had surrendered and joined the Soviets at the
Battle of Stalingrad. The two divisions advanced westward, by the end of the war reaching
Bratislava in
Slovakia on April 4, 1945
Humpolec, in
Bohemia, on May 7, 1945. CampañaRumana1944.svg|The turning of the
Romanian Front in August 1944 Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-218-0513-23A%2C_Russland-Süd%2C_Rumänen%2C_russische_Kriegsgefangene.jpg|Romanian and Soviet soldiers talking near
Stalingrad, late 1942. The latter were theoretically prisoners of the former, but not for long EjércitoSoviéticoEnBucarest1944.jpg|Soviet Forces welcomed as allies by Romanian soldiers in 1944 Romanian soldiers in Transilvania 1944.jpg|Romanian mountain troops in Transylvania, at war with the Axis troops, in 1944 StampRomana1948Michel1127.jpg|
"Long live the Romanian-Soviet brotherhood of arms!", Romanian stamp from 1948 WWII Southern Central Europe 1944-1945.png|Romania's operations against the Axis on the Allied side (in red), between August 24, 1944, and May 7, 1945
Civil resistance As Antonescu's Romania engaged in the
Holocaust, humanitarian organizations, among which the
Romanian Red Cross played the main role, created aid channels (essentially food and medical supplies) for the persecuted people (especially those deported to the
Transnistria Governorate) in order to ensure passage through
Bulgaria (a member of the
Axis but which did not participate in fighting against the
Allies) and
Turkey (a neutral state) to
Palestine. Another organization was the , who operated throughout the war the
passenger ships ''
, Medeea
, Emperor Trajan
and Dacia
, together with a dozen other smaller ships, between Constanța and Istanbul, in the service of the organization "Aliya''" led by Samuel Leibovici and Eugen Maissner, saving over 60,000 people. File:DaciaShip.jpg|The passenger ship
Dacia built in 1908 at
Saint-Nazaire, France File:Imparatul Traian.jpg|The passenger ship
Emperor Trajan built in 1906 at Saint-Nazaire File:Transilvania 1967.jpg|The passenger ship
Transilvania in Constanța in 1967, built in 1938 at the shipyard
Burnmeister-Wain in
Copenhagen, Denmark More than 1,000 people perished due to the
torpedoing of their ships by Soviet submarines or the refusal of the Turkish authorities to allow them to disembark (the tragedies of the ships
Struma and
Mefküre). "
Aliya" also rented trains that, passing through Bulgaria (which was in the Axis, but did not participate in the fighting with the Allies), transported tens of thousands of
Romanian Jews to Turkey (a neutral country). For their merits, 69 Romanians were awarded the title granted by the Israeli state through the
Yad Vashem institute, of "
Righteous Among the Nations". Among them were
Viorica Agarici, chairwoman of a local office of the
Romanian Red Cross, the pharmacist Dr. Dumitru Beceanu from
Iași, and
Traian Popovici, the mayor of
Cernăuți. The Red Cross sent food and medicine to deportees in Transnistria and persuaded officers not to carry out orders, allowing families like
Wilhelm Filderman's or
Norman Manea's to survive. The leading World War II fighter ace in Romania,
Constantin Cantacuzino, organized a network of taking over the downed American airmen in Romania and clandestinely transporting them to Turkey. He was secretly protected by King
Michael I and the commander of the Bucharest garrison, General
Constantin Sănătescu, who provided him with communication resources and connected him with the clandestine inter-allied mission
Operation Autonomous of the
SOE.
Political resistance and
Ion C. Brătianu, sent to Ion Antonescu (1942), against the engagement of the Romanian Army in the offensive on Soviet territory Political personalities formed, without Antonescu reacting otherwise than by ordering house arrest measures, opposition groups that publicly protested against the regime's policy. Exasperated by the "
passive betrayal" of the Romanian dictator, who "
has assured the Führer of his loyalty, but tolerates anti-German actions",
Joseph Goebbels noted, on February 19, 1941, in his diary: "''Antonescu maintains his government with the support of
Freemasonry and Germany's enemies.
Our local minority is having a hard time. The Reich made such an effort in vain''". In the summer of 1944, all these political groups, including the Communists, united in a "
National Democratic Bloc", secretly led by the young King
Michael I and the leaders of the traditional democratic parties. This council attempted to negotiate in
Sweden (through ambassador
Frederic Nanu and his agent
Neagu Djuvara) and in
Turkey (through Prince
Barbu Știrbey, descendant of the former
Wallachian ruler
Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei) about a change of alliance in favor of the
Western Allies, requesting instead an Anglo-American landing in the
Balkans and an occupation of Romania by the armies of the western countries and not by the Red Army. , commander of Operation Autonomous, with his wife, in 1945 In order to discuss directly with the Romanian government the possibility of a Romanian defection from the Axis to the Allied camp, a clandestine inter-allied mission of
Special Operations Executive (SOE) was parachuted near Bucharest, (
Operation Autonomous). The three agents parachuted into Romania were Lieutenant Colonel
Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain, experienced SOE officer, as the leader, Captain
Ivor Porter, and Captain Silviu Mețianu, a Romanian who had emigrated to the UK. They were captured by
Romanian gendarmerie almost immediately in the area of
Plosca. They were held as well-treated prisoners of war at the gendarmerie headquarters in Bucharest. On 23 August 1944 the young King Michael I carried out his well prepared
coup d’état which took Adolf Hitler completely by surprise, and Romania then changed sides. The British prisoners were released and that evening the king arranged for de Chastelain to fly to Istanbul, whence he could travel to Cairo and then London to report. Mețianu stayed on for a time and then returned to England. Porter remained to maintain a radio link with SOE headquarters until the British mission arrived in the country.
Results The two divisions,
Tudor Vladimirescu and
Horea, Cloșca și Crișan, were joined by the
Romanian army, since on August 23, 1944, the dictator
Ion Antonescu was deposed and arrested by King
Michael I. Without waiting for the Soviet response to its request for an armistice, Romania declared war on the
Axis powers and committed its 550,000 soldiers to the fight against
Nazi Germany. As a result, the front moved 700 km west and south in less than a week, and according to
Winston Churchill's estimates, Romania's entry into the war alongside the
Allies would avoided the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers and hastened the end of World War II by six months. Once war against the Axis was declared, the Romanian forces, reinforced with partisan recruits and placed under Soviet command, launched their offensive against
Hungary, advancing as far as
Slovakia. From August 24, 1944 to May 9, 1945,
Romania was an allied country, which allowed it to participate at the
Paris Peace Conference of 1947 to recover
Northern Transylvania, which had been assigned to Hungary in 1940 as a result of the
Second Vienna Award. The military operations of the Romanian Army against the Axis took place between August 24, 1944 (starting from Romania's own territory) and May 7, 1945 (
Chotěboř–
Humpolec area, east of
Prague). For his contribution to the side of the Allies, King
Michael I received the
Order of Victory, by order of
Joseph Stalin himself. == See also ==