Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 9,001
"Marschall" Antonescus End
On August 23, 1944, a hastily formed alliance of various parties (which had previously led a rather shadowy existence) overthrew the Romanian "Conducator Statul" ("leader of the state", his official title) Marshal Ion Antonescu ...
The reason: For Romania it is really "about everything", because the existence of the entire country as an independent state is at stake:
Three days earlier the Red Army had easily broken through the weak German-Romanian defensive positions with its "Kishinjow-Jassy Operation" and launched a major attack on Romania ...:
Antonescu was on December 4, 1940 because of his good contacts to fascist circles (including the so-called "Iron Guard") ...
... from the Romanian King Carol II.
... has been appointed "Prime Minister with unlimited powers", in other words, practically a dictator.
Antonescu, who shortly thereafter awarded himself the rank of marshal, thanked the king by dumping him (September 6, 1940) and his son Michael I.
... brought to the throne - as a powerless puppet by his own grace!
In order to achieve revanchist goals (a "Greater Romania" at the expense of the Soviet Union), Antonescu, meanwhile a pure military dictator of South American style, led his country into World War II at Hitler's side.
The country - especially its people! - paid a heavy price for it!
Under Antonescu's rule, hundreds of thousands of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews (including from the Romanian-occupied city of Odessa) were deported to the Romanian occupied area of Transnistria ...
... and 380,000 of them later deportet and murdered ...
... plus another 35,000 Roma, of whom around 20,000 were also killed.
The army on which Antonescu based his tyranny also paid for his ambition with hecatombs of the dead:
The Romanian troops neither trained nor equipped for a modern war ...
... were practically completely destroyed in and near Stalingrad in 1942/1953 ...
... the emaciated and weakened survivors mostly perished in Soviet captivity ...:
Antonescu knew that an armistice was being secretly negotiated with the Western powers and later also with the USSR behind his back in order to save the country, but he insisted on continuing the alliance with Hitler!
Well - in August 1944 the Red Army kicked the Romanian door down and Antonescu's opponents are taking action!
King Michael I suddenly remembered that he was playing a constitutional role and, together with the National Peasant Party, the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party, deposed the dictator.
The communists enable smuggled NKVD agents to arrest Antonescu on August 23, 1944 in the middle of the capital Bucharest ...
... and to bring it out of Romania and into the Soviet Union, where the former self-appointed marshal is imprisoned in the Lubjanka.
**continued next post**
On August 23, 1944, a hastily formed alliance of various parties (which had previously led a rather shadowy existence) overthrew the Romanian "Conducator Statul" ("leader of the state", his official title) Marshal Ion Antonescu ...
The reason: For Romania it is really "about everything", because the existence of the entire country as an independent state is at stake:
Three days earlier the Red Army had easily broken through the weak German-Romanian defensive positions with its "Kishinjow-Jassy Operation" and launched a major attack on Romania ...:
Antonescu was on December 4, 1940 because of his good contacts to fascist circles (including the so-called "Iron Guard") ...
... from the Romanian King Carol II.
... has been appointed "Prime Minister with unlimited powers", in other words, practically a dictator.
Antonescu, who shortly thereafter awarded himself the rank of marshal, thanked the king by dumping him (September 6, 1940) and his son Michael I.
... brought to the throne - as a powerless puppet by his own grace!
In order to achieve revanchist goals (a "Greater Romania" at the expense of the Soviet Union), Antonescu, meanwhile a pure military dictator of South American style, led his country into World War II at Hitler's side.
The country - especially its people! - paid a heavy price for it!
Under Antonescu's rule, hundreds of thousands of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews (including from the Romanian-occupied city of Odessa) were deported to the Romanian occupied area of Transnistria ...
... and 380,000 of them later deportet and murdered ...
... plus another 35,000 Roma, of whom around 20,000 were also killed.
The army on which Antonescu based his tyranny also paid for his ambition with hecatombs of the dead:
The Romanian troops neither trained nor equipped for a modern war ...
... were practically completely destroyed in and near Stalingrad in 1942/1953 ...
... the emaciated and weakened survivors mostly perished in Soviet captivity ...:
Antonescu knew that an armistice was being secretly negotiated with the Western powers and later also with the USSR behind his back in order to save the country, but he insisted on continuing the alliance with Hitler!
Well - in August 1944 the Red Army kicked the Romanian door down and Antonescu's opponents are taking action!
King Michael I suddenly remembered that he was playing a constitutional role and, together with the National Peasant Party, the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party, deposed the dictator.
The communists enable smuggled NKVD agents to arrest Antonescu on August 23, 1944 in the middle of the capital Bucharest ...
... and to bring it out of Romania and into the Soviet Union, where the former self-appointed marshal is imprisoned in the Lubjanka.
**continued next post**
