| Ion Antonescu |
Article Index for Ion |
Website Links For Ion |
Information AboutIon Antonescu |
|
Ion Victor Antonescu ( June 15 1882 , Piteşti – June 1 1946 , near Jilava ) was the prime minister and ''conducător'' (Leader) of Romania during World War II from September 4 , 1940 to August 23 , 1944 . EARLY LIFE AND MILITARY CAREER Antonescu was born into a bourgeois family with some military tradition. He attended military schools in Craiova and Iaşi , and graduated the Cavalry School as top of class in 1904 , then, in 1911 , the military academy. As lieutenant, Antonescu took part in the repression of the 1907 Peasants' Revolt in and around the city of Galaţi . In 1913, he participated in the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria , winning Romania's highest military decoration. During Romania's involvement in World War I ( 1916 - 1918 ), Antonescu acted as chief-of-staff for Marshal Constantin Prezan . In this position, he was the architect of the Romanian army's successful defense against the attempted invasion of Moldavia by German troops headed by Field Marshal Mackensen , in the second half of 1917 (the rest of Romania had already been occupied by the Germans in late 1916 ). Antonescu had the reputation of a very skilled and practical military commander. His ruthlessness gained him the name ''Câinele roşu'' (''the red dog''). Between 1922 and 1926 he was a Military Attaché of Romania in France and Great Britain . After returning to Romania he was the commander of the "Şcoala Superioară de Război" (''Upper School of War'') between 1927 and 1930, Chief of the General Staff between 1933 and 1934 and Defence Minister between 1937 and 1938. POLITICAL POWER General Antonescu was appointed Prime minister by King Carol II in September 1940, after Romania was forced to surrender Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the USSR ( June 28 , 1940 ), and the northern half of Transylvania to Hungary ( August 30 , 1940 ). Only two days after his appointment, he forced King Carol to abdicate. Carol's son, Mihai , became the new King. Antonescu named himself ''Conducător'' (''Leader'') and assumed dictatorial powers, relegating the King to a merely decorative role. Facing the prospect of two threats (Germany to the West, the Soviet Union to the East), Antonescu sought an alliance with Nazi Germany , hoping to at least gain back the territories lost to the Soviets. This partnership was equally inviting to the Germans, because of Romania's important oil reserves. Antonescu approached the Fascist, anti-Semitic Iron Guard party and offered them seats in the Government ( September 15 , 1940 ). Antonescu desired to bring the Iron Guard under his direct control, because their paramilitary activities and their anti-Semitic terror were undermining the authority of the state. The ensuing period was known as the 'National Legionary State' (''Statul naţional-legionar''). Eventually, after their demands for extended powers were repeatedly turned down by Antonescu, the Iron Guard rebelled ( January 21 , 1941 ). Antonescu quickly crushed the rebellion (with the consent of Germany, whose economic and military interests demanded stability in Romania), outlawed the Iron Guard and had their top leaders imprisoned or expelled from the country. Romanian troops joined the German Wehrmacht in their attack against the Soviet Union (June 1941) and reoccupied lost territories as well as the city of Odessa in which, under his orders, the Odessa Massacre took place. It seems that Antonescu didn't knew of the atrocities, so he wasn't able to stop them. Even after the recapturing of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , Antonescu took the Romanian army deeper into Soviet territory. This decision was met with disapproval both by Romanian politicians (traditional parties) and by the Allied Powers . After the Romanians suffered huge losses in the Battle Of Stalingrad and realised the war was lost, Antonescu's popularity declined sharply. In the summer of 1944 , as the Soviets were pushing the Germans closer and closer to Romania's eastern borders, Antonescu refused to change his stance, although he had approved the talks with the Allies. He knew that Soviet dictator Stalin wouldn't keep his promises and refused also to become a traitor to his german allies. Antonescu wanted them to leave in an ordered manner. Thus, on August 23 , 1944 , King Michael, supported by Romania's top political parties, dismissed him and put him under arrest. TRIAL AND DEATH After being arrested, Antonescu was turned over to the Soviets. In May 1946 he was put on trial in the Bucharest People's Tribunal , by the Communist government in Bucharest, and found guilty of Crimes Against Peace for having supported the German invasion of the USSR. He was sentenced to death, and executed on June 1 , 1946 . The official report stated that Ion Antonescu asked to be executed by the army, not by prison guards, but he was refused, to which he replied: "Scumbags, scumbags!". :"Then the command for the execution was given. The weapons were loaded and when they were fired the Marshal saluted by raising his hat with the right hand, after which they all fell down. The Marshal immediately rose up, leaning on his elbow and said: You didn't shoot me gentlemen, fire!, after which the chief guard went with his pistol to Antonescu and shot him in the head. The doctor consulted them and came to the conclusion that the Marshal and Vasiliu were still alive. The chief guard fired another shot in the chest of Antonescu and then of Vasiliu and the doctor examined them and said they still weren't dead. The chief guard went again to Vasiliu, but his pistol jammed when he tried to fire it. He took a rifle from one of the guards and fired one shot in Vasiliu's head, but then it also jammed." :"He changed it with another one and fired another three shots in different parts of Vasiliu's body and then went to the Marshal and fired 3 shots in his chest. The doctor examined them and said that Antonescu was dead, but Vasiliu was still alive. Again the guard fired a shot in Vasiliu's head. The result: Vasiliu's brains were coming out of his head, but he was still moving and saying something we couldn't understand. The guard went again to him and fired two shots in the head and after this the doctor said that Vasiliu too was dead." Ion Antonescu Executed , Axis History Forum. This official account is clearly contradicted by film footage of the execution, in which Antonescu and others are shot dead in one volley from the firing squad. The head of the squad, as was customary, then fired a shot with his pistol into the head of each body. ANTONESCU AND THE HOLOCAUST Antonescu's government killed between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews in Romania and the territories it occupied. Romania: Facing the Past , The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies A report produced by a special commission led by Nobel Laureaute '', November 11, 2004 In the past there was debate about Antonescu's personal role in Romanian participation in the Holocaust. The report, drawing from archival information made available after the fall of communism, makes it clear that Antonescu bore direct responsibility: In general, Ion Antonescu was motivated by his loathing of Jews and Judaism. He revealed this hatred at a session of the Council of Ministers on April 15, 1941: “I give the mob complete license to massacre Jews . I will withdraw to my fortress, and after the slaughter, I will restore order.” This was a rather accurate prediction of what was to take place in Iasi shortly thereafter. In numerous instances Antonescu personally instigated specific anti-Semitic actions carried out by the Romanian fascist state....Antonescu was a war criminal in the purest definition of the phrase. His leadership involved the Romanian government in crimes against humanity unrivaled in Romania’s sometimes glorious, sometimes cruel history Chapter 9: The Role of Ion Antonescu in the Planning and Implementation of Antisemitic and Anti-Roma policies of the Romanian State , Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 2004 .]] Immediately after coming into office, Antonescu expanded the anti-Jewish laws passed by Gigurtu, though Antonescu's stepmother, Frida Cuperman, was Jewish, as was his first wife, Rasela Mendel, whom he married as a military attaché in London in the 1930s. During 1941 and 1942, 80 anti-Jewish regulations were passed, all sharply anti-Semitic. Starting at the end of October, 1940, the Iron Guard began a massive anti-Semitic campaign, torturing and beating Jews and looting their shops, culminating in the failed coup and a Pogrom in Bucharest in which 120 Jews were killed. Antonescu stopped the violence and chaos done by the Iron Guard by brutally suppressing the rebellion. By the time Romania entered the war, however, atrocities against the Jews had become common, most notably in the Iaşi Pogrom , where over 10,000 Jews were killed in July 1941. In 1941 , following the advancing Romanian Army and alleged attacks by Jewish "Resistance groups", Antonescu ordered the deportation to Transnistria , of all Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina (between 80,000 and 150,000), who were considered "Communist agents" by the official propaganda. "Deportation" however was a euphemism, as part of the process was to kill as many Jews as possible before deporting the rest in the trains of death" to the East. Of those who escaped the initial Ethnic Cleansing in Bukovina and Bessarabia , only very few managed to survive trains and the concentration camps set up in Transnistria . Further killings perpetrated by Antonescu's death squads (documents prove his direct orders and involvement) targeted the Jewish population that the Romanian army managed to round up when occupying Transnistria. Over one hundred thousand of these were in massacres staged in such places as Odessa (see the Odessa Massacre ), Bogdanovka , Akmecetka in 1941 and 1942. Antonescu did halt deportations despite German pressure in 1943, as he began to seek peace with the Allies, though at the same time he levied heavy taxes and forced labor on the remaining Jewish communities. Also, sometimes with the encouragement of Antonescu's regime, thirteen boats left Romania for the British Mandate Of Palestine during the war, carrying 13,000 Jews, though two of these ships sunk, and the effort was discontinued after German pressure was applied. About 25,000 Roma people were also deported to Transnistria and it is estimated that at least 11,000 of them perished. ''See also: Romania During World War II#Romania And The Holocaust '' NOTES REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|