Romanian troops on the eastern front. Romania in World War II

Romania in World War II

It was clear that Karol needed to receive divine sanction in the form of the patriarch heading the cabinet of ministers in order to implement radical changes. And they were not slow to follow. In February 1938, the king held a referendum to approve the new constitution. Voting took place as follows - the voter had to come to the polling station and verbally, of course, without any observance of the secrecy of the will, speak out for or against the basic law. The constitution is adopted by a 99.87% majority.

The new basic law radically expands the powers of the king. The existence of a parliament, it is true, is also provided for, but the essence of this institution is changing due to the fact that all parties are banned. Instead, the National Renaissance Front is being created. Very quickly, 3.5 million people join it. Young people do not have to make a choice at all - the entire population of the country who has reached the age of 17 is enrolled in the organization "Guards of the Sea". In vain, communist propaganda scolded Karol for many decades - after all, the man did so much to prepare the future citizens of socialist Romania and Soviet Moldova for their already very close communist future.

The death penalty is introduced, more than a hundred years earlier abolished by General Kiselev. But the right to vote now extends to women. Another thing is that only the youngest girls had a chance to live until the next free elections - Romania and Moldova had to wait 52 years for them.

The country meekly accepted the destruction by the king of democratic institutions that had been so long and difficult to build. Karol, in turn, did not use repressions against representatives of democratic parties, being satisfied that they were sitting quietly. But in the legionnaires, he saw serious opponents, the fifth column of the German Nazis, and, presumably, he was simply jealous of Codreanu's popularity. So mass arrests fell upon them, and then executions. Codreanu was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison, but in November 1938, by order of the king, he was killed in prison.

If at the time of the establishment of the royal dictatorship in Romania, the situation in Europe was still relatively calm, then in the following months, as if trying to justify the measures of the Romanian authorities for internal consolidation, it begins to deteriorate rapidly. The betrayal by Great Britain and France of Czechoslovakia, which led to the rejection of the Sudetenland by Hitler in October 1938, was very bad news for Romania. The country felt abandoned by its traditional allies, defenseless in the face of the USSR, Hungary and Bulgaria, who were thirsting for revenge. The ancient fear, which receded in 1856 and seemed to dissipate in 1918, begins to rise again from the depths of the Romanian soul.

In March 1939, Germany liquidates Czechoslovakia. The Small Entente, from which the strongest link has been knocked out, ceases to exist. Karol, although inspired by Italian and German examples in domestic politics, still wants to remain an ally of Great Britain and France. But the fear of Hitler is also growing. Therefore, Romania is trying to please both camps of opponents in the impending war.

The Romanians are inferior to the Nazis on the most important issue for the latter, which will run like a red thread through the entire history of Romanian-German relations during World War II - access to Romanian oil. On March 23, 1939, an economic agreement is concluded between Romania and Germany, according to which the latter becomes the priority buyer of Romanian oil, but Hitler does not want to pay in hard currency. The Germans pay off by barter, mostly with weapons. This ends the golden age of the Romanian oil boom.

On the other hand, in April 1939 Romania accepted the British and French military guarantees of its sovereignty. A project for a joint confrontation with Germany by the forces of France, Great Britain, the USSR and Eastern European countries begins to be developed. Poland's refusal to allow Soviet troops into its territory led to the failure of this first attempt at an anti-Hitler coalition, followed by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the outbreak of World War II. The consequences of the Polish refusal became catastrophic, but the events of 1944-1948. proved that there were good reasons for such a decision.

Having agreed with Stalin on the division of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, Hitler agreed to the return of the USSR territories that had ceded to Romania in 1918, and at the same time belonged to Romania, but inhabited mainly by Ukrainians in northern Bukovina.

Romania did not know that it had already begun to be divided, but the brutal defeat of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union could not but give rise to the most terrible forebodings about their own future. Great Britain and France, following the guarantees provided to Poland, declared war on the Nazis. The Romanian leadership, numb with horror, does not even dare to think about any attempts to join the struggle on the side of its allies in the last world war. At the Crown Council on September 6, 1939, a decision was made to strictly observe neutrality.

But the Romanians nevertheless showed a minimum of solidarity in the tragedy that befell Poland. The border with Romania was the only loophole where the Poles could hide from the German and Soviet vise that squeezed them. In September 1939, many trains passed through Romanian territory, carrying the Polish government and gold reserves, thousands of soldiers and refugees. They reached the Black Sea ports of Romania, from where they went into a long exile.

While the trains with the unfortunate Poles were going through Romania from the northern border to Constanta, events broke out in the country, ugly in terms of the intensity of hatred and rampant barbarism. On September 21, 1939, Prime Minister Călinescu (who took over the government in March 1939, after the death of the patriarch) was assassinated by the Iron Guard. In response, the king, distraught with fear and hatred, ordered immediately, without trial, to kill 252 legionnaires who were in prison. The bodies of the dead were thrown into the main streets of Romanian cities and lay there for three days to intimidate the people. Romania dreamed of being like ancient Rome, and in some ways achieved its goal. If Karol I is comparable in his merits with the emperor Octavian Augustus, then in the person of Karol II the country received a ruler in the spirit of Nero or Caligula.

The Romanians might indeed have been frightened for a long time, but in their past, which was now returning, external circumstances often prevented the strengthening of the power of tyrants at home. On May 10, 1940, German troops launched a general offensive on the western front. By the end of May, the French army was defeated, the remnants of the English fled from the continent. On June 14, the Nazis entered Paris. On June 22, France surrendered. On June 17, the USSR proceeds to the occupation and annexation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Only 20 years have passed since the West was at the height of its power. But the top is a slippery and windy thing, it is not easy to stay on it for a long time. From the turn of the 1920s - 30s economic crisis, the growth of the power of the Soviet Union and the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany undermined the strength and influence of Western civilization so that it now stood on the brink of death. Romania had shared in the triumph of the West in 1918, and now she had to share in its disasters.

The situation forces the Romanians to make decisions quickly - already on May 28, without waiting for the final fall of France, the Romanian Crown Council decides on the country's orientation towards an alliance with Germany. But in the fate of the eastern lands of Romania, already spelled out in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, this could not change anything.

On the night of June 27, 1940, the USSR presented an ultimatum to Romania demanding the immediate transfer of the eastern provinces. English guarantees are still formally in force, but it is obvious to everyone that Great Britain cannot provide any assistance. The Romanians ask for Germany's support, but receive a recommendation from Berlin not to resist the Soviet Union. June 28 Romania accepts the ultimatum, and on the same day Soviet army crossing the Dniester.

Parts of the Soviet army occupy Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in three days, ahead of the Romanian military units and administration trying to evacuate at least something, as well as hundreds of thousands of refugees rushing to the Prut. Bessarabian Jews, being offended by the Romanian society for anti-Semitism, and trying to curry favor with the new masters, welcome the Soviet troops and rob the property of the Romanian army and administration. On July 3, the withdrawal of Romanian troops from the provinces transferred to the Soviet Union is completed. Together with them, about 300 thousand refugees leave Bessarabia and northern Bukovina - a significant part of the representatives of the propertied and educated classes of these lands. Those who ventured to stay soon regretted it. During the year from the moment of the Soviet occupation to the offensive of the German and Romanian troops in June 1941, 90 thousand people were repressed in Eastern Moldavia and Northern Bukovina. The most severe blow to the population of the regions was the deportation of 31 thousand Bessarabians and Bukovinians in June 1941. There was also a considerable reverse flow - 150 thousand inhabitants of Eastern Moldavia who were in other regions of Romania, either hoping for a better future under socialism, or fearing the closure of the border , hurried back to their homeland.

On August 2, 1940, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution on the creation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. At the same time, the borders in the region have undergone a serious revision. Northern Bukovina, as well as southern Bessarabia adjacent to the Danube and the Black Sea, where the Moldavians were a minority, were transferred to Ukraine. Part of the Bulgarian and Gagauz lands went to Moldova. But there were no Germans left in these lands. By agreement between the USSR and Germany, all of them in the amount of 110 thousand were taken to German territory. The Germans traveled with greater comfort than those Bessarabians whom the Soviet authorities took to Siberia, but it is unlikely that separation from their homeland, where several generations of their ancestors lived, became much easier from this.

On the other hand, a strip of land along the eastern bank of the Dniester, on which the Moldavian autonomy previously existed, was taken from Ukraine and transferred to Moldova.

The new possessions of the communist empire were brought to the all-Soviet standard with maximum speed. Already in July, they exchanged lei for rubles, which ensured equality in poverty for the population of the new Soviet lands - only a very small amount was exchanged, and all savings in excess of it turned into nothing. On August 15, 1940, a law was followed on the nationalization of all large and medium-sized enterprises in Eastern Moldavia and Northern Bukovina. And the Soviet authorities did not have to close the free Russian-language press of Bessarabia - this work was done for them by the Romanian royal dictatorship in 1938.

Greater Romania no longer existed. The country was again defenseless, desperately looking for a ruler whose patronage would allow it to survive. Karol II demonstrates his readiness to go to any humiliation, if only Hitler would protect the unfortunate country from its neighbors.

The surviving legionnaires are amnestied, and their new leader, Horia Sima, is included in the cabinet of ministers. Jews are dismissed from state institutions, a law is passed banning marriages with representatives of the “small people”. Continuing to live with a Jewess without formalizing the relationship, Karol, presumably, shows his subjects that the ugly law he has adopted can be completely circumvented. Romania refuses British military guarantees and withdraws from the League of Nations, then asks to join it to the Berlin-Rome axis.

After leaving the eastern regions, Defense Minister Ion Antonescu demanded that the king grant him emergency powers, for which he was removed and sent into exile. Karol's power still held out, but the events that put an end to it were approaching quickly and inexorably.

Romania seems to be able to count on the understanding of Germany, given the importance of its oil sources. But Romanian fuel is not yet critical for the Nazis. Relations with the USSR are good, and Germany can buy oil there. So Karol receives from Berlin the most terrible answer he expected - Germany will condescend to an alliance with Romania only after the claims of Hungary and Bulgaria regarding compensation for the lost in 1918 and 1913 are settled.

Budapest demands to give up most of Transylvania, agreeing to leave some areas along the southern Carpathians to the Romanians. Bucharest is trying to object. Germany, as the supreme European arbiter, undertakes to make an arbitral award. On August 30, 1940, the decision of the Vienna Arbitration was announced - Transylvania is divided in half. Romania must give Hungary the northern part of the region with Cluj and the Szekely lands. Thousands of Romanians themselves flee northern Transylvania, and thousands more are deported by the Hungarian authorities to Romanian territory. In general, Romania receives another 300,000 displaced persons. In a number of places the Hungarian army massacres the Romanian population.

Finally, on September 7, 1940, an agreement was signed in Craiova with Bulgaria on the return of southern Dobruja to it. Although the Bulgarians and Romanians do not seem to be divided by fierce enmity, according to the custom of the fierce times that have come, the parties agree on mutual ethnic cleansing. Several tens of thousands of Bulgarians are being deported from Romania, several tens of thousands of Romanians are being deported from Bulgaria. In total, Romania in 1940 lost a third of its territory and a third of its population.

Cruelty, corruption and the pervasive influence of the Jewish mistress have long made Carol II unpopular in the country. For the time being, he was feared. But the endless nightmare of surrendering Romanian lands without a fight forced the Romanians to overcome fear. The finest hour of the legionnaires has come. After the decision of the Vienna Arbitration on Transylvania was announced, hundreds of thousands of people across the country, responding to the call of the leadership of the Iron Guard, took to the streets demanding the abdication of Karol from the throne. To force the army to fight against its own people, which had just given away many lands to foreign peoples without a fight, the king did not dare.

He is trying to find common ground with society by placing the disgraced Minister of Defense Antonescu at the head of the government on 4 September. But he deals the final blow to him - on behalf of the army, he joins the demand of the Iron Guards for the abdication of the king. There is nothing more to hope for, so on the morning of September 6, Carol II abdicates the throne. The day is spent collecting and loading money and valuables that will help the deposed king and his girlfriend spend the rest of their days comfortably, and in the evening Karol and Elena Lupescu board a train that takes them to the Yugoslav border.

The deposed monarch lived until 1953, settling in Portugal. Leaving the homeland that delivered this lover good life so much trouble and grief for a man, Karol, finally, formalized a legal marriage with Elena Lupescu.

Mihai returns to the Romanian throne. He has already reached the age of majority, but no one intends to allow the king to rule the country. The only thing he needs is to endow Prime Minister Antonescu with dictatorial powers. But the young man can meet his mother again. Queen Helena returns from exile.

A frightening-looking column of legionary militants is marching through the streets of Bucharest. Multi-million dollar royal party of 1938 disappears overnight without a trace. Romania is proclaimed a "national legionary state". As in the early days of Turkish domination, when Dracula raged in Wallachia, the people are not ready to come to terms with the loss of the country's former status. Discipline, determination and ruthlessness towards enemies should help the nation overcome a merciless fate.

The object of revenge for Romania's impotence in the face of external enemies is people of the “wrong” nationality living quietly inside the country. In the autumn of 1940, laws were passed on the nationalization of the property of Jews and Hungarians, then on their dismissal from all more or less decent jobs. The persecution of the Jews also serves to improve relations with Germany, with which hopes for revenge are associated.

And things are improving in this direction. The Nazi government says that now that Romania has shared its lands with its neighbors, it can provide it with guarantees territorial integrity. The latter very quickly receive a material embodiment - in October, German troops are introduced into Romania. November 23, Antonescu is favorably received in Berlin, where Romania's accession to the Berlin-Rome axis is formalized.

It remains only to decide who will lead the country to revenge - Antonescu or legionnaires led by Sima. The government formed in September included several legionnaires, but the military loyal to the prime minister occupied key posts. The Iron Guards are putting more and more pressure on Antonescu, demanding that they be given control of the army and police, the entire public life and economy of the country.

Organized in November, the reburial of Codreanu and other legionnaires who were victims of the royal dictatorship sent society into a state of hysteria. The general brutality, the first victims of which were Jews and Hungarians, now fell upon the Romanians as well. On the night when the secret burial of Codreanu was opened in the courtyard of the Jilava prison, the legionnaires killed 64 officials from the time of the royal dictatorship, who were sitting there, in the following days, the economist Madzharu and the historian Iorgu. Nature, as it were, also responded to the madness of people - in November 1940, a powerful earthquake led to great destruction and casualties in the south of Moldavia and in the east of Wallachia. In Bucharest, the elite residential complex "Carlton" collapsed - a 12-story concrete brainchild of the economic boom of the second half of the thirties. Thus, the hopes of Romania to quickly and simply come to an industrial democratic society fell apart.

However, the opinions of Romanian historians as to whether the Holocaust took place in their country are divided. Because Romanians destroyed Jews, but not on Romanian territory. There was no persecution in Romania itself after the Iasi pogrom. Many were even able to keep their property, since there were enough loopholes in the laws of 1940, such as an exception for Jews "having services to the Romanian state."

Although the Moldavian peasantry, of course, bore the brunt of the war, for them the short return of the Romanians was a respite between Soviet taxes. During the three years of Romanian rule in Bessarabia, 417 thousand tons of grain were collected in the form of taxes and requisitions, while at the same time in 1940-1941, in just one year of Soviet administration, the state took 356 thousand tons of grain. And in 1944, returning Soviet authority pumped out 480 thousand tons from war-ravaged Eastern Moldavia!

If there was no significant partisan movement in Eastern Moldavia, then 10,000 partisans settled in the huge catacombs of Odessa. The Romanian army did not make any attempt to defeat them, the partisans were also limited to minor operations. So all two and a half years of occupation in Odessa, there were two authorities side by side - from above Romania, from below - the USSR.

Meanwhile, the quagmire of war dragged Romania deeper and deeper. I had to fight not only with those who had taken the eastern provinces of the USSR, but also with those to whom the Romanians had no claims. On December 7, 1941, Romania declared war on Great Britain, on December 12, fulfilling an allied duty to Japan, the United States. In the east, the clash between the USSR and Germany reached its highest point. In the spring of 1942, after the success near Moscow, the Soviet army launched a series of counter-offensives against the Germans, but was not ready and was driven back with heavy losses, after which the Nazis launched an offensive on the southern sector of the front. The Romanian army took part in the most important of the battles of the spring campaign of 1942 - the defeat of the Soviet troops near Kharkov. In June-July 1942, the Romanians helped the Germans take Sevastopol.

By the end of the summer of 1942, the Nazis managed to ensure the greatest mobilization of their European allies. It had already become clear that it was incredibly difficult to defeat the Soviet Union, but after the German victories in the spring of 1942, Hitler's chances seemed to be preferable. Therefore, two German, one Italian and one Hungarian armies went on the offensive against Stalingrad. There were two Romanian armies, as well as German ones. In total, Romania had about 400,000 people on the eastern front in 1942 - two-thirds of the forces at its disposal. Hungary sent only one-third of its army to the eastern front. Of all the Europeans forced to fight for Hitler, the Romanians were still the most enthusiastic in selling their souls to the Nazi devil.

By the end of August, when the German troops began the assault on Stalingrad, the Romanian forces (third and fourth armies) were entrusted with the responsible task of covering the German troops fighting for Stalingrad from both flanks. The Third Army occupied the front line, which went northwest from Stalingrad along the Don and turned towards central Russia. The Fourth Army was deployed on a huge front between Stalingrad and the Caucasus, in the steppes of Kalmykia.

September, October, half of November passed. The terrible massacre in Stalingrad continued month after month, but the Soviet troops fought to the death and did not allow the Nazis to reach the lines outlined by Hitler. Romanian soldiers froze in the trenches and died in battles thousands of kilometers from their native land. And they died inefficiently. They had to fight against the Soviet army, which, despite the terrible situation in the country, received tanks, guns, and aircraft in abundance. The technical lag of the Romanian army during the Second World War was almost greater than in the First. An outstanding achievement of the interwar period was the construction of our own aircraft factory and the creation of good combat aircraft. But the artillery was poor, and the huge war exhausted its capabilities - by November 1942, the Romanian Third Army had only 20% of the necessary ammunition. The Romanians were representatives of an oil-producing country, but their army had only 30% of the required gasoline in the most important strategic direction.

And most importantly, there were negligibly few tanks. The Third Army consisted of eight infantry and two cavalry divisions, there were no tank formations, and hundreds of combat vehicles of the Soviet Fifth Tank Army were deployed on the northern bank of the Don to attack the Romanian infantry and cavalry.

So the artillery and tank hell that opened up on the Romanian positions along the Don on November 19, 1942 did not give the Romanians any chance. In the history of the Romanian wars, as we know, there were cases when the army fought to the last, but this happened only when defending the last line on their native land. There was nothing similar here, so the third Romanian army fled and was destroyed in a matter of days. The Fourth Army, on which the Soviet attack hit on November 20, withdrew with heavy losses. The lightning-fast defeat of the Romanians allowed the Soviet army very quickly, by November 23, to surround the German forces that had stormed Stalingrad. In January 1943, the withdrawal of the Nazis from the Caucasus began. At the same time, the only Hungarian army sent to the eastern front died near Voronezh.

The enemy turned out to be stronger than not only the Romanians, but also the Germans. In the early 1920s, the Russian Bolsheviks experienced great disappointment when the rest of the world, even after a terrible war, did not make a communist revolution. But the belief in the correctness of the communist idea of ​​the Bolsheviks did not leave, so it was decided to make the world happy by force. And in creating a strong army, designed to carry the red banners and impose the power of party committees throughout the earth, the USSR succeeded. The general confiscation of property by the state from the people made it possible to create an unprecedented system of resource mobilization in terms of efficiency and cruelty. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the 30,000 Bessarabians sent deep into the USSR to work on slave terms - for minimal food, without a penny of wages, and the scale of grain procurements in Eastern Moldavia.

And one more earlier circumstance. In 1933, Romania began to emerge from the crisis, agriculture revived, and nothing resembling a famine was observed. And beyond the Dniester, where climatic conditions could not seriously differ from the Romanian ones, millions of Soviet peasants, from whom the latter was taken away for the industrialization of the communist empire, were dying of hunger. Near Stalingrad, those peasants who survived in 1933, but now died by the millions on the fronts of the bloodiest war in human history, were given moral compensation for their suffering - they became citizens of a great power. And for the Romanians, in the winter sky over the frozen Don steppes, merciless fate began to draw the first lines of a new chapter in their history - the era of communist rule.

Defeat

Nazi Germany had no truly loyal allies. Hungary, after the defeat of its army near Voronezh, curtailed participation in the struggle on the eastern front. Bulgaria, which took advantage of Hitler's victories over Yugoslavia and Greece, never sent a single soldier against the Soviet Union. Far to the west, Franco, who came to power largely thanks to the support of Germany, could have prevented the penetration of the American and British fleets into the Mediterranean, but he did not think to do so. A country whose official ideology was extreme nationalism could hardly hope for anything better. Antonescu was best ally Hitler, but his words about his readiness to go to the end were not sincere.

The harsh history of the country has developed among the Romanian elite an exceptionally sharp sense of smell on the subject of who is currently with strength and luck. And if in 1940 the Romanian Crown Council decided to seek an alliance with the Nazis even before the final fall of France, then Antonescu orders the withdrawal of most of the Romanian forces from the eastern front already on November 26, 1942. Complete the withdrawal of the remnants of the third and fourth armies within the Romanian possessions succeed in February 1943. On the eastern front, 40,000 Romanian troops remain, who fight in the North Caucasus, then evacuate to the Crimea, where they receive a respite until April 1944.

Antonescu's strategy is changing. He is doing everything possible to restore and strengthen the Romanian army, but is in no hurry to throw it into the hell of the eastern front again. Domestic policy is softening. There is no more talk of further extermination of the Jews. Hitler's demand to start sending them to concentration camps on the territory of the Reich is ignored by the Romanian authorities. The Jewish population of Odessa, although it suffered losses in the first months of the occupation, largely survived thanks to a change in the approach of the Romanians. At the same time, Germany's attitude towards Romania is quite loyal - Hitler knows that without Romanian oil he will end.

Rumania's hopes are pinned on the advance of American and British troops, especially since their main theater of operations is relatively close to Romanian territory. In May 1943, the Allies defeat the Germans and Italians in Africa, and on September 8, their landing in Italy leads to the overthrow of the Nazis and the country's withdrawal from the war. This development of events gives rise to the hope in Romania that the troops of the Western members of the anti-Hitler coalition will land in the Balkans, and then it will be possible to join them in order to expel the Nazis from South-Eastern Europe and prevent the Communists from entering there. But the course of the Italian campaign may already give rise to doubts about the reality of the prospects presented by the Romanian politicians. The unwillingness of democratic governments to shed the blood of their citizens, which led to the grandiose defeats of the West in 1938-1940, is now turning into indecisive warfare. The Americans and the British allow the Germans to take over

February 14, 1945 the air war became even more violent. Five Romanian Hs-129s destroyed four trucks and several wagons in the vicinity of Podriceni. Then the Henschels, together with Ju-87 dive bombers, attacked the Lovinobanya railway station. This day was also not without losses: one Henschel crashed in Miskolc during a flyby after engine repairs, the adjutant pilot Vasile Skripchar died. The violinist was known in Romania not only as a pilot, but also as a talented reporter and artist.
On January 15, the first goal of the offensive operation was achieved - the Soviet troops liberated Luchinets. During the offensive, Romanian aviation carried out 510 sorties, flying 610 hours and dropping about 200 tons of bombs. The pilots bombed nine prefabricated trains, three fuel trains, three important bridges and a large number of pieces of equipment. The reports of the Romanian pilots were reflected in the operational reports of the command of the Soviet 27th combined arms and 5th air armies. http://www.allaces.ru/cgi-bin/s2.cgi/rom/publ/01.dat

On February 20, the commander of the 5th air army, General Ermachenko, and the chief of staff of the 40th army, General Sharapov, arrived at the command post of the 1st Romanian air corps. The generals discussed with the Romanian officers a plan for future actions. On the morning of February 21, the guidance officers of the 1st Air Corps of the Romanian Air Force moved to forward observation posts to study the terrain in detail and prepare the data necessary for planning air strikes. In a speech to the Romanian pilots and technicians, the Soviet general, in particular, said an interesting phrase: "... we hope that our Romanian comrades will not let us down." And they did not disappoint.

In some areas, direct air support for the advancing troops was assigned exclusively to the Romanian Air Force. Bad weather delayed the start of aviation combat work by one day. On February 25, the sky cleared of clouds, the planes were able to take off.
This day is marked in the history of the Romanian Air Force with unusually high activity, victories and losses. In 148 sorties, Romanian pilots dropped 35 tons of bombs on the positions of German troops in the Ochova-Detva-Zvolesnka Slatina triangle. The pilots reported about three destroyed half-tracked armored vehicles, one self-propelled artillery mount, two cars, five horse-drawn carts and eight machine-gun nests, and many enemy soldiers and officers destroyed. When attacking ground targets, the Henschel of adjutant Viktor Dumbrava received a direct hit from an anti-aircraft gun projectile, the pilot hardly pulled it over the front line and plopped down on an emergency landing near Detva.
The 25th was also a busy day for the fighters. On the fifth sortie that day, Captain Cantacuzino and his wingman adj took off. Traian Dbrjan. Above the front line, they found eight Fw-190Fs storming the Soviet troops. Without hesitation, they rushed into battle, and one by one.
http://www.allaces.ru/cgi-bin/s2.cgi/rom/publ/01.dat


This is how the Romanian pilots, not sparing their lives, covering our troops from the air.
May 6 began the last offensive operation of the war in Europe - a breakthrough to Prague. Romanian aviation supported the ground forces advancing on Proteev. On May 7, Romanian pilots managed to destroy 15 vehicles northwest of Proteev.
On May 8, pilots stormed columns of enemy troops and equipment on the roads in the vicinity of Urchitsa and Vyshovitsa. The 2nd Fighter Group lost its last pilot in the war - it was slt. av. Remus Vasilescu.
On May 9, 1945, only IAR-39 biplanes took off under the escort of Messerschmitts, who scattered leaflets. The Germans surrendered without offering resistance.

However, the war for the Romanian aviators ended a little later. On May 11, the Romanians carried out strikes on parts of the Russian Liberation Army under General Vlasov. The Vlasovites had nothing to lose, and they desperately resisted in the forests under the Hungarian Ford. On the evening of May 11, 1945, the planes (several bombers under cover of four Bf-109Gs) returned from the last sortie of the Romanian Air Force in World War II. Over the territory of Czechoslovakia, Romanian pilots fought for 144 days.
In total, until the end of the war (on May 12, 1945), the 1st Corps accounted for 8542 sorties and the destruction of 101 enemy aircraft (together with anti-aircraft gunners). Losses amounted to 176 aircraft shot down by fighters, air defense and destroyed in numerous accidents in bad weather conditions in the winter and spring of 1945.

There is concrete data only on the participation of Henschels, on the rest - fragmentary data. So, in five months of hostilities, from December 19, 1944 to May 11, 1945, the pilots of the 41st assault squadron ("Henschels") completed 422 sorties, flying 370 hours and dropping 130 tons of bombs. As a result of the squadron's actions, 66 columns of enemy troops were scattered, 185 cars and 66 horse-drawn carts were destroyed, Henschel pilots smashed 13 trains at railway stations, among other destroyed enemy property - artillery pieces, mortars, machine guns. The squadron lost eight HS-129B attack aircraft. Pilots "pieces" only in Slovakia made 107 sorties, flying 374 hours. They dropped 210 tons of bombs on 37 railway stations and 36 enemy positions. 3 tanks, 61 trucks and 6 anti-aircraft batteries were recorded as destroyed.
During the entire war, the Romanian Air Force lost 4172 people, of which 2977 fought for Germany (972 dead, 1167 wounded and 838 missing) and 1195 fought against Germany (respectively 356, 371 and 468).
http://www.allaces.ru/cgi-bin/s2.cgi/rom/publ/01.dat
Thus, the Romanian Royal Army, starting the war as one of the main allies of the German Wehrmacht, ended it already as one of the main allies of the Red Army, on southwest direction Soviet-German front.
The paradox of history, however, was that many Romanian soldiers and officers in the victorious year of 1945 had both the Romanian awards they received for the capture of Sevastopol and the Soviet medals for the capture of Budapest on their dress uniforms.
Romanian King MihaiIstill remains the only living cavalier of the highest Soviet military order "Victory"

A smart person and a professional in his field, who, however, is not aware of what battles are now going on to increase the paper population of the fascist invaders and their allies who died in the Great Patriotic War. It is clear that despite all the conscientiousness of a person, many figures somehow do not fight with my sources.

Data by G.F. Krivosheev in "Secret Grip..." look like this:


Collection "Prisoners of war in the USSR. 1939-1956" Grigory Fedotovich's figures regarding the captured Romanians are sufficiently confirmed, the problem of four thousand people is crumbs, we will neglect it.

However, in this situation, it is logical to ask what the Romanians themselves think about their losses in WWII.
And the Romanians, according to "Armata Romana in al doilea razboi mondial", Meridiane, Bucharest 1995. think about their losses the following:

Table error. In the missing after 08/23/1944, the numbers of the column Total armies are copied from those killed. Instead of 21.355 must be a number 57.974 .

In total, in the battles with the Red Army, the Romanians lost dead and missing according to their data: 380 138 military personnel.
According to Soviet data, from this figure from 225 518 before 229 682 Romanian soldiers were taken prisoner. Accordingly, the remaining 150 454 before 154 620 Romanians either died or deserted during the fighting in the territories of Moldova and Romania, fleeing home. This is especially true for Moldovans.

We look at the plate from G.F. Krivosheev higher with 245 388 dead "Rumaneshtami" and begin to guess where and where the extra ones came from in it one hundred thousand human. Here, even nodding at the Romanians who died in captivity will not work, since they are shown in a separate column regarding the fate of those who were captured. And even if these figures were added up, 40-50 thousand heads still do not fight.
We look further.

The total losses of the Romanian troops killed and missing in battles with the Wehrmacht amounted to 79 709 human.

I must say that the Germans were a little out of sorts from the "betrayal" of the Romanians, the war by the end of 1944 reached extreme bitterness, respectively, the Germans were somewhat reluctant to take their former allies prisoner. I think at least half of the descendants of the Romans who went missing in battles with the Nazis died, taking into account the massacres of prisoners and the problems of surviving in concentration camps in the last months of the war, the reliable figure is rather closer to two-thirds, or even more.

Taking into account the latest conclusion, the estimated number of soldiers of the Romanian army killed in battles, died from wounds and diseases, died from accidents in the Second World War will be:

On the Soviet-Romanian Front: about 150,000-155,000 people(in this figure, the number of missing deserters is unknown).

On the Romanian-German Front: about 60,000 people.

total - approx. 210 000 military personnel.

In addition, in Soviet captivity until 1956, according to G.F. Krivosheeva died 54 612 captured soldiers of the Romanian army and, according to my estimates, up to about 20 000 captured Romanians were killed or died in German captivity before the surrender of Germany.

In principle, when adding or partially adding the above figures (those who died in the SRF, died in the RHF, died in captivity in the east and died in captivity in the west) and adjusted for the difference and completeness of the sources, the result turns out to be somewhat close 245 388 to the dead Romanians from the table of Grigory Fedotovich. But if his group really counted the Romanian dead according to this method, I can say that all its members made a mistake with their profession at one time, they all, as one, should have become accountants or economists. In the "epoch of capital accumulation" of the late 80-90s. neither competitors nor auditors would have anything to catch, and Deribaska, unable to withstand competition with such wolves, would now be making crafts anywhere in Arzamas, or even sweeping the streets.

Until 1940, Romanian military thought and military practice were guided by the French military school. However, after the defeat of France in June 1940, the Romanian military began to give preference to the German school. In October of the same year, a permanent German mission arrived in Romania. Its main goal was to prepare the Romanian army for war, with the greatest attention being paid to the fight against tanks and the training of junior officers.

The modernization program was only partially successful. The Czech-made 7.92-mm rifle replaced the old 6.5-mm Mannlicher system, and the cavalry received the light Czech ZB 30 assault rifle. At the same time, there were still many obsolete weapons in the army. Anti-tank artillery was weak, although the Germans supplied the Romanians with captured 47-mm guns. Only the mountain rifle corps received modern Skoda artillery pieces. Most of the field guns have been in service since the beginning of the First World War, although the army also received captured French and Polish 75-mm guns. Most of artillery was still horse-drawn.

On September 1, 1939, the Romanian army consisted of 1 guard and 21 infantry divisions. In 1940, the intensive formation of new compounds began.

The general management of military construction was carried out by the Supreme Defense Council, chaired by the Prime Minister. With the outbreak of war, this post was taken by the leader (conductor) Ion Victor Antonescu (Ion Victor Antonescu).

The military ministry directly led the armed forces (through the general staff).

The Romanian Armed Forces consisted of ground forces, air force and the navy, as well as the corps of the border guard, the gendarmerie and the construction corps.

The ground forces included 3 combined arms armies (21 infantry divisions and 14 brigades). They were armed with 3850 guns, up to 4 thousand mortars, 236 tanks.

The infantry division of Romania in the state of 1941 included 3 infantry regiments, 1 artillery brigade (2 regiments), a battery of anti-aircraft guns, a company of anti-tank guns and machine guns, a reconnaissance squadron, a communications battalion, an engineering battalion and service units. In total, the division had 17,715 people, it had 13,833 rifles, 572 machine guns, 186 guns and mortars (75 mm field guns, 100 mm howitzers, 37 mm and 47 mm anti-tank guns).

The regiments of the regular army wore numbers from the 1st to the 33rd and from the 81st to the 96th, and the regiments of the first group were traditionally called "grenadiers" - "dorobants" (Dorobanti). Some divisions had Vanatori regiments, i.e. riflemen, who wore numbers from 1 to 10.

After the First World War, elite mountain units, like the "Alpine Riflemen", were formed according to the Italian model. Each of these 4 brigades had 1 artillery and 2 rifle regiments, as well as a reconnaissance squadron.

Detachment of skiers from the Romanian mountain shooters. 1941

Romanian mountain arrows in positions in the Crimea. 1942

Attack of the Romanian mountain shooters. Crimea, 1942

considered especially strong Romanian cavalry. In addition to the horse guards for the summer of 1941, there were 25 more linear cavalry regiments.

Romanian cavalry in the Ukrainian steppes. 1941

In 1941, the only separate tank regiment (which existed since 1939) was merged with a motorized rifle regiment into an armored brigade. Basically, the Romanian army was armed with Skoda LTvz 35 tanks at the beginning of the war, and for reconnaissance in parts there were a number of light CKD tanks. Most of the Skodas were lost in the battles near Stalingrad (some later converted to self-propelled 76-mm guns), and they were replaced German PzKpfw 38(t) and T-IV.

Romanian Air Force included 11 aeroflotillas: fighter - 3, bomber - 3, reconnaissance - 3, seaplanes - 1, balloons - 1. In total, the Air Force had 1050 aircraft, of which about 700 were combat: fighters - 301, bombers - 122, others - 276.

The Romanian naval forces consisted of the Black Sea Fleet and the Danube Flotilla. By the beginning of the war, the Romanian Black Sea Fleet had 2 auxiliary cruisers, 4 destroyer destroyers, 3 destroyers, a submarine, 3 gunboats, 3 torpedo boats, 13 minesweepers and minelayers. The Danube river flotilla included 7 monitors, 3 floating batteries, 15 armored boats, 20 river boats and auxiliary vessels.

In the summer of 1941, to attack the Soviet Union, Romania allocated 2 field armies(3rd and 4th), which included 13 infantry divisions, 5 infantry, 1 motorized and 3 cavalry brigades, about 3 thousand guns and mortars, 60 tanks.

The offensive of the ground forces was supposed to be supported by 623 combat aircraft. In total, 360,000 troops were involved in the war against the Soviet Union.
Romanian military uniform.

1st stage of the war against the USSR

To wage war against the Soviet Union, the Romanian army used mainly infantry weapons of its own production. In 1941, 2.5 thousand light machine guns, 4 thousand machine guns, 2250 60-mm and 81.4-mm mortars, 428 75-mm artillery pieces, 160 47-mm anti-tank guns, 106 37-mm and 75-mm anti-aircraft guns, over 2.7 million mines and shells.

The German command entrusted the Romanian troops with the tasks of ensuring the deployment of the 11th German army in Romania and its offensive against Right-Bank Ukraine. 4 infantry divisions, 3 mountain rifle and 3 cavalry brigades were reassigned to the headquarters of the 11th Army from the 3rd Romanian Army. The rest of the Romanian troops, reduced to the 4th Army, were deployed on the extreme right wing of the Soviet-German front.

For combat operations in the Black Sea, Germany, not having its own warships there, used the Romanian navy.

The 3rd Romanian Army included mountain rifle (1st, 2nd and 4th mountain rifle brigades) and cavalry (partially motorized 5th, 6th and 8th cavalry brigades) corps. The 4th army included the first three of the divisions trained by German instructors (5th, 6th and 13th) and other selected formations (guards division, border and armored brigades).

During the siege of Odessa (August 5 - October 16, 1941), the Romanian troops received significant reinforcements and eventually began to include the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th -th, 11th, 14th, 15th, 18th and 21st infantry and 35th reserve divisions, 1st, 7th and 9th cavalry brigades; in addition, separate German units were attached to the armies.

Near Odessa, due to poor training and lack of weapons, the Romanian units suffered heavy losses - on September 22, 2 infantry divisions were defeated. After the Odessa garrison was evacuated from October 1 to October 16, 1941, the 4th Romanian Army had to be sent for reorganization.

Military units from the 3rd Army (as well as the 1st, 2nd, 10th and 18th Infantry Divisions) remained at the front, although they came under the command of German generals. The mountain rifle corps fought in the Crimea as part of the 11th German army, and the cavalry corps as part of the 1st tank army. Smaller units, such as the Romanian Mechanized Regiment and Ski Squads, also operated in conjunction with the German units during the winter campaign.

2nd stage of the war against the USSR

In the summer of 1942, there was an increase in Romanian forces on the Eastern Front. The mountain rifle corps (later the 18th infantry and 1st mountain rifle divisions) was involved in the offensive against Sevastopol. In 1942, the brigade was reorganized according to the standards of the Wehrmacht and created the 1st armored division (later called "Greater Romania").

In August, a strong Romanian corps (which included the 18th and 19th infantry, 8th cavalry and 3rd mountain rifle divisions) fought across the Kerch Strait. At the same time, the 2nd Mountain Division, which had been on vacation since the end of 1941, was transferred to North Caucasus, where she became part of the 3rd German Panzer Corps. The 3rd army of General Dumitrescu reappeared at the front (5th, 6th, 9th, 13th, 14th and 15th infantry, 1st and 7th cavalry, 1st armored divisions ) and in October occupied the area north of Stalingrad. Meanwhile, the Romanian corps reached the front lines on the southern flank.

In November 1942, it was replenished with other units, and then transferred to the 4th German tank army (6 Romanian divisions in total: 1st, 2nd, 4th and 18th infantry, 5th and 8th cavalry ). Hitler suggested that most of the units of the 4th German Panzer Army should be transferred to the 4th army of General Constantinescu, and then, together with the 3rd Romanian and 6th German armies, form a new army group "Don" under the command of Marshal Antonescu.

The 4th Army moved forward and began to deploy just at the moment when the Soviet troops began the operation to encircle the Stalingrad group. Most of the Romanian divisions were defeated, and two (20th Infantry and 1st Cavalry) ended up inside the Stalingrad Cauldron. The remnants of the units were assembled into hastily organized army groups "Goth" (1st, 2nd, 4th and 18th infantry, 5th and 8th cavalry divisions) and "Hollyd" (7th, 9th I, 1 1st and 14th Infantry, 7th Cavalry and 1st Armored Divisions), but they suffered such heavy losses that by February 1943 they were taken to reform.

The morale of the Romanian military dropped significantly. This allowed the Soviet command to start in the fall of 1943 the creation of former prisoners Romanian formations in the Soviet army.

3rd stage of the war against the USSR

The counteroffensive of the Soviet troops led to the fact that many Romanian divisions were under the threat of encirclement in the Kuban bridgehead and in the Crimea (10th and 19th infantry, 6th and 9th cavalry, 1st, 2nd, 3rd I and the 4th mountain rifle divisions). The Germans sought to remove them from the front line and throughout 1943 used the Romanians mainly to defend the coastline and fight the partisans.

In April 1944, the 10th Infantry and 6th Cavalry Divisions, which were considered "persistent", were defeated in the Crimea. Most of the units were withdrawn from the fighting and returned to Romania for reorganization. The troops withdrawn to Romania were used to defend Bessarabia.

4th stage of the war against the USSR

By May 1944, the 3rd and 4th armies went to the front. Now the Romanians managed to insist on the establishment of a certain parity in the distribution of command quarters in the German-Romanian group. On the right flank, as part of the Dumitrescu army group, were the 3rd Romanian and 6th German armies (the 2nd, 14th and 21st infantry, 4th mountain rifle and 1st cavalry Romanian divisions fought here).

The 4th Romanian army, together with the 8th German army, formed the Weller army group (it included the following Romanian formations: guards, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 11 1st, 13th and 20th Infantry, 5th Cavalry and 1st Armored Divisions). With the beginning of the offensive of the Soviet troops in August 1944, this front collapsed.

Romania in the war against Germany and Hungary (1944 - 1945)

King Mihai arrested Antonescu, and Romania joined the anti-Hitler coalition. Her participation in the war on the side of Germany ended. At the same time, some the number of convinced Romanian fascists voluntarily joined the SS troops.

After some hesitation, the Soviet command decided use Romanian formations at the front. The 1st Army (created on the basis of divisions and training units withdrawn from the Crimea) and the new 4th Army (almost entirely made up of training units) again began hostilities in Transylvania. In the fighting against the German-Hungarian troops the Romanian Air Force actively showed itself.

In total, Romania lost 350 thousand people in battles with Soviet troops, and at the end of the war another 170 thousand in battles with German and Hungarian troops.