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Ion Antonescu Net Worth
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Total Net Worth at the moment 2024 year – is about $69,4 Million.
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Biography
Ion Antonescu information Birth date: June 15, 1882, Pite?ti, Romania Death date: June 1, 1946, Jilava, Romania Birth place: Pitesti, Romania Spouse:Maria Antonescu (m. 1928–1946), Rachel Mendel (m. 1923–1926) Parents:Li?a Baranga
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How tall is Ion Antonescu – 1,70m.
How much weight is Ion Antonescu – 64kg
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Ion Victor Antonescu (Romanian pronunciation: [i?on anto?nesku] (13px ), June 15, 1882 – June 1, 1946) was a Romanian soldier and authoritarian politician who was convicted of war crimes. The Prime Minister and Conduc?tor during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships. A Romanian Army career officer who made his name during the 1907 peasants', revolt and the World War I Romanian Campaign, the antisemitic Antonescu sympathized with the far right and fascist National Christian and Iron Guard groups for much of the interwar period. He was a military attach? to France and later Chief of the General Staff, briefly serving as Defense Minister in the National Christian cabinet of Octavian Goga. During the late 1930s, his political stance brought him into conflict with King Carol II and led to his detainment. Antonescu nevertheless rose to political prominence during the political crisis of 1940, and established the National Legionary State, an uneasy partnership with the Iron Guard', s leader Horia Sima. After entering Romania into an alliance with Nazi Germany and the Axis and ensuring Adolf Hitler', s confidence, he eliminated the Guard during the Legionary Rebellion of 1941. In addition to leadership of the executive, he assumed the offices of Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister. Soon after Romania joined the Axis in Operation Barbarossa, recovering Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Antonescu also became Marshal of Romania.An atypical figure among Holocaust perpetrators, Antonescu enforced policies independently responsible for the deaths of as many as 400,000 people, most of them Bessarabian, Ukrainian and Romanian Jews, as well as Romanian Romani. The regime', s complicity in the Holocaust combined pogroms and mass murders such as the Odessa massacre with ethnic cleansing, systematic deportations to occupied Transnistria and widespread criminal negligence. The system in place was nevertheless characterized by singular inconsistencies, prioritizing plunder over killing, showing leniency toward most Jews in the Old Kingdom, and ultimately refusing to adopt the Final Solution as applied throughout Nazi-occupied Europe.Confronted with heavy losses on the Eastern Front, Antonescu embarked on inconclusive negotiations with the Allies, just before a political coalition, formed around the young monarch Michael I, toppled him during the August 23, 1944, Coup. After a brief detention in the Soviet Union, the deposed Conduc?tor was handed back to Romania, where he was tried by a special People', s Tribunal and executed. This was part of a series of trials that also passed sentences on his various associates, as well as his wife Maria. The judicial procedures earned much criticism for responding to the Romanian Communist Party', s ideological priorities, a matter that fueled nationalist and far right attempts to have Antonescu posthumously exonerated. While these groups elevated Antonescu to the status of hero, his involvement in the Holocaust was officially reasserted and condemned following the 2003 Wiesel Commission report.
Biography,Early life and careerBorn in the town of Pite?ti, north-west of the capital Bucharest, Antonescu was the scion of an upper-middle class Romanian Orthodox family with some military tradition. He was especially close to his mother, Li?a Baranga, who survived his death. His father, an army officer, wanted Ion to follow in his footsteps and thus sent him to attend the Infantry and Cavalry School in Craiova. During his childhood, his father divorced his mother to marry a woman who was a Jewish convert to Orthodoxy. The breakup of his parents marriage was a traumatic event for the young Antonescu, and he made no secret of his dislike of his stepmother, whom he always depicted as a femme fatale who destroyed what he saw as his parents happy marriage.According to one account, Ion Antonescu was briefly a classmate of Wilhelm Filderman, the future Romanian Jewish community activist whose interventions with Conducator Antonescu helped save a number of his coreligionists. After graduation, in 1904, Antonescu joined the Romanian Army with the rank of Second Lieutenant. He spent the following two years attending courses at the Special Cavalry Section in Targovi?te. Reportedly, Antonescu was a zealous and goal-setting student, upset by the slow pace of promotions, and compensated for his diminutive stature through toughness. In time, the reputation of being a tough and ruthless commander, together with his reddish hair, earned him the nickname Cainele Ro?u (The Red Dog). Antonescu also developed a reputation for questioning his commanders and for appealing over their heads whenever he felt they were wrong.During the repression of the 1907 peasants revolt, he headed a cavalry unit in Covurlui County. Opinions on his role in the events diverge: while some historians believe Antonescu was a particularly violent participant in quelling the revolt, others equate his participation with that of regular officers or view it as outstandingly tactful. In addition to restricting peasant protests, Antonescus unit subdued socialist activities in Gala?i port. His handling of the situation earned him praise from King Carol I, who sent Crown Prince (future monarch) Ferdinand to congratulate him in front of the whole garrison. The following year, Antonescu was promoted to Lieutenant, and, between 1911 and 1913, he attended the Advanced War School, receiving the rank of Captain upon graduation. In 1913, during the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria, Antonescu served as a staff officer in the First Cavalry Division in Dobruja.World War IAfter 1916, when the Kingdom of Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, Ion Antonescu acted as chief of staff for General Constantin Prezan. In August 1916, upon the start of the Romanian campaign, Romanian troops crossed the Carpathian Mountains, marching into the Austro-Hungarian-ruled region of Transylvania, but their effort was halted when the Central Powers opened new fronts. Bulgarian and Imperial German armies decisively defeated their ill-equipped and poorly defended Romanian adversaries in the Battle of Turtucaia on (August 24) and advanced into Dobruja. When enemy troops crossed the mountains from Transylvania into Wallachia, Antonescu was ordered to design a defense plan for Bucharest.The Romanian royal court, army, and administration were subsequently forced to retreat into Moldavia, the last portion of territory still under Romanian control. Henceforth, Antonescu took part in an important decision involving defensive efforts, an unusual promotion which probably stoked his ambitions. In December, as Prezan became the Chief of the General Staff, Antonescu, who was by now a major, was named the head of operations, being involved in the defense of Moldavia. He contributed to the tactics used during the Battle of Mara?e?ti (July–August 1917), when Romanians under General Alexandru Averescu managed to stop the advance of German forces under the command of Field Marshal August von Mackensen. Antonescu lived in Prezans proximity for the remainder of the war and influenced his decisions.That autumn, the October Revolution in Russia removed Romanias main ally, the Russian Provisional Government, from the conflict. Its successor, Bolshevik Russia, made peace with the Central Powers under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, leaving Romania the only enemy of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front. In these conditions, the Romanian government signed, and the Parliament ratified, Romanias own peace treaty with the Central Powers. Romania broke the treaty later in the year, on the grounds that King Ferdinand I had not signed it. During the interval, Antonescu, who viewed the separate peace as the most rational solution, was assigned command over a cavalry regiment. The renewed offensive played a part in ensuring the union of Transylvania with Romania. After the war, Antonescus merits as an operations officer were noticed by, among others, politician Ion G. Duca, who wrote that his [Antonescus] intelligence, skill and activity, brought credit on himself and invaluable service to the country. Another event occurring late in the war is also credited with having played a major part in Antonescus life: in 1918, Crown Prince Carol (the future King Carol II) eloped and technically deserted his army posting, to marry the commoner Zizi Lambrino. This outraged Antonescu, who developed enduring contempt for the future king.Diplomatic assignments and General Staff positionsGeneral Antonescu (left) and Capitanul of the Iron Guard, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, at a skiing event in 1935Lieutenant Colonel Ion Antonescu retained his visibility in the public eye during the interwar period. He participated in the political campaign to earn recognition at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 for Romanias gains in Transylvania. His nationalist argument about a future state of the Romanians was published as the essay Romanii. Origina, trecutul, sacrificiile ?i drepturile lor (The Romanians. Their Origin, Their Past, Their Sacrifices and Their Rights). The booklet advocated extension of Romanian rule beyond the confines of Greater Romania, and recommended, at the risk of war with the emerging Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the annexation of all Banat areas and the Timok Valley. In March 1920, Antonescu was one of three people nominated by the new Averescu executive to be a military attache of Romania in France, but a report issued by the French military observer in Romania, General Victor Petin, was negative enough to make the French side choose a certain Colonel ?u?u instead (the text referred to Antonescu as extremely vain, chauvinistic and xenophobic, while acknowledging his great military worth). Antonescu was known for his frequent and erratic changes of mood, going from being extremely angry to being calm to angry again to being calm again within minutes, something that often disoriented those who had to work with Antonescu. The Israeli historian Jean Ancel wrote that Antonescus frequent changes of mood were due to the syphilis he contracted as a young man, and which he suffered from for the rest of his life.Nevertheless, ?u?u had to leave Paris in 1922, and when the Romanian government nominated Antonescu again, the French government felt obliged to accept his nomination, despite renewed criticism from Petins part. At the moment of his reassignment, Antonescu was handling military instruction in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu, where his rebellious attitude was causing irritation among his commanders.[11] From 1923, Antonescu was also the Romanian attache in the United Kingdom and Belgium.[11] After embarking on his mission, he negotiated a credit worth 100 million French francs to for Romania to purchase French weaponry, and worked together with Romanian League of Nations diplomat Nicolae Titulescu, the two became personal friends.[11] According to one account, he was also in contact with the Romanian-born conservative aristocrat and writer Marthe Bibesco, who is reported to have introduced Antonescu to the ideas of Gustave Le Bon, a researcher of crowd psychology who had an influence on fascist leaders.[12] The same story has it that Bibesco saw the Romanian officer as a new version of 19th century nationalist rebel Georges Boulanger, introducing him as such to Le Bon.[12] In 1923, he made the acquaintance of lawyer Mihai Antonescu, who was to become his close friend, legal representative and political associate.[13]After returning to Romania in 1926, Antonescu returned to his teaching position in Sibiu, and, in autumn 1928, was Secretary-General of the Defense Ministry in the Vintila Bratianu cabinet.[11] He married Maria Niculescu, for long a resident of France, who had been married twice before: to a Romanian Police officer, with whom she had a son, Gheorghe (died 1944), and to a Frenchman of Jewish origin.[14] After a period as Deputy Chief of the General Staff,[11] he was appointed its Chief (1933–1934). These assignments coincided with the rule of Carols underage son Michael I and his regents, and with Carols seizure of power in 1930. During this period Antonescu first grew interested in the Iron Guard, an antisemitic and fascist-related movement headed by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. In his capacity as Deputy Chief of Staff, he ordered the Armys intelligence unit to compile a report on the faction, and made a series of critical notes on Codreanus various statements.[11]As Chief of Staff, Antonescu reportedly had his first confrontation with the political class and the monarch. His projects for weapon modernization were questioned by Defense Minister Paul Angelescu, leading Antonescu to present his resignation.[11] According to another account, he completed an official report on the embezzlement of Army funds, which indirectly implicated Carol and his camarilla (see Skoda Affair).[15] The king consequently ordered him out of office, provoking indignation among sections of the political mainstream. On Carols orders, Antonescu was placed under surveillance by the Siguran?a Statului intelligence service, and closely monitored by the Interior Ministry Undersecretary Armand Calinescu.[16] The officers political credentials were on the rise, and he had contacts with all sides of the political spectrum, while support for Carol plummeted. Antonescu maintained contacts with the two main democratic groups, the National Liberal and the National Peasants parties (known respectively as PNL and PN?). He was also engaged in discussions with the rising far right, antisemitic and fascist movements: although in competition with each other, both the National Christian Party (PNC) of Octavian Goga and the Iron Guard sought to attract Antonescu to their side.[17] In 1936, to the authorities alarm, Army General and Iron Guard member Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Granicerul arranged a meeting between Ion Antonescu and the movements leader: Antonescu is reported to have found Codreanu arrogant, but to have welcomed his revolutionizing approach to politics.[16]Defense portfolio and the Codreanu trialsIn late 1937, after the December general election came to an inconclusive result, Carol appointed Goga Prime Minister over a far right cabinet that was the first executive to impose racial discrimination in its treatment of the Jewish community. Gogas appointment was meant to curb the rise of the more popular and even more radical Codreanu. Initially given the Communications portfolio by his rival, Interior Minister Armand Calinescu, Antonescu repeatedly demanded the office of Defense Minister, which he was eventually granted.[18] His mandate coincided with a troubled period, and saw Romania having to choose between its traditional alliance with France, Britain, the crumbling Little Entente and the League of Nations or moving closer to Nazi Germany and its Anti-Comintern Pact. Antonescus own contribution is disputed by historians, who variously see him as either a supporter of the Anglo-French alliance or, like the PNC itself, more favorable to cooperation with Adolf Hitlers Germany. At the time, Antonescu viewed Romanias alliance with the Entente as insurance against Hungarian and Soviet revanchism, but, as an anti-communist, he was suspicious of the Franco-Soviet rapprochement.[19] Particularly concerned about Hungarian demands in Transylvania, he ordered the General Staff to prepare for a western attack.[20] However, his major contribution in office was in relation to an internal crisis: as a response to violent clashes between the Iron Guard and the PNCs own fascist militia, the Lancieri, Antonescu extended the already imposed martial law.[21]The Goga cabinet ended when the tentative rapprochement between Goga and Codreanu[22] prompted Carol to overthrow the democratic system and proclaim his own authoritarian regime (see 1938 Constitution of Romania, National Renaissance Front). The deposed Premier died in 1938, and Antonescu remained a close friend of his widow, Veturia Goga.[23] By that time, revising his earlier stance, Antonescu had also built a close relationship with Codreanu, and was even said to have become his confidant.[24][25] On Carols request, he had earlier asked the Guards leader to consider an alliance with the king, which Codreanu promptly refused in favor of negotiations with Goga, coupled with claims that he was not interested in political battles (an attitude supposedly induced by Antonescu himself).[26]Soon afterward, Calinescu, acting on indications from the monarch, arrested Codreanu and prosecuted him in two successive trials. Antonescu, whose mandate of Defense Minister had been prolonged under the premiership of Miron Cristea, resigned in protest to Codreanus arrest.[27] He was a celebrity defense witness at the latters first[25] and second trials.[27] During the latter, which saw Codreanus conviction for treason, Antonescu vouched for his friends honesty while shaking his hand in front of the jury.[27] Upon the end of procedures, the king ordered his former minister interned at Predeal, before assigning him to command the Third Army in the remote eastern region of Bessarabia (and later removing him after Antonescu expressed sympathy for Guardists imprisoned in Chi?inau).[28] Attempting to discredit his rival, Carol also ordered Antonescus wife to be tried for bigamy, based on a false claim that her divorce had not been finalized. Defended by Mihai Antonescu, the officer was able to prove his detractors wrong.[29] Codreanu himself was taken into custody and discreetly killed by the Gendarmes acting on Carols orders (November 1938).[30]Carols regime slowly dissolved into crisis, the process being enhanced after the start of World War II, when the military success of the core Axis Powers and the non-aggression pact signed by Germany and the Soviet Union saw Romania isolated and threatened (see Romania during World War II). In 1940, two of Romanias regions, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, were lost to a Soviet occupation consented to by the king. This came as Romania, exposed by the Fall of France, was seeking to align its policies with those of Germany.[31] Ion Antonescu himself had come to value a pro-Axis alternative after the 1938 Munich Agreement, when Germany imposed demands on Czechoslovakia with the acquiescence of France and the United Kingdom, leaving locals to fear that, unless reoriented, Romania would follow.[32] Angered by the territorial losses of 1940, General Antonescu sent Carol a general note of protest, and, as a result, was arrested and interned at Bistri?a Monastery.[33] While there, he commissioned Mihai Antonescu to establish contacts with Nazi German officials, promising to advance German economic interest, particularly in respect to the local oil industry, in exchange for endorsement.[34] Commenting on Ion Antonescus ambivalent stance, Hitlers minister to Romania, Wilhelm Fabricius, wrote to his superiors: I am not convinced that he is a safe man.[35]Rise to powerBanner of Ion Antonescu as ConducatorRomanias elite had been intensely Francophile ever since Romania had won its independence in the 19th century, indeed so Francophile that the defeat of France in June 1940 had the effect of discrediting the entire elite.[36] Antonescus internment ended in August, during which interval, under Axis pressure, Romania had ceded Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria (see Treaty of Craiova) and Northern Transylvania to Hungary (see Second Vienna Award). The latter grant caused consternation among large sections of Romanias population, causing Carols popularity to fall to a record low and provoking large-scale protests in Bucharest, the capital. These movements were organized competitively by the pro-Allied PN?, headed by Iuliu Maniu, and the pro-Nazi Iron Guard. The latter group had been revived under the leadership of Horia Sima, and was organizing a coup detat.[37] In this troubled context, Antonescu simply left his assigned residence. He may have been secretly helped in this by German intercession,[38] but was more directly aided to escape by socialite Alice Sturdza, who was acting on Manius request.[39] Antonescu subsequently met with Maniu in Ploie?ti, where they discussed how best to manage the political situation.[39][40] While these negotiations were carried out, the monarch himself was being advised by his entourage to recover legitimacy by governing in tandem with the increasingly popular Antonescu, while creating a new political majority from the existing forces.[39] On 2 September 1940, Valer Pop, a courtier and an important member of the camarilla first advised Carol to appoint Antonescu as Prime Minister as the solution to the crisis.[41] Pops reasons for advising Carol to have Antonescu as Prime Minister who was partly because Antonescu-who was known to be friendly with the Iron Guard and had been imprisoned under Carol-was believed to have enough of an oppositional background to Carols regime to appease the public and partly because Pop knew that Antonescu for all his Legionary sympathies was a member of the elite and would never turn against it. When Carol proved reluctant to have Antonescu as Prime Minister, Pop visited the German legation to meet with Fabricius on the night 4 September 1940 to ask that the German minister phone Carol to tell him that Reich wanted Antonescu as Prime Minister, Fabriciuss promptly did just that.[42] Carol and Antonescu accepted the proposal, Antonescu being mandated to approach political party leaders Maniu of the PN? and Dinu Bratianu of the PNL.[39][43] They all called for Carols abdication as a preliminary measure,[39][44] while Sima, another leader sought after for negotiations, could not be found in time to express his opinion.[39] Antonescu partly complied with the request but also asked Carol to bestow upon him the reserve powers for Romanian heads of state.[45] Carol yielded and, on September 5, 1940, the general became Prime Minister, and Carol transferred most of his dictatorial powers to him.[46] The latters first measure was to curtail potential resistance within the Army by relieving Bucharest Garrison chief Gheorghe Arge?anu of his position and replacing him with Dumitru Coroama.[47] Shortly afterward, Antonescu heard rumors that two of Carols loyalist generals, Gheorghe Mihail and Paul Teodorescu, were planning to have him killed.[48] In reaction, he forced Carol to abdicate, while General Coroama was refusing to carry out the royal order of shooting down Iron Guardist protesters.[49]Michael ascended the throne for the second time, while Antonescus dictatorial powers were confirmed and extended.[50] On September 6, the day Michael formally assumed the throne, he issued a royal decree declaring Antonescu Conducator (leader) of the state. The same decree consecrated a ceremonial role for the monarch.[51] Among his subsequent measures was ensuring the safe departure into self-exile of Carol and his mistress Elena Lupescu, granting protection to the royal train when it was attacked by armed members of the Iron Guard. The regime of King Carol had been notorious for been the most corrupt regime in Europe during the 1930s, and when Carol fled Romania, he took with him the better part of the Romanian treasury, leaving the new government with enormous financial problems.[52] Antonescu had expected-perhaps naively-that Carol would take with him enough money to provide for a comfortable exile, and was surprised that Carol had cleared out almost the entire national treasury. For the next four years, a major concern of Antonescus government was attempting to have the Swiss banks where Carol had deposited the assets to return the money to Romania, this effort did not meet with success.[52] Horia Simas subsequent cooperation with Antonescu was endorsed by high-ranking Nazi German officials, many of whom feared the Iron Guard was too weak to rule on its own.[53] Antonescu therefore received the approval of Ambassador Fabricius.[54] Despite early promises, Antonescu abandoned projects for the creation of a national government,[55] and opted instead for a coalition between a military dictatorship lobby and the Iron Guard.[56] He later justified his choice by stating that the Iron Guard represented the political base of the country at the time.[57] Right from the onset, Antonescu clashed with Sima over economic questions, with Antonescus main concern to get the economy growing to provide taxes for a treasury looted by Carol while Sima favored populist economic measures that Antonescu insisted that there was no money for.[58]Antonescu-Sima partnershipHoria Sima, Antonescu and King Michael I of Romania, 1940The resulting regime, deemed the National Legionary State, was officially proclaimed on September 14. On that date, the Iron Guard was remodeled into a single official party. Antonescu continued as Premier and Conducator, with Sima as Deputy Premier and leader of the Guard.[59][60] Antonescu subsequently ordered the Guardists imprisoned by Carol to be set free.[61] On October 6, he presided over the Iron Guards mass rally in Bucharest, one in a series of major celebratory and commemorative events organized by the movement during the late months of 1940.[62] However, he tolerated the PN? and PNLs informal existence, allowing them to preserve much of their political support.[63]There followed a short-lived and always uneasy partnership between Antonescu and Sima. In late September, the new regime denounced all pacts, accords and diplomatic agreements signed under Carol, bringing the country into Germanys orbit while subverting its relationship with a former Balkan ally, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.[64] Germans troops entered the country in stages, in order to defend the local oil industry[65] and help instruct their Romanian counterparts on Blitzkrieg tactics.[66] On November 23, Antonescu was in Berlin, where his signature sealed Romanias commitment to the main Axis instrument, the Tripartite Pact.[67] Two days later, the country also adhered to the Nazi-led Anti-Comintern Pact.[68] Other than these generic commitments, Romania had no treaty binding it to Germany, and the Romanian-German alliance functioned informally.[69] Speaking in 1946, Antonescu claimed to have followed the pro-German path in continuation of earlier policies, and for fear of a Nazi protectorate in Romania.[70]During the National Legionary State period, earlier antisemitic legislation was upheld and strengthened, while the Romanianization of Jewish-owned enterprises became standard official practice.[71] Immediately after coming into office, Antonescu himself expanded the anti-Jewish and Nuremberg law-inspired legislation passed by his predecessors Goga and Ion Gigurtu,[72] while tens of new anti-Jewish regulations were passed in 1941–1942.[73] This was done despite his formal pledge to Wilhelm Filderman and the Jewish Communities Federation that, unless engaged in sabotage, the Jewish population will not suffer.[74] Antonescu did not reject the application of Legionary policies, but was offended by Simas advocacy of paramilitarism and the Guards frequent recourse to street violence.[75] He drew much hostility from his partners by extending some protection to former dignitaries whom the Iron Guard had arrested.[76] One early incident opposed Antonescu to the Guards magazine Buna Vestire, which accused him of leniency and was subsequently forced to change its editorial board.[77] By then, the Legionary press was routinely claiming that he was obstructing revolution and aiming to take control of the Iron Guard, and that he had been transformed into a tool of the Freemasonry (see Anti-Masonry).[78] The political conflict coincided with major social challenges, including the influx of refugees from areas lost earlier in the year and a large-scale earthquake affecting Bucharest.[79]Disorder peaked in the last days of November 1940, when, after uncovering the circumstances of Codreanus death, the fascist movement ordered retaliations against political figures previously associated with Carol, carrying out the Jilava Massacre, the assassinations of Nicolae Iorga and Virgil Madgearu, and several other acts of violence.[80] As retaliation for this insubordination, Antonescu ordered the Army to resume control of the streets,[81] unsuccessfully pressured Sima to have the assassins detained, ousted the Iron Guardist prefect of Bucharest Police ?tefan Zavoianu, and ordered Legionary ministers to swear an oath to the Conducator.[82] His condemnation of the killings was nevertheless limited and discreet, and, the same month, he joined Sima at a burial ceremony for Codreanus newly discovered remains.[83] The widening gap between the dictator and Simas party resonated in Berlin. When, in December, Legionary Foreign Minister Mihail R. Sturdza obtained the replacement of Fabricius with Manfred Freiherr von Killinger, perceived as more sympathetic to the Iron Guard, Antonescu promptly took over leadership of the ministry, with the compliant diplomat Constantin Greceanu as his right hand.[84] In Germany, such leaders of the Nazi Party as Heinrich Himmler, Baldur von Schirach and Joseph Goebbels[85] threw their support behind the Legionaries, whereas Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and the Wehrmacht stood by Antonescu. The latter group was concerned that any internal conflict would threaten Romanias oil industry, vital to the German war effort.[86] The German leadership was by then secretly organizing Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the Soviet Union.[87][88]Legionary Rebellion and Operation BarbarossaAntonescu and Adolf Hitler at the Fuhrerbau in Munich (June 1941). Joachim von Ribbentrop and Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel in the backgroundAntonescus plan to act against his coalition partners in the event of further disorder hinged on Hitlers approval,[60][89][90] a vague signal of which had been given during ceremonies confirming Romanias adherence to the Tripartite Pact.[91] A decisive turn occurred when Hitler invited Antonescu and Sima both over for discussions: whereas Antonescu agreed, Sima stayed behind in Romania, probably plotting a coup detat.[92] While Hitler did not produce a clear endorsement for clamping down on Simas party, he made remarks interpreted by their recipient as oblique blessings.[93] On 14 January 1941 during a German-Romanian summit, Hitler informed Antonescu of his plans to invade the Soviet Union later that year and asked Romania to participate.[94] By this time, Hitler had come to the conclusion that while Sima was ideologically closer to him, Antonescu was the more competent leader capable of ensuring stability in Romania while being committed to aligning his country with the Axis.The Antonescu-Sima dispute erupted into violence in January 1941, when the Iron Guard instigated a series of attacks on public institutions and a pogrom, incidents collectively known as the Legionary Rebellion.[95] This came after the mysterious assassination of Major Doring, a German agent in Bucharest, which was used by the Iron Guard as a pretext to accuse the Conducator of having a secret anti-German agenda,[96] and made Antonescu oust the Legionary Interior Minister, Constantin Petrovicescu, while closing down all of the Legionary-controlled Romanianization offices.[97] Various other clashes prompted him to demand the resignation of all Police commanders who sympathized with the movement.[98] After two days of widespread violence, during which Guardists killed some 120 Bucharest Jews,[99] Antonescu sent in the Army, under the command of General Constantin Sanatescu. German officials acting on Hitlers orders, including the new Ambassador Manfred Freiherr von Killinger, helped Antonescu eliminate the Iron Guardists, but several of their lower-level colleagues actively aided Simas subordinates.[100] Goebbels was especially upset by the decision to support Antonescu, believing it to have been advantageous to the Freemasons.[101]After the purge of the Iron Guard, Hitler kept his options open by granting political asylum to Sima—whom Antonescus courts sentenced to death—and to other Legionaries in similar situations.[102] The Guardists were detained in special conditions at Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.[103] In parallel, Antonescu publicly obtained the cooperation of Codrenists, members of an Iron Guardist wing which had virulently opposed Sima, and whose leader was Codreanus father Ion Zelea Codreanu.[104] Antonescu again sought backing from the PN? and PNL to form a national cabinet, but his rejection of parliamentarism made the two groups refuse him.[105]Antonescu traveled to Germany and met Hitler on eight more occasions between June 1941 and August 1944.[106] Such close contacts helped cement an enduring relationship between the two dictators, and Hitler reportedly came to see Antonescu as the only trustworthy person in Romania,[107] and the only foreigner to consult on military matters.[108] The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that Hitler after first meeting Antonescu …was greatly impressed by him, no other leader Hitler met other than Mussolini ever received such consistently favorable comments from the German dictator. Hitler even mustered the patience to listen to Antonescus lengthy disquisitions on the glorious history of Romania and the perfidy of the Hungarians-a curious reversal for a man who was more accustomed to regaling visitors with tirades of his own.[109] In later statements, Hitler offered praise to Antonescus breadth of vision and real personality.[110] A remarkable aspect of the Hitler-Antonescu friendship was neither could speak others language. Hitler only knew German while the only foreign language Antonescu knew was French (in which he was completely fluent).[111] During their meetings, Antonescu spoke in French which was then translated into German by Hitlers translator Paul Schmidt and vice versa (Schmidt did not speak Romanian). The German military presence increased significantly in early 1941, when, using Romania as a base, Hitler invaded the rebellious Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Greece (see Balkans Campaign).[112] In parallel, Romanias relationship with the United Kingdom (at the time the only major adversary of Nazi Germany) aggravated into conflict: on February 10, 1941, British Premier Winston Churchill recalled His Majestys Ambassador Reginald Hoare, and approved the blockade of Romanian ships in British-controlled ports.[113] On 12 June 1941 during another summit with Hitler, Antonescu first learned of the special nature of Operation Barbarossa, namely that the war against the Soviet Union was to be an ideological war to annihilate the forces of Judo-Bolshevism, a war of extermination to be fought without any mercy and Hitler even showed Antonescu a copy of the Guidelines for the Conduct of the Troops in Russia he had issued to his forces about the special treatment to be handed out to Soviet Jews.[94] Antonescu completely accepted Hitlers ideas about Operation Barbarossa as a race war between the Aryans represented by the Nordic Germans and Latin Romanians on the Axis side vs. the Slavs and Asians commanded by the Jews on the Soviet side.[114] Besides for anti-Semitism, there was an extremely strong current of anti-Slavic and anti-Asian racism to Antonescus remarks about the Asiatic hordes of the Red Army.[115] The Asians Antonescu referred were the various Asian peoples of the Soviet Union such as the Kazakhs, Kalmyks, Mongols, Uzbeks, Buriats, etc. During his summit with Hitler in June 1941, Antonescu told the Fu
Summary
Wikipedia Source: Ion Antonescu