The dictatorship of Ion Antonescu in the Kingdom of Romania began in 1940 and lasted until 1944. As Ion Antonescu suppressed the rebellion led by the Iron Guard and dissolved the party, he became the uncontested leader of Romania until being overthrown in 1944 by King Michael. The regime kept certain elements of the ideology of the Iron Guard and the Romanian far-right, namely integral nationalism, ethnonationalism, racism, antisemitism, antiziganism and politicised Christianity; Antonescu himself termed his regime as "ethnocratic", "ethnic Christian" and "the national-totalitarian regime, the regime of national and social restoration." In general, this regime is defined as authoritarian conservative and para-fascist , i. e. a conservative regime with fascist trappings and attributes as opposed to fascist, although the label "fascist" still may be encountered in academia regarding the regime. Under Antonescu, Romania became a member of the Axis powers of World War II and joined the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, becoming the most important ally of Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front.
Background Rise to power
Romania's 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.Crampton, Richard Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century and After, London: Routledge, 1997 p. 117. Antonescu's 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 . The latter grant caused consternation among large sections of Romania's population, causing Carol's popularity to fall to a record low and provoking large-scale protests in Bucharest, the capital. These movements were organised competitively by the pro-Allied PNȚ, headed by Iuliu Maniu, and the pro-Nazi Iron Guard.Delia Radu, "Serialul 'Ion Antonescu și asumarea istoriei' (1)", BBC, Romanian edition, 1 August 2008. The latter group had been revived under the leadership of Horia Sima, and was organizing a coup d'état.Deletant, pp. 48–51, 66; Griffin (1993), p. 126; Ornea, pp. 325–327 In this troubled context, Antonescu simply left his assigned residence. He may have been secretly helped in this by German intercession,Browning, p. 211 but was more directly aided to escape by socialite Alice Sturdza, who was acting on Maniu's request.Deletant, p. 48 Antonescu subsequently met with Maniu in Ploiești, where they discussed how best to manage the political situation.Ornea, pp. 325–326. According to Deletant, also present were Maniu's assistants Corneliu Coposu and Aurel Leucuția. 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.
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.Haynes, Rebecca "Germany and the Establishment of the Romanian National Legionary State, September 1940" pp. 700–725 from The Slavonic and East European Review, Volume 77, Issue # 4. October 1999 p. 711 Pop's reasons for advising Carol to appoint Antonescu as Prime Minister were partly because Antonescu, who was known to be friendly with the Iron Guard and who had been imprisoned under Carol, was believed to have enough of an oppositional background to Carol's regime to appease the public and partly because Pop knew that Antonescu, for all his Legionary sympathies, was a member of the elite and believed he would never turn against it. When Carol proved reluctant to make Antonescu Prime Minister, Pop visited the German legation to meet with Fabricius on the night of 4 September 1940 to ask that the German minister phone Carol to tell him that the Reich wanted Antonescu as Prime Minister, and Fabricius promptly did just that.Haynes, Rebecca " Germany and the Establishment of the Romanian National Legionary State, September 1940" pp. 700–725 from The Slavonic and East European Review, Volume 77, Issue # 4. October 1999 p. 712. Carol and Antonescu accepted the proposal, Antonescu being ordered to approach political party leaders Maniu of the PNȚ and Dinu Brătianu of the PNL.Kelso, p. 96 They all called for Carol's abdication as a preliminary measure,Ornea, pp. 325–327; Roper, p. 8 while Sima, another leader sought after for negotiations, could not be found in time to express his opinion. Antonescu partly complied with the request but also asked Carol to bestow upon him the reserve powers for Romanian heads of state.Deletant, pp. 48–49; Ornea, pp. 326–327 Carol yielded and, on 5 September 1940, the general became Prime Minister, and Carol transferred most of his dictatorial powers to him.Final Report, p. 320; Morgan, p. 85; Ornea, p. 326 The latter's first measure was to curtail potential resistance within the Army by relieving Bucharest Garrison chief Gheorghe Argeșanu of his position and replacing him with Dumitru Coroamă.Ornea, p. 327 Shortly afterward, Antonescu heard rumours that two of Carol's loyalist generals, Gheorghe Mihail and Paul Teodorescu, were planning to have him killed.Deletant, pp. 49–50, 52, 194 In reaction, he forced Carol to abdicate, while General Coroamă was refusing to carry out the royal order of shooting down Iron Guardist protesters.Deletant, pp. 49–50
Michael ascended the throne for the second time, while Antonescu's dictatorial powers were confirmed and extended.Cioroianu, p. 54; Deletant, pp. 52–55; Griffin (1993), p. 126; Kelso, p. 96; Roper, p. 8 On 6 September, the day Michael formally assumed the throne, he issued a royal decree declaring Antonescu Conducător (leader) of the state. The same decree relegated the monarch to a ceremonial role.Deletant, pp. 52–55 Among Antonescu's 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 being 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.Crampton, Richard Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century and After, London: Routledge, 1997 pp. 117–118. Antonescu had expected, perhaps naïvely, 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 Antonescu's government was attempting to have the Swiss banks where Carol had deposited the assets return the money to Romania; this effort did not meet with success.
Horia Sima's 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.Deletant, pp. 49–51; Veiga, pp. 279–280. Veiga mentions in particular Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel organization, who, although inclined to support Sima, advised the latter to let the general take hold of government. Antonescu therefore received the approval of Ambassador Fabricius.Deletant, p. 49; Ornea, pp. 326–327, 339 Despite early promises, Antonescu abandoned projects for the creation of a national government,Deletant, pp. 55–56; Ornea, p. 326 and opted instead for a coalition between a military dictatorship lobby and the Iron Guard.Deletant, pp. 52–68; Gella, p. 171; Geran Pilon, p. 59; Kelso, pp. 96–97; Kenney, pp. 92–93; Morgan, p. 85; Ornea, pp. 326–327; Veiga, pp. 281–282, 296, 327. According to Kelso and Ornea, Antonescu was turned down by all political forces except the Iron Guard. Deletant (pp. 55–56) notes that these refusals were motivated by Sima's requests, which Maniu perceived as excessive. He later justified his choice by stating that the Iron Guard "represented the political base of the country at the time."Deletant, p. 55 Right from the outset, Antonescu clashed with Sima over economic questions, with Antonescu's main concern being to get the economy growing so as to provide taxes for a treasury looted by Carol, while Sima favoured populist economic measures that Antonescu insisted there was no money for.Crampton, Richard Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century and After, London: Routledge, 1997 p. 118.
Antonescu-Sima partnership
The resulting regime, deemed the National Legionary State, was officially proclaimed on 14 September. On that date, the Iron Guard was remodelled into the only legally permitted party in Romania. Antonescu continued as Premier and Conducător, and was named as the Guard's honorary commander. Sima became Deputy Premier and leader of the Guard.Final Report, pp. 43, 46, 54, 62, 109–112; Browning, p. 211; Deletant, pp. 1–2, 57–68; Gella, p. 171; Geran Pilon, p. 59; Griffin (1993), p. 126; Ioanid, pp. 231–232; Kelso, pp. 96–97; Nicholls, p. 6; Ornea, pp. 58, 215–216, 327–329; Veiga, pp. 281–283Peter Davies, Derek Lynch, The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right, Routledge, London, 2002, p. 196. . Antonescu subsequently ordered the Guardists imprisoned by Carol to be set free.Ornea, p. 215 On 6 October, he presided over the Iron Guard's mass rally in Bucharest, one in a series of major celebratory and commemorative events organised by the movement during the late months of 1940.Deletant, p. 59; Ornea, p. 333 However, he tolerated the PNȚ and PNL's informal existence, allowing them to preserve much of their political support.Deletant, pp. 74–75; Veiga, pp. 280–281, 304
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 Germany's orbit while subverting its relationship with a former Balkan ally, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.Haynes, p. 102 Germans troops entered the country in stages, in order to defend the local oil industryBrowning, p. 211; Deletant, p. 61 and help instruct their Romanian counterparts on Blitzkrieg tactics.Final Report, p. 62; Deletant, p. 61; Veiga, pp. 295–296 On 23 November, Antonescu was in Berlin, where his signature sealed Romania's commitment to the main Axis instrument, the Tripartite Pact.Deletant, pp. 1, 2–3, 61–62, 280; Haynes, pp. 102, 107; Nicholls, p. 225; Veiga, p. 296 Two days later, the country also adhered to the Nazi-led Anti-Comintern Pact.Nicholls, p. 225 Other than these generic commitments, Romania had no treaty binding it to Germany, and the Romanian-German alliance functioned informally.Cioroianu, p. 54; Deletant, pp. 62, 92, 275 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.Deletant, p. 51