"About Romanian POWs in Russia" Topic

Interesting read…

link

Amicalement
Armand

That is some brutal reading, but I'm glad you shared it. A difficult reminder of what war really was like for many on the Eastern Front.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I guess the lesson is: If you're going to invade a country, to aid in a genocidal war of extermination, make sure to do it in a country that is on board with the geneva conventions.

If you're going to invade a country, to aid in a genocidal war of extermination, make sure to do it in a country that is on board with the geneva conventions.

Maybe we shouldn't be quite so hard on the Romanians.

I mean, consider the position they were in …

The Soviets on their eastern Border. In 1939/40 the Red Army managed to take Bessarabia from them … a province that was about 1/3 or Romania! That's not a small matter. So a very hostile and tense eastern border.

The Hungarians on their northwest border. Repeated clashes with Hungary, or the Auto-Hungarian empire, for many many decades. Never a moment of rest on the northwest border.

Poland on the northern border. Not a very happy border there, either. Some recent clashes with Poland, but more importantly by 1939 the Germans and the Soviets managed to role over Poland. So now there were Germans and Soviets on the northern border.

Allies? No real allies. Czechoslovakia, France and Italy were the biggest providers of arms to Romania. Trade relations were good, but there were no alliances. Still as Europe rearmed in the 1930s, military cooperation was sought with their primary arms suppliers. When Czechoslovakia disappeared under the German boot, it was time to chose who to get closer to, and Romania chose closer military cooperation with France. This also got them closer to the UK (not a traditional supplier, but hey, any friend in the crowd). By the summer of 1940 this turned out not to have been the best of choices …

So there you are in Romania in early 1941. France has fallen under the German boot, Czechoslovakia is gone under the German boot. Italy is now allied to Germany. Hungary is now allied to Germany. And the Soviets are looking like a big angry bear, having launched unprovoked invasions of EVERY country on their eastern (your western) border … ingesting ALL of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and biting off big chunks of Finland, Poland and your own country.

And then this German guy knocks on the door and says, um, hey, wanna be on our team? I'll get the Hungarians under control on your western border, and help you get the Russians out of Bessarabia and even give 'em a full force pasting to get them off of your eastern border. Whadya say?

I don't mean to make excuses for Romania. But their position was a no-win position from the start. It is easy for those in the west to lose sight of how hard it was to be in eastern Europe, in the middle between Germany and Russia. There was no way NOT to chose sides, and Soviet Russia was and extremely aggressive and dangerous neighbor.

That does not excuse their active participation in the exportation (for extermination) of their own Nazi-targetted populations, and in the targetting of populations in the territories they occupied. Not excusing. But at least understanding how they wound up on the side they wound up on.

Not by choice, but by circumstance.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Yeah, they were in an unforgiving spot and made much the same decision as the Finnish, for many of the same reasons, though Finland remained a reasonably liberal society while Romania had fallen into fascism even before Barbarossa.

There was no way NOT to chose sides, and Soviet Russia was and extremely aggressive and dangerous neighbor.

Bulgaria participated in Unternehmen Marita-Merkur, grabbed some disputed territory from Yugoslavia and Greece, and is reported to have ethnically cleansed Greeks and Serbs from those territories. This made them a minor Axis belligerent, and got their cities bombed by the Allied air forces. But they stayed out of Barbarossa, and avoided losing millions of soldiers on the Eastern Front.

Tsar Boris III should get more credit for his political acumen and courage. In the end he died (possibly poisoned), his throne was lost and Bulgaria became a Democratic Peoples' Republic, but with relatively little damage.