The Conducător who took Romania into the Axis war against the Soviet Union and ordered the killings in Transnistria, executed at Jilava in 1946
On the afternoon of 23 August 1944, summoned to the palace, Antonescu refused the king's demand for an immediate armistice; Michael gave the prearranged signal and the guards arrested him. That night the king's radio address announced the armistice, and the Romanian army turned its guns on the Germans.
A cavalry officer born into a military family in Pitești, he helped plan the defence of Mărășești as a staff officer in the First World War, served as military attaché in Paris and London and was chief of the general staff in 1933–34. Defence minister in the Goga government of 1937–38, he fell out with Carol II and was confined to the Bistrița monastery in 1940. When the loss of Bessarabia and Northern Transylvania in the summer of 1940 shook the monarchy, he became prime minister with full powers on 4 September, forced Carol II to abdicate two days later and styled himself Conducător, founding the National Legionary State with the Iron Guard before crushing the Legionary rebellion by force in January 1941. He joined the Tripartite Pact in November 1940 and invaded the Soviet Union alongside Germany in June 1941, recovering Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and occupying Transnistria beyond the Dniester. Through the Iași pogrom, the Odessa massacre and the deportations to Transnistria, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews and more than 10,000 Roma died under Romanian jurisdiction, the Wiesel Commission concluded in 2004. After losing two armies at Stalingrad he sought a way out of the war, but on 23 August 1944 King Michael had him arrested and handed to the Soviets; sentenced to death by the Bucharest People's Tribunal in May 1946, he was shot at Jilava on 1 June.
Activities and affiliations
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Romania state institutionsPrime Minister, ConducătorMain
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1916–1918Staff officer in the First World War
- 1933–1934Chief of the General Staff
- 1937–1938Minister of Defence
- 1940Prime minister with full powers; Carol II deposed; title of Conducător
- 1940–1941National Legionary State; Legionary rebellion crushed
- 1941Invasion of the Soviet Union; occupation of Transnistria
- 1944Arrested on 23 August; handed to the Soviets
- 1946Sentenced to death by the People's Tribunal; executed at Jilava
Related historical events
- 1938–1944.03Hungary on the Axis side: from the Vienna Awards to the DonRomanian leaderReceived Hitler’s letter of late 1941, like Horthy and Mussolini, demanding more troops for the Eastern Front.
- 1944.03–1945.02Hungary under German occupation: from Operation Margarethe to the siege of BudapestRomanian leaderDismissed by the king on 23 August.
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarRomanian leader who fought the Soviet UnionIn June 1941, he invaded the Soviet Union alongside Germany.
- 1942–1943Battle of StalingradRomanian leader whose armies were defeated at StalingradAfter losing two armies at Stalingrad, he sought a way out of the war.
- 1944–1948Romania: From 23 August to the People's RepublicThe Conducător arrested at the palaceRefusing an immediate armistice at the palace on 23 August, he was arrested and handed to the Soviet army; tried by a people's tribunal in May 1946, he was executed on 1 June.
The coup of 23 August 1944 and arrest
After the destruction of Romania's Third and Fourth Armies at Stalingrad in 1943, Antonescu sought a separate peace with the Western Allies, but they made an armistice with the Soviet Union a precondition, which he rejected. When the Red Army broke the Dniester front in the spring of 1944 and Allied bombing of Bucharest followed, the National Peasants' Party, the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Romanian Communist Party coalesced in June 1944 into the National Democratic Bloc. The Communist conspirators were Emil Bodnăraș and Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, who met the king's representatives on the night of 13-14 June 1944 at 103 Calea Moșilor. The court's plan to negotiate with the German ambassador Killinger was rejected by the Communists as naive and dangerous for alerting the Gestapo, and they proposed instead that the king, as commander-in-chief, order the weapons turned against Germany and summon Antonescu to sign an armistice, arresting him on the spot if he refused; the military representatives and the king's advisers accepted it.
On 23 August the king summoned Antonescu, Foreign Minister Mihai Antonescu, and General Constantin Sănătescu. In an hour-long discussion Antonescu reported on the front; when the king asked him to leave the war and sign an armistice with the Allies and the Soviets, he replied that Germany would nullify it and refused, especially with the Soviet Union. The king gave the signal, and a colonel and four soldiers entered and arrested the prime minister; that night at 10 pm the king announced over the radio that Antonescu had been deposed and an armistice accepted. The king ordered the army to defend Romania against German attacks and offered to put its armies on the Allied side. The new premier Sănătescu placed Antonescu in the custody of Communist militants; handed to the Soviets on 1 September 1944 and taken to Moscow, he was held with deputy premier Mihai Antonescu, Transnistria governor Gheorghe Alexianu, defence minister Constantin Pantazi, Gendarmerie commander Constantin Vasiliu and police chief Mircea Elefterescu under SMERSH guard, moved to Lubyanka prison after Germany's surrender in May 1945 and interrogated, and returned to Bucharest in spring 1946 to Jilava Prison. The coup remained a unilateral move: until the armistice of 12 September 1944 the Soviets still treated Romania as an enemy and took some 140,000 Romanian prisoners of war, about 130,000 of whom were transported to the Soviet Union, where many perished. Under Article 14 of the armistice signed the same day, two Romanian People's Tribunals were set up to try suspected war criminals.