Romania in WW2 - effects of stronger resistance/no August '44 coup

Deleted member 1487

To be fair, Antonescu was probably the first non-extremely corrupt leader the Kingdom had for over 20 years. The Liberals were a bunch of kleptocratic scrotes, and the National Peasants brought about Carol II's (unconstitutional) restauration.

His one true sin was his sycophancy towards the Germans, which led to hundreds of thousands of dead Jews and Roma and the Kingdom's embroilment in Operation Barbarossa (though it's debatable whether the Germans would've allowed the Romanian Army remain at readiness, since they never fully trusted the generals under Antonescu, several of which tended to have pro-WAllies sympathies).

At any rate, any 1944 PoD must start a lot further back, namely during the Great War.

Antonescu wasn't Teutonophillic, he avoided working with them until the Soviets started knocking on his door and no one but the Germans was there to help. Thereafter the Romanians conducted their own Holocaust independent of the Germans, Germany didn't request them to do what they did, so they have the distinction of the only country to willingly conduct their own Holocaust during WW2.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005472
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Antonescu#Antonescu_and_the_Holocaust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Romania#The_Holocaust

They tapered off in 1942 and Germany pressured them to continue, but they started on their own.
 
Antonescu wasn't Teutonophillic, he avoided working with them until the Soviets started knocking on his door and no one but the Germans was there to help. Thereafter the Romanians conducted their own Holocaust independent of the Germans, Germany didn't request them to do what they did, so they have the distinction of the only country to willingly conduct their own Holocaust during WW2.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005472
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Antonescu#Antonescu_and_the_Holocaust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Romania#The_Holocaust

They tapered off in 1942 and Germany pressured them to continue, but they started on their own.
Well Hungarians deported 20 000 Jews shortly after Barbarossa. Nobody pressure them too. Here just Germans did dirty job.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Hungary#First_massacres
It looks like they turned foreign Jews over to the Germans rather than deal with them in their newly occupied slices of Poland, that's a lot different than what Romania was doing in 1941, not that its acceptable or good.
Well they were one of first "independent" nations in German zone of influence to do it.

I believe Romanians started on conquered and incorporated territories. Hungarians collected undocumented on their own territory and sent them to freshly conquered parts of Soviet union.

EDIT: I don't know how Romanians treated Jewish men with Romanian citizenship during mobilization. Hungarians put them in labor battalions. Slovaks did the same in certain period, till deportation started. I am not sure how it was later. Hungarians usually used their labor battalions on front to clean the mine fields etc. Huge casualties rates.
 
^^^ Generally badly. In 1940 and 1941 they tended to be massacred wholesale, see Iasi and Bucharest pogroms and the death train. Afterwards they stopped, notably after the US's minister plenipotentiary threatened that Romanian citizens and Americans of Romanian descent be sent to prison camps like Germans and Japanese.

This wasn't a generalised action, however, since Antonescu didn't care whether or not his subordinates exhibited sympathetic views towards Romanian Jewry (as long as they weren't too vehement about them). The brigade general he appointed as Director-General of Rails issued an order banning any and all non-uniform insignia. Thus, Jewish railworkers didn't have to wear their stars. In what is a bitter irony, the novelist/playwright Iosif Hechter (known as Mihail Sebastian) died in 1945 not due to anti-Semitic actions, but by being run over by a runaway bread truck.
 
So 13,5 out of 14. Not too bad, right?
Well, maybe on the surface those arguments are correct, though they're made from a modern POV, and not really in "tone" (so to say) with those times. Come to think of it, things like religion, nationalism, racism, discrimination, persecution and lack of human rights were elements present in most countries of those days whether "democratic" or not.

At any rate, any 1944 PoD must start a lot further back, namely during the Great War.
I don't think even with such a POD Romania can conceivably stop the soviets in 1944 if things get that far, whether with german help or not, only somewhat delay the occupation.

Anyway as to the subject at hand, any idea who can plausibly replace the king in the 1920s or so (through a coup or otherwise, or at least maybe preventing Carol IIs reign?) and install the kind of authoritarian regime necessary (in my view) to create a much stronger and self-sufficient military by WW2?
 
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On a related note, i think maybe KACKO (but i might be mistaken) mentioned in another topic that the czechs has plans to evacuate most of their airforce to Poland. This presumably in March 1939? On the other hand, give the sour relations with Poland, why them and not Romania, an ally? The whole of Ruthenia (bordering Romania) was occupied in March 1939 right, so conceivably the evacuation could have happened on 14-15th of March?

Anyway, having most of the CzAF evacuated to Romania in march 1939 will significantly contribute to a stronger romanian military in 1940 when the very likely (in this ATL) romanian-soviet war happens, there are hundreds of useable aircraft (B-534, SB-2, MB-200, maybe even S-328), not to mention even a few tens of czech tanks and tankettes would also be very welcomed.
 
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