Abstract
As the military situation steadily deteriorated after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad in January 1943, Marshal Antonescu’s mind began to turn to consideration of an understanding with the Allies. His thoughts were shared by Mihai Antonescu, Vice-President of the Council of Ministers, who took the lead in taking soundings of the Italians. The Marshal tolerated such peace feelers from within his own government and from the opposition leader, Maniu. Mihai Antonescu gave some indication of his own change of heart in January 1943 to Bova-Scopp, the Italian minister in Bucharest. Bova-Scoppa went to Rome to present a report of his conversation with Antonescu to Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, who had already anticipated the new mood of the Romanian leaders. In his diary entry for 10 January Ciano noted:
I think the Germans would do well to watch the Romanians. I see an about-face in the attitude and words of Mihai Antonescu. The sudden will for conciliation with Hungary is suspicious to me. If the Russian offensive had not been so successful I doubt that all this would have taken place.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
The Ciano Diaries 1939–1943, transl. and ed. Hugh Gibson (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1946), p. 568.
Evreii din Romania intre anii 1940–1944. Vol. II. 1940–1944: Problema Evreiască în Stetiogramele Consiliului de Miniştri, ed. Lya Benjamin (Bucharest: Hasefer, 1996), doc. 160, p. 501.
Antonesai Hitler. Corespondentă şi întîlniri inedite (1940–1944), vol. 2, ed. Vasile Arimia, Ion Ardeleanu and Ştefan Lache (Bucharest: Cozia, 1991), pp. 68–73.
See also Dinu Giurescu, România în al doilea război mondial (Bucharest: All, 1999), pp. 189–90.
Spitzmuller joined the French legation in Bucharest as first secretary in April 1938. For several of his reports to Paris, see Ottmar Traşca and Ana-Maria Stan, Rebeliumea legionară în docwnente străine [The Iron Guard Rebellion in Foreign Documents] (Bucharest: Albatros, 2002), passim.
Gheorghe Buzatu, Mareşalul Antonesai în fafa istoriei, vol. 1 (Iaşi, 1990), pp. 388–91.
So I gave up [on offering to hand over power] …’ Marcel-Dumitru Ciucă (ed.), Procesul Mareşalului Antonescu. Docwnente, vol. 1 (Bucharest: Editura Saeculum, Editura Europa Nova, 1995), pp. 213–14.
see Klaus Schönherr, ‘Die Auswirkungen der militär-ischen Situation 1944 auf die Deutsch-Rumänischen Beziehungen’, Revue roumaine d’Histoire, vol. 38, nos 1–4 (1999), p. 176, n. 71.
For an analysis of the coup, see Dennis Deletant, Communist Terror in Romania. Gheorghiu-Dej and the Police State, 1948–1965 (London: Hurst, 1999), chapter 3.
‘Report of Lt.-Col. A. G. G. de Chastelain on the ‘Autonomous’ Mission, dated September 1944’, in 23 August 1944. Documente, vol. II, ed. I. Ardeleanu, V. Arimia and M. Muşat (Bucharest: Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, 1984), p. 802.
See Ivor Porter, Operation Autonomous: With S.O.E. in Wartime Romania (London: Chatto and Windus, 1989).
Elisabeth Barker, British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1976), p. 229.
Ivor Porter, Michael of Romania. The King and the Country (London: Sutton, 2005), p. 94.
loan Hudita, ‘Pagini de Jurnal’, Magazin Istoric, vol. 28, no. 7 (July 1994), p. 41.
For his biography see Dennis Deletant, Communist Terror in Romania: Gheorghiu-Dej and the Police State (London: Hurst, 1999), pp. 41–3.
See Nicholas Baciu, Sell-Out to Stalin. The Tragic Errors of Churchill and Roosevelt (New York: Vantage Press, 1984), p. 147.
F. C. Nano, ‘The First Soviet Double-Cross: A Chapter in the Secret History of World War II’, Journal of Central European Affairs, vol. 12, no. 3 (October 1952), pp. 236–58.
This account of events on 23 August is taken from M. Ionniţiu, ‘23 August 1944. Amintiri şi reflecţiuni’, Revista istorică, vol. 2, nos 9–10 (1991), pp. 557–75; and Porter, Operation Autonomous, pp. 198–202.
Ion Pantazi, ‘O mărturie indirectă despre 23 august’, Apoziţia (1980–81), Munich, pp. 20–30;
see also the same author’s Am trecut prin iad (I Passed through Hell) (Sibiu: Constant, 1992), pp. 307–10.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2006 Dennis Deletant
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Deletant, D. (2006). The Coup of 23 August 1944. In: Hitler’s Forgotten Ally. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230502093_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230502093_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-54401-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-50209-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)