The Kingdom of Romania, under the rule of King Carol II, was initially a neutral country in World War II. However, Fascist political forces, especially the Iron Guard, rose in popularity and power, urging an alliance with Nazi Germany and its allies. As the military fortunes of Romania's two main guarantors of territorial integrity—France and Britain—crumbled in the Fall of France, the government of Romania turned to Germany in hopes of a similar guarantee, unaware that Germany, in the supplementary protocol to the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, had already granted its blessing to Soviet claims on Romanian territory.
Antonescu and Adolf Hitler at the Führerbau in Munich (June 1941).
American B-24 Liberator flying over a burning oil refinery at Ploiești, as part of Operation Tidal Wave on 1 August 1943. Due to its role as a major supplier of oil to the Axis, Romania was a prime target of Allied strategic bombing in 1943 and 1944.
Sephardic Temple in Bucharest after it was plundered and set on fire in 1941
King Michael I of Romania led the coup that put Romania on the Allied side.
Ion Antonescu was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II. Having been responsible for facilitating the Holocaust in Romania, he was tried for war crimes and executed in 1946.
Official portrait, 1942
Ion Antonescu (bottom row, center) with the other officers of the Section "Operations" of the wartime General Staff (Marele Cartier General), end of March 1918
General Antonescu (left) with Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Căpitan of the Iron Guard, at a skiing event in 1935
Horia Sima, Antonescu and King Michael I of Romania, 1940