On the situation of the national economy during the Antonescu regime (september 1940 - august 1944)

Abstract

"The present paper provides a brief presentation of the evolution of Romania’s national economy in the period September 1940 - August 1944, as indicate the published bibliography and unpublished archive documents of the time. It addresses the national economy and the policy of “Romanianization”, aimed at transferring the industrial and commercial enterprises and assets owned by Jews, Greeks, Armenians and Italians or Romanian citizens belonging to the aforementioned ethnic groups, to state ownership. Command of these economic enterprises was given by the state to the so-called ""commissioners of Romanianization"". They had to organize the economy in order to meet the needs of the anti-Soviet front. In reality, the Romanian state wanted to protect the local capital, regardless of the ethnicity of the owner/owners, from the offensive of the German capital which sought to regain its privileged and dominant positions from 1914-1916. The economy of the Antonescu regime, rid of the legionary Romanianization commissioners, who sought only to enrich themselves in connivance with the Jewish owners, pursued a strict planning of the war economy, in order to obtain maximum quantities of products and good quality for the supply of the ”Eastern Front” and of the cities, and to counter the economic sabotage set up by the Communist Party of Romania, which was illegal and totally subordinated to the interests of the USSR."