Radio România Internațional

Tag: WW2

  • Deceptive tactics during WW2

    Deceptive tactics during WW2

    People usually like principles and breaking them is often criticized. However, when it comes to war, resorting to decoys in order to defeat the enemy is not regarded as a negative thing. Quite the contrary, using anything that can make the enemy surrender is allowed. During WW2 Romania used deceptive tactics against the Soviet enemy that the country had been in open conflict with since 1941.



    Romania entered WW2 in the summer of 1941, having had its borders amputated a year before, in June, August and September 1940. Thus, the area around the town of Ploiesti, which was rich in oil deposits, became of outmost strategic importance, being the only source of fuel in the entire region. Defending it was vital. The original idea of defending it by means of deceptive tactics was put into practice by the German command. Mock armies and fake industrial areas were used by both sides. Photos from that time show us dummy tanks, trucks and planes and even industrial plants and cities.



    Historian Lucian Vasile with the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile is the author of a history of the town of Ploiesti. He told us more about the military dummies created in order to divert the Russians: Those large-scale dummies and decoys were aimed at protecting the oil plants around the town of Ploiesti. The idea was first discussed in 1941. Before Romania entered the war, all possible dangers to it were only theoretical. That is why, the German troops, together with the Romanian ones, discussed about all possible defense means. Alongside bringing anti-air cannons, and installing balloons around the town, the German authorities considered building some dummies and decoys. The first fake industrial area was set up in the spring of 1941. The location was not picked randomly. It was clear that once the Barbarossa operation was initiated, the Soviets would try to attack the refineries. Attacks were to come from the east, so a fake area needed to be created to divert Soviet attackers before they reached Ploiesti.



    Such a large-scale deception needed to be both light and cheap. According to Lucian Vasile, the dummy was detailed enough to look authentic: Structures were made of wood and walls were made of fabric. They were designed to be used during the night. The dummy consisted of some wooden frames with fabric, and lights were added to draw the attention of attackers. There were also several furnaces in which all sort of things were burned, so as to give the impression that a functional refinery was there. There are no photos of it unfortunately, only written descriptions.



    These dummies, aimed to draw the attack away from the vulnerable area, were not very effective. Lucian Vasile: If it was worth the effort is still debatable, since the visual deception would have only been efficient if bombardments had taken place at night. That is why the operation was easily debunked during the first air strike that took place during the day, on June 13, 1941. The Soviets found out there was a mock industrial platform before the town of Ploiesti, meant to divert them. So the German authorities started to build a new one, in Ciorani, 20 km east from the first dummy. They used the first strategy. When the Russian aircraft was getting close, the lights in Ploiesti were turned off and the ones on the dummy were turned on. This was useful for one month, until August 18, when it was also revealed.



    The last attempt to fool the enemy came along with a change in strategy: Just like in a cat and dog game, German authorities built the third model, not in the east this time, but in the west. The Soviets were expecting to first see the dummy and then the town. Only that the Germans played the reverse game this time. The new mock building was located in Bratasanca, 17 km west of Ploiesti. The Soviet raids were minor in terms of destructive power. There were only several dozens rudimentary planes, if we compare them with what the Americans had a few years later, that is hundreds of bombardiers accompanied by hundreds of fighter jets.


    The idea of resorting to visual deceit in the area of Ploiesti was eventually abandoned, due to its high cost and low efficiency and also due to the fact that the parties involved in the conflict had perfected their science of war.



  • August 2, 2019

    August 2, 2019

    INVESTIGATION The suspect in the case involving the 2 missing girls from Caracal, southern Romania, was questioned for nearly 9 hours last night at the head office of the Directorate Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism in Bucharest. He confirmed his initial statement that he murdered the 2 teenagers. The authorities announced that suspect Gheorghe Dincă would be present at the searches conducted on Friday at his home in Caracal. The case has been taken over from the local office in Craiova by the central structure of the Directorate and is coordinated by chief prosecutor Felix Bănilă. He explained that this is due to the complexity of the case, the extensive media coverage and the technical and human resources needed in order to find the truth. Also on Friday, the results of forensic tests on the bone fragments found at the suspects residence are expected to come in. Meanwhile, the prosecutor who originally handled the Caracal case has been suspended. A week ago, he did not authorise the police to search the suspects home before 6 AM. He is now investigated for gross negligence by judicial inspectors, who say they will also look at how he conducted investigations over the past year. However, peoples discontent with how the authorities handled the case is growing. They blame the Special Telecommunications Service, in charge with operating the emergency number 112, as well as the police and prosecutors. The unacceptable succession of missteps in this regard has already caused several dismissals and resignations. Gheorghe Dincă, a 60-year old mechanic, confessed to having murdered 2 girls, aged 15 and 18, after he abducted them for sexual exploitation purposes, detained and raped them. The bodies have not been found yet.




    HOLOCAUST The President of Romania Klaus Iohannis sent a message on Friday, the Roma Genocide Remembrance Day, emphasising the need for constant awareness of the importance of fighting racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism. On this day we pay tribute to the nearly half a million Roma children, women and men who were victims of genocide during World War II, reads the Presidents message. Romania faced some of the most gruesome forms of hatred and intolerance, when 25,000 Roma people, whose parents had fought in the Great War for the national unity of the country, were forcibly sent to Transdniester as “dangerous and undesirable. The Government of Romania also honours the memory of the victims of the Romani Holocaust. It is important for the generations of today and tomorrow to know the truth about the Holocaust, as well as about the progress Romania has made in terms of preserving this truth and in terms of promoting coherent legislation to fight discrimination, anti-Semitism and xenophobia against the Roma people, the Government says in a news release.




    BOOK FAIR The resort of Mamaia on the Romanian Black Sea coast is hosting, as of Thursday, the 11th edition of the Gaudeamus Book Fair, organised by Radio Romania. More than 30 publishers are taking part. According to the president of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation Georgică Severin, Gaudeamus is a large-scale event designed to promote one of the most important Romanian mass media brands, Radio Romania. The 2019 Gaudeamus Seaside Book Fair is scheduled to end on August 5.




    INF Russia and the USA Friday announced the termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Washington announced pulling out of the INF as of February 2, and Moscow responded immediately with a similar move. The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Russia of being “in material breach of the treaty, although Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations. The INF pact, signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1987, banned missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km.




    FOOTBALL Romanian football vice-champions FCSB (former Steaua Bucharest), Thursday qualified into the 3rd preliminary round of Europa League, although it lost at home against the Armenian side Alashkert FC, 3-2. FCSB won the first leg of the round in Yerevan, 3-0. Also on Thursday night, CSU Craiova advanced into the Europa League 3rd preliminary round, after defeating Honved Budapest 3-1 in the shootouts. Romanian Cup holders Viitorul Constanta on the other hand were left out of the European competition, in spite of its 2-1 win against Belgiums KAA Gent.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • The Germans in Romania after 1945

    The Germans in Romania after 1945

    All countries, either winners or losers, tried to rebound in terms of demography and economy, after having been ravaged by a 6-year war. After the Jews, exterminated by the millions in Nazi concentration camps, the Germans were the most affected. Held guilty of all horrors of the war, they paid a high price under all aspects — economic, human and social.



    The Germans in Romania, known as Transylvanian Saxons and Swabians, just like all other German communities in Central and Eastern Europe, suffered a great deal. During communist Romania, Transylvanian Saxons and Swabians who did not die in the line of duty, the ones who escaped deportation to the USSR and the few who returned from the USSR chose to flee to the Federal Republic of Germany. During the communist regime, between 1945 and 1989, there was a constant German exodus that led to their near disappearance from Romania. This exodus can be explained through the FRG’s policy towards Germans in Central and Eastern Europe on the one hand and the Romanian communist state’s plan to take advantage of the German policy in order to make money.



    Sociologist Remus Anghel studies migration at the National Institute for the Study of National Minorities in Cluj Napoca. He co-authored a book on the history of the German community in Romania starting 1930.



    Remus Anghel: “The Germans’ Associations in Romania played a role in convincing the German government to initiate the program of helping ethnic Germans in Romania in the sense of offering the Romanian government compensations. In fact, there was a precedent for this strategy, set by the Jewish government, who had a series of deals with the Romanian government in order to ease the Jewish people’s migration from Romania. We, in Romania, have the tendency to understand things related to the Romanian context by analyzing them only through the Romanian context. In fact, this is not the right approach. The 20th Century history of Germans in Romania is tightly connected to two essential moments and two essential personalities, namely Hitler and Stalin. Just like all other Germans in Central and Eastern Europe, the Germans in Romania were caught in the middle, between the expansion of Nazi Germany, the war and its consequences”.



    After the war, some 12 million Germans from Central and Eastern Europe had to seek refuge to Federal Germany. Almost 1 million of them died on the way. This was a collective drama in West Germany, which became aware of its guilt and initiated a policy of responsibility.



    Remus Anghel says that the relocation of Romanian Germans was somehow predictable even since the war: “During the war and in its aftermath there was a policy in support of the German migration. Living in a communist country, we were unaware of this policy, as all we knew was that Romania had several German communities. But almost 40% of the Swabians from Banat either fled or died in the war. In fact, young people either enrolled with the German army or the SS, they either died or they went directly to Germany. German populations in Dobruja, Bukovina, Bessarabia and Wallachia were relocated by the German government in the 1940s, first to Poland then to Germany. In the interwar period, the German community in Romania numbered 750 thousand, while after the war their number dropped to around 300 thousand.”



    After 1989 Romanian historians talked about the German migration in terms of their “selling’. According to testimonies made by people who emigrated, the amount that a German had to pay was around 5 to 15 thousand Deutsche Marks (DM). Many of the people who tried to cross the border illegally, as they did not have the money to buy their way out of the country, were killed.



    Remus Anghel: “The ‘selling’ phenomenon must be analyzed from two perspectives. The first one is the German perspective, according to which it was their duty to help bring their people to Germany. The idea was not to bring the Germans from the East in order to use them as labor force, because Germany could have got it from anywhere else, which they did. The German ethnics from Romania suffered more than the Romanians, the Hungarians and other people during communism, as almost every family had a least one deported member, in particular men and women in the 18-45 age bracket. This was a social drama that most of us were unaware of. This drama uprooted them, made them feel alienated. For Germany, paying for the Saxons and Swabians was a sort of compensatory act. For Romania, it was an incorrect policy. Actually, the formal understanding was concealing an informal one. After 1977 there were many emigration applications, with quotas set at 10 to 15 thousand, so not big quotas. When a German submitted an emigration application a whole administrative process started, that included losing one’s job and selling one’s house at a very small price. It was a painful process. In fact, it was a sort of extortion of Germans and of the German state. In my opinion, the problem was not the money, but the way in which people were treated.”



    With the German migration, Romania lost some of its ethnic diversity, but for the Germans who went to Germany, the place where they wanted to be, it was better. (Translated by E. Enache, edited by D. Vijeu)

  • December 7, 2017

    December 7, 2017

    KING MICHAEL – Every evening until December 10 religious services will be held at King Michaels residence in Switzerland, where he spent most of his life in exile and where he also died, the Royal House announced. In the country, Romanians continue to bring flowers and candles in front of the former royal palace in Bucharest and at the Elisabeta Palace, the late Kings residence in the capital city. King Michaels body will be flown to the country on Wednesday, December 13, and placed at the Peles Castle in Sinaia, in the southern Carpathians. On the evening of the same day, the coffin will be brought to the Royal Palace in Bucharest. The funeral will take place on Saturday, December 16, in Curtea de Arges, southern Romania, where all Romanias former kings are interred. The Government declared a national mourning on December 14, 15 and 16. On Monday, December 11, the joint chambers of the Romanian Parliament will pay tribute to the former sovereign in a solemn session. The King of Romania between 1940 and 1947, Michael I passed away on Tuesday, at the age of 96.




    PROTESTS – Hundreds of people last night picketed the building of the Romanian Parliament, to protest the changes brought to the law on the status of magistrates, which were subject to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies. Traffic in the area was disrupted and incidents were reported, involving the protesters and the police. Unplanned protests were also held in the cities of Cluj Napoca, in the north-west, and Constanta in the south-east. The participants demanded that the Social Democratic leader Liviu Dragnea step down as Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, given that he has already received a suspended sentence and is prosecuted in two other cases. MPs from Power and Opposition also traded insults and invectives during the meeting.




    BUDGET LAW – Leaders of the Romanian Parliament are to set today a roadmap for the endorsement of the 2018 state budget law. The bill was passed by the Government on Wednesday, and is based on a forecast economic growth rate of 5.5% and a 3.1% annual inflation rate. Prime Minister Mihai Tudose said it was the first time that the countrys GDP exceeded 200 billion euros, which would allow for salary and pension increases.




    DIPLOMACY – The US Ambassador to Bucharest, Hans Klemm, accuses Moscow of conducting misinformation campaigns aimed at generating confusion and division among NATO member states. Taking advantage of our democratic societies, Russia seeks to influence public opinion and often to influence elections as well, by disseminating fake news, the American diplomat said at a public debate organised in the north-western city of Cluj. On the other hand, he once again called on Romania to further fight corruption and defend the independence of the judiciary.




    MIDDLE EAST – US President Donald Trumps recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel triggered strong international condemnation. The UN Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting on Friday, at the request of 8 members, including the UK and France. The Arab League announced an emergency meeting on Saturday. All Palestinian organisations criticized the move and called for strikes and protests, while many countries in the region warned that the decision would entail religious tensions. Turkey threatened to break ties with Israel. Another US ally, Saudi Arabia, slammed Trumps decision as “irresponsible. Traditional US allies from Europe also voiced opposition to the move, whereas Russia and China have expressed concerns that conflicts in the region will be exacerbated.





    HANDBALL – Romanias womens handball team is playing tonight against Angola, in Group A of the World Championships hosted by Germany. The Romanians have already secured their qualification in the round of 16, after having defeated Paraguay, Slovenia and Spain. On Friday they will play the last match in the group, against France. Romania won the bronze medal in the 2015 championship, and is the only team to have taken part in all the 22 world championship final tournaments so far.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • The Russians in Romania, during WW1

    The Russians in Romania, during WW1

    Based on the treaty of August 1916, between Romania and the Entente, the Russian army committed itself to backing the front, south and east of the Carpathians. During the campaign of 1916, the commanders of the Russian army failed to keep their promise and the war was a disaster. A Russian army corps, led by general Andrei Medardovici Zaioncikovski came to the support of the Romanian army in the battle aimed to defend Bucharest, on November 30, 1916. In the absence of a combative spirit, they could not help the Romanians halt the central Powers’ offensive and the ensuing occupation of the capital city. Another Russian army corps in Dobrogea was dispatched too late and it could not ward off the German-Bulgarian attacks, coming from the south.



    Following the support provided by the French army in 1917, the Romanian army was able to recover and prevent the Germans’ advance. The Eastern ally’s military presence in Moldova, where the Romanian authorities had taken refuge, was enhanced. If 50,000 military were deployed in Romania in 1916, in 1917 the Russians sent one million troops to join the approximately 400,000 Romanian soldiers. With a consistent support provided by the Russians, who covered some 80% of the frontline, the Central Powers’ offensive was stopped.



    The Russian military presence in Romania, which finally produced positive results, turned out to be difficult to manage. It turned, after the victory of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, into one of the main causes that led to the collapse of the whole eastern front. Also, it was the most dangerous source of instability for Romania. The Russians’ image in Romania was already a negative one, dating back to the war of 1877-1878. The presence of the Russian troops in the 1916-1918 period did nothing but confirmed what the Romanians already knew from their grandparents’ stories.



    Constantin Moiceanu was 5 years old in 1917. Interviewed in 2000 by the Oral History Centre of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, he remembered the conduct of the Russian troops when they arrived in his native village: ”The Russian troops arrived at some point. They were famous for getting drunk quickly and sparking scandals. My parents were well-off people; they had a cellar full of wine and plum brandy barrels. And I remember that one day, my parents, together with other people took all the wine barrels in the courtyard and spilled their content as there were rumours about the Russians’ arrival. They spilled the content because there was no place where they could hide them. They did the same with the plum brandy. And when the Russians came they searched the cellar but they could not find anything.”



    However, the year 1917 would bring the disaster. The Bolshevik Revolution had also got hold of the Russian army and everything risked turning into chaos. Ioan Odochian’s father had been a private in the Austro-Hungarian army. Because of his nationalist convictions, he refused further be part of that army.



    In an interview dated 2001, Odochian told us about his father’s recollections of the Russian troops turning Bolshevik: ”When the Russian revolution spread and its front was set up in Galicia, my father was a deserter from the Austro-Hungarian army. He was on one side, the Russians on the other. So my father told me that one morning, some sort of gathering was organised. The army gathered in a field where one of the officers brought a table and climbed on it to deliver a speech in Russian. The Russians had been Orthodox believers before that, they had brought their prayer books with them on whose front page there was a photo of the Tsar. Right after the officer ended his speech, all Russian soldiers tore the picture of the Tsar. My father told me that’s exactly what he witnessed. That’s why he kept telling us that Russians were Godless people, which held nothing sacred.”



    In 1996, professor Pan Vizirescu talked about the Russian soldiers stationed in Romania who were fully convinced of the rightfulness of the Bolshevik ideas: ”We saw deserters wandering the streets, drunkards and brawlers. That is the truth. I even talked to the poet Buzdugan, a poet from Bessarabia. He knew Russian very well and told me that one night while he was in a pub in Nicolina, a neighbourhood in the city of Iasi, he overheard a group of Russian soldiers planning to kill Romania’s King Ferdinand. They were drawing up their plan right there as crime had crept into their souls. So Buzdugan went to see one of the country’s officials, Nicola Iorga, and told him what he had heard. Iorga took the story further to the Palace, telling it to the King, and measures were taken to prevent the murder. Somewhere else, in Bacau or Piatra Neamt, the Russian soldiers killed one of their generals. They did their best to Bolshevise the Romanian army as well, but that was impossible. Our army was devoted to the country. “



    The Russian presence in Romania during World War One was rather controversial. It had positive effects since it contributed to a crucial military victory, yet it was no less negative, since it jeopardized what had been gained with great sacrifice.






  • August 29, 2016

    August 29, 2016

    EARTHQUAKE – A Romanian citizen is still missing, after last weeks earthquake in Italy. According to data made public by the Romanian Foreign Ministry, a total of 11 Romanians died, and 6 were injured. The Minister delegate for relations with the Romanian diaspora, Maria Ligor, had talks with officials of the Italian Civil Protection Department and with Romanian nationals currently living in tents in Amatrice, the village the most severely affected by the quake. PM Dacian Cioloş has convened a special Cabinet meeting today, to look at ways to assist the Romanian citizens affected by the earthquake in Italy and their families.



    DIPLOMACY – PM Dacian Cioloş said on Monday, at the Annual Meeting of Romanian Diplomats, that Bucharest has been denied access to the visa-free Schengen area for political reasons for more than 5 years. Romania, Ciolos added, believes in the revival capacity of the European project and is determined to invest its diplomatic and political resources to that end. According to Dacian Ciolos, a crisis-management approach has used up political energy and time this past year. The meeting in Bucharest focuses on security developments, the dynamics of EU internal processes and preparations for Romanias first turn at the EU Council presidency in the first half of 2019. The participants will also discuss means to strengthen the capacity to provide professional consular assistance, in order to protect the interests and rights of the Romanians traveling or living abroad.



    KING MICHAEL – Romanias former sovereign, King Michael I, currently in a stable medical state, is grieving, but is supported by the love and respect of his family and looked after with flawless professionalism by his physicians, His Majestys Press Office reported. The news release comes after media speculated that, according to a representative of the Bishopric Palace in Curtea de Argeş, where Romanian royalty are buried, Prince Radu had said King Michaels health was worsening and signals were not positive. According to the Royal House of Romania, Prince Radu said the King was in a frail state, which, given his age and diagnosis, was declining. Any other speculations, assumptions or allegations are untrue, the Press Office added. Poor health recently prevented the former sovereign from attending the funeral of his wife, Queen Anne.



    ANTI-CORRUPTION – The head of the Intelligence and Internal Protection Department of the Romanian Interior Ministry, Rareş Văduva, has been indicted by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate. According to judicial sources, charges include abuse of office and obstruction of justice, as well as favouring an offender. The same sources said the charges are related to proceedings that had been disjoinded from the case in which the former Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea was sent to court. According to the Anti-Corruption Directorate, during his term in office Gabriel Oprea increased the budget of the Interior Ministrys secret service in order to buy a limousine for his personal use.




    WORLD WAR 1 – Bucharest is hosting today a roundtable, a military exercise and a military music concert devoted to the commemoration of 100 years since Romania joined the First World War. On Sunday, in his address given at the opening of commemoration ceremonies, the President of Romania Klaus Iohannis paid tribute to the heroes who sacrificed their lives and called for the construction of a strong and dignified Romanian state. The commemoration of World War One is the strongest argument in favour of the European project, Iohannis added, defining it as the most comprehensive political and cultural project aimed at building the dialogue and understanding among Europeans.




    DEFENCE – The Romanian Defence Minister, Mihnea Motoc, is on an official visit to Slovakia today, where he is taking part in the commemoration of the anti-Nazi insurrection during World War 2. He will also visit the Romanian military cemetery in Zvolen, where a ceremony will be held to commemorate the Romanian troops who died in battles to free Slovakia from Nazi occupation. Motoc will have a meeting with his Slovakian counterpart, Peter Gajdos, to discuss means to strengthen the bilateral military cooperation and cooperation within NATO and the EU.



    US OPEN – Four Romanians are today playing their first matches at the US Open, the final grand slam of the season. Irina Begu (22 WTA) will take on Ukraines Lesia Tsurenko (80 WTA), Monica Niculescu (57 WTA) will play against the Czech Barbora Strycova (19 WTA), and Ana Bogdan, 117 WTA, will play against another Romanian, Sorana Cirstea, 88 WTA. Two other Romanians will enter the competition on Tuesday. Simona Halep (no. 5 in the world), will face Belgiums Kirsten Flipkens (68 WTA), and Patricia Maria Tig (129 WTA) will play against Laura Siegemund, from Germany, 28 WTA.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • Radio Donau

    Radio Donau

    War propaganda was one of the most efficient ways of boosting the morale of the army and the civilian population. It also was a means to justify the course of action and decisions of a particular political regime. Democratic as well as totalitarian regimes have used radio propaganda, which allowed strictly controlled information to reach the public quickly and efficiently.



    Radio Donau was set up in order to broadcast information from the German-speaking world to central and south-east Europe. Its head offices were in Vienna, while the transmitters were located in the mountains of Bohemia. From Vienna in June 1940, Radio Donau began its broadcast in Romanian, with the staff made up of several translators. After August 23, 1944, when Romania switched its alliance from the Axis to the Allies, a far-right government in exile was formed in Vienna, headed by Horia Sima. That governments messages to Romanians were broadcast by Radio Donaus Romanian service, which was disbanded in May 1945.



    In 1942, Iustin Liuba from Timisoara, in western Romania, travelled to Dresden, in Germany, for his university studies. In 1944 Iustin Liuba relocated to Vienna. In an interview that he gave to Radio Romanias Oral History Centre in 1998, he recalled that Romanians studying in Vienna used to work for Radio Donau:



    Iustin Liuba: There was a small team made up of three Romanians working for Radio Donau, who translated 2 to 3-minute long commentaries from German into Romanian. Most of their work consisted in the translation of news bulletins. The news bulletins came from the German High Command, reporting, for instance, ‘our submarines sank 50 thousand tonnes in the North Atlantic. This meant that they had sunk merchant vessels, allied cargos. Similar special announcements would be made every three hours or so. The news was translated into several languages, broadcast languages also included Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, plus Japanese, Italian, the languages of the Axis powers.



    Brief, fifteen-minute programmes were aired, mostly news bulletins. Here is Iustin Liuba once again, with details on the Radio Donau programmes and how people there used to work:



    Iustin Liuba: “Recordings were made, which afterwards were rerun several times. Airtime was limited. Some of the programmes came live, while other materials were recorded, not on tape, because there was no such thing back then, but on vinyl discs, just as gramophone discs. The problem with it was that, if you made a mistake, the disc was useless, you had to get a new one. If you made just one mistake, the disk was thrown away and you had to start all over again. So it was complicated. The news came from German sources. The German intelligence services fed Radio Donau with the latest news, but they didnt say that. They would quote ‘reliable sources. Usually it was the Deutsche Nachrichten Agentur, the German News Agency, who provided the news. The station also used a team of Germans from Romania, Saxons or Swabians, who spoke Romanian and of course German, which was their mother tongue. They were monitoring the broadcasts, making sure there were no changes in the written text and the texts were read correctly.



    The so-called “national government set up after August 23, 1944 was made up of Iron Guard leaders. Shortly afterwards, however, tensions emerged between Horia Simas government in exile and the other Romanians in Vienna. Radio Donau was the channel used by the Sima government to reach Romanians. Iustin Liuba told us more about those rivalries:



    Iustin Liuba: “A ‘national government was set up in Vienna. Back then, there was a well-known rivalry between the Iron Guard commander, Horia Sima, and general Ion Gheorghe, who had been Antonescus ambassador to Berlin and who was not a member of that far-right organisation. General Ion Gheorghe was an iconic figure of the Romanian army, a symbol of the Romanian peoples anti-communist tradition, whereas Horia Sima was representing the Iron Guard extremist organisation. General Ion Gheorghe was a professor at the War School, the military academy in Bucharest, and a renowned expert on tanks. He used to say: ‘We are at war with the Soviets, but we dont want to be led by the Iron Guard. The Romanian people, through its army, stood up against this organisation, which had rebelled against the state order. This dispute between general Ion Gheorghe and Horia Sima took place in Vienna, and the Germans didnt know who was the best person to head the new government and to organise the resistance against the Soviet army.



    Iustin Liuba also spoke about the tense meeting between Horia Sima and the Romanian students in Vienna, designed to set up a so-called ‘national liberation army.



    Iustin Liuba: “We were discontent about the governments extremist leaning, because the Germans eventually decided to choose Horia Sima as head of government. They removed general Ion Gheorghe, who had our support, and who represented the Romanian anti-communist army. The Germans favoured Horia Sima and asked him to go and speak to the students, recruit them, convince them to join the ranks of the national army. It was a failure, nobody volunteered, two or three girls from the Medical School said, ‘We are female doctors, we can work in hospital, so they signed the papers, but the rest of the students didnt. Horia Sima got angry, he said, ‘I am ashamed of you, you dont realise what you are doing! We apologised, Horia Sima slammed the door shut behind him, and that was our meeting.



    The Romanian armys last mission during WW II was to destroy the transmitters of Radio Donau. This mission, successfully accomplished, put an end to Romanias participation in WW II.