The Drift into Germany’s Orbit: Romania, 1938–1941

Abstract

Romania was driven into alliance with Nazi Germany by fear of the Soviet Union. ‘Nothing could put Romania on Germany’s side’, remarked a member of the Romanian Foreign Ministry to the British Minister Sir Reginald Hoare in March 1940, ‘except the conviction that only Germany could keep the Soviets out of Romania.’1 That conviction was quick to form after the collapse of France in May 1940, the Soviet seizure from Romania of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina at the end of June, and the loss of Northern Transylvania to Hungary under the Vienna Award in late August. One third of Romania’s 1939 area was ceded in 1940 and with it Romania’s population fell from 19.9 million to 13.3 million. The loss of the three territories led King Carol II to accept Hitler’s frontier guarantee, one which he gave only after Carol’s agreement to the Vienna Award.