Reference Type: Journal Article
Author: Ionescu, Ștefan
Year: 2012
Title: Germans in World War II Romania and their economic expansion efforts during the process of Romanianization
Journal: Buletinul Centrului, Muzeului şi Arhivei Istorice a Evreilor din România
Issue: 14-15
Pages: 244-255
Language: English
Keywords: Jewish minority, german minority, history, assimilation, World War II, economy, diplomacy, Antonescu regime, antisemitism, persecutions
Abstract: (En) According to the 1930 census, there were 745,421 ethnic Germans in Romania. The majority were located in the former Habsburg provinces of Transylvania, Banat, and Bucovina. These local ethnic Germans' lives changed significantly in 1940. After the territorial shifts that summer - when Romania lost Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, Northern Transylvania, and Southern Dobrudja - only 370,460 still lived in Romania (according to the 1941 census). Then too, many ethnic German men departed to Nazi Germany during the World War II to serve in the Waffen SS units, which created tensions with Ion Antonescu, the Romanian dictator. The number of Germans diminished further in the fall of 1940, as a result of the Romanian-German convention from October 22, 1940: while few ethnic Germans from Banat and Transylvania were "repatriated" to the Reich, some 76,500 from Southern Bucovina and Dobrogea were repatriated to Germany.
The Romanian state received the ethnic Germans' real estate in exchange for compensation paid to the Reich. Antonescu decided to Romanianize these properties in favor of ethnic Romanian refugees from Bulgaria3. Thus, the ethnic Germans' former lands and houses were transferred to the Under-Secretariat for Romanianization, Colonization and Inventory (SSRCI), the institution charged with the distribution of Romanianized properties to needy and deserving ethnic Romanians
URL: http://www.csier.jewishfed.ro/public_html/documente/buletine/buletin14-15.pdf