* June 1 – Ion Antonescu, prime minister and " Conducator " ( Leader ) of Romania during World War II is executed ; he was found guilty of betraying the Romanian people for benefits of Germany and sentenced to death by the Bucharest People's Tribunal.

A Romanian Army career officer who made his name during the 1907 peasants ' revolt and the World War I Romanian Campaign, the antisemitic Antonescu sympathized with the far right and fascist National Christian and Iron Guard groups for much of the interwar period.

An atypical figure among Holocaust perpetrators, Antonescu enforced policies independently responsible for the deaths of as many as 400, 000 people, most of them Bessarabian, Ukrainian and Romanian Jews, as well as Romani Romanians.

The judicial procedures earned much criticism for responding to the Romanian Communist Party's ideological priorities, a matter that fueled nationalist and far right attempts to have Antonescu posthumously exonerated.

Antonescu also developed a reputation for questioning his commanders, and for appealing over their heads whenever he felt they were wrong.

After 1916, when the Kingdom of Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, Ion Antonescu acted as chief of staff for General Constantin Prezan.

When enemy troops crossed the mountains from Transylvania into Wallachia, Antonescu was ordered to design a defense plan for Bucharest.

This outraged Antonescu, who developed enduring contempt for the future king.

Eliade also claimed that such contacts with the leader of a neutral country had made him the target for Gestapo surveillance, but that he had managed to communicate Salazar's advice to Mihai Antonescu, Romania's Foreign Minister.

The friendship between Eliade and Sebastian drastically declined during the war: the latter writer, fearing for his security during the pro-Nazi Ion Antonescu regime ( see Romania during World War II ), hoped that Eliade, by then a diplomat, could intervene in his favor ; however, upon his brief return to Romania, Eliade did not see or approach Sebastian.

The kingdom of Romania was a constitutional monarchy for most of its existence with the exception of 1938 – 1944, during the dictatorships of Carol II ( 1938 – 1940 ) and Marshal Ion Antonescu ( 1940 – 1944 ).

Rudolph Rummel, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii who spent his career assembling data on collective violence by governments towards their people ( for which he coined the term democide ), estimated that 258, 000 must have been killed in Nazi Germany, 36, 000 in Romania under Ion Antonescu and 27, 000 in Ustashe Croatia.

He was re-elected on 6 December 2009 for a second 5-year term that started on 21 December 2009, and suspended again on 6 July 2012, with President of the Senate Crin Antonescu assuming acting presidency.

With popular support for Romania's participation in the war faltering and German-Romanian fronts collapsing under Soviet onslaught, King Michael of Romania led a coup d ' état, which deposed the Antonescu regime and put Romania on the side of the Allies for the remainder of the war.

The PNŢ survived in semi-clandestinity and, after Antonescu purged the Guard, achieved some unofficial status when Maniu began holding talks with the general over several issues ( notably, he called for an end to persecution of the Jews and transports of Jews to Transnistria ).

This prison is the site where, on November 26-27, 1940, the Iron Guard authorities of the National Legionary State killed 64 political prisoners as revenge for the previous killing of their leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu ( see Jilava Massacre ); it was also here that Ion Antonescu, dictator ( Conducător ) of Romania during World War II, was executed for war crimes in 1946 and where on 23 October 1971 the serial killer, Ion Rîmaru was executed by firing squad.

He stated at a cabinet meeting on March 7, 1945, for example, that the government sought to guarantee safety and order for the population, implement desired land reform policies, and focus on a " swift cleanup " of the state bureaucracy and immediate prosecution of war criminals, i. e. officials of the Fascist wartime regime of Ion Antonescu ( see Romania during World War II and Romanian People's Tribunals ).

King Michael I of Romania was awarded the Order of Victory ( the highest Soviet order ) for overthrowing the pro-German Mareşal ( Romania ) | Marshal Mihai Antonescu | Antonescu in the The royal coup ( Romania ) | August 23 coup.

With the tacit agreement from Antonescu due to Hitler's influence, Sima was able to leave Romania for Germany, where he was imprisoned in a special, humane, section of the Buchenwald concentration camp, one meant for Iron Guard members.

Within months, Antonescu had crushed the Iron Guard, and the subsequent year Romania entered the war on the side of the Axis powers.

On 23 August 1944 Antonescu was toppled and arrested by King Michael I of Romania who joined the Allies and declared war on Germany.

Ion Victor Antonescu (; June 15, 1882 – June 1, 1946 ) was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician, and convicted war criminal.

Prior to the Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad, the Antonescu government considered a war with Hungary over Transylvania an inevitability after the expected victory over the Soviet Union.

During the three-day civil war, eventually won by Antonescu with support from the German army, members of the Iron Guard instigated a deadly pogrom in Bucharest, the capital city.

After Hitler has convinced Ion Antonescu to continue war beyond Romania's pre-1940 borders, Dumitrescu then led the Third Army to the Crimea, taking part in the Battle of the Sea of Azov.

* July 1941: The Germans captured Bessarabia, and the area of Ukraine named Transnistria was granted by Hitler to the Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu for Romania ’ s participation in the war against the Soviet Union.

During the war it opposed the Nazi-allied government of Ion Antonescu, issuing calls to sabotage of the war industry and open armed resistance.

Retired from political life during the war, he was initially sympathetic to Ion Antonescu's pro-German dictatorship ( see Romania during World War II ) — Dinu Brătianu, who remained in opposition to the Antonescu regime, made mention an official visit to Bessarabia, recovered after the start of Operation Barbarossa, when Tătărescu had accompanied Antonescu, " thus making common cause with his warmongering action ".

* 1944 – World War II: King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of Marshal Antonescu, who is arrested.

* 1946 – Ion Antonescu, " Conducator " ( leader ) of Romania during World War II, is executed.

* 1946 – Ion Antonescu, Romanian soldier and politician, Prime Minister of Romania ( b. 1882 )

In August 1944, Antonescu was arrested by Mihai.

Because Carol II lost so much territory through failed diplomacy, the army supported seizure of power by General Ion Antonescu.

The authoritarian King Carol II abdicated in 1940, succeeded by the National Legionary State, in which power was shared by Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard.

By means of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, Romania recovered Bessarabia and northern Bukovina from the Soviet Russia, under the leadership of general Ion Antonescu.

The Antonescu regime played a major role in the Holocaust, following to a lesser extent the Nazi policy of oppression and massacre of the Jews, and Romas, primarily in the Eastern territories Romania recovered or occupied from the Soviet Union ( Transnistria ) and in Moldavia.

* August 23 – WWII: Ion Antonescu, prime minister of Romania, is arrested and a new government established.

** Ion Antonescu, Romanian prime minister and dictator ( b. 1882 )

* June 15 – Ion Antonescu, Romanian prime minister and dictator ( d. 1946 )

Antonescu nevertheless rose to political prominence during the political crisis of 1940, and established the National Legionary State, an uneasy partnership with the Iron Guard's leader Horia Sima.

Soon after Romania joined the Axis in Operation Barbarossa, recovering Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Antonescu also became Marshal of Romania.

Confronted with heavy losses on the Eastern Front, Antonescu embarked on inconclusive negotiations with the Allies, just before a political coalition, formed around the young monarch Michael I, toppled him during the August 23, 1944 Coup.

While these groups elevated Antonescu to the status of hero, his involvement in the Holocaust was officially reasserted and condemned following the 2003 Wiesel Commission report.

Born in the town of Piteşti, north-west of the capital Bucharest, Antonescu was the scion of an upper-middle class Romanian Orthodox family with some military tradition.

According to one account, Ion Antonescu was briefly a classmate of Wilhelm Filderman, the future Romanian Jewish community activist whose interventions with Conducător Antonescu helped save a number of his coreligionists.