From Autarchy To Market Book

General (later Marshal) Ion Antonescu was the leader of Romania from 1940 to 1944. Taking over the government from the incompetent King Carol II, Antonescu was put between rock and hard places. Recently, Romania just lost its territories of Bessarabia to Soviet Union. Unlike Finland, who at least put up resistance and earned sympathies from democratic powers that became understandable reason to its cooperation with Nazi Germany, Carol chose not to fight, making its decision to align to Axis branded as traitorous opportunism. Romania itself was vital to Axis' war effort. It was the fourth largest military power in the Axis, and its oil fields fueled German war machines in its drive to Soviet Union.

Marshal Antonescu, and his regime by extension, was ambiguous at best. Was he a fascist? Evidently, while he rose to power by the support of fascist Iron Guards, he ended up tossing them away by the next year. A furious antisemite himself, yet he often heard and took action after numerous pleas from jewish communities. He was responsible, though, for jewish persecutions, massacres and deportations within Romania, yet stopped short on participating in Hitler's 'final solution', preferring to evacuate remaining Jewish community to Palestine instead.

As a political football, his reputation within Romania is also ambiguous, from traitor to saint, he was branded. For me, I also choose to put Antonescu within those gray area, with people who don't have much of a choice within their times and places. Overall, this book is an interesting one, that discusses reasons for Axis-aligned countries to align themselves with Germany, as shown by Antonescu's Romania.