Antonescu is a common family name in Romania derived from the root name, Antonius. [1] Persons named Antonescu include:
Ion Antonescu was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II. Having been responsible for facilitating the Holocaust in Romania, he was tried for war crimes and executed in 1946.
The Kingdom of Romania, under the rule of King Carol II, was initially a neutral country in World War II. However, Fascist political forces, especially the Iron Guard, rose in popularity and power, urging an alliance with Nazi Germany and its allies. As the military fortunes of Romania's two main guarantors of territorial integrity—France and Britain—crumbled in the Fall of France, the government of Romania turned to Germany in hopes of a similar guarantee, unaware that Germany, in the supplementary protocol to the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, had already granted its blessing to Soviet claims on Romanian territory.
The Iron Guard was a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael or the Legionary Movement. It was strongly anti-democratic, anti-capitalist, anti-communist, and anti-Semitic. It differed from other European right-wing movements of the period due to its spiritual basis, as the Iron Guard was deeply imbued with Romanian Orthodox Christian mysticism.
Mihai Antonescu was a Romanian politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister during World War II, executed in 1946 as a war criminal.
Gheorghe I. Tătărescu was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania, three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs and once as Minister of War (1934). Representing the "young liberals" faction inside the National Liberal Party (PNL), Tătărescu began his political career as a collaborator of Ion G. Duca, becoming noted for his anticommunism and, in time, for his conflicts with the PNL's leader Dinu Brătianu and the Foreign Minister Nicolae Titulescu. During his first time in office, he moved closer to King Carol II and led an ambivalent policy toward the fascist Iron Guard and ultimately becoming instrumental in establishing the authoritarian and corporatist regime around the National Renaissance Front. In 1940, he accepted the cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union and had to resign.
Ion Mihalache was a Romanian agrarian politician, the founder and leader of the Peasants' Party (PȚ) and a main figure of its successor, the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ).
Dinu Brătianu, born Constantin I. C. Brătianu, was a Romanian engineer and politician who led the National Liberal Party (PNL) starting in 1934.
In 2006, Romanian Television conducted a vote to determine whom the general public considered the 100 Greatest Romanians of all time, in a version of the British TV show 100 Greatest Britons. The resulting series, Great Romanians, included individual programmes on the top ten, with viewers having further opportunities to vote after each programme. It concluded with a debate. On 21 October, TVR announced that the "greatest Romanian of all time" according to the voting was Stephen the Great.
Between 21 and 23 January 1941, a rebellion of the Iron Guard paramilitary organization, whose members were known as Legionnaires, occurred in Bucharest, Romania. As their privileges were being gradually removed by the Conducător Ion Antonescu, the Legionnaires revolted. During the rebellion and subsequent pogrom, the Iron Guard killed 125 Jews, and 30 soldiers died in the confrontation with the rebels. Following this, the Iron Guard movement was banned and 9,000 of its members were imprisoned.
Mitiţă Constantinescu was a Romanian economist and liberal politician. He was an advocate of industrialization and a degree of dirigisme.
The National Liberal Party–Brătianu was a right-wing political party in Romania, formed as a splinter group from the main liberal faction, the national liberals. For its symbol, PNL-Brătianu chose three vertical bars, placed at equal distance from each other. The Georgists' official voice was Mișcarea, a journal that supported an eponymous publishing house; notably, Mișcarea published art chronicles contributed by the writer Tudor Arghezi.
Valter or Walter Roman, born Ernst or Ernő Neuländer, was a Romanian communist activist and soldier. During his lifetime, Roman was active inside the Romanian, Czechoslovakian, French, and Spanish Communist parties as well as being a Comintern cadre. He started his military career as a volunteer in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, and rose to prominence in Communist Romania, as a high-level politician and military official.
Ion is a masculine given name. The written form corresponds to two names that are different and unrelated in origin.
The 1944 Romanian coup d'état, better known in Romanian historiography as the Act of 23 August, was a coup d'état led by King Michael I of Romania during World War II on 23 August 1944. With the support of several political parties, the king removed the government of Ion Antonescu, which had aligned Romania with Nazi Germany, after the Axis front in northeastern Romania collapsed in the face of a successful Soviet offensive. The Romanian Army declared a unilateral ceasefire with the Soviet Red Army on the Moldavian front, an event viewed as decisive in the Allied advances against the Axis powers in the European theatre of World War II. The coup was supported by the Romanian Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, and the National Peasants' Party who had coalesced into the National Democratic Bloc in June 1944.
Corpul Muncitoresc Legionar or Corpul Muncitorilor Legionari was a fascist association of workers in Romania, created inside the Iron Guard and having a rigid hierarchical structure. From its creation until September 1940, the CML was led by Gheorghe Clime; afterwards, the position was filled by Dumitru Groza, who oversaw the Corps during the period when the Iron Guard was in power — the National Legionary State —, and involved it in the 1941 Rebellion and Pogrom. The CML had its headquarters in Bucharest, on Calea Călăraşilor.
Petre is a surname and given name derived from Peter. Notable persons with that name include:
Constantin Vișoianu was a Romanian jurist, diplomat, and politician, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs at the end of World War II. He later emigrated to the United States, where he served as President of the Romanian National Committee.
Constantin Petrovicescu was a Romanian soldier and politician, who served as Interior Minister from September 14, 1940 to January 21, 1941 during the National Legionary State.
The third cabinet of Ion Antonescu was the government of Romania from 27 January 1941 to 23 August 1944. On 22 June 1941, Romania entered World War II on the side of the Axis powers and invaded the Soviet Union.