The German-Romanian Relationship and the Final Solution

On January 14, 1941, Adolf Hitler revealed to the Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu the plan to invade the USSR, and on June 12, 1941 his "Guidelines for the Treatment of the Eastern Jews." Well before the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, Antonescu launched Romania's Final Solution in response to Hitler's cue. What we know of the Antonescu-Hitler connection argues against the functionalist interpretation of the Final Solution. Though subsequently forgotten, the Antonescu-Hitler understandings were invoked at the 1946 Paris Peace Conference, when the new communist government sought to blame Germany and exonerate Romania of responsibility in the death of the Jews deported to Transnistria in 1941/42.