Transnistria Governorate - Romanian Conquest of Transnistria

Romanian Conquest of Transnistria

Until 26 July 1941, Romanian Army had pushed the Soviet Army out of Bessarabia, the territory of Romania occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940. Nazi Germany wanted Romania as an ally in the war against the Soviet Union. However, Romania was complacent with recovering its own territory. To facilitate the persuasion of the then-dictator of Romania Ion Antonescu, Hitler ordered the German Army to advance into Ukraine from north to south, following a route east of the Southern Bug river, in order to trap Soviet troops between Dniester and the Southern Bug. Antonescu was thus put in the face of a simple task for his army: conquer from the encircled and retreating Red Army troops a precisely delimited area. Antonescu ordered the Romanian Fourth Army to undertake this task.

During the first week of the advance, in mid-August 1941, Romanians took over all of the region, except for a small area around Odessa without a fight. At the time, Romanians had 60,000 soldiers to conquer the city from its 30,000 defenders (citation need). However, the organization was so poor, and the command was so superficial, that the attack resulted in a military blunder. Exploiting this success, the Soviets stopped the evacuation of the city by sea and instead sent reinforcements, bolstering the strength of the Soviet forces up to 100,000 (citation need). Romanians were forced to more-than-double their own numbers as well. Although occasionally on some small portions of front line, low and medium rank Romanian officers showed clear successes, the general organization of the siege was disastrous for the Romanians, and several generals were dismissed afterwards. Eventually, after 2 months of siege, the Romanian army took control of the city at the price of 92,000 casualties. Only in the Battle of Stalingrad were Romanian casualty figures higher, but then Romanians would face a numerically and technically superior enemy. Although the Soviets eventually left the city, the whole operation was a success for the Soviets(citation need), as they were able to block a larger enemy force with a smaller one, and inflict significant casualties on the attackers. This result was especially important, because the Soviet High Command initially ordered the city abandoned. At the end of the war, Odessa received the title of Hero city.

Once Romanian troops entered Odessa, they established headquarters of two of their divisions in the local NKVD building. However, the building was mined by the Soviets, who blew it up, killing over 100 members of Romanian divisional headquarters, including almost 50 officers, paralyzing the activity of the two divisions for two weeks. In reprisal, Ion Antonescu ordered the arrest and massacre of civilians suspected of aiding the Red Army. When it became clear that identifying individuals directly responsible for the incident would be almost impossible, Antonescu ordered shooting of Jews. The massacre that followed resulted in 19,000 civilians killed (citation need), the majority of whom had nothing to do with the military action. A further number of Odessa Jews were deported to ghettos and concentration camps in the northern half of the region.

A partisan movement, with a strength of 300, was active in the Odessa catacombs all throughout the occupation. It managed to organize an excellent communication with the partisan headquarters in Moscow. Antonescu was advised to use poisonous gas to clear the catacombs, but afraid of the public implications of such an act decided to abstain from it. Eventually, Romanians were able to inflict a high number of casualties on the partisans with the help of some partisans who switched sides and revealed the movement through the catacombs. Yet, the catacombs were never completely cleared, and the partisans maintained a continuous resistance movement until the return of the Red Army.