Romanian Air Corps on the Western Front, rare footage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88T-6_F0eb0

Romanian soundtrack and comments, unfortunatelly partly ideological and to be ignored.

This post has been edited by Agarici on October 21, 2013 06:38 pm

German airplanes working hard against Germany ...

Most of which Rumania did not pay a cent for...

Gen. Dénes

The economic report filled in 1945 by the experts of the German Central Bank ("Reich ... something " ) concluded that the payment / debt balances between Romania and Germany, as of August 23, 1944, were roughly equal. Indeed, there was a slight plus from the German part (Romania owed a little bit), but not something unusual.
Their economic report covered all kinds of exchanges that occurred.

"They" had payed pretty hard - with human lives, oil, grains, land (N-Western Transylvania), and bombs taken from the Western allies - since 1940 onwards. I think at any point in time "they" would gladly switch and payed the damned Reichsmarks for the machines, or choose not to purchase them at all...

This post has been edited by Agarici on October 24, 2013 01:37 pm

The economic report filled in 1945 by the experts of the German Central Bank ("Reich.....??") concluded that the payment / debt balances between Romania and Germany, as of August 23, 1944, were roughly equal. Indeed, there was a slight plus from the German part (Romania owed a little bit), but not something unusual.
Their economic report covered all kinds of exchanges that occurred.
PLEASE DELETE - AGAIN A WEB MALFUNCTION RESULTED IN A REPEAT.

This post has been edited by Florin on October 24, 2013 01:40 pm

I am not a subject matter expert here but I would say that some common sense thinking could go like this: the german made airplanes that were owned by the romanian army after 23rd of August 1944 could belong into one of the following categories:
A. Airplanes that were commercially ordered by Romania from Germany.
B. Airplanes that were offered for free by Germany to its ally Romania as help in the war effort.
C. Airplanes captured by the romanian army after 23rd of August 1944.

I would say that only category B from above may be potentially considered as planes which were not payed for, isn't this correct ?

Lucian G

I think it was mentioned before under this website that most of the German airplanes captured by the Romanians in August 1944 were soon after that confiscated by Soviet Union.

This post has been edited by Florin on October 24, 2013 05:30 pm

Do you have more information about this?
Radu

No, as I said I am not a subject matter expert ; I only tried to approach as objective as possible this matter.
I personally suppose that there weren't too many planes given "for free" by Germany to Romania.

The entire fleet of warplanes of Corpul 1 aerian român was German property, lent to the Rumanians for front use only. These formed the bulk of aircraft that went to war against Germany and, later, Hungary.

Gen. Dénes

Something that became obvious to Hitler by 1944, because it was proved again and again with the Romanian, Finnish and Hungarian armies: regardless of how brave the allied soldiers were fighting for you, if you did not provide weaponry for them, their bravery did not matter too much.
Following this logic, not only Romania received more German weaponry in the first half of 1944, but also Finland and Hungary. Like Romania, after August 1944 Finland used against Germany what was left of that weaponry.

And the airplanes given "to the Rumanians for front use only" were used on the front until May 1945, right ?
"the Rumanians" did not try other usage for them.

This post has been edited by Florin on October 25, 2013 06:24 am

I don't believe the Germans, i.e. their former comrades in arms, were laughing at this matter (after 23 August 1944)...
That's why they were/are referring to this act as: "rumänischer Verrat".

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on October 25, 2013 10:11 am

I don't believe the Germans, i.e. their former comrades in arms, were laughing at this matter (after 23 August 1944)...
That's why they were/are referring to this act as: "rumänischer Verrat".

Gen. Dénes

The "rumänischer Verrat" was the most painful because of the amplitude of the involvement of Romanian Armed Forces alongside the Axis, and their effectiveness and usefulness while doing so, even with the various shortcomings - available weaponry being one of them. In June 1941, while the Romanians were already with 2 whole armies in combat, all the other Axis allies did not even have an army corps there. And they kept this involvement through the 3 years of alliance.

What I mean by this is that Italy defected in September 8, 1943 (almost one year before Romania) and Finland defected about in the same time with Romania (August 26), and the Finns would do it regardless of Romania (they had negotiated with Stalin for quite a time, like Romania you may say). Bulgaria did not bother to send troops to the Eastern Front and then, in a historical irony, remained the only European country keeping a territorial grab got through the Axis good graces. And face it, Hungary at least tried it - I do not see much devotion to Hitler's cause there as well, once it had become apparent that the land got from Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia (I think also a bit of Poland, but check this) had to be paid in return with plenty of Hungarian blood.

This post has been edited by Florin on October 25, 2013 04:09 pm

Then, it would be interesting to know which were the goods that Germany sent to Romania in exchange for the oil and cereals. Or were these paid with Reichsmarks at an arguable exchange rate ?

Lucian G