Need help with Romanian military research

HI All--

I have a question that maybe you guys could answer for me, or lead me in the right direction hopefully, because I have tried just about all I can on the internet to find answers, but no luck so far.

Here is the deal, my grandfather served in the Romanian army during WWII. He was drafted I believe in 1942 or 1943 and served in the eastern front untill the capture of Romania by the Solviets. He went AWOL and fled to Austria with his family (wife and three kids). They stayed there untill 1948 at a refugee camp, where they eventually came over to the USA.

I have been trying to find out what I can about what unit he served in, and all the service records I can find out, but no luck so far. Unfortunately he died a while back so I can't just ask him, and my grandmother only really remembers sketchy info (like that he served deep inside Russia on the east front). My uncles and my dad (Who is a 1st generation Romanian ) were too little to remember anything other than he was in the army.

Do you guys know of any archival data regarding military records, or such? I really want to know more about my grandfather and his military records.

You should provide minimum details to have a litlle chance to find some records for your father: his name ( complete), rank, unit type ( infantery,cavalry), awards and so on.
Most of the records for WWII are stored in Pitesti military archivs.

Hello Cantacuzino

Could you tell us the Romanian name and adress, e-mail etc. of these archives?
And also, how can you get an information from there?

Thanks in advance

Sorry i can not help you. I was never in Pitesti Archivs. My father was once or twice to look for his awards papers but i didn't ask him the adress. I doub't that they have e-mail adress ( but who knows?).
It's very hard to find the information from there. They have huge archivs files stored and someone had to check file by file (that means o lot of time).
If you are lucky some of the info could be found easy and provided by mail at request ( my uncle got his awards papers by mail ).

Maybe Denes or Cainele Franctiror could help you with the adress details

This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on September 21, 2005 10:42 am

Victor also knows.

The main office of the National Military Archive is in Bucharest. At Pitesti they have the bulk of the archives though.

Here is the contact information for the office in Bucharest: http://www.mapn.ro/arhivele_militare/contact.htm

The website is http://www.mapn.ro/arhivele_militare/

Thanks guys, I will check it out. Unfortunately I really don't know a whole lot about anything regarding his rank or service record at all. All I know was that he served. Like I said my grandmother (the only real source of info left) only remembers large picture details (he was in the army, he served on the Russian front, etc...) not the little details like rank, unit, etc..

I think a complete name, birth place and location would be enough to trace him in the archives.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on September 21, 2005 05:40 pm

Admin's, this thread should be moved to the Biographical Research section.

Gen. Dénes