Romanian Soldiers in France W.W.2?, details of Romanians serving in France?

[New Connaught Ranger]

Hallo Gents,

I am currently reading

"LUCKY FORWARD, The history of General George Patton's Third U.S. Army."

by Colonel Robert S. Allen.

In the chapter HOT OIL, on page 90-91 is the following:-

Several hundred thousand troops, under Lieutenant General Alexander M. Patch,

landed southwest of Cannes and began a rapid advance up the Rhone Valley

against the weak German 19(th) Army. This Army had been so badly depleted by

demands from Normandy that it consisted of only seven divisions, made up largely

of low-grade German troops, Poles, Rumanians, and other foreign elements.

. . . .

Two questions:

1, would these be members of Rumanian Volksdeutsche in Germany Army units

2, did any Romanian units actually serve in France?

The book was printed in 1965 originally printed in 1947.

Any information welcome

Kevin in Deva.

[Dénes]

I think this is yet again the case of mistaking citizenship with nationality/ethnicity - an error often committed by many historians.

These were most probably Volksdeutsche men from Rumania enrolled into the Wehrmacht.

Gen. Dénes

P.S. This thread's title is also misleading. Even if these men were Rumanian ethnics, in the very moment they took the German unifom on they were not Rumanian, but German soldiers.

[New Connaught Ranger]

Hallo Denes,

thanks for your reply, my words in the title reflect my uncertainty

on how to word the thread.

Please suggest a more apt title and hopefully one of the Moderators can change it

to that.

I agree with the remarks pertaining to historians, seeing as how this book was written

in 1947 could be one of the reasons for the mistake, circa two years post WW2, and a

lot of the finer details with regards the Rumanian Volksdeutsche

I would imagine very little was really known about them, especially to an

American military historian / writer of that period.

Kevin in Deva.

[petru32]

I read some years ago in History Magazine the story of some Romanian nationals from occupied Transilvania which were conscripted in Hungarian work battalions and in the autumn of 1944 were spilled in to German Army ranks and according to the story they saw action in Ardens offensive (as far as I remember they saw action in mountain troops)

[cainele_franctiror]

I red about some Romanians in the French Resistence... well, I hope Wehrmacht did not enlist them for the Battle of Normandy