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Romanian Gendarmerie - World War II

In July, the 12th, 1940, King Carol II unified The General Directorate of Police, Bucharest City Police and Gendarmerie Corps. Later, on September the 12th 1940 General Ion Antonescu re-enforced the 1929's legislation. On 19 September 1940, Constantin Z. Vasiliu was called temporarily in activity, promoted to Major General from 25 October 1939 and appointed Commander of the Corps of Gendarmes. From the beginning, General Constantin Z. Vasiliu inspected the gendarmes units in the country and noticed serious irregularities and deficiencies that would hasten to correct in a short time. The name of “General Inspectorate of the Gendarmerie”was replaced again with the one of “Gendarmerie Corps”. The organisation based on regiments was reinstated, replacing inspectorates. Gendarmerie legions, departments and posts were maintained.

With the start of the Eastern Campaign for the liberation of Basarabia and Northern Bucovina, the Romanian Gendarmerie was divided in two: Territorial Gendarmerie (inoperative, from the inner area), which remained under the commandof Major General Vasiliu and Campaign Gendarmerie (operative, in the theater of operations), subordinated to the General Headquarters and commanded by the High Praetor, General Gendarme Ioan R. Topor.

The most important law was Law no 264 from April the 22nd 1943 for organizing and functioning of Gendarmerie. According to this law, the Gendarmerie was a military structure, trained to ensure military and general police assignments. It was also very important the provision that stated that the Gendarmerie belonged to the Ministry of Defense and was at Ministry of Interior disposal only concerning its police attributions.

After Romania 's engagement in the 2nd World War, the gendarmes' troops got specific assignments: combating terrorist attacks, guarding economic key assets, enhancing the internal order measures, countering landing or paratroops actions, monitoring the political opponents etc.

The Gendarmerie organized in units and subunits proved a lot of energy, courage, spirit of sacrifice and high patriotism. Besides the situations when the gendarmes had to fight together with the army units, forced by the course of events, there were a numerous situations when some gendarmes requested to join the infantry regiments to fight.

His Royal Majesty's Proclamation and the directives of the Government have assigned new tasks, according to the new situation in the country. The Gendarmerie had a remarkable contribution during the 2nd period of Romania 's participation in the 2nd World War, after the " coup d'etat " from August the 23rd 1944 when leaving the alliance with the " Axis " and continued the war together with the Allies, to free the North- West Transylvania and further on in Hungary and Czechoslovakia .

After declaring war to Germany , in the context of German attacks and action of disarmament against Romanian Army units, the Gendarmerie units started to fight the remnants of German army in order to neutralize and disarm them.

The main missions of gendarmes were:

• to identify all German soldiers, their hiding places, ammunition and vehicles
• to forbid the traffic on roads and main roads to any German vehicle by organizing check points, obstacles
• to support the Army to disarm the German troops
• to capture German paratroop who were trying to save themselves after they had been shot down by the Romanian or Allied Air Force
• to identify and guard German armory stocks and the telephones networks
• to carry out raids, in order to find German soldiers that were trying to escape
• to arrest the Germans partisans that were acting in Ardeal and Banat
• to gather and destroy propaganda hand bills thrown from the air planes
• in cooperation with border guard troops, to stop the Germano -Hungarian elements that were tying to get in the area where Romanian troops had't been concentrated.

The Gendarmerie posts around the Capital City integrated in defensive system opposing a strong resistance to German troops. Mainly, the mission of gendarmes was to maintain the public order and to block the main routes for entering in the capital city.

The Order no.10052 of the Secretary for Troops of Ministry of Interior stated the foundation of The Security Troops. Later on, the gendarmerie troops and the training centers were subordinated to the Security troops HQ and the Rural Gendarmerie was subordinated to the General Directorate of Militia. These acts put an end, for a while, to the existence of democratic Romania's only military institution assigned to guard, to maintain and protect constitutional order, to defend citizen's rights, the property.

In early April 1946, General Vasiliu was brought into the country from the detentionin the Soviet Union, in Lubyanka, with the whole Antonescu group. On 17 May 1946, the People’s Tribunal condemned General Vasiliu to deathpenalty four times and four times to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.