CONSTANTIN STOICANESCU

The Hero

Constantin Stoicanescu was the man who almost succeeded to turn the wheel of history on the Eastern Front in 1944-'45.

Horia Sima won the National Revolution in September 1940 and became the successor of Corneliu Codreanu at the command of the Iron Guard. Stoicanescu replaced Horia Sima at the command of the organization of Banat. Also, he received special missions in organizing the Legionary camps all over Romania.

But his capabilities proved much more. He played an important part in defending the National Legionary State in January 1941 from the putsch of General Antonescu (a bloody character controlled by the Intelligence Service through its female agents). In only two days Antonescu's putsch failed, the Army fraternized with the Iron Guard and Antonescu remained captured in his palace in Bucharest, surrounded only by few faithful military unities. Because of Hitler's miscalculation (see the Diaries of Goebbels) the Wehrmacht was ordered to background Antonescu and to force the Legionaries out of government. Together with his leader Horia Sima, and with about 400 Legionaries, Stoicanescu found exile in Germany. The mistake of 1941 was the boomerang that turned back on Hitler on August 23, 1944. With the single German loyal ally (the IG) held in the concentration camp of Buchenwald, the Intelligence Service succeeded in its coup d'etat that got Romania out of the Axis. At that moment, Hitler had no other choice that to face reality, Horia Sima was right in 1942, when he published the sensational Manifesto in the Reich and fled to Mussolini for support: the only chance for Germany to win the war was to show respect for all its allies in Romania, Ukraine, the Baltic States and the White Russians; Russia can only be defeated by Russians!

In Vienna was formed the Romanian National Government in Exile, on Singerstrasse, with Horia Sima as PM, under this Govt. functioned the Romanian National Army, commanded by General Platon Chirnoaga, who continued the struggle against the Russian invaders.

The two main targets of the army were:

1. To keep the front line on the Carpathians as long as possible and to infiltrate special agents behind the advancing enemy lines.

2. To keep a sector on the Oder line together with other German armies that were defending the Reich.

Desperate, Hitler asked Horia Sima to stop the Russian advance on the Carpathians. It was practically impossible for the Iron Guard to develop military actions in Transylvania with most of the Legionary elite men in the Reich just liberated from Buchenwald and with the Legion in Romania after three years of dreadful repression (all the known Legionaries being imprisoned). But Horia Sima had a plan for the impossible: based on the shared feelings of the high ranking Romanian military commanders, he appreciated that the Romanian Generals from Transylvania will re-join the Axis if a German counter offensive would take place. For this plan, Hitler agreed to move important panzer unities from the North to Hungary - these formed a Waffen SS Division led by General Sepp Dietriech.

Stoicanescu - the most faithful Legionnaire of Horia Sima - was assigned to cross the front lines and to prepare under cover the Romanian Armies of Transylvania to ensure the safe corridors for the German panzers until they will regain the Carpathians. This counter offensive would certainly prolonged the war with at least one year.

Usually, the plans work in theory and fail in practice. This time, Stoicanescu - dressed as a military - succeeded much more than anyone could believe at the moment:

- soon after he crossed the front line, he entered Bucharest and was received in secret at the Army Headquarters; the Romanian militaries were totally uncomfortable regarding their recent allies (the Soviets); they felt betrayed and most of them were ready to help the National Govt. in Vienna;

- the most involved military commander was General Gheorghe Avramescu, chief of the Romanian Army in Transylvania and Southern Slovakia; he guaranteed that his army will ensure the corridor for the German counter offensive;

- through other superior officers, Stoicanescu met Generals from the Military Govt. in Bucharest, all of them hostile to the Russians; they guaranteed their support in the instance of a serious German counter offensive; they also declared that Gen. Radescu (PM in Bucharest at that moment) will be happy to start a revolt against the Soviets as an answer to their savage behavior.

The military situation on field was extremely favorable for the counter offensive:

- the Soviets advanced too much and their supports were far away in Ukraine;

- the enemy was disorganized, drunk and interested in plundering everything; it was not easy to control a herd of savages that just entered the first non-Soviet state, where wine, food and horrified women represented the only military targets;

- the Russians were weak in the Balkans and Transylvania because their main goal was Berlin, on the Northern direction; so they shared many segments of the front with the Romanian armies - splendid places for the Germans to counter attack with the consent of the Romanian Generals.

After all the elements of the joint action (a. German counter offensive from Balaton; b. Romanian corridor for the Germans to the Carpathians) were settled, Constantin Stoicanescu together with Andreas Schmidt (leader of the German community of Transylvania) took a Romanian airplane to Vienna in order to announce the beginning of the operation.

A double agent (initially working for the SD but made a double agent by the NKVD) betrayed the action of Stoicanescu to the enemy. So the airplane of Stoicanescu and Schmidt was shut down over Hungary while General Avramescu was arrested by the Soviet NKVD and the Radescu Govt. in Bucharest was changed brutally with the first Communist govt. of Romania's history led by Petru Groza - the man of the Russians.

Stoicanescu and Schmidt were injuried in the air crash. In that condition they were transported to Moscow, tortured and finally killed.