During World War II, Operation Margarethe II was the name for a planned invasion of Romania by German forces in conjunction with those of Hungary and Bulgaria if the Romanian government decided to surrender to the Allies and switch sides.[1][2][3][4] Planning for Margarethe II began in January 1944, some months after planning for Margarethe I, the occupation of Hungary.[5] The draft plan is dated 26 January.[4] It was abandoned within a few weeks, while Margarethe I went ahead in March.[5] The main cause of its abandonment was the visit of Romanian leader Ion Antonescu with German leader Adolf Hitler on 26–28 February. Antonescu refused to relinquish his territorial claims on Hungary, so was not asked to participate in Margarethe I. Hitler, however, was reassured that Romania had no intention of defecting.[6] Romania in fact switched sides in August 1944 after a coup d'état overthrew Antonescu, but the operation could not be implemented.[2][3]

References

  1. ↑ Chant, Christopher. "Operation Margarethe II".
  2. 1 2 Jean W. Sedlar (2007). The Axis Empire in Southeast Europe, 1939-1945. BookLocker.com. ISBN 978-1-60145-297-9.
  3. 1 2 John Erickson (1999). Stalin's War with Germany: The Road to Berlin. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07813-8.
  4. 1 2 János Kristóf Murádin (2014), "The German Occupation of Cluj–Kolozsvár and its Consequences on the History of the City in 1944," Central European Papers 2(1): 74–87.
  5. 1 2 Bernd Wegner, "The Perplexities of War: The Soviet Theatre in German Policy and Strategy from the Summer of 1943", in Germany and the Second World War, Vol. VIII, The Eastern Front 1943–1944: The War in the East and on the Neighbouring Fronts (Clarendon Press, 2017), p. 240.
  6. ↑ György Ránki (1965), "The German Occupation of Hungary", Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 11(1): 261–283. JSTOR 42554767
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