Second Vienna arbitration award
In the Second Vienna Arbitration Award , also known as the Vienna Diktat by the Romanian side , on August 30, 1940, Romania was forced by the National Socialist German Reich and fascist Italy to seize the northern and eastern parts of Transylvania as well as the districts of Satu Mare (Szatmár), Sălaj (Szilágy ), Bihor (Bihar) and Maramureș (Máramaros) to Hungary .
History and basics
The recovery of southern Slovakia and Carpathian Ukraine in 1938 and 1939 by the First Vienna Arbitration (part of the area called " Upper Hungary " in the Kingdom of Hungary ) could not meet the Hungarian claims, as these areas are only a small part of the area which were lost through the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 . The main goal of Hungary was to incorporate Transylvania and other areas populated by ethnic Hungarians into its national territory, especially the Szeklerland .
At the end of June 1940, the Soviet Union finally laid claim to Bessarabia and northern Bukovina - areas that had become part of Romania after the First World War . The Romanian government gave in to Soviet pressure because Romania seemed hopelessly inferior to the Soviet Union militarily and the Romanian government had the fate of Finland in mind after the winter war . In addition, there was no hope of support from Germany, which had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union the previous year , or from the Western powers Great Britain and France, which had just suffered a heavy defeat in the western campaign . In addition, Romania was confronted with territorial claims from its neighbors Bulgaria , which was claiming southern Dobruja , and Hungary, which was claiming Transylvania.
The success of the Soviet procedure, regardless of the national self-determination of the Romanians in Bessarabia, encouraged Hungary in its demands against Romania for territorial revision in Transylvania, especially since it could refer to a large Hungarian population in the area concerned. The Axis powers suggested that the participating countries clarify their problems in direct negotiations, as it was in the interests of the Axis powers to maintain peace in the Balkans , on whose exports they were dependent for the war. At a meeting in Munich on July 10, 1940 between the Hungarian Prime Minister Teleki , the Foreign Minister Csáky and Hitler, Hitler finally agreed to the Hungarian pressure to revise the borders, provided that this was done peacefully. Romania agreed to negotiations, but the solution was not to move borders, but to seek an exchange of people . After preliminary discussions, the actual negotiations between Hungary and Romania began on August 16, 1940 in Turnu Severin in southern Romania. The Hungarian delegation made extensive territorial claims that included about two thirds of Transylvania; with Romania, only a small strip north of the Transylvanian Alps would have remained. This was unacceptable to Romania; the negotiations were broken off on August 23 with no result. Fearing that the Soviet Union would intervene in possible military clashes between Hungary and Romania, Hitler decided on August 26 to intervene in the negotiations. His main concern was the security of Romanian oil exports, which are vital to Germany .
Arbitration award
On August 26, 1940, Hitler had the Foreign Ministers of Italy ( Galeazzo Graf Ciano ), Hungary ( István Csáky ) and Romania ( Mihail Manoilescu ) summoned to Vienna through his Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop . At the same time, he ordered the deployment of German army units in the Vienna area and in the south-east of the General Government in order to be able to intervene militarily in the crisis region if necessary.
In the meantime, Ribbentrop explored ways of solving the problem with several German diplomats in Fuschl . The German ambassador in Bucharest , Wilhelm Fabricius , only proposed the cession of the border areas, which are predominantly inhabited by Magyars, to Hungary. Ribbentrop added the region around Cluj- Napoca to this plan . The department head in the Foreign Office, Carl August Clodius , on the other hand, tried to convince Ribbentrop that the Szeklerland had to go to Hungary. Since this was in the middle of Romania and the formation of exclaves was not planned, Ribbentrop worked out an alternative proposal that provided for a relatively narrow strip in northern Transylvania to also be added to Hungary, which was to establish the connection between the previous Hungarian territory and the Szeklerland.
The diplomats made their way to Berchtesgaden , where the two alternative proposals were presented to Hitler for a decision. In addition to Hitler and Ribbentrop, only his confidante Gustav Adolf Steengracht von Moyland and the Ministerial Director Friedrich Gaus took part in the decisive meeting . Hitler decided to combine the proposals of Fabricius and Clodius with each other, so that the area to be ceded by Romania to Hungary turned out to be significantly larger than provided for in both individual proposals. He marked the future border on a map with a blue pencil (the thickness of the line on the map corresponded to a distance of 6 km), which posed considerable problems for the commission later responsible for the local implementation of the border demarcation.
On August 28, the Italian Foreign Minister Ciano and the Italian envoy in Bucharest, Pellegrino Ghigi , met with Ribbentrop in Salzburg . The planned border shifts went too far for the Italian delegation. She proposed changes, but only achieved that - contrary to what had been planned until then - the city of Turda remained with Romania. This in turn meant that the railway lines in the Szeklerland would have no connection to the Hungarian railway network without crossing the future borders.
On the evening of the same day Ribbentrop, Ciano and their envoys traveled on to Vienna, where they received the Romanian and Hungarian delegations one after the other the next morning. The Romanian delegation led by Foreign Minister Manoilescu had hoped to be able to convince the German and Italian sides with numerous experts and maps that they would have to cede a small area to Hungary at best. In Vienna, the Romanian delegation learned that the future borders had already been decided. Manoilescu announced the conditions to King Charles II , who convened a Privy Council that evening . Although numerous members of this body advised against the plan, Charles II decided to accept it because he saw the associated German-Italian guarantee for the remaining territory of Romania as the only way to prevent the collapse of the entire state. The Hungarian delegation immediately approved the plan presented.
Ribbentrop and Ciano announced the award on August 30, 1940 in the Belvedere Palace in Vienna . Manoilescu suffered a heart attack during the ceremony, but still had to attend a meal afterwards.
In the end, Hungary was granted an area (northern Transylvania) with an area of 43,492 km² from Romania, and Romania was guaranteed the borders of the rest of Transylvania with around 3,500,000 inhabitants from the Axis powers.
Population statistics
The Romanian census of 1930 showed a population of 2,393,300 inhabitants in this area, a census by the Hungarian authorities in 1941 showed a population of 2,578,100. Language and nationality were recorded separately for both counts, the following table shows the results:
| Nationality / language |
1930 Romanian Census | Hungarian census 1941 | Romania 1940, estimated |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nationality | language | nationality | language | ||
| Romanian | 1,176,479 | 1,165,800 | 1,029,000 | 1,068,700 | 1,305,066 |
| Hungarian | 911.411 | 1.007.200 | 1,380,500 | 1,344,000 | 968.421 |
| German | 68,268 | 59,700 | 44,600 | 47,300 | 72,108 |
| Jewish / Yiddish | 138,800 | 99,600 | 47,400 | 48,500 | 148,621 |
| other | 96,800 | 61,000 | 76,600 | 69,600 | 109,616 |
According to Árpád E. Varga, the 1930 census in Romania met all international requirements, as the censuses used a very complex system to determine nationality, which included ethnicity, mother tongue (the language spoken in the family) and religion and was therefore unique for Europe at the time.
In addition to natural population growth, the differences between the Hungarian and Romanian censuses can also be explained by facts such as migration movements and the assimilation of the Jewish population or bilingual people. According to the Hungarian registrations, one hundred thousand Hungarian refugees from southern Transylvania, which remained with Romania, registered, so that the Hungarian population in northern Transylvania increased by 100,000 people. To "compensate" for this, 100,000 Romanians were forced to leave northern Transylvania, and the incomplete registration of refugees by the Romanian government recorded over 100,000 refugees from northern Transylvania in February 1941. In addition, the decline in the total population suggests that another 40,000 to 50,000 Romanians moved from northern to southern Transylvania, and the Hungarian policy of assimilation also caused the decline of other ethnic groups such as the Jews in the region. In addition, “switching” the language was typical for bilingual Hungarians and Romanians. On the other hand, in the districts of Máramaros / Maramureș and Szatmár / Satu Mare there were dozens of places previously considered Romanian, which were now Hungarian, even though there were no native Hungarian speakers at all.
Consequences and Effects
The solution through an arbitral award did not bring about a solution in terms of the self-determination of the peoples . While around one million Romanians lived in the area to be ceded to Hungary, only around 500,000 Hungarians remained in southern Transylvania, which remained with Romania. Hungarian maximum demands for the restitution of the whole of Transylvania as well as Arad and Timișoara were not granted. On the other hand, the demarcation in a mixed-language area and the associated separation of historically and economically connected units was a problematic undertaking. An impending war between Hungary and Romania could be averted and thus the leanings between both states and the Axis powers could be promoted or maintained. Massive population movements in both directions were a consequence of the new demarcation. In August 1940, the Romanian government also agreed to a request from Italy for territorial concessions to Bulgaria. The Treaty of Craiova , which was signed on September 7, 1940, then sealed the cession of the South Dobruja, known in Romania as Cadrilater , to Bulgaria .
Reception and further developments in Hungary and Romania
In Hungary the results of the award were enthusiastically celebrated; only Prime Minister Teleki was dissatisfied with the result because he was concerned about the Hungarians remaining under Romanian sovereignty.
In Romania, on the other hand, the announcement of the arbitral award triggered a serious domestic political crisis. The unrest of the population was initially directed against the Axis powers. When Prime Minister Ion Gigurtu banned all public manifestations against Germany and Italy at the instigation of the German envoy, the excitement turned against King Charles II and his government. There were repeated bloody clashes between demonstrators and the police at rallies in Bucharest. On September 4, the king released Gigurtu and on the same day appointed General Ion Antonescu , who was considered a "strong man" and who was under a kind of house arrest in the monastery of Bistrița ( Vâlcea district ) , as prime minister with dictatorial powers. Antonescu forced the king to abdicate on September 6 ; Charles's successor was his only 19-year-old son Michael I. This confirmed the appointment of Antonescu as prime minister. Antonescu formed a government with the support of the fascist Iron Guard under Horia Sima .
Situation in Transylvania after the partition
According to the arbitration, Romania had 14 days to vacate the area and hand it over to the Hungarian authorities. On September 5, 1940, Hungarian troops crossed the old borders; the Hungarian ruler Miklós Horthy himself supervised the border crossing. Antonescu pushed through the planned withdrawal of the Romanian army units from northern Transylvania against the resistance of some commanders without major incidents.
The Second Vienna Arbitral Award stipulated that after the border shift, members of the respective minorities should have the right to emigrate. Some of the Hungarians in southern Transylvania and some of the Romanians in northern Transylvania made use of it. However, many people wanted to stay in their homeland. As a result, ethnic clashes broke out in both parts of Transylvania.
In northern Transylvania, now part of Hungary, some armed Romanian nationalists fought against the invasion of Hungarian troops. These took this as an opportunity to take tough reprisals against these units, but also against members of the Romanian civilian population, who were accused of supporting the armed rioters. In this context, several massacres were carried out by Hungarian troops, for example in Ip (Hungarian Szilágyipp , see Massacre of Ip ); Fascist troops murdered around 155 Romanians here. Numerous members of the Romanian elite, including teachers and priests , were forced or forced to leave the country. Romanians in northern Transylvania were effectively excluded from employment in the civil service . Farmers who received land as part of the land reform after the First World War had to give it up. Romanian school lessons were restricted, two thirds of the Orthodox parishes were dissolved. A German-Italian commission stated in 1942 that the Hungarian government was waging "a struggle to reduce, almost annihilate, the influence of the Romanian minority in northern Transylvania on economic life."
In southern Transylvania, the actions of the Romanian authorities against the Hungarian minority were also serious, if less systematic. Here a third of the teachers had to leave the civil service. Hungarian members of the liberal professions were driven to ruin or to emigrate by punitive taxes. Romanians displaced from northern Transylvania demanded preferential accommodation at the expense of the Hungarian minority.
Cancellation
As early as during the Second World War , the Allies had declared the two Viennese arbitral awards null and void from the start because they represented a breach of international law. This was also confirmed at the 1946 Paris Peace Conference .
See also
literature
- Árpád E. Varga: Erdély magyar népessége 1870–1995 között. Magyar Kisebbség 3-4, 1998, pp. 331-407.
- P. Țurlea: Ip și Trăznea: Atrocități maghiare și acțiune diplomaticā , Ed. Enciclopedică, Bucureşti 1996.
- Gh. I. Bodea, VT Suciu, I. Puşcaş: Administrația militară horthystă în nord-vestul României , Ed. Dacia, 1988.
- Maria Bucur: Treznea. Trauma, nationalism and the memory of World War II in Romania , in: Rethinking History, Volume 6, Number 1, April 1, 2002, pp. 35–55.
- Manfred Nebelin : German Policy on Hungary 1939–1941 . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1989, ISBN 3-8100-0715-3 (dissertation University of Cologne 1988, 255 pages).
- Friedrich Christof: pacification in the Danube region. The Second Vienna Award and German-Hungarian Diplomatic Relations 1939-1942 . Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1998 ISBN 978-3-631-33233-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andreas Hillgruber: Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu. German-Romanian relations 1938–1944. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1954, p. 77.
- ↑ Andreas Hillgruber: Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu. German-Romanian relations 1938–1944. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1954, p. 78f.
- ↑ Andreas Hillgruber: Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu. German-Romanian relations 1938–1944. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1954, p. 89.
- ↑ Andreas Hillgruber : Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu. German-Romanian relations 1938–1944. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1954, p. 89ff.
- ↑ Andreas Hillgruber: Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu. German-Romanian relations 1938–1944. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1954, p. 92.
- ↑ Norbert Spannenberger: The People's League of Germans in Hungary 1938-1944. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-57728-X , pp. 235f.
- ↑ Andreas Hillgruber: Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu. German-Romanian relations 1938–1944. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1954, p. 93ff.
- ↑ Andreas Hillgruber: Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu. German-Romanian relations 1938–1944. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1954, p. 97.
- ^ A b Philipp Ther: The dark side of the nation states: "Ethnic cleansing" in modern Europe. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen / Oakville 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-36806-0 , pp. 152f.
Web links
- Árpád E. Varga: Works on the demographic history of Transylvania (mostly Hungarian, partly English and Romanian).