Today, I managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the National Military Museum in Bucharest so I could see how it was updated after a long renovation a few years back. A 🧵 follows. The museum has been in this building since 1988. The statues & designs reflect peak national communism under Ceauşescu. A fairly large artillery park of mostly WW2 guns out front. The vehicle park in the back is still being redone & not open to the public.

This was probably my favorite Star Wars film to watch as a kid - on VHS in the '90s - when selected edited with @E1educador using the FFW button after Jabba's palace to watch the cool space battle. (Now that I'm not 9, Empire Strikes Back is my favorite.) #HATM

https://twitter.com/HerbertHistory/status/1810334693822239103

Matte paintings. So good! (Although they were a lot less notable on VHS.) #HATM

This 🧵 is devoid of context & doesn't show any of the violence of the Iron Guard , royal & military dictatorships, or the war & the Holocaust.

So here's 15 more images of Romania during the interwar peirod & WW2 showing the violence with context.

https://twitter.com/daily_romania/status/1796156165056872941

1. Fascist Legionaries (Iron Guardists) showing off their cuts, bruises, & other injuries after the 1933 elections when they engaged in street violence to target rival political groups & intimidate voters.

With all the 80th anniversary of the battle of Kursk & invasion of Sicily tweets, I thought I'd do a 🧵 about the fighting in the Kuban bridgehead at this time to highlight Romanian soldiers on the eastern front. 1/10 #Romania #WW2 #SWW #OTD Just mentioning that Romanian troops were still fighting in the frontline is important.

After #Stalingrad, Italy withdrew all its forces from the USSR & Hungary only had 2 divisions in the rear.

In contrast, Romania had 6 divisions on the front & 3 divisions in the rear. 2/10

On 26 June 1940, 1 day after France's armistice with Nazi Germany went into effect, the USSR delivered an ultimatum to Romania demanding Bessarabia & N Bukovina. The Soviet occupation began 2 days later. The traumatic 4-day Romanian withdrawal hastened Romania's joining the Axis. "Long live the Soviet Bessarabia and the Soviet Bukovina."

Soviet propaganda celebrated the occupation of Romanian territories that took place under near combat conditions with a river crossing over the Dniester & air drops as well as air transports at a rapid pace.

OK @FightingOnFilm, it's time for some Mehmed II the Conqurer vs. Vlad III Dracula action! The casting isn't too bad I don't think @fakehistoryhunt. OK. Let's get ready to rumble!!!

#OTD 80 years ago Operation Uranus, the Soviet counteroffensive at #Stalingrad began at 5:30 AM with an 80-minute barrage against Romanian 3rd Army on the Don Bend NW of the city. Artillery, rockets, & heavy mortars blasted apart trenches, cut barbed wire, & collapsed shelters.🧵 Soviet armor, accompanied by infantry, immediately followed the bombardment with two attacks thrusting out from the Serafimovich & Kletskaya bridgeheads. A thick fog concealed the Soviet advance hindering the Romanian response until the enemy was extremely close.

#OTD in 1942 Vice Prime Minister Mihai Antonescu announced a temporary halt to deportations of Jews, and Roma (Gypsies), from Romania. A crucial change in policy. A 🧵 below. 1/
#Romania #Jews #Roma #Holocaust #Transnistria #Auschwitz #Stalingrad After mass deportations of Jews from Bessarabia & Bukovina to Transnistria in summer/fall 1941, the Antonescu regime had only deported individual Jews as a punishment, mostly for avoiding forced labor. In 1942, 306 Jewish men, plus 249 family members, had been so punished. 2/