The Economic Relations between România and Italy in the Second World War

This is an interesting contribution to the history of the Second World War and of Romania in particular. This brings us back to some crucial moments of a conflict that is often looked at as a war between the Western Powers and Germany, but which was also a coalition war. Precisely as part of a coalition, Romania played a role of great importance both on the military level, contributing with its troops to the Eastern Front, as well as on the economic one, thanks to the immense value of its grain and oil. These resources were needed both by Germany and Italy, and only a bilateral approach could have made their availability possible. Beyond the cumbersome German presence, economic-financial relations between Italy and Romania represented the first necessary step to preserve the specific interests of the two countries and their position as sovereign states, at least as long as this was still objectively possible. - Alessandro Vagnini This paper describes the importance of the economic factor in international relations during the Second World War, and, in this sense, Romania and Italy were chosen as main characters. Our aims are to provide a new model for the analysis of the economic relations between the Axis States, to explain how these relations were changed at different times throughout the War and to observe the influence of the economic ties between Romania and Italy on the diplomatic and political fields of cooperation. - Atanasie-Teofil Dumitrache