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e Carving Up of Romania, and its Consequences y 159

by August, the army on the Eastern front was going to have to be fueled, for the most part,
by supplies directly out of Romania. By fall, the German petroleum reserves were predicted
to be completely exhausted, with aircraft fuel only at 50 percent of the required amount, car
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fuel at 25 percent, and diesel fuel at 50 percent. us, the German high command depended
heavily on the brevity of the Russian campaign, on shipments from Romania, and on plun-
dered reserves.
During the course of the entire war, Germany’s problem with petroleum was never
resolved. On June 6, 1942, the OKW evaluated the situation: “ e supply of fuel and oil
materials in the current year will be one of the weaknesses of our military potential. e
shortage of oil materials of all sorts is so great that freedom of operations will be threatened
in all three branches of the armed forces, and will have a negative effect on military industry
as well. . . . A small improvement can be anticipated toward the end of the year, when new
factories for the production of synthetic fuel will be launched, but this will not bring a drastic
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improvement in the supply of Germany.” Germany’s supply worsened as the war progressed.
Toward the end of the war, Germany was the first in the world to start producing jet-engine
planes. e Me-262 fighter surpassed all other planes in speed and weapons. Germany pro-
duced 1,433 of them. However, there was not enough kerosene, and without kerosene the
best fighter in the world could not fly. Out of almost 1,500 planes of this type built, only
slightly more than two hundred took part in battles. e rest remained on the ground.
In the summer of 1940 Stalin made a fateful mistake. Already in 1939 Hitler had found
himself in a strategic dead end, without an exit. In 1940 Stalin raised axes over Hitler’s head
from two sides: over iron ore, timber, and nickel in the north, and over oil in the south. Stalin
stalled, waiting for Hitler to attack Britain. But in 1941 Britain was not dangerous to Hitler.
e danger came from Stalin. Hitler had no other choice. So, he jumped on Stalin. On June
21, 1941, Hitler wrote a letter to Mussolini: “Russia is trying to destroy the Romanian oil
fields. . . . e task for our armies is eliminating this threat as soon as possible.” Herein lies the
cause of Hitler’s attack. is was not at all a struggle for Lebensraum (living space).
e strategic miscalculations of 1940 were so rough, deep, and frightening that their
catastrophic consequences for the fate of the Soviet Union could not later be resolved by any
genius decisions and brilliant victories. Because of Stalin’s and Zhukov’s mistakes, Hitler at-
tacked the Soviet Union, destroyed its army, and crushed a large part of Soviet industry. In
the end, the Soviet Union was unable to conquer Europe. Stalin lost the war for Europe and
global domination. e free world survived, and it could not coexist with the Soviet Union.
erefore, the crumbling of the Soviet Union became inevitable. e roots of that crumbling
lie in Zhukov’s victorious venture into Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in the summer of
1940. e Soviet Union won World War II, but for some reason disappeared from the globe
after this distinguishing victory. When Communists celebrate the so-called “victory day,” I
ask: Where is this great victorious country? Where did it disappear? Germany lost the war,
but we see her, one of the mightiest powers of contemporary Europe, at whose feet we now
beg. So where is the great, mighty, uncrushable Soviet Union? Germany lost, but it is still
here. e Soviet Union won, but it no longer exists. Who needs such a victory?