Petre Dumitrescu (18 February 1882-15 January 1950) was a general of the Kingdom of Romania who was the Colonel-General in charge of the Romanian 3rd Army during World War II.
Biography[]
Petre Dumitrescu was born on 18 February 1882 in Dobridor, Dolj, in the Kingdom of Romania (present-day Romania). At the start of World War I, he was a Major in the Romanian Army who had an artillery specialty. By 1937 he was a Major-General, and served as a military attache in Paris in France in addition to Brussels in Belgium. In 1941 he was made the commander of the Romanian 3rd Army during World War II and on 5 July 1941 he took over Bukovina and the city of Chernivtsi from the Soviet Union. By October 1941, he had fought four major battles, 42 minor battles, marched 1,700 km from Romania, captured 15,565 Soviet troops, and lost 10,541 soldiers. He was given the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by Nazi Germany for his efforts in the war, and he became dictator Ion Antonescu's second-in-command.
During the battle of Stalingrad in late 1942, the Romanian 3rd Army provided a large amount of the Axis manpower in the siege of the city. During Operation Uranus, the Soviets encircled the German lines and destroyed the weak Romanian forces on their flanks, and the 3rd Army wsa forced into retreat. In December 1943, the decision was made to return to Romania, where they fought the Soviets in August 1944 in the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive. His army was ambushed and 130,000 Romanians were taken prisoner, but he later fought alongside the Soviets when Romania joined the Allied Powers in September.
As an Allied general, Dumitrescu advanced through the Balkans with the Soviets and captured 6,000 German troops. He was tried for war crimes by Communist Romania after the war, but he was absolved of all charges due to the lack of evidence. He died at the age of 67 in 1950.