WW2 ROMANIAN CRUSADE AGAINST COMMUNISM SERVICE MEDAL AXIS AWARD

Description

Offered is an original WW2 Romanian Crusade Against Communism Service Medal.

32mm wide die struck bronze construction award. The obverse of the award features an embossed female profile encompassed by embossed script, “Romania Recunoscatoare” (Romania Reunited). The obverse of the award also has the embossed designer’s or manufacturer’s name, “P. Grant”. The reverse of the award features an embossed hand holding a sword superimposed upon a Greek style cross with the embossed date, “1941” and script, “Cruciada Impotriva Comunismului” (Crusade against Communism). The medal comes with a full length of original service medal ribbon.

The medal was created on 1 April 1942 and awarded to military who distinguished themselves in combat on the Eastern Front. Caught in 1940 between the USSR, which had forced the cession of Bessarabia, and Germany, which imposed the return of northern Transylvania to Hungary, the presence of almost 500,000 German troops on Romanian soil proved decisive and, King Carol II having abdicated, Romania under the new government of General Ion Antonescu entered World War II on 23 November 1940 on the side of the Axis powers. When Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941, Romania’s contribution of troops was greater than that of all other German allies combined. However, when the tide turned after Stalingrad, King Mihai staged a successful coup on 23 August 1944 and the Romanian army then fought with the allies to drive the Germans back through Transylvania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.