Nazi rule over the Danube River

rdf:langString Nazi rule over the Danube River

rdf:langString Nazi rule over the Danube River was brought about by force of arms, through annexation of Austria, invasion of Yugoslavia and of the Soviet Union and treaties with the Kingdom of Romania and Hungary, but a legal cover was provided through moves that resulted in a new international order on the river beginning in 1940 and ending in 1945. Before World War II, international trade and commerce at the mouths of the Danube, as well as many of the physical works needed to keep vessels from running aground, were regulated by an international agency called the European Commission of the Danube, founded in 1856. By the time the Hitlerian invasions began in 1938 the commission was composed of the riparian (river-bordering) states, plus France, the United Kingdom, and Italy, the chief commercial nations of Europe at that time. Upstream of Brăila, the river was under the control of the International Danube Commission, a body composed only of the riparian states. From 1938 through 1940 the regimes of both commissions were broken, and Nazi Germany assumed control of the Danube through a series of moves which were ignored by the victorious Allies after the war.