Gherman Vasile Pântea (; surname also spelled Pîntea; ; ; May 13, 1894 – February 1, 1968) was a Bessarabian-born soldier, civil servant and political figure, active in the Russian Empire and Romania. As an officer of the Imperial Russian Army during most of World War I, he helped organize the committees of Bessarabian soldiers, oscillating between loyalty to the Russian Provisional Government and the cause of Bessarabian emancipation. Pântea was subsequently Military Director of the Moldavian Democratic Republic, answering to President Ion Inculeț. He personally created a Bessarabian defense force, tasked with combating Bolshevik subversion and Russian intimidation, but also braced for defeat after the October Revolution.
With some hesitance, Gherman Pântea endorsed the Republic's union with Romania, affiliating with the local Bessarabian Peasants' Party, then with Romania's National Liberals. Having parallel careers as teacher, lawyer and journalist, Pântea remained a presence in Romanian political life, as member of Parliament, negotiator of détente with the Soviet Union, and three times Mayor of Chișinău. He was however mistrusted for his defense of arrested Bolsheviks, his critique of centralized government, and his alleged corruption. During World War II, Pântea was Mayor of Odesa under a Romanian occupation. He intervened to save Jews from the 1941 Odessa massacre and the subsequent deportations to camps in Transnistria. He had a tumultuous relationship with Ion Antonescu, the Romanian dictator, and was kept in check by the occupation authority. His administration managed to set in motion a plan for Odesa, and helped the city overcome devastation through the adoption of free trade, but also created various controversies.
Pântea was long suspected of war crimes, and spent much of his post-war life as a fugitive. He was eventually apprehended, and became a political prisoner of the Romanian communist regime. In 1956, he managed to have the war crimes verdict overturned but, albeit rehabilitated in part, continued to be harassed by the communist apparatus until the 1960s.
Biography
Early years and World War I service Much of Gherman Pântea's life remain mysterious, inaccessible to researchers, and, according to historian Ion Constantin, "a permanent crossover of myth and reality."Constantin, p.23 Of ethnic Romanian and lower-middle-class origins, Gherman Pântea was born on May 13, 1894, in the northern Bessarabian village of Zăicani; he was one of several children born to lawyer Vasile Pântea and his wife Ioana.Constantin, p.35, 98 They were of the Eastern Orthodox religion, and Gherman was a practicing Romanian Orthodox until late in life.Constantin, p.52, 120, 173-174, 178, 194-195 The boy had trouble adapting himself to the requirements of living in what was then Russia's Bessarabia Governorate: although he was studious and completed primary school with honors, he had difficulty learning the official Russian language.Constantin, p.35 He finished secondary school in Glodeni, before leaving for Akkerman, where he attended Russian normal school and witnessed the start of World War I. He frequently sailed to Odesa, the Black Sea port which was to fascinate him for the rest of his life.Constantin, p.98-99
In June 1915, shortly after completing his studies, Pântea was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army, and relocated to Kyiv, where he attended a Junker School. He was again in Odesa, where Bessarabian-born officer Emanoil Catelli was giving standard Romanian language classes to Russian officers, and became close friends with his new teacher.Constantin, p.38 (Some sources represent Pântea as a graduate of Odesa University.)Mazower, p.310 Upon graduation from the Junker School, the young Podporuchik was dispatched to the Romanian front, to function as a translator between the Russian Ninth Army and their colleagues in the Romanian Land Forces. He also fought with valor during battles against the German Army, and twice received the Order of St. George.Constantin, p.35-36
Russia's February Revolution caught Pântea entrenched with his men somewhere near the town of Roman.Constantin, p.23, 36 The news, he later wrote, was a wake-up call for the Bessarabian Romanians in foreign lands, since it offered the prospect of self-determination at home.Constantin, p.36 As the Provisional Government took hold of military matters, Pântea became President of the Ninth Army's Soviet, and also helped organize the Bessarabian soldiers into a single political body.Constantin, p.23-24, 36sqq Similar actions were being taken by other nationally minded Bessarabian officers. Some—Catelli, Anton Crihan, Constantin Osoianu, Ion Păscăluță, Andrei Scobioală—were active on Bessarabia's borders, while others addressed Bessarabian units in places such as Novorossiya (Elefterie Sinicliu) or Crimea (Grigore Turcuman).Constantin, p.36, 38, 72-73
Here was the nucleus for a single military and political unit of the Bessarabian, or "Moldavian", national movement, which sought to gain control of Chișinău (the informal Bessarabian capital). At the time, tensions were sparked between Podporuchik Pântea's Roman organization and the inner-Bessarabian faction which demanded a social revolution, namely the Chișinău Soviet of Workers and Soldiers; he also had to struggle with Bessarabian apathy, communist gains, and territorial claims stated by the neighboring Ukrainian People's Republic.Constantin, p.24, 37-44 Through Pântea and Scobioală, the Roman group communicated directly with a civilian network formed by the Bessarabian expatriates of Iași, who endorsed the effort to consolidate political unity.Constantin, p.37-39, 56 On behalf of the Roman leadership, Pântea made a journey to Odesa, where he contacted the eastern committee formed by Catelli and the others (May 1917).Constantin, p.38-39 At the time, Odesa Bessarabians were forming their "Moldavian Cohorts", armed units which were supposed to challenge the Chișinău Soviet.Constantin, p.38-39, 58
Moldavian Central Committee Eventually, in June 1917, Gherman Pântea and two other Ninth Army soldiers—Petre Vărzaru, Ion Mitrean—were mandated by their colleagues to leave for Chișinău and organize the national movement locally. The youngest of all activists involved in the project, Pântea was elected head of the resulting Moldavian Central Committee of the Soldiers and Officers' Union.Constantin, p.23, 40-41 Pântea, Vărzaru and Mitrean benefited from some Russian support, after Commander Alexander Shcherbachov gave them a free pass and an indefinite leave from the Romanian front.Constantin, p.39-40 However, their Central Committee met a new rival in the parallel Military Revolutionary Committee, formed by revolutionary Russians loyal to the Chișinău Soviet. This authority gave formal backing to its Moldavian equivalent, supporting its struggle for self-determination and even discussing a merger, but discreetly tried to combat Bessarabian Romanian influence in all other fields.Constantin, p.41-42 A truce was agreed upon between Pântea and the Russian Committee representative Levenzon, which even allowed both organisms to share office space in the same building.Constantin, p.42
During September, after clashes with some of the radicalized peasants hampered propaganda efforts in the countryside, and Ukrainian or Russian pressures increased, the Moldavian Committee began issuing its own political newspaper.Constantin, p.43-44 Known as Soldatul Moldovan ("The Moldavian Soldier"), it had poet Gheorghe (Iorgu) Tudor as manager and Pântea as one of three editors.Kulikovski & Șcelcikova, p.194 Pântea carried from Iași a large bag of propaganda literature, in Cyrillic letters—Vasile Harea of Cuvânt Moldovenesc paper, who witnessed the event, described Pântea as "a rather affected young man, with a nervous gaze, ambitious and conceiving of all sorts of schemes".Constantin, p.56
At around the same time, the Moldavian Central Committee took steps to create a Bessarabian national force within Russia's Army, with Vasile Cijevschi as Commander. The request was presented to the Stavka (supreme command of the Russian forces) in Mogilev. It provided an ambiguous response, and Pântea led a delegation to request further clarification.Constantin, p.44-45 On their way through Kyiv, the Bessarabian envoys chanced upon Romania's own delegates to Russia: Dinu Brătianu and Constantin Iancovescu. The two missions shared a train carriage, and the time they shared prompted Stavka staff to suspect a conspiracy.Constantin, p.45-47 The Bessarabians tried to mend the situation, and Pântea had interviews with Commander Nikolay Dukhonin and Russian Premier Alexander Kerensky. Pântea later wrote that Kerensky was the most welcoming, allowing the gradual creation of a single Bessarabian army (and even promising to transfer the Odessa 40th Regiment its jurisdiction), but forbidding any unilateral Bessarabian decision on this matter.Constantin, p.46-47, 79
Before and after the October Revolution overturned the Provisional Government and brought the Bolshevik (communist) movement to power in Russia, Gherman Pântea played a game of intricate diplomacy. According to Ion Constantin, he was good at seizing political opportunities "in those murky, troubled times, subject to fast and radical changes to the map of East-Central Europe".Constantin, p.25 By early October 1917, Pântea was realizing that Kerensky and the Provisional Government could lose the battle. In a bid to discover the other side's intentions regarding Bessarabia, he traveled to Petrograd and met Bolshevik ideologue Vladimir Lenin. As Pântea later stated, Lenin declared himself for revolutionary self-determination in the national issue—some researchers regard this claim as an urban legend, with which Bessarabian intellectuals tried to convince communists that Lenin himself validated their national aspirations.Constantin, p.48-50, 79 Returning to Bessarabia, Pântea attended meetings of the Bolshevik club, alongside Ion Buzdugan.Svetlana Suveică, Basarabia în primul deceniu interbelic (1918–1928): modernizare prin reforme. Monografii ANTIM VII, Editura Pontos, Chișinău, 2010, p.68.
Sfatul Țării and Moldavian Directorate
Meanwhile, Pântea's Committee organized a Moldavian Soldiers' Congress, which was to form the basis for a Bessarabian legislature, called Sfatul Țării. A dispute endures surrounding the initiative behind this Congress, since both Pântea and Ștefan Holban claimed to have had the idea first.Constantin, p.51-52 In order to ensure attendance, Pântea (or Holban) appealed to a ruse, circulating a telegram which misleadingly suggested that the Russian Provisional Government was backing the Congress.Constantin, p.24, 50-53 Within days, Pântea was designated Vice President of the Bessarabian soldiers' assembly; Cijevschi was its president.Constantin, p.25, 53-55
Their act of insubordination enraged Kerensky: just before Lenin ousted him from power, the Russian Prime Minister issued a warrant for Pântea's arrest; by then, however, the Bessarabian Congress had been recognized by third parties, from the Mensheviks to the Bundistn.Constantin, p.53-55 In the confusion that followed Lenin's seizure of power, Pântea still recognized the Russian Constituent Assembly, and presented his candidature in the Russian parliamentary election. He was included on a Bessarabian Peasants' Party (PȚB) list headed by Ion Inculeț and Pantelimon Erhan.Charles Upson Clark, Bessarabia. Russia and Roumania on the Black Sea: Chapter XVII, "Organization of the Diet" , at the University of Washington's DXARTS/CARTAH Electronic Text Archive ; retrieved October 30, 2011 The election itself was a chaotic affair, and votes were never officially counted anywhere in Bessarabia.