Hello and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast episode 457 Operation

Munich last time the Stalin line helped Moscow practically not at, or something close to that.

Either way, it had been breached in multiple places, and now the cities of Novgorod and Kiev

were being threatened.

As for stomping the Germans in the South from going much

further, that was now up to the Neeper River and the Soviet troops and the guns on

its far side. But what had given Von Rundstedt and his commander's headaches thus far

was the lack of a strong, quick-moving right flank, and while it's true that Stuponago could have been

faster, he and his, had been given a specific task when Barbarossa got underway.

Specifically, these men had been told to stay put by Hitler to protect the Ploesty oil fields.

Back in April, just months before Operation Barbarossa was launched, the German 170th Infantry

Division traveled to Romania, joining with other Germans already there as they toured the country's border with Soviet Russia.

Now, technically, the Romanian forces were under the control of that country's dictator and

Tony on rescue. But in reality it was given orders by Germany's 11th Army's commander,

General Eugene von Schobert.

Now, the training for Romania's fighter pilots had been intense.

And proving this, when the invasion of Soviet Russia was launched, Stalin ordered hundreds of air raids against those same oil fields, but none of them did any real damage.

Now it was time to find out if the country's soldiers were also up to the task.

But before the Romanians could help conquer Russia, they wanted their own back.

Land lost to Russia after the Ribbentrop Molotov Agreement of August 1939.

After Poland was gobbled up by the two larger countries to either side of it, Stalin testing Hitler's need for peace on his

eastern front, at least for the moment, asked Berlin if he could have Bessarabia for cultural and security reasons.

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