Ion Antonescu was a Romanian military officer and authoritarian politician who served as Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II. Initially aligning Romania with the Axis powers, he led the country into the war against the Soviet Union in 1941. His regime was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Roma in the territories under Romanian control. Following a royal coup in August 1944, he was arrested, tried for war crimes, and executed in 1946.