Eugen Cristescu

Eugen Cristescu (3 April 1895 – 12 June 1950) was the second head of the Kingdom of Romania's domestic espionage agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (SSI), forerunner of today's SRI, convicted in 1946 as a war criminal.

[1]: 130 Cristescu, who unlike Moruzov was totally obedient to Antonescu, assumed leadership of the SSI at a time when Romania was a satellite of Nazi Germany, formally not yet in World War II but rapidly preparing for it.

It was Cristescu who gave the order for a special unit, later known as Operational Echelon I, to enter Moldavia, which it did on 18 June 1941 (four days before Romania joined combat), equipped with information on local Jews’ situation, location and living conditions, and large quantities of posters depicting distorted faces of Jews or which called them spies or saboteurs.

According to postwar testimony offered by Traian Borcescu, head of the SSI's counter-intelligence section between 1941 and 1944, “as to the preparation and staging of the Iași massacres, I suspect that they were the handiwork of the First Operative Echelon, since Eugen Cristescu told me when he returned to Bucharest: ‘The great deeds I accomplished in Moldavia, I accomplished in collaboration with Supreme Headquarters, Section II’”.

In his own written postwar deposition, Cristescu denied SSI involvement at Iași, claiming it had been organised by the Gestapo and the SD.

Relations with Germany were fairly steady until November 1942, when crushing losses on the Eastern Front led the SSI, at Cristescu's order, to cultivate links with the Allies’ intelligence services.

Of particular note was Operation Autonomous, in which three British agents were parachuted into Romania on 23 December 1943, captured, and interrogated directly by Cristescu (with Antonescu's approval), who refused to hand them over for questioning in Berlin.