Law and Perpetrator Responsibility in Romanian Post-War Trials: The Odesa Massacre (1944–1948)

This article examines how Romanian postwar trials discussed, interpreted, and prosecuted responsibility for the Odesa massacre. It uses three interlinked case studies: Nicolae Macici and Constantin Trestioreanu, Iosif Iacobici, and the paired cases of Radu Ionescu and Eugen Bălăceanu. Drawing on extensive archival material, it analyses how perpetrators mobilised legal language, invoked military culture, and reframed their wartime actions to evade or minimise culpability. Also, prosecutors struggled to apply rapidly shifting legal categories. The People’s Tribunals of 1945-1946 relied on narrow definitions of direct participation and prioritised symbolic defendants, allowing many mid- and lower-ranking officers to escape justice. Subsequent legislation in the late 1940s and early 1950s broadened the scope of criminal liability, yet investigations remained uneven and shaped by political pressures, institutional continuity, and competing visions of justice. By seeking to restore the biographies of individual perpetrators to the centre of analysis, this article shows how Romanian courts negotiated guilt through a mixture of legalism, ideology, and administrative improvisation. It argues that these trials highlight the broader dilemmas facing postwar Eastern Europe, namely the need to confront genocide and mass murder while preserving state legitimacy, navigating Soviet influence, and operating within volatile legal frameworks.