newly violent sting. On February 12, 1938, he used the rising violence between political groups as context to seize absolute power (a move which was tacitly supported by the liberals who had come to view him as a lesser evil in comparison to Codreanu's fascist movement). As an authentic Romanian nationalist (albeit, one who had a view of a Westernized, forcefully industrialized Romania at the expense of the peasants whom he viewed with disdain; making him completely the antithesis of the views of Codreanu ), Carol was determined that Romania should not fall into the near-absolute economic and political control that many of its neighbors already had, and moved to theatrical resistance against Nazi ideology . The King then arrested the entire leadership of the Iron Guard, on the grounds that they were in the pay of the Nazis, and began using the same accusation against various political opponents, both to solidify his absolute control of the country as well as negatively stigmatize Germany. In November, the fourteen most important fascist leaders (the first of which being Codreanu) were "rinsed" in acid. However, Carol's policy was doomed by the reluctance of France and Britain to fight wars with the totalitarian powers of Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union attacked Romania and declared the annexation of Bukovina and Bessarabia (which was to be renamed Moldova), and when Carol turned to the only possible hopethat is, assistance from the former "eternal foe", Nazi Germanyhe was angrily rejected by Hitler personally, who did not have to try hard to remember how Carol had previously humiliated the cause of his ideology. Carol was forced to acknowledge the annexation, leading directly to his overthrow in a coup led by Ion Antonescu. In 1940, the Ion Gigurtu cabinet adopted Romania's equivalent to the Nuremberg Laws, forbidding Jewish-Christian intermarriage, and defining Jews after racial criteria (a person was Jewish if he or she had a Jewish grandparent on one side of the family). Politics Union of Romanian Jews Jewish Party of Romania Jewish National People's Party General Jewish Labour Bund in Romania The Holocaust Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1944. Under the dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, 380,000–400,000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Romanian-controlled areas such as Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria. The Iron Guard Between the establishment of the National Legionary State and 1942, 80 anti-Jewish regulations were passed.