Oil and Iron. Romania and Sweden from the Perspective of the Great Powers during the Second World War
Journal: Studia Środkowoeuropejskie i Bałkanistyczne
Year: 2024

Oil and iron are two natural resources with an inestimable strategic value in the context of wartime economies. The Great Powers perceived oil and iron as essential raw materials in sustaining attritional warfare, while Romania and Sweden leveraged them as currencies in exchange for preserving their sovereignty and territorial integrity. Prior the outbreak of the Second World War, Germany and Great Britain launched their competition to monopolize the oil market in Romania and the iron market in