Romania

> Let's talk about your home. Not Romania, certainly not Brooklyn. No. I mean your real home.
>
> Helmut Zemo to Bucky Barnes, Captain America: Civil War

**Romania** is a country located in Southeastern Europe.

## History

### Operation Barbarossa (1941-42)

> The Reich shall win because we are unified. In blood as in purpose. While our enemies...are the polyglot peasants of Europe and the mongrel masses of North America.
>
> Colonel Lohmer, Captain America: First Vengeance

By early 1941, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April. Hitler's conquest of the Balkans was a precursor for his real objective: an invasion of the Soviet Union, whose vast territory would give the German master race the "Lebensraum" it needed. The other half of Hitler's strategy was the extermination of the Jews from throughout German-occupied Europe. Plans for the "Final Solution" were introduced around the time of the Soviet offensive, and over the next three years more than four million Jews would perish in the death camps established in occupied Poland. The extermination was carried out mainly by Heinrich Himmler's infamous SS troops.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Though Soviet tanks and aircraft greatly outnumbered the Germans', their air technology was largely obsolete, and the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the next German advance until October, when it was stalled by a Soviet counteroffensive and the onset of harsh winter weather.

### Communist Contraband

During the Romanian communist regime, the government deemed public socialization and organization of the Transhumanist group, a biologically-augmenting society of human individuals, illegal. As a result, the determined Transhumanists continued their research and regular conventions underground, at times, forming black markets to share their work. After the governmental reformation, from a communist to a democratic state, Transhumanists can freely express themselves and their modern ideals. Transhumanists now regularly meet in Bucharest to exchange ideas and technology.

### Nightmares of the Past

Some time after the Battle at the Triskelion, the Winter Soldier went into hiding and visited the Smithsonian Institution's Captain America Exhibit. While there, he found a memorial for a Howling Commando named James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes who had seemingly been killed during World War II while fighting HYDRA. Afterwards, Barnes traveled to an old Romanian safehouse to investigate, all the while haunted by nightmares of his past.

### Winter Soldier Capture

> Barnes would have been eliminated in Romania if it wasn't for Rogers.
>
> Thaddeus Ross to Tony Stark, Captain America: Civil War

Milly Taylor traveled the world in search of Bucky Barnes after the Battle at the Triskelion. She managed to locate him in Bucharest, where she started teaching him about his past.

While walking through Romanian capital Bucharest, Barnes and Taylor discovered he was being accused of the Bombing of the Vienna International Centre in Austria. They would come to Barnes' hideout to find Captain America was already there. Their reunion would eventually be interrupted by the arrival of the GSG 9.