In the months of August and September I had the pleasure to work with the guys from Panzer Travel, a tourism agency with historical tours about WW2 in Romania. My job was to sit behind the camera and document in 3 videos, some of their WW2 historical Tours in Bucharest and Ploiesti, the cities with the most activity during world war two in Romania, and when after 23 August 1944 when King Mihai I switched sides from the Axis to the Allies side, those two cities turned into real battlefields between the Romanian Army and the German one. The WW2 Tour in Bucharest was dedicated to the Allied bombing raids from the summer of 1944 and about the battle to save the country’s capital from being taken over by the nazis after Ion Antonescu was arrested. The two Historical tours in Ploiesti about the presence of the German Army during World War Two in the city, were split into two chapters – the Allied bombing and the Tidal Wave mission and the defence of the city, and the second one was about the capitulation of the Flak 5 Division after 23 August.
What was very cool, was the fact that all the tours had some very cool people, all interested about the battles and happened in WW2 in Romania, and the fact that top class historians were the ones that guided the tour, that is a very big plus. I hope that in Romania this kind of WW2 historical tours will get more traction and people will get curious about what happened in their cities during war time.
Even though it was very challenging because of the hot weather, I think I did my job quite well. The result can be seen in the following videos:
WW2 – Historical Tour – Ploiesti, a city in war
WW2 – Historical Tour – The fall of Festung Ploiesti
WW2 – Historical Tour – Bucharest, 23 August operation
And some pictures from the Bucharest and Ploiesti ww2 Tours:
