Despite these few attempts of emancipation, Helen and her son spent most of the conflict playing as hosts of the German officers passing through Bucharest. The queen mother even met Hitler twice: firstly informally, with her sister Irene, to discuss the fate of Greece and Romania within the new Europe (December 1940) and secondly formally with Michael I during a trip in Italy (winter of 1941). Above all, Helen and her son had no choice but to officially support the dictatorship of Antonescu. Thus, it was Michael I who gave the "Conducător" the title of Marshal (21 August 1941) after the reconquest of Bessarabia by the Romanian Army.