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In March 1944, Hungary was occupied by the Wehrmacht. This invasion was formally known as Operation Margarethe (Unternehmen Margarethe). [1] [2]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2017) |
In March 1944, Hungary was occupied by the Wehrmacht. This invasion was formally known as Operation Margarethe (Unternehmen Margarethe). [1] [2]
Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Kállay, who had been in office from 1942, had the knowledge and the approval of Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy to secretly seek negotiations for a separate peace with the Allies in early 1944. Hitler wanted to prevent the Hungarians from deserting Germany. On 12 March 1944, German troops received orders by Hitler to capture critical Hungarian facilities. [3]
Hitler invited Horthy to the Palace of Klessheim, near Salzburg. On the evening of 15 March 1944, when Admiral Horthy was watching a performance of the opera Petofi, he received an urgent message from the German Embassy minister Dietrich von Jagow, which stated that he had to see Horthy immediately at the German legation. [4] When Horthy arrived, von Jagow gave him a letter from Hitler saying Hitler wanted to see him at Schloss Klessheim in Austria on 18 March. As both heads of state conducted their negotiations at Schloss Klessheim, German forces not already stationed in Hungary quietly marched from Reichsgaue of the Ostmark into Hungary. The meeting served merely as a ruse to keep Horthy out of the country and to leave the Hungarian Army without orders.
Negotiations between Horthy and Hitler lasted until 18 March, when Horthy boarded a train to return home. On 19 March, the military occupation of Hungary began.
When Horthy arrived in Budapest, German soldiers were waiting for him at the station. Horthy was told by von Jagow that Hungary would remain sovereign only if he removed Kállay and replaced him with a government that would co-operate fully with Germany. Otherwise, Hungary would be subject to an undisguised occupation. Horthy appointed Döme Sztójay as prime minister to appease German concerns.
Being a complete surprise, the occupation was quick and bloodless. The initial German plan was to immobilise the Hungarian Army, but with Soviet forces advancing from the north and the east and the prospect of British and American forces invading the Balkans, [5] the German military decided to retain Hungarian forces in the field and so sent troops to defend the passes through the Carpathian Mountains from a possible invasion.
Following the German military occupation, Adolf Eichmann was instructed to arrange the transportation of 550,000 Hungarian Jews from wartime Hungary (including Jews from territories that had been annexed from Czechoslovakia (Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia), Romania and Yugoslavia) to extermination camps with Hungarian authorities' collaboration. [6]
Despite the occupation, Horthy regardless attempted to negotiate a peace treaty and surrender with the Soviet Union. By October 1944 the Soviet Budapest offensive was nearly ready to launch and Horthy made a radio broadcast that an armistice had been agreed. The Germans were ready, however. Horthy was overthrown in Operation Panzerfaust, a coup that placed the National Socialist-friendly Arrow Cross Party (NyKP) in power. Following the Siege of Budapest the capital fell to the Soviets on 13 February 1945 and the government fled.
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who was the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar period and most of World War II, from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944.
Döme Sztójay was a Hungarian soldier and diplomat of Serb origin, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary in 1944, during World War II.
Géza Lakatos de Csíkszentsimon was a colonel general in the Hungarian Army during World War II who served briefly as Prime Minister of Hungary, under governor Miklós Horthy from 29 August 1944, until 15 October 1944.
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László Bárdossy de Bárdos was a Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from April 1941 to March 1942. He was one of the chief architects of Hungary's involvement in World War II.
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Miklós Kállay de Nagykálló was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary during World War II, from 9 March 1942 to 22 March 1944. By early 1942, Hungarian Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy was seeking to put some distance between himself and Hitler's regime. He dismissed the pro-German prime minister, László Bárdossy, and replaced him with Kállay, a moderate whom Horthy expected to loosen Hungary's ties to Germany.
Operation Panzerfaust was a military operation undertaken in October 1944 by the German Wehrmacht to ensure the Kingdom of Hungary would remain a German ally in World War II. When German Chancellor Adolf Hitler received word that Hungary's Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, was secretly negotiating his country's surrender to the advancing Red Army, he sent commando leader Otto Skorzeny of the Waffen-SS and former special forces commander Adrian von Fölkersam to Hungary. Hitler feared that Hungary's surrender would expose his southern flank, where Romania had just joined with the Soviets and cut off a million German troops still fighting the Soviet advance in the Balkans. The operation was preceded by Operation Margarethe in March 1944, which was the occupation of Hungary by German forces, which Hitler had hoped would secure Hungary's place in the Axis powers. This had also enabled the deportation of the majority of Hungarian Jews, previously beyond the reach of the Nazis, through uneasy cooperation with Hungarian authorities. This policy was, however, terminated as Soviet forces drew closer and the USAAF, based in Italy, began bombing Hungary, including Budapest.
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Schloss Klessheim is a Baroque palace located in Wals-Siezenheim, 4 km (2.5 mi) west of Salzburg, Austria. The palace was designed and constructed by Austrian architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach for Prince-Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun in 1700. It became the summer residence of the Archbishops of Salzburg. Since 1993, the palace has been used by Salzburg Casino.
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