During World War II, the Kingdom of Hungary was a member of the Axis powers.[1] In the 1930s, the Kingdom of Hungary relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to pull itself out of the Great Depression. Hungarian politics and foreign policy had become more stridently nationalistic by 1938, and Hungary adopted an irredentist policy similar to Germany's, attempting to incorporate ethnic Hungarian areas in neighboring countries into Hungary. Hungary benefited territorially from its relationship with the Axis. Settlements were negotiated regarding territorial disputes with the Czechoslovak Republic, the Slovak Republic, and the Kingdom of Romania. On November 20, 1940, Hungary became the fourth member to join the Axis powers when it signed the Tripartite Pact.[2] The following year, Hungarian forces participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the invasion of the Soviet Union. Their participation was noted by German observers for its particular cruelty, with occupied peoples subjected to arbitrary violence. Hungarian volunteers were sometimes referred to as engaging in "murder tourism."[3]
After two years of war against the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Miklós Kállay began peace negotiations with the United States and the United Kingdom in autumn of 1943.[4] Berlin was already suspicious of the Kállay government, and in September 1943, the German General Staff prepared a project to invade and occupy Hungary. In March 1944, German forces occupied Hungary. When Soviet forces began threatening Hungary, an armistice was signed between Hungary and the USSR by Regent Miklós Horthy. Soon afterward, Horthy's son was kidnapped by German commandos and Horthy was forced to revoke the armistice. The Regent was then deposed from power, while Hungarian fascist leader Ferenc Szálasi established a new government, with German backing. In 1945, Hungarian and German forces in Hungary were defeated by advancing Soviet armies.[5]
Approximately 300,000 Hungarian soldiers and more than 600,000 civilians died during World War II, including between 450,000 and 606,000 Jews[6] and 28,000 Roma.[7] Many cities were damaged, most notably the capital Budapest. Most Jews in Hungary were protected from deportation to German extermination camps for the first few years of the war, although they were subject to a prolonged period of oppression by anti-Jewish laws that imposed limits on their participation in public and economic life.[8] From the start of the German occupation of Hungary in 1944, Jews and Roma were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Hungary's borders were returned to their pre-1938 lines after its surrender.
In Hungary, the joint effect of the Great Depression and the Treaty of Trianon resulted in shifting the political mood of the country towards the right. In 1932, the regent Miklós Horthy appointed a new prime minister, Gyula Gömbös. Gömbös was identified with the Hungarian National Defence Association (Magyar Országos Véderő Egylet, or MOVE). He led Hungarian international policy towards closer cooperation with Germany, and started an effort to assimilate minorities in Hungary. Gömbös signed a trade agreement with Germany (21 February 1934)[9] that led to fast expansion of the economy, drawing Hungary out of the Great Depression but making the country dependent on the German economy for both raw materials and export revenues.
Gömbös advocated a number of social reforms, one-party government[citation needed], revision of the Treaty of Trianon, and Hungary's withdrawal from the League of Nations. Although he assembled a strong political machine, his efforts to achieve his vision and reforms were frustrated by a parliament composed mostly of István Bethlen's supporters and by Hungary's creditors, who forced Gömbös to follow conventional policies in dealing with the economic and financial crisis. The result of the 1935 elections gave Gömbös more solid support in parliament. He succeeded in gaining control of the ministries of finance, industry, and defense and in replacing several key military officers with his supporters. In October 1936, he died due to kidney problems without realizing his goals.
Hungary used its relationship with Germany to attempt to revise the Treaty of Trianon. In 1938, Hungary openly repudiated the treaty's restrictions on its armed forces. Adolf Hitler gave promises to return lost territories and threats of military intervention and economic pressure to encourage the Hungarian Government to support the policies and goals of Nazi Germany. In 1935, a Hungarian fascist party, the Arrow Cross Party, led by Ferenc Szálasi, was founded. Gömbös' successor, Kálmán Darányi, attempted to appease both Nazis and Hungarian antisemites by passing the First Jewish Law, which set quotas limiting Jews to 20% of positions in several professions. The law satisfied neither the Nazis nor Hungary's own radicals, and when Darányi resigned in May 1938 Béla Imrédy was appointed prime minister.
Pál Teleki, prime minister of the Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1921 and 1939–1941)
Imrédy's attempts to improve Hungary's diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom initially made him very unpopular with Germany and Italy. Aware of Germany's Anschluss with Austria in March, he realized that he could not afford to alienate Germany and Italy on a long-term basis: in the autumn of 1938 his foreign policy became very much pro-German and pro-Italian.[1] Intent on amassing a powerbase in Hungarian right wing politics, Imrédy started to suppress political rivals, so the increasingly influential Arrow Cross Party was harassed, and eventually banned by Imrédy's administration. As Imrédy drifted further to the right, he proposed that the government be reorganized along totalitarian lines and drafted a harsher Second Jewish Law. Imrédy's political opponents, however, forced his resignation in February 1939 by presenting documents showing that his grandfather was a Jew. Nevertheless, the new government of Count Pál Teleki approved the Second Jewish Law, which cut the quotas on Jews permitted in the professions and in business. Furthermore, the new law defined Jews by race instead of just religion, thus altering the status of those who had formerly converted from Judaism to Christianity.
Territorial expansion
Territories that Hungary gained back with the Vienna Awards and military occupation (1938–1941)Borders of post-1941 Hungary superimposed over an ethnic map according to the 1910 census.
In October 1938, the Munich Agreement caused the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Republic and the creation of the Czecho-Slovak Republic (also known as the "Second Czechoslovak Republic"). Some autonomy was granted to Slovakia and to Carpathian Ruthenia in the new republic. On 5 October, about 500 members of the Hungarian Ragged Guard infiltrated Slovakia and Ruthenia as "guerrillas". On 9 October, the Kingdom of Hungary started talks with the Czecho-Slovak Republic over Magyar-populated regions of southern Slovakia and southern Ruthenia. On 11 October, the Hungarian guards were defeated by Czecho-Slovak troops at Berehovo and Borzsava in Ruthenia. The Hungarians suffered approximately 350 casualties and, by 29 October, the talks were deadlocked.[10]
On 2 November 1938, the First Vienna Award transferred to Hungary parts of southern Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia, an area amounting to 11,927km2 and a population of 869,299 (86.5% of which were Hungarians[11]). Between 5 and 10 November, Hungarian armed forces occupied the newly transferred territories.[10]
Occupation of Carpatho-Ukraine
In March 1939, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was dissolved, Germany invaded it, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was established. On 14 March, Slovakia declared itself to be an independent state. On 15 March, Carpatho-Ukraine declared itself to be an independent state. Hungary rejected the independence of Carpatho-Ukraine and, between 14 and 18 March, Hungarian armed forces occupied the rest of Carpathian Ruthenia and ousted the government of Avgustyn Voloshyn. By contrast, Hungary recognized the German puppet state of Slovakia led by the Clerical FascistJozef Tiso[12] but on 23 March 1939, Hungarian attacks on Slovakia on the east claiming a border dispute, led to a localized armed conflict between the two countries. The Slovak–Hungarian War, also known as the "Little War", ended with Hungary gaining the easternmost strip of Slovakia, 1697km2.
In September 1940, with troops massing on both sides of the Hungarian-Romanian border, war was averted by the Second Vienna Award. This award transferred to Hungary the northern half of Transylvania, with a total area of 43,492km2 and a total population of 2,578,100. Regarding demographics, the Romanian census from 1930 counted 38% Hungarians and 49% Romanians, while the Hungarian census from 1941 counted 53.5% Hungarians and 39.1% Romanians.[13] While according to the Romanian estimations in 1940 prior to the Second Vienna Award, about 1,300,000 people or 50% of the population was Romanian and according to the Hungarian estimations in 1940 shortly following the Second Vienna Award, about 1,150,000 people or 48% of the population was Romanian.[14] The establishment of Hungarian rule met sometimes insurgency, most notable cases are the Ip and Treznea incidents in Northern Transylvania.
After invading Yugoslavia on 11 April 1941, Hungary annexed sections of Baranja, Bačka, Međimurje, and Prekmurje.[15] The returned territories – 11,417km2 – had a population of 1,025,508 which comprised 36.6% Hungarians, 19% Germans, 16% Serbs and 28.4% others.[16] Nearly one year later the Novi Sad raid was conducted initially targeting Partisan resistance,[17] while between 1944–45, it was followed by the purges by the Partisan movement.
Following the two Vienna awards, a number of counties that had been lost in whole or part by the Treaty of Trianon were restored to Hungary. As a result, some previously county of temporary united administration – in Hungarian közigazgatásilag egyelőre egyesített vármegye (k.e.e. vm.) – were de-merged and restored to their pre-1920 boundaries.
The region of Sub-Carpathia was planned to be granted a special autonomous status with the intention that (eventually) it would be self-governed by the Ruthenian minority. This was prepared and billed in the Hungarian Parliament, but in the end, after the outbreak of the Second World War it never passed through.[18] However, in the corresponding territory the Governorate of Subcarpathia was formed which was divided into three, the administrative branch offices of Ung (Hungarian: Ungi közigazgatási kirendeltség), Bereg (Hungarian: Beregi közigazgatási kirendeltség) and Máramaros (Hungarian: Máramarosi közigazgatási kirendeltség), having Hungarian and Rusyn language as official languages.
On 20 November 1940, under pressure from Germany, Hungarian prime minister Pál Teleki signed the Tripartite Pact. In December 1940 Teleki also signed an ephemeral Treaty of Eternal Friendship with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which was led by a regent, Prince Paul, who was also under German pressure.
On 25 March 1941, Prince Paul signed the Tripartite Pact on behalf of Yugoslavia. Two days later, a Yugoslavian coup d'état removed Prince Paul, replaced him with pro-BritishKing Peter, and threatened the success of the planned German invasion of the Soviet Union.
Hitler asked the Hungarians to support his invasion of Yugoslavia. He promised to return some territory to Hungary in exchange for military cooperation. On 3 April 1941, unable to prevent Hungary's participation in the war alongside Germany, Teleki committed suicide. The right-wing radical László Bárdossy succeeded him as prime minister.
Hungarian Toldi I tank used during the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.
Hungary did not immediately participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Axis invasion began on 22 June 1941, but Hitler did not directly ask for Hungarian assistance. Nonetheless, many Hungarian officials argued for participation in the war in order to encourage Hitler not to favour Romania in the event of border revisions in Transylvania. On 26 June 1941, unidentified airplanes bombed Košice (Kassa). Although Hungarian authorities assumed Soviet responsibility, some speculation exists that this was a false-flag attack instigated by Germany (possibly in cooperation with Romania) to give Hungary a casus belli for joining Operation Barbarossa and the war,[19][20] although it is plausible that Soviet bombers mistook Kassa for nearby Prešov in Slovakia. Hungary declared war against the Soviets on 27 June 1941, less than 24 hours after the Košice bombing raid.
On 1 July 1941, under German instruction, the Hungarian Carpathian Group (Karpat Group) attacked the 12th Soviet Army. Attached to the German 17th Army, the Karpat Group advanced far into Soviet Ukraine, and later into southern Russia. At the Battle of Uman, fought between 3 and 8 August, the Karpat Group's mechanized corps acted as one half of a pincer that encircled the 6th Soviet Army and the 12th Soviet Army. This action resulted in the capture or destruction of twenty Soviet divisions.
In July 1941 the Hungarian government transferred responsibility for 18,000 Jews from Carpato-Ruthenian Hungary to the German armed forces. These Jews, without Hungarian citizenship, were sent to a location near Kamenets-Podolski, where in one of the first acts of mass-killing of Jews during World War II, Nazi mobile killing unitsshot all but two thousand of these individuals.[21][22] Bárdossy then passed the Third Jewish Law in August 1941, prohibiting marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews.
Six months after the mass murder at Kamianets-Podilskyi in January 1942, Hungarian troops massacred 3,000 Serbian and Jewish hostages near Novi Sad, Yugoslavia.
Worried about Hungary's increasing reliance on Germany, Admiral Horthy forced Bárdossy to resign and replaced him with Miklós Kállay, a veteran conservative of Bethlen's government. Kállay continued Bárdossy's policy of supporting Germany against the Red Army while also initiating negotiations with the Allies. Hungarian participation in Operation Barbarossa during 1941 was limited in part because the country had no real large army before 1939, and time to train and equip troops had been short. But by 1942, tens of thousands of Hungarians were fighting on the eastern front in the Royal Hungarian Army.
Hungarian Arrow Cross army/militia and a German Tiger II tank in Budapest, October 1944.
During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Hungarian Second Army suffered terrible losses. The Soviet breakthrough at the Don River sliced directly through the Hungarian units. Shortly after the fall of Stalingrad in January 1943, the Soviets crushed the Hungarian Second Army at the Battle of Voronezh. Ignoring German orders to stand and fight to the death, the bewildered Hungarian troops, fighting without antitank weaponry or armored support, harassed by partisan groups and Soviet air attacks, and having to endure the Russian winter weather, tried in vain to retreat. Most of the survivors were taken prisoner by the Soviet army, and total casualties numbered more than 100,000 men. The Hungarian army ceased to exist as an effective fighting force, and the Germans pulled them from the front.
While Kállay was prime minister, the Jews endured increased economic and political repression, although many, particularly those in Budapest, were temporarily protected from the final solution. For most of the war, the Hungarian Jews lived an uneasy existence. They were deprived of most freedoms, but were not subjected to physical harm, and Horthy tried to contain anti-Semitic groups such as the Arrow Cross. After two years of war against the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Miklós Kállay began peace negotiations with the United States and the United Kingdom in autumn of 1943,[4] and 1944 Horthy secretly started peace talks with the Soviet Union and attempted to create the National Centrist-Governance (Nemzeti Középkormány) through the series of secret negotiations with the Hungarian Front (an anti-German rebel group) to push back the management's pro-German far-right endeavors. Berlin was already suspicious of the Kállay's government, and in September 1943, the German General Staff prepared a project to invade and occupy Hungary. At the request of the Allies, there were no connections made with the Soviets.
German occupation of Hungary
Propaganda posters in Budapest, 1944
Aware of Kállay's deceit and fearing that Hungary might conclude a separate peace, in March 1944 Hitler launched Operation Margarethe and ordered German troops to occupy Hungary. Horthy was confined to a castle, in essence, placed under house arrest. Döme Sztójay, an avid supporter of the Nazis, became the new prime minister. Sztójay governed with the aid of a German military governor, Edmund Veesenmayer. The Hungarian populace was not happy with their nation effectively reduced to a German protectorate, but Berlin threatened to occupy Hungary with Slovak, Croat, and Romanian troops if they did not comply. The threat of these ancestral enemies on Hungarian soil was seen as far worse than German control. Hungary kept entire divisions on the Romanian border while the troops of both nations were fighting and dying together in the Russian winter.
As the Soviets pushed westward, Sztojay's government mustered new armies. The Hungarian troops again suffered terrible losses, but now had a motive to protect their homeland from Soviet occupation.
In August 1944, Horthy replaced Sztójay with the anti-fascist general Géza Lakatos. Under the Lakatos regime, acting interior minister Béla Horváth ordered gendarmes to prevent the deportation of Hungarian citizens. The Germans were unhappy with the situation but could not do a great deal about it. Horthy's actions thus bought the Jews of Budapest a few months of time.
In September 1944, Soviet forces crossed the Hungarian border. On 15 October, Horthy announced that Hungary had asked for an armistice with the Soviet Union. The Hungarian army ignored Horthy's orders, fighting desperately to keep the Soviets out. The Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust and, by kidnapping his son Miklós Horthy Jr., forced Horthy to abrogate the armistice, depose the Lakatos government, and name the leader of the Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szálasi, as prime minister. Horthy resigned and Szálasi became prime minister of a new Government of National Unity (Nemzeti Összefogás Kormánya) controlled by the Germans. Horthy was taken to Germany as a prisoner but survived the war and spent his last years exiled in Portugal, dying in 1957.
In cooperation with the Nazis, Szálasi attempted to resume deportations of Jews, but Germany's rapidly disintegrating communications largely prevented this from happening. Nonetheless, the Arrow Cross launched a reign of terror against the Jews of Budapest. Thousands were tortured, raped and murdered in the last months of the war, their property looted or destroyed. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of Budapest's Jews using Swedish protective passports. He was ultimately taken prisoner by the Soviets and died some years later in a labor camp. Other foreign diplomats such as NuncioAngelo Rotta, Giorgio Perlasca, Carl Lutz, Friedrich Born, Harald Feller, Angel Sanz Briz and George Mandel-Mantello also organized false papers and safehouses for Jews in Budapest. Of the approximately 800,000 Jews residing within Hungary's expanded borders of 1941, only 200,000 (about 25%) survived the Holocaust.[23] An estimated 28,000 Hungarian Roma were also killed as part of the Porajmos.
Soon Hungary itself became a battlefield. Szálasi promised a Greater Hungary and prosperity for the peasants, but in reality Hungary was crumbling and its armies were slowly being destroyed. As an integral part of German general Maximilian Fretter-Pico's Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico, the reformed Hungarian Second Army enjoyed a modest level of combat success. From 6 to 29 October 1944 during the Battle of Debrecen, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico managed to achieve a major win on the battlefield. Avoiding encirclement itself, it encircled and severely mauled three Soviet tank corps serving under the Mobile Group of Issa Pliyev. Earlier in the same battle, Mobile Group Pliyev had sliced through the Hungarian Third Army. But success was costly and, unable to replace lost armor and heavy artillery munitions, the Hungarian Second Army was defeated on 1 December 1944. The remnants of the Second Army were incorporated into the Third Army.
"Despite it all..!", a propaganda poster of the banned fascist Arrow Cross party that took power when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944.
In October 1944, the Hungarian First Army was attached to the German 1st Panzer Army, participating defensively against the Red Army's advance toward Budapest. On 28 December 1944, a provisional government was formed in Hungary under acting prime minister Béla Miklós. Szálasi and Miklós each claimed to be the legitimate head of government. The Germans and pro-German Hungarians loyal to Szálasi fought on.
The Soviets and Romanians completed the encirclement of Budapest on 29 December 1944. The battle for the city turned into the Siege of Budapest. While Kállay himself was in the Dachau Concentration Camp at the time, the Sovereignty Movement (Függetlenségi Mozgalom) he supported, fought alongside the Soviets. Famous people from the group were Szent-Györgyi Albert biochemist (who was proposed to be the prime minister) and Várnai Zseni revolutionary writer.[24] During the fight, most of what remained of the Hungarian First Army was destroyed about 200 kilometres (120mi) north of Budapest in a running battle from 1 January to 16 February 1945. On 20 January 1945, representatives of the Miklós provisional government signed an armistice in Moscow. In January 1945, 32,000 ethnic Germans from within Hungary were arrested and transported to the Soviet Union as forced laborers. In some villages, the entire adult population were taken to labor camps in the Donets Basin.[25][26]:21 Many died there as a result of hardships and poor treatment. Overall, between 100,000 and 170,000 Hungarian ethnic Germans were transported to the Soviet Union.[27]:38
The remaining German and Hungarian units within Budapest surrendered on 13 February 1945. Although the German forces in Hungary were generally defeated, the Germans had one more surprise for the Soviets. On 6 March 1945, the Germans launched the Lake Balaton Offensive, attempting to hold on to the Axis' last source of oil. It was their final operation of the war and it quickly failed. By 19 March 1945, Soviet troops had recaptured all the territory lost during the 13-day German offensive.[28]:182
After the failed offensive, the Germans in Hungary were eliminated. Most of what remained of the Hungarian Third Army was destroyed about 50 kilometres (31mi) west of Budapest between 16 and 25 March 1945. From 26 March and 15 April, the Soviets and Bulgarians launched the Nagykanizsa–Körmend Offensive and more Hungarian remnants were destroyed as part of Army Group South fighting alongside the 2nd Panzer Army. By the start of April, the Germans, with the Arrow Cross in tow, had completely vacated Hungarian soil.
Retreat into Germany
Hungarian soldiers in Denmark, April 1945.
Officially, Soviet operations in Hungary ended on 4 April 1945, when the last German troops were expelled. Some pro-fascist Hungarians such as Szálasi escaped—for a time—with the Germans. A few pro-German Hungarian units fought on until the end of the war. Units such as the Szent László Infantry Division ended the war in southern Austria.
On 8 May 1945 at 4:10p.m., Major General Stanley Eric Reinhart's 259th Infantry Regiment was authorized to accept the surrender of the 1st Hungarian Cavalry Division and of the 1st Hungarian Panzer Division. Surrender and movement across the Enns River had to be completed prior to midnight.
In the town of Landsberg in Bavaria, a Hungarian garrison stood in parade formation to surrender as Americans forces advanced through the area very late in the war.[29] A few Hungarian soldiers ended the war in Denmark in some of the last territory not yet occupied by the Allies.
List of major engagements
This is a list of battles and other combat operations in World War II in which Hungarian forces took part.
On 19 March 1944 German troops occupied Hungary, prime minister Miklós Kállay was deposed and soon mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland began. SS-ObersturmbannführerAdolf Eichmann went to Hungary to oversee the large-scale deportations. Between 15 May and 9 July, Hungarian authorities deported 437,402 Jews. All but 15,000 of these Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau,[21] and 90% of those were immediately killed. It has been estimated that one-third of the murdered victims at Auschwitz were Hungarian.[30] Sztojay, unlike previous prime ministers, answered mostly to Berlin and was thus able to act independently of Horthy. However, reports of the conditions in the concentration camps led the admiral to resist his policies.
Hungarian Jewish Women and children from Carpatho-Ruthenia after their arrival at the Auschwitz deathcamp (May/June 1944). Photo from the Auschwitz Album.
In early July 1944, Horthy stopped the deportations, and after the failed attempt on Hitler's life, the Germans backed off from pressing Horthy's regime to continue further, large-scale deportations, although some smaller groups continued to be deported by train. In late August, Horthy refused Eichmann's request to restart the deportations. Himmler ordered Eichmann to leave Budapest.[31]
Forced labor
The forced labor service system was introduced in Hungary in 1939. The system affected primarily the Jewish population, but many people belonging to minorities, sectarians, leftists and Roma were also inducted.
Thirty-five thousand to 40,000 forced laborers, mostly Jews or of Jewish origin, served in the Hungarian Second Army, which fought in the USSR (see below). Eighty percent of them—28,000 to 32,000 people—never returned; they died either on the battlefield or in captivity.
Approximately half of the 6,000 Jewish forced laborers working in the copper mines in Bor, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) were executed by the Germans during the death march from Bor to Győr in August–October 1944, including the 35-year-old poet Miklós Radnóti, shot at the Hungarian village of Abda for being too weak to continue after a savage beating.[32][33]
A monument to the Hungarian anti-Fascist partisans in Ujpest
In autumn of 1941 anti-German demonstrations took place in Hungary. On 15 March 1942, the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1848–49 War of Independence, a crowd of 8,000 people gathered at the Sándor Petőfi monument in Budapest to demand an "independent democratic Hungary". The underground Hungarian Communist Party published a newspaper and leaflets, 500 communist activists were arrested and the party's leaders Ferenc Rózsa and Zoltán Schönherz were executed.[citation needed]
The Hungarian underground opposition contributed little to the military defeat of Nazism. In July 1943 the Smallholders Party adopted Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky's policy of working more closely with the Hungarian Social Democratic Party and the Communists and on 31 July demanded from the government an end to hostilities and joining the Allies even at the price of armed conflict with Germany. At the beginning of August 1943 a programme of action was formally concluded with the Social Democrats and on 11 September they issued a joint declaration against the war on the side of Germany.[citation needed]
Various opposition groups deprived of their leaders most of whom had been arrested by the Gestapo after the German occupation in March 1944 joined forces in May 1944 in the Communist-inspired Hungarian Front[hu] (Magyar Front). They demanded a "new struggle of liberation" against the German occupation forces and their collaborators and called for the creation of a new democratic Hungary after the war. The representatives of the Hungarian Front, being informed by Horthy of plans for an armistice on 11 October, founded the Committee of Liberation of the Hungarian National Uprising[hu; tr] on 11 November 1944. Although immediately weakened by the arrest and execution of its leaders, with General János Kiss among them, it called for an armed uprising against the German forces which took the form of limited isolated partisan actions and attacks on German military installations.[34]
During the first months of Arrow Cross rule, resistors infiltrated the newly formed KISKA security division and used it as legal cover.[35]
Armed and violent resistance began shortly after the Third Reich occupied Hungary; most of the resistance groups held to left-wing views or consisted of fighters from neighbouring countries. There were Communist partisan detachments which were sent to Hungary from the Soviet Union, but these failed to turn their activities into a popular movement. Sándor Nógrádi[de; hu; sk] who was parachuted from the USSR in 1944[36] became the commander of such guerilla unit. In the Hungarian People's Republic, the Communist guerillas sent from the USSR and their activities were magnified and exaggerated, while the other partisan groups and non-violent activists, including some far-right intellectuals, were silenced, and today organized Communist partisan activity in Hungary is largely considered a myth, possibly because of the treatment of the subject by the Marxist-Leninist historiography. Hungarian historian Ákos Bartha noted that the "non-Communist" resistance in Hungary "have been relegated to the no-man's land in terms of memory politics in the 21st century", while László Bernát Veszprémy writes that "the current consensus of mainstream historiography is that there was no such thing as armed resistance in Hungary during the German occupation." However, he cites cases of armed struggle described by Hungarian and German authorirties and argues that the materials of "the national committees after the Soviet occupation" and "people’s prosecutors cases and the people's tribunal cases" "still need to be explored by Hungarian historians."[37][38]
In December 1944, the USSR supported the formation of a Hungarian government alternate to Arrow Cross regime which was headed by Béla Miklós. During the Battle of Budapest, the USSR used the Volunteer Regiment of Buda composed of the Hungarian POWs; it was to become a Hungarian division of the Red Army, but the battle had finished by the time the division was formed.
The Treaty of Peace with Hungary[39] signed on 10 February 1947 declared that "The decisions of the Vienna Award of 2 November 1938 are declared null and void" and Hungarian boundaries were fixed along the former frontiers as they existed on 1 January 1938, except a minor loss of territory on the Czechoslovakian border. Two-thirds of the ethnic German minority (202,000 people) was deported to Germany in 1946–48, and there was a forced "population exchange" between Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
↑ Ungváry, Krisztián (23 March 2007). "Hungarian Occupation Forces in the Ukraine 1941–1942: The Historiographical Context". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 20 (1): 81–120. doi:10.1080/13518040701205480. ISSN1351-8046. S2CID143248398.
1 2 Gy Juhász, "The Hungarian Peace-feelers and the Allies in 1943." Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 26.3/4 (1980): 345-377 online
↑ Gy Ránki, "The German Occupation of Hungary." Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 11.1/4 (1965): 261-283 online.
↑ Dawidowicz, Lucy. The War Against the Jews, Bantam, 1986, p. 403; Randolph Braham, A Magyarországi Holokauszt Földrajzi Enciklopediája (The Geographic Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary), Park Publishing, 2006, Vol 1, p. 91.
↑ Crowe, David. "The Roma Holocaust," in Barnard Schwartz and Frederick DeCoste, eds., The Holocaust's Ghost: Writings on Art, Politics, Law and Education, University of Alberta Press, 2000, pp. 178–210.
↑ Pogany, Istvan, Righting Wrongs in Eastern Europe, Manchester University Press, 1997, pp.26–39, 80–94.
↑ '2. Zusatzvertrag zum deutsch-ungarischen Wirtschaftsabkommen von 1931 (DetailsArchived 4 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine )
1 2 Thomas, The Royal Hungarian Army in World War II, pg. 11
↑ Károly Kocsis, Eszter Kocsisné Hodosi, Ethnic Geography of the Hungarian Minorities in the Carpathian Basin, Simon Publications LLC, 1998, p. 116-153 [permanent dead link]
↑ Slobodan Ćurčić, Broj stanovnika Vojvodine, Novi Sad, 1996.
↑ Géza Vasas – A ruszin autonómia válaszútjain (1939. március-szeptember) – On the crossroads of Ruthenian autonomy (March–September 1939),
↑ Dreisziger, N.F. (1972). "New Twist to an Old Riddle: The Bombing of Kassa (Košice), June 26, 1941". The Journal of Modern History. 44 (2). The University of Chicago Press: 232–242. doi:10.1086/240751. S2CID143124708.
↑ Ther, Philipp (1998). Deutsche Und Polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in SBZ/ddr und in Polen 1945–1956. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN978-3-525-35790-3.
↑ Gábor Kádár – Zoltán Vági: Magyarok Auschwitzban. (Hungarians in Auschwitz) In Holocaust Füzetek 12. Budapest, 1999, Magyar Auschwitz Alapítvány-Holocaust Dokumentációs Központ, pp. 92–123.
↑ Robert J. Hanyok (2004). "Eavesdropping on Hell: Historical Guide to Western Communications Intelligence and the Holocaust, 1939–1945"(PDF). NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, UNITED STATES CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY. Archived(PDF) from the original on 4 March 2016. In late July there was a lull in the deportations. After the failed attempt on Hitler's life, the Germans backed off from pressing Horthy's regime to continue further, large-scale deportations. Smaller groups continued to be deported by train. At least one German police message decoded by GC&CS revealed that one trainload of 1,296 Jews from the town of Sarvar in western Hungary Hungarian Jews being rounded up in Budapest (Courtesy: USHMM) had departed for Auschwitz on August 4.112 In late August Horthy refused Eichmann's request to restart the deportations. Himmler ordered Eichmann to leave Budapest
↑ Gilbert, Martin (1988). Atlas of the Holocaust. Toronto: Lester Publishing Limited. pp.10, 206. ISBN978-1-895555-37-0.
↑ Juhász, Gyula (1988). "Problems of the Hungarian Resistance after the German Occupation, 1944". In William Deakin; Elisabeth Barker; Jonathan Chadwick (eds.). British Political and Military Strategy in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe in 1944. Palgrave Macmillan. pp.180–189.
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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.
In March 1944, Hungary was occupied by the Wehrmacht. This invasion was formally known as Operation Margarethe.
Béla vitéz Imrédy de Ómoravicza was Prime Minister of Hungary from 1938 to 1939.
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.
Ferenc Szálasi was a Hungarian military officer, politician, Nazi sympathizer and leader of the far-right Arrow Cross Party who headed the government of Hungary during the country's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.
The Arrow Cross Party was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National Unity. They were in power from 15 October 1944 to 28 March 1945. During its short rule, ten to fifteen thousand civilians were murdered outright, including many Jews and Romani, and 80,000 people were deported from Hungary to concentration camps in Austria. After the war, Szálasi and other Arrow Cross leaders were tried as war criminals by Hungarian courts.
The Kolozsvár Ghetto was one of the lesser-known Jewish ghettos of the World War II era. The ghetto was located in the city of Kolozsvár, then Kingdom of Hungary. Between the signing of the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 and the Second Vienna Award in 1940, Cluj was a part of Greater Romania.
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 leader 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.
The Kingdom of Hungary, referred to retrospectively as the Regency and the Horthy era, existed as a country from 1920 to 1946 under the rule of Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary, who officially represented the Hungarian monarchy. In reality there was no king, and attempts by King Charles IV to return to the throne shortly before his death were prevented by Horthy.
László Endre was a Hungarian right-wing politician and collaborator with the Nazis during the Second World War.
The Government of National Unity was a Nazi-backed puppet government of Hungary, which ruled the German-occupied Kingdom of Hungary during World War II in eastern Europe. After the joint coup d’état with which the Nazis and the Arrow Cross Party overthrew the government of the Regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy, the Arrow Cross Party established the coalition Government of National Unity on 16 October 1944.
Ferenc Rajniss was a Hungarian journalist, socialite and fascist politician. He held pro-Nazi Germany views in Hungarian politics.
András Kun, O.F.M. was a Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan Order. During the Holocaust in Hungary, Kun was also the commander of an Anti-Semitic death squad for the Arrow Cross Party. After the Second World War, Kun was prosecuted for war crimes by a Hungarian People's Tribunal after Hungary's occupation by Soviet armies. He was convicted and hanged.
The Royal Hungarian Army was the name given to the land forces of the Kingdom of Hungary in the period from 1922 to 1945. Its name was inherited from the Royal Hungarian Honvéd which went under the same Hungarian title of Magyar Királyi Honvédség from 1867 to 1918. Initially restricted by the Treaty of Trianon to 35,000 men, the army was steadily upgraded during the 1930s and fought on the side of the Axis powers during World War II.
The Holocaust in Hungary was the dispossession, deportation, and systematic murder of more than half of the Hungarian Jews, primarily after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944.
Tibor Baranski was a Hungarian-American man credited with saving more than 3,000 Hungarian Jewish women, men and children from the Nazis during the Holocaust.
László Ferenczy was a lieutenant colonel in the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie and member of its "central dejewification unit" during World War II and the Holocaust.
Dietrich Wilhelm Bernhard von Jagow was a German naval officer, politician, SA-Obergruppenführer and diplomat. He served as the German ambassador to Hungary from 1941 to 1944, and died by suicide just before the end of the Second World War in Europe.
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