Hungary during World War II
Encyclopedia
Hungary during World War II was a member of the Axis powers
. 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
. By 1938, Hungarian politics and foreign policy had become increasingly pro-Fascist Italian and pro-Nazi German. Hungary benefitted territorially from its relationship with the Axis. Settlements were negotiated regarding territorial disputes with the Czecho-Slovak Republic
, the Slovak Republic, and the Kingdom of Romania
. In 1940, under pressure from Germany, Hungary joined the Axis. Although initially hoping to avoid direct involvement in the war, Hungary's participation soon became inevitable. In 1941, Hungarian forces participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia
and the invasion of the Soviet Union
.
While waging war against the Soviet Union
, Hungary engaged in secret peace negotiations with the United States
and the United Kingdom
. Hitler discovered this betrayal and, in 1944, German forces occupied Hungary. When Soviet forces began threatening Hungary, an armistice was signed between Hungary and Russia by Regent Miklós Horthy
. Soon after, 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 invading Soviet armies.
Approximately 300,000 Hungarian soldiers and 80,000 civilians died during World War II
and many cities were damaged, most notably the capital of Budapest
. Most Jews
in Hungary were protected from deportation to German extermination camps for the first few years of the war. However from the start of German occupation in 1944, Jews and Roma were deported to the Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp
. By the end of the war, the death toll was between 450,000 and 606,000 Hungarian Jews and an estimated 28,000 Hungarian Roma. Hungary's borders were returned to their pre-1938 status after its surrender.
In Hungary
, the Great Depression
resulted in deterioration of the standard of living, and the political mood of the country shifted towards the far 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) and the "White Terror
." 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 that led to fast expansion of the economy, drawing Hungary out of the Great Depression but making Hungary dependent on the German economy for both raw materials and export revenues.
Gömbös advocated a number of social reforms, one-party government
, 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.
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. 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
.
and Fascist Italy
sought to peacefully enforce the claims of Hungarians on territories Hungary had lost in 1920 with the signing of the Treaty of Trianon
. Two significant territorial awards were made. These awards were known as the First Vienna Award
and the Second Vienna Award
.
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.
transferred to Hungary parts of Southern Slovakia
and Carpathian Ruthenia, an area amounting to 11,927 km² and a population of 869,299 (86.5% of which were Hungarians according to a 1941 census). Between 5 November and 10 November, Hungarian armed forces peacefully occupied the newly transferred territories. Hitler later promised to transfer all of Slovakia to Hungary in exchange for a military alliance, but his offer was rejected. Instead, Horthy chose to pursue a territorial revision to be decided along ethnic lines.
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 March 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 Fascist
Jozef Tiso
. But, on 23 March 1939, disagreements with Slovakia over the new common eastern border led to a localized armed conflict between the two countries. The Slovak–Hungarian War, also known as the "Little War", ended with Hungary gaining only the easternmost strip of Slovakia.
. This award transferred to Hungary the northern half of Transylvania
, with a total area of 43,492 km² and a total population of 2,578,100 divided more or less evenly between Hungarians and Romanians (depending on the census, cf. Second Vienna Award). By dividing Transylvania between Romania and Hungary, Hitler was able to ease tensions in Hungary.
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 Hungarian rule. As a result, some previously merged counties - 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 given special autonomous status with the intention that (eventually) it would be self governed by the Ruthenian minority.
signed the Tripartite Pact
. In December 1940, Teleki also signed an ephemeral "Treaty of Eternal Friendship" with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
. At that time, Yugoslavia was under 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-British
King Peter
, and threatened the success of the planned German invasion of Russia
.
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.
bombed Belgrade
without warning. The German Army invaded Yugoslavia and quickly crushed Yugoslavian armed resistance. Horthy dispatched the Hungarian Third Army to occupy Vojvodina
. Later, Hungary forcibly annexed sections of Baranja, Bačka
, Međimurje, and Prekmurje
.
system was introduced in Hungary in 1939. This affected primarily the Jewish population, but many people belonging to minorities, sectarians, leftists and Roma were also inducted.
35-40 thousand forced laborers, mostly Jews or of Jewish origin, served in the Hungarian Second Army which fought in the USSR (see below). 80 percent of them - that is, 28-32 thousand people - never returned; they died either on the battle-field or in captivity.
Approximately half of the six thousand Jewish forced laborers working in the copper mines in Bor
in Yugoslavia were executed during the German withdrawal from Yugoslavia (Cservenka, Abda
).
Hungary did not immediately participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union
. The 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 so as not to encourage Hitler into favouring Romania in the event of border revisions in Transylvania. On 26 June 1941, the Soviet air force bombed Košice
(Kassa). 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. Hungary declared war against the Soviets on 27 June 1941.
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 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. Twenty Soviet divisions were captured or destroyed in this action.
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, all but two thousand of these individuals were shot
by Nazi mobile killing units. Bardossy then passed the "Third Jewish Law" in August 1941, prohibiting marriage and sexual intercourse of Hungarians with Jews.
Six months after the mass murder at Kamianets-Podilskyi, Hungarian troops killed 3,000 Serbian and Jewish hostages near Novi Sad
, Yugoslavia, in reprisal for resistance activities.
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 Western Allies. Hungarian participation in Operation Barbarossa during 1941 was limited in part because the country had no real 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.
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 Hungarian 2nd Army was crushed by the Soviets at the Battle of Voronezh
. Ignoring German orders to stand and fight to the death, the bewildered Hungarian troops, most of whom had no clue what exactly they were fighting for, turned and fled. Harassed by partisan bands and Soviet air attacks, and having to endure the Russian winter weather, they 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 irate 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 like the Arrow Cross.
Secret negotiations with the British and Americans continued. As per the request of the Western Allies, there were no connections made with the Soviets. Aware of Kállay's deceit and fearing that Hungary might conclude a separate peace, in March 1944, Hitler launched Operation Margarethe
and ordered Nazi 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 Nazi military governor, Edmund Veesenmayer
. The Hungarian populace was not happy with their nation being reduced in effect to a German protectorate, but Berlin threatened to occupy Hungary with Slovak, Croat, and Romanian troops if they did not comply. The thought of these ancestral enemies on Hungarian soil was seen as far worse than German control. Ironically, Hungary still kept whole divisions on the border with Romania even as the troops of both nations were fighting and dying together in the Russian winter.
After German troops occupied Hungary, mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland began. SS Colonel Adolf 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
, and 90% of those were immediately gassed to death. One in three of all Jews killed at Auschwitz were Hungarian citizens. 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.
As the Soviets pushed westward, Sztojay's government proceeded to muster 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 Hungarian gendarmes
to prevent any Hungarian citizens from being deported. 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.
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 himself was taken to Germany as a prisoner. He ultimately 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 fast-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, and their property looted or destroyed. Swedish diplomat Raul Wallenberg saved thousands of Budapest 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 like Nuncio
Angelo Rotta
, Giorgio Perlasca
, Carl Lutz
, Friedrich Born
, Harald Feller
, Angel Sanz Briz
and George Mandel-Mantello also organized false papers and safe houses 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
. 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 re-formed Hungarian Second Army enjoyed a modest level of combat success. From 16 September to 24 October 1944, during the Battle of Debrecen
, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico managed to achieve a major win on the battle field. Avoiding encirclement itself, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico encircled and destroyed three Soviet tank corps of Mobile Group Pliyev under the command of Issa Pliyev
. Earlier in the same battle, Mobile Group Pliyev had easily sliced through the Hungarian Third Army. But success was costly and, unable to replace lost assets, the Hungarian Second Army was disbanded on 1 December 1944. The remnants of the Second Army were incorporated into the Third Army.
In October 1944, the Hungarian First Army was attached to the German 1st Panzer Army, participating defensively against the Red Army's advance towards Budapest
. On 28 December 1944, a provisional government was formed in Hungary under acting Prime Minister Béla Miklós
. Miklós and Szálasi 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. During the fight, most of what remained of the Hungarian First Army was destroyed about 200 kilometres (124.3 mi) 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
. Many died there as a result of hardships and ill-treatment. Overall, between 100,000 and 170,000 Hungarian ethnic Germans were transported to the Soviet Union.
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' final 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.
After the failed offensive, the Germans in Hungary were eliminated. Most of what remained of the Hungarian Third Army was destroyed about 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) west of Budapest between 16 March and 25 March 1945.From 26 March and 15 April, the Soviets and Bulgarians launched the Nagykanizsa–Kermend 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 Arrowcross in tow, had completely vacated Hungarian soil.
ended the war in southern Austria
.
In the town of Landsberg
in Bavaria
, a Hungarian garrison stood in parade formation to surrender as the Americans advanced through the area very late in the war. A few Hungarian soldiers ended the war in Denmark
in some of the last Nazi territory not yet occupied.
surrendered. On 7 May, General Alfred Jodl
, the German Chief of Staff, signed the surrender of Germany. On 23 May, the "Flensburg Government
" was dissolved. On 11 June, the Allies agreed to make 8 May 1945 the official "Victory in Europe
" day.
By signing the Peace Treaty of Paris
, Hungary again lost all the territories that it gained between 1938 and 1941. Neither Western Allies nor the Soviet Union supported any change in Hungary's pre-1938 borders. The Soviet Union annexed Subcarpathia
, which is now part of Ukraine
.
The Treaty of Peace with Hungary 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 "exchange of population" between Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
On February 1, 1946, the Kingdom of Hungary was formally abolished and replaced by the Second Republic of Hungary. Post-war Hungary was eventually taken over by a Soviet-allied government and it became part of the Eastern Bloc
. The People's Republic of Hungary
was declared in 1949 and lasted until the Revolutions of 1989
and the End of Communism in Hungary
.
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
. In the 1930s, the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)
The Kingdom of Hungary also known as the Regency, existed from 1920 to 1946 and was a de facto country under Regent Miklós Horthy. Horthy officially represented the abdicated Hungarian monarchy of Charles IV, Apostolic King of Hungary...
relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
to pull itself out of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. By 1938, Hungarian politics and foreign policy had become increasingly pro-Fascist Italian and pro-Nazi German. Hungary benefitted territorially from its relationship with the Axis. Settlements were negotiated regarding territorial disputes with the Czecho-Slovak Republic
Second Czechoslovak Republic
The Second Czechoslovak Republic refers to the second Czechoslovak state that existed from October 1, 1938 to March 14, 1939, thus existing for only 167 days...
, the Slovak Republic, and the Kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
. In 1940, under pressure from Germany, Hungary joined the Axis. Although initially hoping to avoid direct involvement in the war, Hungary's participation soon became inevitable. In 1941, Hungarian forces participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
and the invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
.
While waging war against the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Hungary engaged in secret peace negotiations with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Hitler discovered this betrayal and, in 1944, German forces occupied Hungary. When Soviet forces began threatening Hungary, an armistice was signed between Hungary and Russia by Regent Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
. Soon after, 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
Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi was the leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, the "Leader of the Nation" , being both Head of State and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary's "Government of National Unity" for the final three months of Hungary's participation in World War II...
established a new government with German backing. In 1945 Hungarian and German forces in Hungary were defeated by invading Soviet armies.
Approximately 300,000 Hungarian soldiers and 80,000 civilians died during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and many cities were damaged, most notably the capital of Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. Most Jews
History of the Jews in Hungary
Hungarian Jews have existed since at least the 11th century. After struggling against discrimination throughout the Middle Ages, by the early 20th century the community grew to be 5% of Hungary's population , and were prominent in science, the arts and business...
in Hungary were protected from deportation to German extermination camps for the first few years of the war. However from the start of German occupation in 1944, Jews and Roma were deported to the Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. By the end of the war, the death toll was between 450,000 and 606,000 Hungarian Jews and an estimated 28,000 Hungarian Roma. Hungary's borders were returned to their pre-1938 status after its surrender.
Movement to the right
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
resulted in deterioration of the standard of living, and the political mood of the country shifted towards the far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
. In 1932, the regent Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
appointed a new Prime Minister, Gyula Gömbös
Gyula Gömbös
Gyula Gömbös de Jákfa was the conservative prime minister of Hungary from 1932 to 1936.-Background:Gömbös was born in the Tolna County village of Murga, Hungary, which had a mixed Hungarian and ethnic German population. His father was the village schoolmaster. The family belonged to the ...
. Gömbös was identified with the Hungarian National Defence Association
Hungarian National Defence Association
The Hungarian National Defence Association was an early fascist movement active in Hungary. The structure of the group was largely paramilitary and as such separate from its leader's later political initiatives....
(Magyar Országos Véderő Egylet, or MOVE) and the "White Terror
White Terror (Hungary)
The White Terror in Hungary was a two-year period of repressive violence by counter-revolutionary soldiers, with the intent of crushing any vestige of Hungary’s brief Communist revolution. Many of its victims were Jewish.-Background:...
." He led Hungarian international policy towards closer cooperation with Germany and started an effort to assimilate minorities
Magyarization
Magyarization is a kind of assimilation or acculturation, a process by which non-Magyar elements came to adopt Magyar culture and language due to social pressure .Defiance or appeals to the Nationalities Law, met...
in Hungary. Gömbös signed a trade agreement with Germany that led to fast expansion of the economy, drawing Hungary out of the Great Depression but making Hungary dependent on the German economy for both raw materials and export revenues.
Gömbös advocated a number of social reforms, one-party government
Single-party state
A single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...
, revision of the Treaty of Trianon
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
, and Hungary's withdrawal from the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
. 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
István Bethlen
Count István Bethlen de Bethlen was a Hungarian aristocrat and statesman and served as Prime Minister from 1921 to 1931....
'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
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
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
Arrow Cross Party
The Arrow Cross Party was a national socialist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which led in Hungary a government known as the Government of National Unity from October 15, 1944 to 28 March 1945...
, led by Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi was the leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, the "Leader of the Nation" , being both Head of State and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary's "Government of National Unity" for the final three months of Hungary's participation in World War II...
was founded. Gömbös' successor, Kálmán Darányi
Kálmán Darányi
Kálmán Darányi de Pusztaszentgyörgy et Tetétlen was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1936 to 1938. He also served as Speaker of the House of Representatives of Hungary from 5 December 1938 to 12 June 1939 and from 15 June 1939 to 1 November 1939...
, 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
Béla Imrédy
Béla vitéz Imrédy de Ómoravicza was Prime Minister of Hungary from 1938 to 1939....
was appointed Prime Minister.
Imrédy’s attempts to improve Hungary’s diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
initially made him very unpopular with Germany and Italy. Aware of Germany's Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
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. 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
Pál Teleki
Pál Count Teleki de Szék was prime minister of Hungary from 19 July 1920 to 14 April 1921 and from 16 February 1939 to 3 April 1941. He was also a famous expert in geography, a university professor, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Chief Scout of the Hungarian Scout Association...
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
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
from Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
.
The Vienna Awards
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and Fascist Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
sought to peacefully enforce the claims of Hungarians on territories Hungary had lost in 1920 with the signing of the Treaty of Trianon
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
. Two significant territorial awards were made. These awards were known as the First Vienna Award
First Vienna Award
The First Vienna Award was the result of the First Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace on November 2, 1938. The Arbitration and Award were direct consequences of the Munich Agreement...
and the Second Vienna Award
Second Vienna Award
The Second Vienna Award was the second of two Vienna Awards arbitrated by the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Rendered on August 30, 1940, it re-assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.-Prelude and historical background :After the World War I, the multi-ethnic...
.
In October 1938, the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
caused the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Republic and the creation of the Czecho-Slovak Republic
Second Czechoslovak Republic
The Second Czechoslovak Republic refers to the second Czechoslovak state that existed from October 1, 1938 to March 14, 1939, thus existing for only 167 days...
(also known as the "Second Czechoslovak Republic"). Some autonomy was granted to Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
and to Carpathian Ruthenia
Carpathian Ruthenia
Carpathian Ruthenia is a region in Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast , with smaller parts in easternmost Slovakia , Poland's Lemkovyna and Romanian Maramureş.It is...
in the new republic. On 5 October, about 500 members of the Hungarian Ragged Guard
Rongyos Gárda
The "Rongyos Gárda" were a non-regular paramilitary unit in Hungary, active in 1921 then reestablished in 1938.The Treaty of Trianon which concluded the First World War, awarded a stretch of land with mixed Hungarian and ethnic German population to Austria...
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
Berehove
Berehove is a city located in the Zakarpattia Oblast in western Ukraine, near the border with Hungary.Serving as the administrative center of the Berehove Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
and Borzsava in Ruthenia. The Hungarians suffered approximately 350 casualties and, by 29 October, the talks were deadlocked.
First Vienna Award
On 2 November 1938, the First Vienna AwardFirst Vienna Award
The First Vienna Award was the result of the First Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace on November 2, 1938. The Arbitration and Award were direct consequences of the Munich Agreement...
transferred to Hungary parts of Southern Slovakia
Upper Hungary
Upper Hungary is the usual English translation for the area that was historically the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, now mostly present-day Slovakia...
and Carpathian Ruthenia, an area amounting to 11,927 km² and a population of 869,299 (86.5% of which were Hungarians according to a 1941 census). Between 5 November and 10 November, Hungarian armed forces peacefully occupied the newly transferred territories. Hitler later promised to transfer all of Slovakia to Hungary in exchange for a military alliance, but his offer was rejected. Instead, Horthy chose to pursue a territorial revision to be decided along ethnic lines.
In March 1939, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was dissolved, Germany invaded it
German occupation of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...
, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the majority ethnic-Czech protectorate which Nazi Germany established in the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia in what is today the Czech Republic...
was established. On 14 March, Slovakia
Slovak Republic (1939-1945)
The Slovak Republic , also known as the First Slovak Republic or the Slovak State , was a fascist state which existed from 14 March 1939 to 8 May 1945 as a puppet state of Nazi Germany. It existed on roughly the same territory as present-day Slovakia...
declared itself to be an independent state. On 15 March, Carpatho-Ukraine
Carpatho-Ukraine
Carpatho-Ukraine was an autonomous region within Czechoslovakia from late 1938 to March 15, 1939. It declared itself an independent republic on March 15, 1939, but was occupied by Hungary between March 15 and March 18, 1939, remaining under Hungarian control until the Nazi occupation of Hungary in...
declared itself to be an independent state. Hungary rejected the independence of Carpatho-Ukraine and, between 14 March 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
Puppet state
A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...
of Slovakia led by the Clerical Fascist
Clerical fascism
Clerical fascism is an ideological construct that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with theology or religious tradition...
Jozef Tiso
Jozef Tiso
Jozef Tiso was a Slovak Roman Catholic priest, politician of the Slovak People's Party, and Nazi collaborator. Between 1939 and 1945, Tiso was the head of the Slovak State, a satellite state of Nazi Germany...
. But, on 23 March 1939, disagreements with Slovakia over the new common eastern border led to a localized armed conflict between the two countries. The Slovak–Hungarian War, also known as the "Little War", ended with Hungary gaining only the easternmost strip of Slovakia.
Second Vienna Award
In September 1940, with troops massing on both sides of the Hungarian-Romanian border, war was averted by the Second Vienna AwardSecond Vienna Award
The Second Vienna Award was the second of two Vienna Awards arbitrated by the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Rendered on August 30, 1940, it re-assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.-Prelude and historical background :After the World War I, the multi-ethnic...
. This award transferred to Hungary the northern half of Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, with a total area of 43,492 km² and a total population of 2,578,100 divided more or less evenly between Hungarians and Romanians (depending on the census, cf. Second Vienna Award). By dividing Transylvania between Romania and Hungary, Hitler was able to ease tensions in Hungary.
Administrative divisions
The region of Sub-Carpathia
Carpathian Ruthenia
Carpathian Ruthenia is a region in Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast , with smaller parts in easternmost Slovakia , Poland's Lemkovyna and Romanian Maramureş.It is...
was given special autonomous status with the intention that (eventually) it would be self governed by the Ruthenian minority.
World War II
On 20 November 1940, under pressure from Germany, Hungarian prime Minister Pál TelekiPál Teleki
Pál Count Teleki de Szék was prime minister of Hungary from 19 July 1920 to 14 April 1921 and from 16 February 1939 to 3 April 1941. He was also a famous expert in geography, a university professor, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Chief Scout of the Hungarian Scout Association...
signed the Tripartite Pact
Tripartite Pact
The Tripartite Pact, also the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940, which established the Axis Powers of World War II...
. In December 1940, Teleki also signed an ephemeral "Treaty of Eternal Friendship" with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
. At that time, Yugoslavia was under a Regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
, 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
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
removed Prince Paul, replaced him with pro-British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
King Peter
Peter II of Yugoslavia
Peter II, also known as Peter II Karađorđević , was the third and last King of Yugoslavia...
, and threatened the success of the planned German invasion of Russia
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
.
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
László Bárdossy
Dr. László Bárdossy de Bárdos was a Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1941 to 1942.-Biography:...
succeeded him as Prime Minister.
Invasion of Yugoslavia
Three days after Teleki's death, the LuftwaffeLuftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
bombed Belgrade
Bombing of Belgrade in World War II
The city of Belgrade was bombed during two campaigns in World War II, the first undertaken by the Luftwaffe in 1941, and the latter by Allied air forces in 1944.- German bombing :...
without warning. The German Army invaded Yugoslavia and quickly crushed Yugoslavian armed resistance. Horthy dispatched the Hungarian Third Army to occupy Vojvodina
Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944
The Occupation of Vojvodina from 1941 to 1944 was carried out by Nazi Germany and its client states / puppet regimes: Horthy's Hungary and Independent State of Croatia....
. Later, Hungary forcibly annexed sections of Baranja, Bačka
Backa
Bačka is a geographical area within the Pannonian plain bordered by the river Danube to the west and south, and by the river Tisza to the east of which confluence is located near Titel...
, Međimurje, and Prekmurje
Prekmurje
Prekmurje is a geographically, linguistically, culturally and ethnically defined region settled by Slovenes and lying between the Mur River in Slovenia and the Rába Valley in the most western part of Hungary...
.
Forced labor service
The forced labor serviceLabour service (Hungary)
Labour service arose in Hungary during World War II as the required military substitution for Jewish men, who were no longer permitted to serve in the regular armed forces since the passing of the Hungarian anti-Jewish laws...
system was introduced in Hungary in 1939. This affected primarily the Jewish population, but many people belonging to minorities, sectarians, leftists and Roma were also inducted.
35-40 thousand forced laborers, mostly Jews or of Jewish origin, served in the Hungarian Second Army which fought in the USSR (see below). 80 percent of them - that is, 28-32 thousand people - never returned; they died either on the battle-field or in captivity.
Approximately half of the six thousand Jewish forced laborers working in the copper mines in Bor
Bor, Serbia
Bor is a town and municipality located in eastern Serbia, with one of the largest copper mines in Europe and it has been a mining centre since 1904, when a French company began operations there. It is the administrative center of the Bor District of Serbia...
in Yugoslavia were executed during the German withdrawal from Yugoslavia (Cservenka, Abda
Abda, Hungary
Abda is a village in Győr-Moson-Sopron county, Hungary.- External links :* *...
).
The war in the east
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. The 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 so as not to encourage Hitler into favouring Romania in the event of border revisions in Transylvania. On 26 June 1941, the Soviet air force bombed Košice
Košice
Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...
(Kassa). Some speculation exists that this was a "false-flag" attack instigated by Germany (possibly in cooperation with Romania) to give Hungary a casus belli
Casus belli
is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...
for joining Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
and the war. Hungary declared war against the Soviets on 27 June 1941.
On 1 July 1941, under German instruction, the Hungarian "Carpathian Group" (Karpat Group
Gyorshadtest
The Gyorshadtest was the most modern and best-equipped mechanized unit of the Royal Hungarian Army at the beginning of World War II. However, the "Rapid Corps" name was something of a misnomer as it was only "mechanized" compared to other Hungarian units...
) attacked the 12th Soviet Army
12th Army (Soviet Union)
The Soviet Union's 12th Army was a field army formed multiple times during the Russian Civil War and World War II.-Civil War & Polish-Soviet War:...
. Attached to the German 17th Army
17th Army (Germany)
The German Seventeenth Army was a World War II field army.-Commanding officers:* General der Infanterie Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel * Generaloberst Hermann Hoth...
, the Karpat Group advanced far into southern Russia. At the Battle of Uman
Battle of Uman
The Battle of Uman was the German and allied encirclement of the 6th and 12th The Battle of Uman (15 July–8 August 1941) was the German and allied encirclement of the 6th (General Lieutenant I.N. Muzyrchenko) and 12th The Battle of Uman (15 July–8 August 1941) was the German and allied...
, 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
6th Army (Soviet Union)
The 6th Army was a field army of the Soviet Red Army formed four times during World War II and active with the Russian Ground Forces up until 1998...
and the 12th Soviet Army. Twenty Soviet divisions were captured or destroyed in this action.
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, all but two thousand of these individuals were shot
Kamianets-Podilskyi Massacre
Kamianets-Podilskyi , a city in the western Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, was occupied by German forces during the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941....
by Nazi mobile killing units. Bardossy then passed the "Third Jewish Law" in August 1941, prohibiting marriage and sexual intercourse of Hungarians with Jews.
Six months after the mass murder at Kamianets-Podilskyi, Hungarian troops killed 3,000 Serbian and Jewish hostages near Novi Sad
Novi Sad
Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....
, Yugoslavia, in reprisal for resistance activities.
Worried about Hungary's increasing reliance on Germany, Admiral Horthy forced Bárdossy to resign and replaced him with Miklós Kállay
Miklós Kállay
Dr. Miklós Kállay de Nagykálló was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary during World War II, from 9 March 1942 to 19 March 1944....
, 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 Western Allies. Hungarian participation in Operation Barbarossa during 1941 was limited in part because the country had no real 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.
During the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
, 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 Hungarian 2nd Army was crushed by the Soviets at the Battle of Voronezh
Battle of Voronezh (1943)
The 1943 battle of Voronezh was a Soviet counter-offensive on recapturing the city of Voronezh during the Ostrogozhsk-Rossoshansk and Voronezh-Kastornensk operations on the Eastern Front of World War II. The Nazis had captured the city in a 1942 battle.-External links:...
. Ignoring German orders to stand and fight to the death, the bewildered Hungarian troops, most of whom had no clue what exactly they were fighting for, turned and fled. Harassed by partisan bands and Soviet air attacks, and having to endure the Russian winter weather, they 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 irate Germans pulled them from the front.
While Kállay was Prime Minister, the Jews endured increased economic and political repression
Political repression
Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....
, although many, particularly those in Budapest, were temporarily protected from the final solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
. 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 like the Arrow Cross.
Secret negotiations with the British and Americans continued. As per the request of the Western Allies, there were no connections made with the Soviets. Aware of Kállay's deceit and fearing that Hungary might conclude a separate peace, in March 1944, Hitler launched Operation Margarethe
Operation Margarethe
During World War II, the Germans planned two discrete operations using the codename Margarethe.Operation Margarethe I was the occupation of Hungary by German forces on 19 March 1944. The Hungarian government was an ally of Nazi Germany, but had been discussing an armistice with the Allies...
and ordered Nazi troops to occupy Hungary. Horthy was confined to a castle, in essence, placed under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
. Döme Sztójay
Döme Sztójay
Döme Sztójay born Demeter Sztojakovich was a Hungarian soldier and diplomat of Serb origin, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary during World War II.- Biography :...
, an avid supporter of the Nazis, became the new Prime Minister. Sztójay governed with the aid of a Nazi military governor, Edmund Veesenmayer
Edmund Veesenmayer
Edmund Veesenmayer was a German politician, officer and war criminal. He significantly contributed to The Holocaust in Hungary and Croatia...
. The Hungarian populace was not happy with their nation being reduced in effect to a German protectorate, but Berlin threatened to occupy Hungary with Slovak, Croat, and Romanian troops if they did not comply. The thought of these ancestral enemies on Hungarian soil was seen as far worse than German control. Ironically, Hungary still kept whole divisions on the border with Romania even as the troops of both nations were fighting and dying together in the Russian winter.
After German troops occupied Hungary, mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland began. SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
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
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, and 90% of those were immediately gassed to death. One in three of all Jews killed at Auschwitz were Hungarian citizens. 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.
As the Soviets pushed westward, Sztojay's government proceeded to muster 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
Géza Lakatos
Knight Géza Lakatos de Csíkszentsimon was a general in Hungary during World War II who served briefly as Prime Minister of Hungary, under governor Miklós Horthy from August 29, 1944, until October 15,...
. Under the Lakatos regime, acting Interior Minister Béla Horváth ordered Hungarian gendarmes
Gendarmerie
A gendarmerie or gendarmery is a military force charged with police duties among civilian populations. Members of such a force are typically called "gendarmes". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes a gendarme as "a soldier who is employed on police duties" and a "gendarmery, -erie" as...
to prevent any Hungarian citizens from being deported. 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.
The war comes to Hungary
In September 1944, Soviet forces crossed the Hungarian border. On 15 October, Horthy announced that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. The Hungarian army ignored the armistice, fighting desperately to keep the Soviets out. The Germans launched Operation PanzerfaustOperation Panzerfaust
Operation Panzerfaust, known as Unternehmen Eisenfaust in Germany, was a military operation to keep the Kingdom of Hungary at Germany's side in the war, conducted in October 1944 by the German military...
and, by kidnapping his son Miklós Horthy, Jr.
Miklós Horthy, Jr.
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya II was the younger son of Hungarian regent Admiral Miklós Horthy and, until the end of World War II, a politician.-Biography:...
, forced Horthy to abrogate the armistice, depose the Lakatos government, and name the leader of the Arrow Cross Party
Arrow Cross Party
The Arrow Cross Party was a national socialist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which led in Hungary a government known as the Government of National Unity from October 15, 1944 to 28 March 1945...
, Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi was the leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, the "Leader of the Nation" , being both Head of State and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary's "Government of National Unity" for the final three months of Hungary's participation in World War II...
, 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 himself was taken to Germany as a prisoner. He ultimately 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 fast-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, and their property looted or destroyed. Swedish diplomat Raul Wallenberg saved thousands of Budapest 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 like Nuncio
Nuncio
Nuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church...
Angelo Rotta
Angelo Rotta
Angelo Rotta , originally from Milan, Italy, was the Apostolic Nuncio in Budapest at the end of World War II.During his previous diplomatic activity in Bulgaria, he already saved many Bulgarian Jews by issuing them baptismal certificates and safe conducts for the trip to Palestine.In 1944 - 1945 he...
, Giorgio Perlasca
Giorgio Perlasca
Giorgio Perlasca was an Italian who posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved thousands of Jews from Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.-Early life:...
, Carl Lutz
Carl Lutz
Carl Lutz was the Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest, Hungary from 1942 until the end of World War II. He helped save tens of thousands of Jews from deportation to Nazi Extermination camps during the Holocaust. He is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews...
, Friedrich Born
Friedrich Born
Friedrich Born was a Swiss delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Budapest between May 1944 and January 1945, when he had to leave Hungary following orders of the occupying Red Army.He already lived in the Hungarian Capital city before his appointment by the ICRC, working as...
, Harald Feller
Harald Feller
Harald Feller was a Swiss diplomat who saved Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.He replaced Maximilian Jaeger as head of the Swiss legation in Budapest, Hungary, in 1944. He supported Carl Lutz with the rescue of Jews under Swiss protection...
, Angel Sanz Briz
Ángel Sanz Briz
Ángel Sanz Briz was a Spanish diplomat during World War II who helped save many Hungarian Jews from Nazi persecution.After studying law, his first diplomatic posting was to Cairo...
and George Mandel-Mantello also organized false papers and safe houses 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
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. An estimated 28,000 Hungarian Roma were also killed as part of the Porajmos
Porajmos
The Porajmos was the attempt made by Nazi Germany, the Independent State of Croatia, Horthy's Hungary and their allies to exterminate the Romani people of Europe during World War II...
.
Soon Hungary itself became a battlefield. Szálasi promised a Greater Hungary
Greater Hungary (political concept)
Greater Hungary is the informal name of the territory of Hungary before the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. After 1920, between the two World Wars, the official political goal of the Hungary was to restore those borders. After World War II, Hungary abandoned this policy, and today it only remains a...
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
Maximilian Fretter-Pico
Maximilian Fretter-Pico was a German general during World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves...
's Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico, the re-formed Hungarian Second Army enjoyed a modest level of combat success. From 16 September to 24 October 1944, during the Battle of Debrecen
Battle of Debrecen
The Battle of Debrecen, called by the Red Army the Debrecen Offensive Operation, was conducted by the 2nd Ukrainian Front on the Eastern Front of World War II...
, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico managed to achieve a major win on the battle field. Avoiding encirclement itself, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico encircled and destroyed three Soviet tank corps of Mobile Group Pliyev under the command of Issa Pliyev
Issa Pliyev
Issa Alexandrovich Pliyev was a Soviet military commander, Army General , twice Hero of the Soviet Union , Hero of the Mongolian People's Republic . Member of the CPSU since 1926. He was an ethnic Ossetian....
. Earlier in the same battle, Mobile Group Pliyev had easily sliced through the Hungarian Third Army. But success was costly and, unable to replace lost assets, the Hungarian Second Army was disbanded on 1 December 1944. The remnants of the Second Army were incorporated into the Third Army.
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. On 28 December 1944, a provisional government was formed in Hungary under acting Prime Minister Béla Miklós
Béla Miklós
Knight Béla Miklós de Dálnok was a Hungarian military officer and politician who served as acting Prime Minister of Hungary, at first in opposition, and then officially, from 1944 to 1945.-Early career:...
. Miklós and Szálasi 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. During the fight, most of what remained of the Hungarian First Army was destroyed about 200 kilometres (124.3 mi) 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
Donets Basin
Donbas or Donbass , full rarely-used name Donets Basin , is a historical, economic and cultural region of eastern Ukraine. Originally a coal mining area, it has become a heavily industrialised territory suffering from urban decay and industrial pollution.-Geography:Donbas covers three...
. Many died there as a result of hardships and ill-treatment. Overall, between 100,000 and 170,000 Hungarian ethnic Germans were transported to the Soviet Union.
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
Operation Frühlingserwachen
Operation Frühlingserwachen was the last major German offensive launched during World War II. The offensive was launched in Hungary on the Eastern Front...
, attempting to hold on to the Axis' final 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.
After the failed offensive, the Germans in Hungary were eliminated. Most of what remained of the Hungarian Third Army was destroyed about 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) west of Budapest between 16 March and 25 March 1945.From 26 March and 15 April, the Soviets and Bulgarians launched the Nagykanizsa–Kermend Offensive and more Hungarian remnants were destroyed as part of Army Group South
Army Group South
Army Group South was the name of a number of German Army Groups during World War II.- Poland campaign :Germany used two army groups to invade Poland in 1939: Army Group North and Army Group South...
fighting alongside the 2nd Panzer Army. By the start of April, the Germans, with the Arrowcross in tow, had completely vacated Hungarian soil.
The end
Officially, Soviet operations in Hungary ended on 4 April 1945, when the last German troops were expelled. Some pro-Fascist Hungarians like Szálasi escaped—for a time—with the Germans. A few pro-German Hungarian units fought on until the end of the war. Units like the Szent László Infantry DivisionSzent László Infantry Division
The Szent László Infantry Division was an elite Hungarian infantry unit formed in the final year of World War II. It was made up of a mix of army and air force personnel. The division saw action at Budapest, in western Hungary, and in southeastern Austria....
ended the war in southern Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
.
In the town of Landsberg
Landsberg am Lech
Landsberg am Lech is a town in southwest Bavaria, Germany, about 65 kilometers west of Munich and 35 kilometers south of Augsburg. It is the capital of the district of Landsberg am Lech....
in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, a Hungarian garrison stood in parade formation to surrender as the Americans advanced through the area very late in the war. A few Hungarian soldiers ended the war in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
in some of the last Nazi territory not yet occupied.
Aftermath
By 2 May 1945, Hitler was dead and BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
surrendered. On 7 May, General Alfred Jodl
Alfred Jodl
Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel...
, the German Chief of Staff, signed the surrender of Germany. On 23 May, the "Flensburg Government
Flensburg government
The Flensburg Government , also known as the Flensburg Cabinet and the Dönitz Government , was the short-lived administration that attempted to rule the Third Reich during most of May 1945 at the end of World War II in Europe...
" was dissolved. On 11 June, the Allies agreed to make 8 May 1945 the official "Victory in Europe
Victory in Europe Day
Victory in Europe Day commemorates 8 May 1945 , the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The formal surrender of the occupying German forces in the Channel Islands was not...
" day.
By signing the Peace Treaty of Paris
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...
, Hungary again lost all the territories that it gained between 1938 and 1941. Neither Western Allies nor the Soviet Union supported any change in Hungary's pre-1938 borders. The Soviet Union annexed Subcarpathia
Carpatho-Ukraine
Carpatho-Ukraine was an autonomous region within Czechoslovakia from late 1938 to March 15, 1939. It declared itself an independent republic on March 15, 1939, but was occupied by Hungary between March 15 and March 18, 1939, remaining under Hungarian control until the Nazi occupation of Hungary in...
, which is now part of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
.
The Treaty of Peace with Hungary 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 "exchange of population" between Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
On February 1, 1946, the Kingdom of Hungary was formally abolished and replaced by the Second Republic of Hungary. Post-war Hungary was eventually taken over by a Soviet-allied government and it became part of the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
. The People's Republic of Hungary
People's Republic of Hungary
The People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
was declared in 1949 and lasted until the Revolutions of 1989
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
and the End of Communism in Hungary
End of Communism in Hungary (1989)
The Communist rule in the People's Republic of Hungary came to the end in 1989. The events were part of the Revolutions of 1989.-Pressure:Young liberals formed the Federation of Young Democrats ; a core from the so-called Democratic Opposition formed the Alliance of Free Democrats , and the...
.
