Miklós Horthy
Encyclopedia
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" (Hungarian: Ő Főméltósága a Magyar Királyság Kormányzója).
Admiral Horthy was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy
. He served in the Otranto Raid and at the Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917)
, and was its commander-in-chief in the last year of the First World War.
After Hungarian communists under Béla Kun
seized power in Hungary in 1919, proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic
and commenced Hungary's Red Terror
, a counterrevolutionary
government was formed and asked Horthy to take command of its forces. In late 1918, Romania
n forces invaded Hungary and later overthrew Kun's government
.
When the Romanians evacuated Budapest in November 1919, Horthy entered at the head of the National Army. The Hungarian Communist Party was banned, and in 1920 Horthy was declared Regent
and Head of State, a position he held until his deposition in October 1944. Horthy refused to step down when the legitmate King of Hungary, Karl IV, attempted to regain his throne on two occasions. He allowed Hungary's White Terror
to persist at first but eventually shut it down and imprisoned a few extremists among the anti-communists.
A conservative
who was distinctly inclined toward the right of the political spectrum, he guided Hungary through the years between the two world wars, and into an alliance with Nazi Germany, in exchange for the restoration of some of the Hungarian territories lost by the Treaty of Trianon
. The chief motivation is often believed to have been fear of the Soviets, who in any outcome of Russian success could threaten Hungary.
In April 1941, Hungary entered World War II as an ally of Germany. But Horthy's faltering allegiance to his German patron eventually led the Nazis to invade and take control of the country with Operation Margarethe
in March 1944. In October 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary would surrender and withdraw from the Axis
. He was forced to resign, placed under arrest and taken to Bavaria; at war's end he came under the custody of U.S. troops.
After appearing as a witness at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials
in 1948, Horthy settled and lived out his remaining years in Portugal
. His memoirs, Ein Leben für Ungarn (A Life for Hungary), were published in German in 1953, and an English translation appeared three years later.
Miklós Horthy was born at Kenderes
, into an old Calvinist noble family, making him one of the few openly Protestant politicians in a mostly Catholic country. Horthy entered the Austro-Hungarian naval academy at Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) at age 14. The naval academy's official language was German. As a result, for the rest of his life Horthy spoke Hungarian with a slight, but noticeable, German accent.
As a young man, Horthy traveled around the world and served as a diplomat for the Austro-Hungarian Empire
in Turkey
and other countries. From 1911 until 1914 he was a naval aide-de-camp
to Emperor Franz Joseph
, for whom he had a great respect.
At the beginning of the war Horthy was commanding the pre-dreadnought battleship . In 1915 he earned a reputation for boldness while commanding the new light cruiser . He planned the 1917 attack on the Otranto Barrage
, which resulted in the largest naval engagement of the war in the Adriatic
; although Austrian force emerged from the battle relatively unscathed, Horthy was wounded. After the February 1918 Cattaro mutiny, Emperor Charles selected Horthy over many more senior commanders as the new Commander in Chief of the Imperial Fleet in March 1918. In June, Horthy planned another attack on Otranto, and in a departure from the cautious strategy of his predecessors, he committed the empire's battleships to the mission. While sailing through the night, the dreadnought met Italian MAS torpedo boats
and was sunk, causing Horthy to abort the mission. He managed however to preserve the rest of the empire's fleet in being
until he was ordered by Emperor Charles to surrender it to the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs
on 31 October.
The end of the war saw Hungary turned into a landlocked nation, and hence the new government had little need for Horthy's services. He retired with his family to his private estate at Kenderes
, but his role as a Hungarian leader was far from over.
, of large portions of Hungarian territory that had bordered other countries. These were lands which had been Hungary's as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they were carved away by the Allies and ceded to the nations of Czechoslovakia
, Romania
, Austria
and Yugoslavia
. The excisions, eventually ratified in the Treaty of Trianon
at Versailles, cost Hungary two-thirds of its territory and one-third of its native Hungarian speakers, and dealt the population a terrible psychological blow. The second trauma in some sense sprang from the first: in March 1919, after the first proto-democratic efforts at government in Hungary faltered, Communist Béla Kun
seized power in the capital of Budapest
.
Kun and his colleagues proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic
, and promised the restoration of Hungary's former grandeur. Instead, his efforts at reconquest failed, and Hungarians were treated to a Soviet-style repression in the form of armed gangs
who intimidated or murdered enemies of the regime. This period of violence came to be known as the Red Terror
. Tibor Szamuely, a close collaborator of Bela Kun, even boasted that, "Terror is the principal weapon of our regime." Figures vary, but one generally accepted number of victims of the Red Terror is around 500 killed.
Within weeks of his coup, Kun's popularity plummeted. On 30 May 1919, anti-Communist politicians formed a counter-revolutionary government in the southern city of Szeged
, occupied by French forces at the time. There, Gyula Károlyi
asked former admiral Horthy, still considered a war hero, to be the Minister of War in the new government and take command of a counter-revolutionary force which would be named the National Army . Horthy consented, and arrived in Szeged on 6 June. Soon after, because of orders from the Entente
, the cabinet was reformed, and Horthy was not given a seat in it. Undaunted, Horthy managed to retain control of the National Army by detaching the Army command from the War ministry.
On 6 August French-supported Romania
n forces entered Budapest
. The Communist government collapsed and its leaders fled. In retaliation for the Red Terror
, reactionary crews now exacted revenge in a two-year wave of violent repression known today as the White Terror
. These reprisals – which almost certainly exceeded the Red Terror in scope and cruelty – were organized and carried out by officers of Horthy's National Army, particularly Pál Prónay
Gyula Ostenburg-Moravek and Iván Héjjas. Their victims were primarily Communists, Social Democrats, peasants, and Jews. Most Hungarian Jews were not supporters of the Bolsheviks, but much of the leadership of the Hungarian Soviet Republic
had been young Jewish intellectuals, and anger about the Communist revolution easily translated into anti-Semitic hostility .
In Budapest, Pronay installed his unit in Hotel Britannia, where the group swelled to battalion size. Their program of vicious attacks continued; they planned a city-wide pogrom
until Horthy found out and put a stop to it. In his diary, Prónay reported that Horthy
Horthy's liability for Prónay's excesses is in fact difficult to measure. On several occasions, Horthy reached out to stop Prónay from a particularly excessive burst of anti-Jewish cruelty. And the Jews of Pest went on record absolving Horthy of the White Terror as early as the fall of 1919, when they released a statement disavowing the Kun
revolution, and blaming the terror on a few units within the National Army. Horthy has never been found to have personally engaged in White Terror atrocities. But his American biographer, Thomas Sakmyster, concluded that he "tacitly supported the right wing officer detachments" who carried out the terror. The admiral also had practical reasons for turning a blind eye to the terror his officers wrought: he needed the dedicated White Guard officers to stabilize and reclaim Hungary. Nevertheless, it was at least another year before the terror died down. In the summer of 1920, Horthy’s government took measures to rein in and eventually disperse the reactionary battalions. Prónay managed to undermine these anti-White Guard measures, but only for a short time. Pronay was put on trial for extorting a wealthy Jewish politician, and for “insulting the President of the Parliament” by trying to cover up the extortion. Found guilty on both charges, Prónay was now a liability and an embarrassment. His command was revoked, and he was denounced as a common criminal on the floor of the Hungarian parliament.
After serving short jail sentences, Prónay tried to convince Horthy to restore his battalion command. The Prónay Battalion lingered for a few months more under the command of a junior officer, but the government officially dissolved the unit in January 1922 and expelled its members from the army. Prónay entered politics as a member of the government's right-wing opposition. In the 1930s, he sought and failed to emulate the Nazis by generating a Hungarian fascist mass movement. In 1932, he was charged with incitement, sentenced to six months in prison and stripped of his rank of lieutenant colonel. Prónay would support the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross and lead attacks on Jews before being killed by Soviet troops sometime during or after the siege of Budapest
.
Precisely how much Horthy knew or approved of the White Terror is not known. Horthy himself declined to apologize for the savagery of his officer detachments, writing later: "I have no reason to gloss over deeds of injustice and atrocities committed when an iron broom alone could sweep the country clean." And he endorsed Edgar von Schmidt-Pauli's poetic justification of the White reprisals ("Hell let loose on earth cannot be subdued by the beating of angels' wings") remarking, "the Communists in Hungary, willing disciples of the Russian Bolshvists, had indeed let hell loose."
This deep hostility and fear towards Communism would be the more lasting legacy of Kun's abortive revolution: a conviction shared by Horthy and his country's ruling elite that would help drive Hungary into what might have been a fatal alliance with Adolf Hitler
.
The Romanian army retreated from Budapest on 14 November, leaving Horthy to enter the city, where in a fiery speech he accused the capital's citizens of betraying Hungary by supporting Bolshevism.
Following the orders of the Entente, Romanian troops finally evacuated Hungary
on 25 February 1920.
powers. Instead, with National Army officers controlling the parliament building, the assembly voted to install Horthy as head of state; he defeated Count Albert Apponyi
by a vote of 131 to 7.
Bishop Ottokár Prohászka
then led a small delegation to meet Horthy, announcing, “Hungary’s Parliament has elected you Regent! Would it please you to accept the office of Regent of Hungary?” To their astonishment, Horthy declined unless his powers were expanded. As Horthy stalled, the politicians folded, and granted him "the general prerogatives of the King, with the exception of the right to name titles of nobility and of the patronage of the Church." Those prerogatives included the power to appoint and dismiss prime ministers, to convene and dissolve parliament, and to command the armed forces. With those sweeping powers guaranteed, Horthy took the oath of office. (Charles I did try to regain his throne twice; see Charles I of Austria's attempts to retake the throne of Hungary
for more details.)
Among 20th-century heads of state, Horthy’s role was unique. His official position is usually translated into English as “Regent,” but is better translated as "Royal Governor" or "Protector." The Hungarian state was legally a kingdom, but it had no king, and sought none (the Entente powers would not likely have tolerated any return of the Habsburgs). The national government actually took the form of a parliamentary republic
, with a prime minister at its head. Thus Horthy was a constitutional figurehead, but he was by no means a toothless one. He reigned, but for the most part did not rule; he wrote no laws, but had powerful influence over his country’s destiny by means of his constitutional powers, his prestige and the loyalty of his ministers to the crown. His regal bearing, military reputation and devotion to Hungary lent him a royal authority as the country edged out of its Imperial past towards a modern democracy.
A Hungarian joke sums it up: for the next 24 years, Hungary would be a kingdom without a king, ruled by an admiral without a fleet, in a country without a coastline.
The first decade of Horthy’s reign was primarily consumed by stabilizing the Hungarian political system and economy. Horthy’s chief partner in these efforts was his prime minister, István Bethlen
.
Bethlen sought to stabilize the economy while building alliances with weaker nations which could advance Hungary’s cause. That cause was, primarily, reversing the losses of the Treaty of Trianon
. The humiliations of Trianon continued to occupy the central place in Hungarian foreign policy, and in the popular imagination; the indignant anti-Trianon slogan “Nem, nem soha!” (“No, no never!”) became a ubiquitous motto of Hungarian outrage. When in 1927 the British newspaper magnate Lord Rothermere denounced, in the pages of his Daily Mail, the partitions ratified at Trianon, an official letter of gratitude was eagerly signed by 1.2 million Hungarians.
But Hungary’s stability was precarious, and the Great Depression
derailed much of Bethlen’s economic balance. Horthy replaced him with an old reactionary confederate from his Szeged days: Gyula Gömbös
. Gömbös was an outspoken anti-Semite and a budding fascist. And although he agreed to Horthy’s demands that he temper his anti-Jewish rhetoric and work amicably with Hungary’s large Jewish professional class, Gömbös’s tenure began swinging Hungary’s political mood powerfully rightward. He strengthened Hungary’s ties to Benito Mussolini
’s Italian fascist state. And most fatefully, when Adolf Hitler
took power in Germany in 1933, he found in Gömbös an admiring and obliging colleague.
Gömbös rescued the failing economy by securing trade guarantees from Germany – a strategy which positioned Germany as Hungary’s primary trading partner and tied Hungary’s future even more tightly to Hitler’s. He also assured Hitler that Hungary would quickly become a one-party state modeled on the Nazi party control of Germany. Gömbös died in 1936, before he realized his most extreme goals, but he left his nation headed into firm partnership with the German dictator.
Hungary now entered into an intricate dance of influence with Hitler's regime, and Horthy began to play a greater and more public role in navigating Hungary along this dangerous path.
For Horthy, Hitler served as a bulwark against Soviet encroachment or invasion. Horthy was, in the eyes of observers, obsessed with the Communist threat. One American diplomat remarked that Horthy's anti-Communist tirades were so common and ferocious that diplomats "discounted it as a phobia."
Horthy clearly saw his country as trapped between two stronger powers, both of them dangerous; evidently he considered Hitler to be the more manageable of the two. Hitler was also able to wield great influence over Hungary not only as the country’s major trading partner; he also fed several of Horthy’s key ambitions: Maintaining Hungarian sovereignty and satisfying the national hunger to reclaim former Hungarian lands. Horthy’s strategy was one of cautious, sometimes even grudging, alliance. How the regent granted or resisted Hitler's demands, especially with regard to Hungarian military action and the treatment of Hungary's Jews, remains the central topic by which his career has been judged.
Horthy's relationship with Hitler was, by his own account, a tense one – largely due, he said, to his unwillingness to bend his nation's policies to the German dictator's desires. On a state visit by Horthy to Germany in August 1938, Hitler asked Horthy for troops and materiel to participate in Germany's planned invasion of Czechoslovakia. In exchange, Horthy later reported, "He gave me to understand that as a reward we should be allowed to keep the territory we had invaded." Horthy said he declined, insisting to Hitler that Hungary's claims on the disputed lands should be settled by peaceful means.
Three months later, after the Munich Agreement
put control of southern Czechoslovakia in Hitler's hands, Hitler allowed Hungary to annex nearly one-third of Slovakia
. Horthy enthusiastically rode into the re-acquired territory (which was predominantly populated by Hungarians) at the head of his troops, greeted by emotional ethnic Hungarians: "As I passed along the roads, people embraced one another, fell upon their knees, and wept with joy because liberation had come to them at last, without war, without bloodshed." But as "peaceful" as this annexation was, and as just as it may have seemed to many Hungarians, it was a dividend of Hitler's brinksmanship and threats of war, in which Hungary was now inextricably complicit.
Hungary was now committed to the Axis agenda: on 24 February 1939, it joined the Anti-Comintern pact
, and on 11 April withdrew from the League of Nations. American journalists began to refer to Hungary as "the jackal of Europe."
This combination of menace and reward fixed Hungary firmly as a Nazi client state. In March 1939, when Hitler took what remained of Czechoslovakia
by force, Hungary was allowed to annex Carpathian Ruthenia
from the First Slovak Republic
as well during the Slovak-Hungarian War
.
In August 1940, Hitler intervened on Hungary's behalf once again, taking Northern Transylvania
away from Romania, and awarding it to Hungary. (Second Vienna Award
).
But in spite of their cooperation with the Nazi regime, Horthy and his government would be better described as "conservative authoritarian" than "fascist". Certainly Horthy was as hostile to the home-grown fascist and ultra-nationalist movements which flourished in Hungary between the wars (particularly the Arrow Cross Party
) as he was to Communism. The Arrow Cross leader, Ferenc Szálasi
, was repeatedly imprisoned at Horthy's command.
John F. Montgomery
, who served in Budapest as U.S. ambassador from 1933 to 1941, openly admired this side of Horthy’s character and reported the following incident in his memoir: in March 1939, Arrow Cross supporters disrupted a performance at the Budapest opera house
by chanting “Justice for Szálasi!” loud enough for the regent to hear. A fight broke out, and when Montgomery went to take a closer look, he discovered that
And yet, by the time of this episode, Horthy had allowed his government to give in to Nazi demands that the Hungarians enact laws restricting the lives of the country's Jews. The first Hungarian anti-Jewish Law, in 1938, limited the number of Jews in the professions, the government and commerce to twenty percent, and the second reduced it to five percent the following year; 250,000 Hungarian Jews lost their jobs as a result. A "Third Jewish Law" of August 1941 prohibited Jews from marrying non-Jews, and defined anyone having two Jewish grandparents as "racially Jewish." A Jewish man who had non-marital sex with a "decent non-Jewish woman resident in Hungary" could be sentenced to three years in prison.
Horthy's personal views on Jews and their role in Hungarian society are the subject of some debate. In an October 1940 letter to prime minister Pál Teleki
, Horthy echoed a widespread national sentiment: that Jews enjoyed too much success in commerce, the professions, and industry – success which needed to be curtailed:
Nevertheless, as the war years progressed, Horthy proved to be more protective of Hungary's Jews than many of his political colleagues, and much more so than his political rivals. In this light, his insistence that he was an "anti-Semite" may have been an effort to give himself political cover against the attacks from the extreme antisemitic elements of Hungarian politics.
fought in Finland's Winter War
. In April 1941, Hungary became, in effect, a member of the Axis
. Hungary permitted Hitler to send troops across Hungarian territory for the invasion of Yugoslavia
and ultimately sent its own troops to claim its share of the dismembered Kingdom of Yugoslavia
. Prime Minister Pál Teleki
, horrified that he had failed to prevent this collusion with the Nazis against a former ally, committed suicide.
In June 1941, the Hungarian government finally yielded to Hitler's demands that the nation contribute to the Axis war effort. On 27 June, Hungary became part of Operation Barbarossa
and declared war on the Soviet Union
. The Hungarians sent in troops and materiel only four days after Hitler began his invasion of the Soviet Union.
Eighteen months later, more poorly equipped and less motivated than their German allies, the 200,000 troops of the Hungarian Second Army
ended up holding the front on the Don River
west of Stalingrad.
The first massacre of Jewish people from Hungarian territory took place in August 1941, when government officials ordered the deportation of Jews without Hungarian citizenship (principally refugees from other Nazi-occupied countries) to Ukraine
. Roughly 18,000–20,000 of these deportees were slaughtered by Friedrich Jeckeln
and his SS troops; only 2,000–3,000 survived. These killings are known as the Kamianets-Podilskyi Massacre
. This event, in which the slaughter of Jews numbered for the first time in the tens of thousands, is considered the first large-scale massacre of the Holocaust. Because of the objections of Hungary's leadership, the deportations were halted.
By early 1942, Horthy was already seeking to put some distance between himself and Hitler's regime. That March, he dismissed the pro-German prime minister László Bárdossy
, and replaced him with Miklós Kállay
, a moderate whom Horthy expected to loosen Hungary's ties to Germany.
In September 1942, personal tragedy struck the Hungarian Regent. 37-year-old István Horthy
, Horthy's eldest son, was killed. István Horthy was the Deputy Regent of Hungary and a Flight Lieutenant in the reserves, 1/1 Fighter Squadron of the Royal Hungarian Air Force. He was killed when his Hawk (Héja) fighter crashed at an air field near Ilovskoye.
Then, in January 1943, Hungary's enthusiasm for the war effort, never especially high, suffered a tremendous blow. The Soviet army, in the full momentum of its triumphant turnaround after the Battle of Stalingrad
, punched through Romanian troops at a bend in the Don River
and virtually obliterated the Second Hungarian Army in a few days' fighting. In this single action, Hungarian combat fatalities jumped by 80,000. Jew and non-Jew suffered together in this defeat, as Hungary's troops were accompanied by some 40,000 Jews and political undesirables in forced-labor units.
German officials blamed Hungary's Jews for the nation's "defeatist attitude." In the wake of the Don Bend disaster, Hitler demanded at an April 1943 meeting that Horthy take sterner measures against the 800,000 Jews still living in Hungary. Horthy and his government supplied 10,000 Jewish deportees for labor battalions, but otherwise refused to comply. Cautiously, the Hungarian government began to explore contacts with the Western Allies in hopes of negotiating a surrender.
stood at Hungary's borders. Fearing that the Soviets would overrun the country, Kállay, with Horthy's approval, put out numerous feelers to the Western Allies, even going as far as to promise to surrender unconditionally to them once they reached Hungarian territory. This didn't sit well with Hitler, and he summoned Horthy to a conference in Klessheim (today in Austria
). He pressured Horthy to make greater contributions to the war effort, and again commanded him to deal more harshly with Hungary's Jews. Horthy conceded that Germany could deport a large number of Jewish laborers (the generally accepted figure is 100,000) to German factories, but refused to give further ground.
The conference was a ruse. As Horthy was returning home on 19 March the Wehrmacht
invaded and occupied Hungary. Horthy was told he could only stay in office if he fired Kállay and appointed a new government that would fully cooperate with Hitler and his plenipotentiary in Budapest, Edmund Veesenmayer
. Knowing the alternative was a gauleiter
who would treat Hungary in the same manner as the other countries under Nazi occupation, Horthy acquiesced and appointed his ambassador to Germany, General Döme Sztójay
, as prime minister. The Germans originally wanted Imrédy, but Horthy had enough influence to get Veesenmayer to accept Sztójay instead. Contrary to Horthy's hopes, Sztójay's government eagerly proceeded to participate in the Holocaust.
The chief agents of this collaboration were Andor Jaross
, the Minister of the Interior, and his two rabidly anti-Semitic state secretaries, László Endre
and László Baky
(later to be known as the "Deportation Trio"). On 9 April, Prime Minister Sztójay and the Germans obligated Hungary to place 300,000 Jewish laborers at the disposal of the Reich. Five days later, on 14 April Endre, Baky, and SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann
began to deport all Hungarian Jews. The Yellow Star and Ghettoization laws, and deportation were accomplished in less than 8 weeks with the enthusiastic help of the new Hungarian government and the authorities, particularly the gendarmerie (csendőrség). The deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz
began on 15 May 1944 and continued at a rate of 12,000 a day until 9 July.
Just before the deportations began, two Slovakian Jewish prisoners, Rudolf Vrba
and Alfréd Wetzler
, escaped from Auschwitz and passed details of what was happening inside the camps to officials in Slovakia. This document, known as the Vrba-Wetzler Report
, was quickly translated into German and passed among Jewish groups and then to Allied officials. Details from the report were broadcast by the BBC on 15 June and printed in The New York Times on 20 June. World leaders, including Pope Pius XII
(25 June), President Franklin D. Roosevelt
on 26 June, and King Gustaf V of Sweden
on 30 June, subsequently pleaded with Horthy to use his influence to stop the deportations. Roosevelt specifically threatened military retaliation if the transports were not ceased. On 2 July, Allied bombers executed the heaviest bombings inflicted on Hungary during the war. Hungarian radio accused Jews of guiding the bombers to their targets with radio transmissions and light signals, but on 7 July Horthy at last ordered the transports halted. By that time, 437,000 Jews had been sent to Auschwitz, most of them to their deaths. Horthy was informed about the number of the deported Jews some days later: "approximately 400,000". By many estimates, one of every three people murdered at Auschwitz was a Hungarian Jew killed between May and July 1944.
There remains some uncertainty over how much Horthy could have known about the number of Hungarian Jews being deported, their destination, and their intended fate – and when he knew it as well as what he could have done about it. Some historians have argued that Horthy believed that the Jews were being sent to the camps to work, and that they would be returned to Hungary after the war. Horthy himself could not have been clearer in his memoirs: "Not before August," he wrote, "did secret information reach me of the horrible truth about the extermination camps." But the Vrba-Wetzler statement
is believed to have been passed to Hungarian Zionist Rudolf Kasztner no later than 28 April 1944, and according to Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer, Kasztner passed it on to contacts who gave it to both Horthy's son and daughter-in-law by mid-May, when the deportations were about to begin.
It is often argued that Hungary's "relatively mild" anti-Jewish Laws, which were passed under German pressure, appeased the Nazis enough to create a relatively safe environment for the Jews before the 1944 German invasion. It seems certain that the survival of 124,000 Hungarian Jews in Budapest
until the arrival of the Soviets would have been impossible without Horthy’s years of foot-dragging reluctance to implement German orders. On 15 July 1944 Anne McCormick, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times
wrote in defense of Hungary as the last refuge of Jews in Europe, declaring that “as long as they exercised any authority in their own house, the Hungarians tried to protect the Jews.”
. He then began considering strategies for surrendering to the Allied force he deeply distrusted: the Red Army. As bitterly anti-Communist as Horthy was, his dealings with the Nazis led him to conclude that the Communists were the far lesser evil.
Working through his trustworthy General Béla Miklós
who was in contact with Soviet forces in eastern Hungary, Regent Horthy sought to surrender to the Soviets while preserving the Hungarian government's autonomy. The Soviets willingly promised this, and on 11 October Horthy and the Soviets finally agreed to surrender terms. On 15 October 1944, Horthy told his government ministers that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. "It is clear today that Germany has lost the war… Hungary has accordingly concluded a preliminary armistice with Russia, and will cease all hostilities against her." Horthy "…informed a representative of the German Reich that we were about to conclude a military armistice with our former enemies and to cease all hostilities against them."
The Nazis had anticipated Horthy's move. On 15 October, after Horthy announced the armistice in a nationwide radio address, Hitler initiated Operation Panzerfaust
, sending commando Otto Skorzeny
to Budapest with instructions to remove Horthy from power. Horthy's son Miklós Horthy, Jr.
, was meeting with Soviet representatives to finalize the surrender when Skorzeny and his troops forced their way into the meeting and kidnapped the younger Horthy at gunpoint. Trussed up in a carpet, Miklós Jr. was immediately driven to the airport and flown to Germany to serve as a hostage. Skorzeny then brazenly led a convoy of German troops and four Tiger II
tanks to the Vienna Gates of Castle Hill
, where the Hungarians had been ordered not to resist. Though one unit had not received the order, the Germans quickly captured Castle Hill with minimal bloodshed: only seven soldiers were killed and twenty-six wounded.
Horthy was captured by Veesenmayer and his staff later on the 15th and taken to the Waffen SS office, where he was held overnight. With his son's life in the balance, the Regent consented to sign a document officially abdicating his office and naming Ferenc Szálasi
, leader of the fascist Arrow Cross
, as his successor. Horthy understood that the Germans merely wanted the stamp of his prestige on a Nazi-sponsored Arrow Cross coup—but he signed anyway. As he later explained his capitulation: "I neither resigned nor appointed Szálasi Premier, I merely exchanged my signature for my son’s life. A signature wrung from a man at machine-gun point can have little legality."
Horthy met Skorzeny three days later at Pfeffer-Wildenbruch's apartment and was told he would be transported to Germany in his own special train. Skorzeny told Horthy that he would be a "guest of honor" in a secure Bavarian castle. On 17 October, Horthy was personally escorted by Skorzeny into captivity at Schloss Hirschberg
in Bavaria
, where he was guarded closely, but allowed to live in comfort.
With the help of the SS, the Arrow Cross Party
leadership moved swiftly to take command of the Hungarian armed forces, and to prevent the surrender that Horthy had arranged even though Soviet troops were now deep inside the country. The Arrow Cross swiftly resumed persecution of Jews and other undesirables. In the three months between November 1944 and January 1945, death squads of the Arrow Cross Party
shot 10,000 to 15,000 Jews on the banks of the Danube
. The Arrow Cross also welcomed Adolf Eichmann
back to Budapest, where he began the deportation of the city's surviving Jews (Eichmann never successfully completed this phase of his plans, thwarted in large measure by the efforts of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg
). Out of a pre-war Hungarian Jewish population estimated at 825,000, only 260,000 survived.
By December 1944, Budapest was under siege by Soviet forces. The Arrow Cross leadership retreated across the Danube into the hills of Buda in late January, and by February the city surrendered to the Soviet forces.
Horthy remained under house arrest in Bavaria until the war in Europe ended. On 29 April, his SS guardians fled in the face of the Allied advance. On 1 May, Horthy was first liberated, and then arrested, by elements of the U.S. 7th Army.
After his arrest, Horthy was moved between a variety of detention locations before finally arriving at the prison facility at Nuremberg
in late September 1945. There he was asked to provide evidence to the International Military Tribunal
in preparation for the trial of the Nazi leadership. Although he was interviewed repeatedly about his contacts with some of the defendants, he did not testify in person. In Nuremberg he was reunited with his son, Miklos.
Horthy went out of his way to record in his memoirs every indignity suffered at American hands, but gradually he came to believe that his arrest had been arranged and choreographed by the Americans in order to protect him from Communist retributive urges. Indeed, the former regent reported being told that Josip Tito, the new ruler of Yugoslavia, asked that Horthy be charged with complicity with the 1942 massacre of Serbian and Jewish civilians
by Hungarian troops in the Bačka
region of Vojvodina
. Serbian historian Zvonimir Golubović has claimed that Horthy was aware of these raids, and approved their being carried out. But American trial officials declined to present charges against Horthy, a kindness that may have been the result of the influence in Washington of Horthy's admirer, the former ambassador John Montgomery
.
According to the memoirs of Ferenc Nagy
, who served for a year as prime minister in post-war Hungary, the Hungarian Communist leadership was also interested in extraditing Horthy for trial. Nagy said that Joseph Stalin
was more forgiving: that Stalin told Nagy during a diplomatic meeting in April 1945, not to judge Horthy, because he was old and had offered armistice in 1944.
On 17 December 1945, Horthy was released from Nuremberg prison and allowed to rejoin his family in the German town of Weilheim
, in Bavaria
. The Horthys lived there for four years, supported financially by ambassador John Montgomery, his successor, Herbert Pell
, and by Pope Pius XII
, whom he knew personally.
In March 1948, Horthy returned to testify at the Ministries Trial
, the last of the twelve U.S.-run Nuremberg Trials; he testified against Edmund Veesenmayer
, the Nazi administrator who had controlled Hungary during the deportations to Auschwitz in the Spring of 1944. Veesenmayer was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, but was released in 1951.
For Horthy, returning to Hungary was impossible; it was now firmly in the hands of a Soviet-sponsored Communist government. In an extraordinary twist of fate, the chief of Hungary's post-war Communist apparatus was Mátyás Rákosi
, one of Béla Kun's colleagues from the ill-fated Communist coup of 1919. Kun had been executed during Stalin's purges of the late 1930s, but Rákosi had survived in a Hungarian prison cell; in 1940 Horthy had permitted Rákosi to emigrate to the Soviet Union in exchange for a series of highly-symbolic Hungarian battle-flags from the 19th century, which were in Russian hands. Thus, after allying his nation with Hitler in part to keep Communism at bay, Horthy had to watch helplessly from abroad as Moscow installed one of the 1919 revolutionaries to run Hungary.
In 1949, the Horthy family secured permission to emigrate to Portugal, thanks to Miklós Jr.’s contacts with Portuguese diplomats in Switzerland. Horthy and members of his family were relocated to the seaside town of Estoril
. Once again, Horthy's old friend, John Montgomery, came to the ex-regent's rescue. Montgomery recruited a small group of wealthy Hungarians to support the Horthy family's life in exile. According to Horthy's daughter-in-law, this group included Jewish industrialist Ferenc Chorin and lawyer László Pathy, also Jewish.
In exile, Horthy wrote his memoirs, Ein Leben für Ungarn (English: A Life for Hungary), published under the name of Nikolaus von Horthy, in which he narrated many personal experiences from his youth until the end of World War II. He claimed that he had distrusted Hitler for much of the time he knew him and tried to perform the best actions and appoint the best officials in his country. He also highlighted Hungary's alleged mistreatment by many other countries since the end of World War I. Horthy was one of the few Axis heads of state to survive the war, and thus to write post-war memoirs.
He never lost his deep contempt for Communism, and in his memoirs he blamed Hungary's alliance with the Axis on the threat posed by the "Asiatic barbarians" of the Soviet Union. He railed against the influence that the Allies' victory had given to Stalin's totalitarian state. "I feel no urge to say 'I told you so,' " Horthy wrote, "nor to express bitterness at the experiences that have been forced upon me. Rather, I feel wonder and amazement at the vagaries of humanity."
He died in 1957 at Estoril.
Horthy was married once, to Magdolna Purgly de Jószáshely
. He had two sons, Miklós Horthy, Jr.
(often rendered in English as "Nicholas" or "Nikolaus") and István Horthy
, who served as his political assistants; and two daughters, Magda and Paula. Of his four children, only Miklós outlived him.
According to footnotes in his memoirs, Horthy was very distraught about the failure of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
. In his will, Horthy asked that his body not be returned to Hungary "until the last Russian soldier has left." His heirs honored the request. In 1993, two years after the Soviet troops left Hungary, Horthy's body was returned to Hungary and he was buried in his home town of Kenderes
. The reburial in Hungary was the subject of some controversy in the country.
Miklós Horthy, Regent
of the Kingdom of Hungary
.
Baia Mare
Baia Mare is a municipality in northwestern Romania and the capital of Maramureş County. The city is situated about 600 kilometres from Bucharest, the capital of Romania, 70 kilometres from the border with Hungary and 50 kilometres from the border with Ukraine...
was the 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...
of 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...
during the interwar years
Hungary between the two world wars
This article is about the history of Hungary from October 1918 to November 1940.-Hungarian Democratic Republic:On October 31, 1918, the Hungarian Democratic Republic was created by revolution that started in Budapest after the dissolution and break-up of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I...
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" (Hungarian: Ő Főméltósága a Magyar Királyság Kormányzója).
Admiral Horthy was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy
Austro-Hungarian Navy
The Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine , abbreviated as k.u.k. Kriegsmarine....
. He served in the Otranto Raid and at the Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917)
Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917)
The 1917 Battle of the Strait of Otranto was the result of an Austro-Hungarian raid on the Otranto Barrage, an Allied naval blockade of the Strait of Otranto. The battle took place on 14–15 May 1917, and was the largest surface action in the Adriatic Sea during World War I...
, and was its commander-in-chief in the last year of the First World War.
After Hungarian communists under Béla Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
seized power in Hungary in 1919, proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived Communist state established in Hungary in the aftermath of World War I....
and commenced Hungary's Red Terror
Red Terror (Hungary)
The Red Terror in Hungary was a series of atrocities aimed at crushing political rivals during the four-month regime of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. It was so named because of its similarity to the Red Terror in Soviet Russia in both purpose and effect...
, a counterrevolutionary
Counterrevolutionary
A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part...
government was formed and asked Horthy to take command of its forces. In late 1918, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n forces invaded Hungary and later overthrew Kun's government
Hungarian-Romanian War of 1919
The seeds of the Hungarian–Romanian war of 1919 were planted when the union of Transylvania with Romania was proclaimed, on December 1, 1918. In late March 1919, the Bolsheviks came to power in Hungary, at which point its army attempted to retake Transylvania, commencing the war. By its final...
.
When the Romanians evacuated Budapest in November 1919, Horthy entered at the head of the National Army. The Hungarian Communist Party was banned, and in 1920 Horthy was declared 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...
and Head of State, a position he held until his deposition in October 1944. Horthy refused to step down when the legitmate King of Hungary, Karl IV, attempted to regain his throne on two occasions. He allowed Hungary's 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:...
to persist at first but eventually shut it down and imprisoned a few extremists among the anti-communists.
A conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
who was distinctly inclined toward the right of the political spectrum, he guided Hungary through the years between the two world wars, and into an alliance with Nazi Germany, in exchange for the restoration of some of the Hungarian territories lost by 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...
. The chief motivation is often believed to have been fear of the Soviets, who in any outcome of Russian success could threaten Hungary.
In April 1941, Hungary entered World War II as an ally of Germany. But Horthy's faltering allegiance to his German patron eventually led the Nazis to invade and take control of the country with 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...
in March 1944. In October 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary would surrender and withdraw from the Axis
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...
. He was forced to resign, placed under arrest and taken to Bavaria; at war's end he came under the custody of U.S. troops.
After appearing as a witness at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials
Ministries Trial
The Ministries Trial was the eleventh of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S...
in 1948, Horthy settled and lived out his remaining years in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. His memoirs, Ein Leben für Ungarn (A Life for Hungary), were published in German in 1953, and an English translation appeared three years later.
Early life and naval career
Kenderes
-Location, geography:The town is located along Route 4, halfway between the cities of Debrecen and Szolnok. It lies in the Great Hungarian Plain, thus its geography is defined by flat expanses. The town is primarily surrounded by agricultural zones...
, into an old Calvinist noble family, making him one of the few openly Protestant politicians in a mostly Catholic country. Horthy entered the Austro-Hungarian naval academy at Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) at age 14. The naval academy's official language was German. As a result, for the rest of his life Horthy spoke Hungarian with a slight, but noticeable, German accent.
As a young man, Horthy traveled around the world and served as a diplomat for the Austro-Hungarian Empire
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and other countries. From 1911 until 1914 he was a naval aide-de-camp
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
to Emperor Franz Joseph
Franz Joseph I of Austria
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...
, for whom he had a great respect.
At the beginning of the war Horthy was commanding the pre-dreadnought battleship . In 1915 he earned a reputation for boldness while commanding the new light cruiser . He planned the 1917 attack on the Otranto Barrage
Otranto Barrage
The Otranto Barrage was an Allied naval blockade of the Otranto Straits between Brindisi in Italy and Corfu on the Albanian side of the Adriatic Sea in World War I. The blockade was intended to prevent the Austro-Hungarian Navy from escaping into the Mediterranean and threatening Allied operations...
, which resulted in the largest naval engagement of the war in the Adriatic
Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917)
The 1917 Battle of the Strait of Otranto was the result of an Austro-Hungarian raid on the Otranto Barrage, an Allied naval blockade of the Strait of Otranto. The battle took place on 14–15 May 1917, and was the largest surface action in the Adriatic Sea during World War I...
; although Austrian force emerged from the battle relatively unscathed, Horthy was wounded. After the February 1918 Cattaro mutiny, Emperor Charles selected Horthy over many more senior commanders as the new Commander in Chief of the Imperial Fleet in March 1918. In June, Horthy planned another attack on Otranto, and in a departure from the cautious strategy of his predecessors, he committed the empire's battleships to the mission. While sailing through the night, the dreadnought met Italian MAS torpedo boats
MAS (boat)
Motoscafo Armato Silurante , commonly abbreviated as MAS was a class of fast torpedo armed vessel used by the Regia Marina during World War I and World War II...
and was sunk, causing Horthy to abort the mission. He managed however to preserve the rest of the empire's fleet in being
Fleet in being
In naval warfare, a fleet in being is a naval force that extends a controlling influence without ever leaving port. Were the fleet to leave port and face the enemy, it might lose in battle and no longer influence the enemy's actions, but while it remains safely in port the enemy is forced to...
until he was ordered by Emperor Charles to surrender it to the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs
The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was a short-lived state formed from the southernmost parts of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy after its dissolution at the end of the World War I by the resident population of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs...
on 31 October.
The end of the war saw Hungary turned into a landlocked nation, and hence the new government had little need for Horthy's services. He retired with his family to his private estate at Kenderes
Kenderes
-Location, geography:The town is located along Route 4, halfway between the cities of Debrecen and Szolnok. It lies in the Great Hungarian Plain, thus its geography is defined by flat expanses. The town is primarily surrounded by agricultural zones...
, but his role as a Hungarian leader was far from over.
Dates of rank and assignments
- 1896 Fregattenleutnant (fregatthadnagy – Sub-Lieutenant)
- 1900 Linienschiffleutnant (sorhajóhadnagy – Lieutenant)
- January 1901 (commander)
- 1902 (commander)
- June 1908 (commander)
- August 1908 (GDO-Gesamtdetailoffizier-First Officer, temporary)
- 1 January 1909 Korvettenkapitän (korvettkapitány – Lieutenant-Commander)
- 1 November 1909 aide-de-camp to Emperor Franz JosefFranz Joseph I of AustriaFranz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...
- 1 November 1911 Fregattenkapitän (fregattkapitány – CommanderCommanderCommander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
) - December 1912 March 1913 (commander)
- 20 January 1914 Linienschiffskapitän (sorhajókapitány – CaptainCaptain (naval)Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The NATO rank code is OF-5, equivalent to an army full colonel....
) - August 1914 (commander)
- December 1914 (commander)
- 1 February 1918 (commander)
- 27 February 1918 Konteradmiral (ellentengernagy – Rear AdmiralRear AdmiralRear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
) - 27 February 1918 appointed (last) Commander in Chief of the fleet (over 11 admirals and 24 senior Linienschiffskapitän) by Emperor Karl I
- 30 October 1918 Vizeadmiral (altengernagy – Vice AdmiralVice AdmiralVice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...
)
Commander of the National Army
Two national traumas immediately following the First World War profoundly shaped the spirit and future of the Hungarian nation. The first was the loss, as dictated by the Entente powersAllies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
, of large portions of Hungarian territory that had bordered other countries. These were lands which had been Hungary's as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they were carved away by the Allies and ceded to the nations of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, 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...
and Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. The excisions, eventually ratified in 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...
at Versailles, cost Hungary two-thirds of its territory and one-third of its native Hungarian speakers, and dealt the population a terrible psychological blow. The second trauma in some sense sprang from the first: in March 1919, after the first proto-democratic efforts at government in Hungary faltered, Communist Béla Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
seized power in 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...
.
Kun and his colleagues proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived Communist state established in Hungary in the aftermath of World War I....
, and promised the restoration of Hungary's former grandeur. Instead, his efforts at reconquest failed, and Hungarians were treated to a Soviet-style repression in the form of armed gangs
Lenin Boys
The Lenin Boys were a band of Communist enforcers formed to support the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919. The group seems to have contained about 200 young men dressed in leather jackets, acting as the personal guard of Tibor Szamuely, Commissar for Military Affairs...
who intimidated or murdered enemies of the regime. This period of violence came to be known as the Red Terror
Red Terror (Hungary)
The Red Terror in Hungary was a series of atrocities aimed at crushing political rivals during the four-month regime of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. It was so named because of its similarity to the Red Terror in Soviet Russia in both purpose and effect...
. Tibor Szamuely, a close collaborator of Bela Kun, even boasted that, "Terror is the principal weapon of our regime." Figures vary, but one generally accepted number of victims of the Red Terror is around 500 killed.
Within weeks of his coup, Kun's popularity plummeted. On 30 May 1919, anti-Communist politicians formed a counter-revolutionary government in the southern city of Szeged
Szeged
' is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county town of Csongrád county. The University of Szeged is one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary....
, occupied by French forces at the time. There, Gyula Károlyi
Gyula Károlyi
Gyula Count Károlyi de Nagykároly was a conservative Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1931 to 1932. He had previously been Prime Minister of the counter-revolutionary government in Szeged for several months in 1919...
asked former admiral Horthy, still considered a war hero, to be the Minister of War in the new government and take command of a counter-revolutionary force which would be named the National Army . Horthy consented, and arrived in Szeged on 6 June. Soon after, because of orders from the Entente
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....
, the cabinet was reformed, and Horthy was not given a seat in it. Undaunted, Horthy managed to retain control of the National Army by detaching the Army command from the War ministry.
On 6 August French-supported Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n forces entered 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...
. The Communist government collapsed and its leaders fled. In retaliation for the Red Terror
Red Terror (Hungary)
The Red Terror in Hungary was a series of atrocities aimed at crushing political rivals during the four-month regime of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. It was so named because of its similarity to the Red Terror in Soviet Russia in both purpose and effect...
, reactionary crews now exacted revenge in a two-year wave of violent repression known today as 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:...
. These reprisals – which almost certainly exceeded the Red Terror in scope and cruelty – were organized and carried out by officers of Horthy's National Army, particularly Pál Prónay
Pál Prónay
Pál Prónay de Tótpróna et Blatnicza was a Hungarian reactionary and paramilitary commander in the years following the First World War...
Gyula Ostenburg-Moravek and Iván Héjjas. Their victims were primarily Communists, Social Democrats, peasants, and Jews. Most Hungarian Jews were not supporters of the Bolsheviks, but much of the leadership of the Hungarian Soviet Republic
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived Communist state established in Hungary in the aftermath of World War I....
had been young Jewish intellectuals, and anger about the Communist revolution easily translated into anti-Semitic hostility .
In Budapest, Pronay installed his unit in Hotel Britannia, where the group swelled to battalion size. Their program of vicious attacks continued; they planned a city-wide pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
until Horthy found out and put a stop to it. In his diary, Prónay reported that Horthy
Horthy's liability for Prónay's excesses is in fact difficult to measure. On several occasions, Horthy reached out to stop Prónay from a particularly excessive burst of anti-Jewish cruelty. And the Jews of Pest went on record absolving Horthy of the White Terror as early as the fall of 1919, when they released a statement disavowing the Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
revolution, and blaming the terror on a few units within the National Army. Horthy has never been found to have personally engaged in White Terror atrocities. But his American biographer, Thomas Sakmyster, concluded that he "tacitly supported the right wing officer detachments" who carried out the terror. The admiral also had practical reasons for turning a blind eye to the terror his officers wrought: he needed the dedicated White Guard officers to stabilize and reclaim Hungary. Nevertheless, it was at least another year before the terror died down. In the summer of 1920, Horthy’s government took measures to rein in and eventually disperse the reactionary battalions. Prónay managed to undermine these anti-White Guard measures, but only for a short time. Pronay was put on trial for extorting a wealthy Jewish politician, and for “insulting the President of the Parliament” by trying to cover up the extortion. Found guilty on both charges, Prónay was now a liability and an embarrassment. His command was revoked, and he was denounced as a common criminal on the floor of the Hungarian parliament.
After serving short jail sentences, Prónay tried to convince Horthy to restore his battalion command. The Prónay Battalion lingered for a few months more under the command of a junior officer, but the government officially dissolved the unit in January 1922 and expelled its members from the army. Prónay entered politics as a member of the government's right-wing opposition. In the 1930s, he sought and failed to emulate the Nazis by generating a Hungarian fascist mass movement. In 1932, he was charged with incitement, sentenced to six months in prison and stripped of his rank of lieutenant colonel. Prónay would support the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross and lead attacks on Jews before being killed by Soviet troops sometime during or after the siege of Budapest
Battle of Budapest
The Siege of Budapest centered on the Hungarian capital city of Budapest. It was fought towards the end of World War II in Europe, during the Soviet Budapest Offensive. The siege started when Budapest, defended by Hungarian and German troops, was first encircled on 29 December 1944 by the Red Army...
.
Precisely how much Horthy knew or approved of the White Terror is not known. Horthy himself declined to apologize for the savagery of his officer detachments, writing later: "I have no reason to gloss over deeds of injustice and atrocities committed when an iron broom alone could sweep the country clean." And he endorsed Edgar von Schmidt-Pauli's poetic justification of the White reprisals ("Hell let loose on earth cannot be subdued by the beating of angels' wings") remarking, "the Communists in Hungary, willing disciples of the Russian Bolshvists, had indeed let hell loose."
This deep hostility and fear towards Communism would be the more lasting legacy of Kun's abortive revolution: a conviction shared by Horthy and his country's ruling elite that would help drive Hungary into what might have been a fatal alliance with 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...
.
The Romanian army retreated from Budapest on 14 November, leaving Horthy to enter the city, where in a fiery speech he accused the capital's citizens of betraying Hungary by supporting Bolshevism.
Following the orders of the Entente, Romanian troops finally evacuated Hungary
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...
on 25 February 1920.
The Regent
On 1 March 1920, the National Assembly of Hungary re-established the Kingdom of Hungary, but chose not to recall the deposed King Charles IV (Karoly IV of Hungary) from exile as the return of the Habsburg Emperor on the Hungarian throne was unacceptable to the EntenteAllies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
powers. Instead, with National Army officers controlling the parliament building, the assembly voted to install Horthy as head of state; he defeated Count Albert Apponyi
Albert Apponyi
Count Albert Apponyi de Nagyappony was a distinguished Hungarian nobleman and politician from an ancient noble family dating back to the 13th century. He was born on 29 May 1846, in Vienna, where his father, Count György Apponyi, was the resident Hungarian Chancellor at the time...
by a vote of 131 to 7.
Bishop Ottokár Prohászka
Ottokár Prohászka
----Ottokár Prohászka - April 2, 1927, Budapest) was a Hungarian Roman Catholic theologian and Bishop of Székesfehérvár from 1905 until his death.- External links :* * * * *...
then led a small delegation to meet Horthy, announcing, “Hungary’s Parliament has elected you Regent! Would it please you to accept the office of Regent of Hungary?” To their astonishment, Horthy declined unless his powers were expanded. As Horthy stalled, the politicians folded, and granted him "the general prerogatives of the King, with the exception of the right to name titles of nobility and of the patronage of the Church." Those prerogatives included the power to appoint and dismiss prime ministers, to convene and dissolve parliament, and to command the armed forces. With those sweeping powers guaranteed, Horthy took the oath of office. (Charles I did try to regain his throne twice; see Charles I of Austria's attempts to retake the throne of Hungary
Charles I of Austria's attempts to retake the throne of Hungary
After Miklós Horthy had been chosen Regent of Hungary on 1 March 1920, Charles I of Austria-Hungary, who had reigned in Hungary as Károly IV, returned to Hungary twice, to try unsuccessfully to retake his throne...
for more details.)
Among 20th-century heads of state, Horthy’s role was unique. His official position is usually translated into English as “Regent,” but is better translated as "Royal Governor" or "Protector." The Hungarian state was legally a kingdom, but it had no king, and sought none (the Entente powers would not likely have tolerated any return of the Habsburgs). The national government actually took the form of a parliamentary republic
Parliamentary republic
A parliamentary republic or parliamentary constitutional republic is a type of republic which operates under a parliamentary system of government - meaning a system with no clear-cut separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. There are a number of variations of...
, with a prime minister at its head. Thus Horthy was a constitutional figurehead, but he was by no means a toothless one. He reigned, but for the most part did not rule; he wrote no laws, but had powerful influence over his country’s destiny by means of his constitutional powers, his prestige and the loyalty of his ministers to the crown. His regal bearing, military reputation and devotion to Hungary lent him a royal authority as the country edged out of its Imperial past towards a modern democracy.
A Hungarian joke sums it up: for the next 24 years, Hungary would be a kingdom without a king, ruled by an admiral without a fleet, in a country without a coastline.
Seeking Redress for Trianon
István Bethlen
Count István Bethlen de Bethlen was a Hungarian aristocrat and statesman and served as Prime Minister from 1921 to 1931....
.
Bethlen sought to stabilize the economy while building alliances with weaker nations which could advance Hungary’s cause. That cause was, primarily, reversing the losses 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...
. The humiliations of Trianon continued to occupy the central place in Hungarian foreign policy, and in the popular imagination; the indignant anti-Trianon slogan “Nem, nem soha!” (“No, no never!”) became a ubiquitous motto of Hungarian outrage. When in 1927 the British newspaper magnate Lord Rothermere denounced, in the pages of his Daily Mail, the partitions ratified at Trianon, an official letter of gratitude was eagerly signed by 1.2 million Hungarians.
But Hungary’s stability was precarious, and 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...
derailed much of Bethlen’s economic balance. Horthy replaced him with an old reactionary confederate from his Szeged days: 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 an outspoken anti-Semite and a budding fascist. And although he agreed to Horthy’s demands that he temper his anti-Jewish rhetoric and work amicably with Hungary’s large Jewish professional class, Gömbös’s tenure began swinging Hungary’s political mood powerfully rightward. He strengthened Hungary’s ties to Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
’s Italian fascist state. And most fatefully, when 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...
took power in Germany in 1933, he found in Gömbös an admiring and obliging colleague.
Gömbös rescued the failing economy by securing trade guarantees from Germany – a strategy which positioned Germany as Hungary’s primary trading partner and tied Hungary’s future even more tightly to Hitler’s. He also assured Hitler that Hungary would quickly become a one-party state modeled on the Nazi party control of Germany. Gömbös died in 1936, before he realized his most extreme goals, but he left his nation headed into firm partnership with the German dictator.
Uneasy Alliance
Horthy clearly saw his country as trapped between two stronger powers, both of them dangerous; evidently he considered Hitler to be the more manageable of the two. Hitler was also able to wield great influence over Hungary not only as the country’s major trading partner; he also fed several of Horthy’s key ambitions: Maintaining Hungarian sovereignty and satisfying the national hunger to reclaim former Hungarian lands. Horthy’s strategy was one of cautious, sometimes even grudging, alliance. How the regent granted or resisted Hitler's demands, especially with regard to Hungarian military action and the treatment of Hungary's Jews, remains the central topic by which his career has been judged.
Horthy's relationship with Hitler was, by his own account, a tense one – largely due, he said, to his unwillingness to bend his nation's policies to the German dictator's desires. On a state visit by Horthy to Germany in August 1938, Hitler asked Horthy for troops and materiel to participate in Germany's planned invasion of Czechoslovakia. In exchange, Horthy later reported, "He gave me to understand that as a reward we should be allowed to keep the territory we had invaded." Horthy said he declined, insisting to Hitler that Hungary's claims on the disputed lands should be settled by peaceful means.
Three months later, after 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...
put control of southern Czechoslovakia in Hitler's hands, Hitler allowed Hungary to annex nearly one-third of 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...
. Horthy enthusiastically rode into the re-acquired territory (which was predominantly populated by Hungarians) at the head of his troops, greeted by emotional ethnic Hungarians: "As I passed along the roads, people embraced one another, fell upon their knees, and wept with joy because liberation had come to them at last, without war, without bloodshed." But as "peaceful" as this annexation was, and as just as it may have seemed to many Hungarians, it was a dividend of Hitler's brinksmanship and threats of war, in which Hungary was now inextricably complicit.
Hungary was now committed to the Axis agenda: on 24 February 1939, it joined the Anti-Comintern pact
Anti-Comintern Pact
The Anti-Comintern Pact was an Anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International ....
, and on 11 April withdrew from the League of Nations. American journalists began to refer to Hungary as "the jackal of Europe."
This combination of menace and reward fixed Hungary firmly as a Nazi client state. In March 1939, when Hitler took what remained of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
by force, Hungary was allowed to annex 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...
from the First Slovak Republic
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...
as well during the Slovak-Hungarian War
Slovak-Hungarian War
The Slovak–Hungarian War or Little War , was a war fought from March 23 to March 31/April 4, 1939 between the First Slovak Republic and Hungary in eastern Slovakia.-Prelude:...
.
In August 1940, Hitler intervened on Hungary's behalf once again, taking Northern 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...
away from Romania, and awarding it to Hungary. (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...
).
But in spite of their cooperation with the Nazi regime, Horthy and his government would be better described as "conservative authoritarian" than "fascist". Certainly Horthy was as hostile to the home-grown fascist and ultra-nationalist movements which flourished in Hungary between the wars (particularly 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...
) as he was to Communism. The Arrow Cross 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...
, was repeatedly imprisoned at Horthy's command.
John F. Montgomery
John Flournoy Montgomery
John Flournoy Montgomery was an American businessman and diplomat. His sole diplomatic posting was as U.S. Minister to Hungary, between 1933 and 1941...
, who served in Budapest as U.S. ambassador from 1933 to 1941, openly admired this side of Horthy’s character and reported the following incident in his memoir: in March 1939, Arrow Cross supporters disrupted a performance at the Budapest opera house
Hungarian State Opera House
The Hungarian State Opera House is a neo-Renaissance opera house located in central Budapest, on Andrássy út. It is home to the Budapest Opera Ball, a society event dating back to 1886.-History:...
by chanting “Justice for Szálasi!” loud enough for the regent to hear. A fight broke out, and when Montgomery went to take a closer look, he discovered that
And yet, by the time of this episode, Horthy had allowed his government to give in to Nazi demands that the Hungarians enact laws restricting the lives of the country's Jews. The first Hungarian anti-Jewish Law, in 1938, limited the number of Jews in the professions, the government and commerce to twenty percent, and the second reduced it to five percent the following year; 250,000 Hungarian Jews lost their jobs as a result. A "Third Jewish Law" of August 1941 prohibited Jews from marrying non-Jews, and defined anyone having two Jewish grandparents as "racially Jewish." A Jewish man who had non-marital sex with a "decent non-Jewish woman resident in Hungary" could be sentenced to three years in prison.
Horthy's personal views on Jews and their role in Hungarian society are the subject of some debate. In an October 1940 letter to prime minister 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...
, Horthy echoed a widespread national sentiment: that Jews enjoyed too much success in commerce, the professions, and industry – success which needed to be curtailed:
Nevertheless, as the war years progressed, Horthy proved to be more protective of Hungary's Jews than many of his political colleagues, and much more so than his political rivals. In this light, his insistence that he was an "anti-Semite" may have been an effort to give himself political cover against the attacks from the extreme antisemitic elements of Hungarian politics.
War
The Kingdom of Hungary was gradually drawn into the war itself. In 1939 and 1940, volunteer unitsHungarian Volunteers in the Winter War
The Hungarian Volunteers in the Winter War travelled to fight for the Finns after the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939. For a variety of reasons, volunteers from the Kingdom of Hungary fought on the side of Finland during the Winter War with the Soviet Union.- Hungarian-Finnish Relationship...
fought in Finland's Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
. In April 1941, Hungary became, in effect, a member of the Axis
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...
. Hungary permitted Hitler to send troops across Hungarian territory for 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 ultimately sent its own troops to claim its share of the dismembered 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...
. Prime Minister 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...
, horrified that he had failed to prevent this collusion with the Nazis against a former ally, committed suicide.
In June 1941, the Hungarian government finally yielded to Hitler's demands that the nation contribute to the Axis war effort. On 27 June, Hungary became part of 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 declared war on 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....
. The Hungarians sent in troops and materiel only four days after Hitler began his invasion of the Soviet Union.
Eighteen months later, more poorly equipped and less motivated than their German allies, the 200,000 troops of the Hungarian Second Army
Hungarian Second Army
The Hungarian Second Army was one of three field armies raised by the Kingdom of Hungary which saw action during World War II. All three armies were formed on March 1, 1940...
ended up holding the front on the Don River
Don River (Russia)
The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....
west of Stalingrad.
The first massacre of Jewish people from Hungarian territory took place in August 1941, when government officials ordered the deportation of Jews without Hungarian citizenship (principally refugees from other Nazi-occupied countries) to 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...
. Roughly 18,000–20,000 of these deportees were slaughtered by Friedrich Jeckeln
Friedrich Jeckeln
Friedrich Jeckeln was an SS-Obergruppenführer who served as an SS and Police Leader in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II...
and his SS troops; only 2,000–3,000 survived. These killings are known as the Kamianets-Podilskyi Massacre
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....
. This event, in which the slaughter of Jews numbered for the first time in the tens of thousands, is considered the first large-scale massacre of the Holocaust. Because of the objections of Hungary's leadership, the deportations were halted.
By early 1942, Horthy was already seeking to put some distance between himself and Hitler's regime. That March, he dismissed the pro-German prime minister 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:...
, 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 moderate whom Horthy expected to loosen Hungary's ties to Germany.
In September 1942, personal tragedy struck the Hungarian Regent. 37-year-old István Horthy
István Horthy
István Horthy de Nagybánya ) was Hungarian Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy's eldest son, a politician, and, during World War II, a fighter pilot.-Biography:...
, Horthy's eldest son, was killed. István Horthy was the Deputy Regent of Hungary and a Flight Lieutenant in the reserves, 1/1 Fighter Squadron of the Royal Hungarian Air Force. He was killed when his Hawk (Héja) fighter crashed at an air field near Ilovskoye.
Then, in January 1943, Hungary's enthusiasm for the war effort, never especially high, suffered a tremendous blow. The Soviet army, in the full momentum of its triumphant turnaround after 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...
, punched through Romanian troops at a bend in the Don River
Don River (Russia)
The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....
and virtually obliterated the Second Hungarian Army in a few days' fighting. In this single action, Hungarian combat fatalities jumped by 80,000. Jew and non-Jew suffered together in this defeat, as Hungary's troops were accompanied by some 40,000 Jews and political undesirables in forced-labor units.
German officials blamed Hungary's Jews for the nation's "defeatist attitude." In the wake of the Don Bend disaster, Hitler demanded at an April 1943 meeting that Horthy take sterner measures against the 800,000 Jews still living in Hungary. Horthy and his government supplied 10,000 Jewish deportees for labor battalions, but otherwise refused to comply. Cautiously, the Hungarian government began to explore contacts with the Western Allies in hopes of negotiating a surrender.
Occupation
By 1944, the Axis was losing the war, and the Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
stood at Hungary's borders. Fearing that the Soviets would overrun the country, Kállay, with Horthy's approval, put out numerous feelers to the Western Allies, even going as far as to promise to surrender unconditionally to them once they reached Hungarian territory. This didn't sit well with Hitler, and he summoned Horthy to a conference in Klessheim (today in 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...
). He pressured Horthy to make greater contributions to the war effort, and again commanded him to deal more harshly with Hungary's Jews. Horthy conceded that Germany could deport a large number of Jewish laborers (the generally accepted figure is 100,000) to German factories, but refused to give further ground.
The conference was a ruse. As Horthy was returning home on 19 March the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
invaded and occupied Hungary. Horthy was told he could only stay in office if he fired Kállay and appointed a new government that would fully cooperate with Hitler and his plenipotentiary in Budapest, Edmund Veesenmayer
Edmund Veesenmayer
Edmund Veesenmayer was a German politician, officer and war criminal. He significantly contributed to The Holocaust in Hungary and Croatia...
. Knowing the alternative was a gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
who would treat Hungary in the same manner as the other countries under Nazi occupation, Horthy acquiesced and appointed his ambassador to Germany, General 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 :...
, as prime minister. The Germans originally wanted Imrédy, but Horthy had enough influence to get Veesenmayer to accept Sztójay instead. Contrary to Horthy's hopes, Sztójay's government eagerly proceeded to participate in the Holocaust.
The chief agents of this collaboration were Andor Jaross
Andor Jaross
Andor Jaross was an ethnic Hungarian politician from Slovakia and collaborator with the Nazis....
, the Minister of the Interior, and his two rabidly anti-Semitic state secretaries, László Endre
László Endre
László Endre was a Hungarian right-wing politician and collaborator with the Nazis during the Second World War....
and László Baky
László Baky
László Baky was a leading member of the Hungarian Nazi movement that flourished before and during World War II....
(later to be known as the "Deportation Trio"). On 9 April, Prime Minister Sztójay and the Germans obligated Hungary to place 300,000 Jewish laborers at the disposal of the Reich. Five days later, on 14 April Endre, Baky, and 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...
began to deport all Hungarian Jews. The Yellow Star and Ghettoization laws, and deportation were accomplished in less than 8 weeks with the enthusiastic help of the new Hungarian government and the authorities, particularly the gendarmerie (csendőrség). The deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz
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...
began on 15 May 1944 and continued at a rate of 12,000 a day until 9 July.
Just before the deportations began, two Slovakian Jewish prisoners, Rudolf Vrba
Rudolf Vrba
Rudolf "Rudi" Vrba, born Walter Rosenberg was a Slovak-Canadian professor of pharmacology at the University of British Columbia, who came to public attention during the Second World War when, in April 1944, he escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland with the first...
and Alfréd Wetzler
Alfréd Wetzler
Alfréd Israel Wetzler , who later wrote under the alias Jozef Lánik, was a Slovak Jew, and one of a very small number of Jews known to have escaped from the Auschwitz death camp during the Holocaust. Wetzler was born on 10 May 1918, in the Slovak town of Trnava where he was a worker in the period...
, escaped from Auschwitz and passed details of what was happening inside the camps to officials in Slovakia. This document, known as the Vrba-Wetzler Report
Vrba-Wetzler report
The Vrba-Wetzler report, also known as the Vrba-Wetzler statement, the Auschwitz Protocols, and the Auschwitz notebook, is a 32-page document about the German Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland during the Holocaust...
, was quickly translated into German and passed among Jewish groups and then to Allied officials. Details from the report were broadcast by the BBC on 15 June and printed in The New York Times on 20 June. World leaders, including Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
(25 June), President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
on 26 June, and King Gustaf V of Sweden
Gustaf V of Sweden
Gustaf V was King of Sweden from 1907. He was the eldest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Sophia of Nassau, a half-sister of Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg...
on 30 June, subsequently pleaded with Horthy to use his influence to stop the deportations. Roosevelt specifically threatened military retaliation if the transports were not ceased. On 2 July, Allied bombers executed the heaviest bombings inflicted on Hungary during the war. Hungarian radio accused Jews of guiding the bombers to their targets with radio transmissions and light signals, but on 7 July Horthy at last ordered the transports halted. By that time, 437,000 Jews had been sent to Auschwitz, most of them to their deaths. Horthy was informed about the number of the deported Jews some days later: "approximately 400,000". By many estimates, one of every three people murdered at Auschwitz was a Hungarian Jew killed between May and July 1944.
There remains some uncertainty over how much Horthy could have known about the number of Hungarian Jews being deported, their destination, and their intended fate – and when he knew it as well as what he could have done about it. Some historians have argued that Horthy believed that the Jews were being sent to the camps to work, and that they would be returned to Hungary after the war. Horthy himself could not have been clearer in his memoirs: "Not before August," he wrote, "did secret information reach me of the horrible truth about the extermination camps." But the Vrba-Wetzler statement
Vrba-Wetzler report
The Vrba-Wetzler report, also known as the Vrba-Wetzler statement, the Auschwitz Protocols, and the Auschwitz notebook, is a 32-page document about the German Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland during the Holocaust...
is believed to have been passed to Hungarian Zionist Rudolf Kasztner no later than 28 April 1944, and according to Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer, Kasztner passed it on to contacts who gave it to both Horthy's son and daughter-in-law by mid-May, when the deportations were about to begin.
It is often argued that Hungary's "relatively mild" anti-Jewish Laws, which were passed under German pressure, appeased the Nazis enough to create a relatively safe environment for the Jews before the 1944 German invasion. It seems certain that the survival of 124,000 Hungarian Jews in 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...
until the arrival of the Soviets would have been impossible without Horthy’s years of foot-dragging reluctance to implement German orders. On 15 July 1944 Anne McCormick, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote in defense of Hungary as the last refuge of Jews in Europe, declaring that “as long as they exercised any authority in their own house, the Hungarians tried to protect the Jews.”
Deposition and arrest
In August 1944, the Nazis were distracted by their failing war effort, and Romania withdrew from the Axis and turned on Hitler and his allies. In Budapest, Horthy moved to reconsolidate his influence. He ousted Sztójay and the other Nazi-friendly ministers installed in the Spring, replacing them with a new government under Géza LakatosGéza 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,...
. He then began considering strategies for surrendering to the Allied force he deeply distrusted: the Red Army. As bitterly anti-Communist as Horthy was, his dealings with the Nazis led him to conclude that the Communists were the far lesser evil.
Working through his trustworthy General 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:...
who was in contact with Soviet forces in eastern Hungary, Regent Horthy sought to surrender to the Soviets while preserving the Hungarian government's autonomy. The Soviets willingly promised this, and on 11 October Horthy and the Soviets finally agreed to surrender terms. On 15 October 1944, Horthy told his government ministers that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. "It is clear today that Germany has lost the war… Hungary has accordingly concluded a preliminary armistice with Russia, and will cease all hostilities against her." Horthy "…informed a representative of the German Reich that we were about to conclude a military armistice with our former enemies and to cease all hostilities against them."
The Nazis had anticipated Horthy's move. On 15 October, after Horthy announced the armistice in a nationwide radio address, Hitler initiated Operation Panzerfaust
Operation 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...
, sending commando Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny was an SS-Obersturmbannführer in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he was chosen as the field commander to carry out the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity...
to Budapest with instructions to remove Horthy from power. Horthy's 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:...
, was meeting with Soviet representatives to finalize the surrender when Skorzeny and his troops forced their way into the meeting and kidnapped the younger Horthy at gunpoint. Trussed up in a carpet, Miklós Jr. was immediately driven to the airport and flown to Germany to serve as a hostage. Skorzeny then brazenly led a convoy of German troops and four Tiger II
Tiger II
Tiger II is the common name of a German heavy tank of the Second World War. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B,Panzerkampfwagen – abbr: Pz. or Pz.Kfw. Ausführung – abbr: Ausf. .The full titles Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf...
tanks to the Vienna Gates of Castle Hill
Buda Castle
Buda Castle is the historical castle and palace complex of the Hungarian kings in Budapest, first completed in 1265. In the past, it was also called Royal Palace and Royal Castle ....
, where the Hungarians had been ordered not to resist. Though one unit had not received the order, the Germans quickly captured Castle Hill with minimal bloodshed: only seven soldiers were killed and twenty-six wounded.
Horthy was captured by Veesenmayer and his staff later on the 15th and taken to the Waffen SS office, where he was held overnight. With his son's life in the balance, the Regent consented to sign a document officially abdicating his office and naming 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...
, leader of the fascist Arrow Cross
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...
, as his successor. Horthy understood that the Germans merely wanted the stamp of his prestige on a Nazi-sponsored Arrow Cross coup—but he signed anyway. As he later explained his capitulation: "I neither resigned nor appointed Szálasi Premier, I merely exchanged my signature for my son’s life. A signature wrung from a man at machine-gun point can have little legality."
Horthy met Skorzeny three days later at Pfeffer-Wildenbruch's apartment and was told he would be transported to Germany in his own special train. Skorzeny told Horthy that he would be a "guest of honor" in a secure Bavarian castle. On 17 October, Horthy was personally escorted by Skorzeny into captivity at Schloss Hirschberg
Hirschberg
The German word Hirschberg is composed of Hirsch and Berg . It may refer to:* several places in Europe, including:** Hirschberg, Thuringia, Germany.** Hirschberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
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...
, where he was guarded closely, but allowed to live in comfort.
With the help of the SS, 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...
leadership moved swiftly to take command of the Hungarian armed forces, and to prevent the surrender that Horthy had arranged even though Soviet troops were now deep inside the country. The Arrow Cross swiftly resumed persecution of Jews and other undesirables. In the three months between November 1944 and January 1945, death squads 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...
shot 10,000 to 15,000 Jews on the banks of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
. The Arrow Cross also welcomed Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
back to Budapest, where he began the deportation of the city's surviving Jews (Eichmann never successfully completed this phase of his plans, thwarted in large measure by the efforts of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, during the later stages of World War II...
). Out of a pre-war Hungarian Jewish population estimated at 825,000, only 260,000 survived.
By December 1944, Budapest was under siege by Soviet forces. The Arrow Cross leadership retreated across the Danube into the hills of Buda in late January, and by February the city surrendered to the Soviet forces.
Horthy remained under house arrest in Bavaria until the war in Europe ended. On 29 April, his SS guardians fled in the face of the Allied advance. On 1 May, Horthy was first liberated, and then arrested, by elements of the U.S. 7th Army.
Post-war life
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
in late September 1945. There he was asked to provide evidence to the International Military Tribunal
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
in preparation for the trial of the Nazi leadership. Although he was interviewed repeatedly about his contacts with some of the defendants, he did not testify in person. In Nuremberg he was reunited with his son, Miklos.
Horthy went out of his way to record in his memoirs every indignity suffered at American hands, but gradually he came to believe that his arrest had been arranged and choreographed by the Americans in order to protect him from Communist retributive urges. Indeed, the former regent reported being told that Josip Tito, the new ruler of Yugoslavia, asked that Horthy be charged with complicity with the 1942 massacre of Serbian and Jewish civilians
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....
by Hungarian troops in the 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...
region of Vojvodina
Vojvodina
Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
. Serbian historian Zvonimir Golubović has claimed that Horthy was aware of these raids, and approved their being carried out. But American trial officials declined to present charges against Horthy, a kindness that may have been the result of the influence in Washington of Horthy's admirer, the former ambassador John Montgomery
John Flournoy Montgomery
John Flournoy Montgomery was an American businessman and diplomat. His sole diplomatic posting was as U.S. Minister to Hungary, between 1933 and 1941...
.
According to the memoirs of Ferenc Nagy
Ferenc Nagy
Ferenc Nagy was a Hungarian politician of the Smallholders Party. He was a Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary from 29 November 1945 to 5 February 1946 and a member of the High National Council from 7 December 1945 to 2 February 1946.Later he served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 4...
, who served for a year as prime minister in post-war Hungary, the Hungarian Communist leadership was also interested in extraditing Horthy for trial. Nagy said that Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
was more forgiving: that Stalin told Nagy during a diplomatic meeting in April 1945, not to judge Horthy, because he was old and had offered armistice in 1944.
On 17 December 1945, Horthy was released from Nuremberg prison and allowed to rejoin his family in the German town of Weilheim
Weilheim
Weilheim is the name of several towns in Germany:*Weilheim in Oberbayern, capital of the district Weilheim-Schongau*Weilheim, Baden-Württemberg, a municipality in the district of Waldshut*Weilheim an der Teck, a town in the district Esslingen...
, 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...
. The Horthys lived there for four years, supported financially by ambassador John Montgomery, his successor, Herbert Pell
Herbert Pell
Herbert Claiborne Pell, Jr. was a United States Representative from New York, U.S. Minister to Portugal, U.S. Minister to Hungary, and an instigator and member of the United Nations War Crimes Commission....
, and by Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
, whom he knew personally.
In March 1948, Horthy returned to testify at the Ministries Trial
Ministries Trial
The Ministries Trial was the eleventh of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S...
, the last of the twelve U.S.-run Nuremberg Trials; he testified against 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 Nazi administrator who had controlled Hungary during the deportations to Auschwitz in the Spring of 1944. Veesenmayer was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, but was released in 1951.
For Horthy, returning to Hungary was impossible; it was now firmly in the hands of a Soviet-sponsored Communist government. In an extraordinary twist of fate, the chief of Hungary's post-war Communist apparatus was Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
, one of Béla Kun's colleagues from the ill-fated Communist coup of 1919. Kun had been executed during Stalin's purges of the late 1930s, but Rákosi had survived in a Hungarian prison cell; in 1940 Horthy had permitted Rákosi to emigrate to the Soviet Union in exchange for a series of highly-symbolic Hungarian battle-flags from the 19th century, which were in Russian hands. Thus, after allying his nation with Hitler in part to keep Communism at bay, Horthy had to watch helplessly from abroad as Moscow installed one of the 1919 revolutionaries to run Hungary.
In 1949, the Horthy family secured permission to emigrate to Portugal, thanks to Miklós Jr.’s contacts with Portuguese diplomats in Switzerland. Horthy and members of his family were relocated to the seaside town of Estoril
Estoril
Estoril is a seaside resort and civil parish of the Portuguese municipality of Cascais, Lisboa District. The Estoril coast is close to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. It starts in Carcavelos, 15 kilometres from Lisbon, and stretches as far as Guincho, often known as Costa de Estoril-Sintra or...
. Once again, Horthy's old friend, John Montgomery, came to the ex-regent's rescue. Montgomery recruited a small group of wealthy Hungarians to support the Horthy family's life in exile. According to Horthy's daughter-in-law, this group included Jewish industrialist Ferenc Chorin and lawyer László Pathy, also Jewish.
In exile, Horthy wrote his memoirs, Ein Leben für Ungarn (English: A Life for Hungary), published under the name of Nikolaus von Horthy, in which he narrated many personal experiences from his youth until the end of World War II. He claimed that he had distrusted Hitler for much of the time he knew him and tried to perform the best actions and appoint the best officials in his country. He also highlighted Hungary's alleged mistreatment by many other countries since the end of World War I. Horthy was one of the few Axis heads of state to survive the war, and thus to write post-war memoirs.
He never lost his deep contempt for Communism, and in his memoirs he blamed Hungary's alliance with the Axis on the threat posed by the "Asiatic barbarians" of the Soviet Union. He railed against the influence that the Allies' victory had given to Stalin's totalitarian state. "I feel no urge to say 'I told you so,' " Horthy wrote, "nor to express bitterness at the experiences that have been forced upon me. Rather, I feel wonder and amazement at the vagaries of humanity."
He died in 1957 at Estoril.
Horthy was married once, to Magdolna Purgly de Jószáshely
Magdolna Purgly
Magdolna Purgly de Jószáshely was the wife of Admiral Miklós Horthy.-Early life:...
. He had two sons, 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:...
(often rendered in English as "Nicholas" or "Nikolaus") and István Horthy
István Horthy
István Horthy de Nagybánya ) was Hungarian Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy's eldest son, a politician, and, during World War II, a fighter pilot.-Biography:...
, who served as his political assistants; and two daughters, Magda and Paula. Of his four children, only Miklós outlived him.
According to footnotes in his memoirs, Horthy was very distraught about the failure of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
1956 Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....
. In his will, Horthy asked that his body not be returned to Hungary "until the last Russian soldier has left." His heirs honored the request. In 1993, two years after the Soviet troops left Hungary, Horthy's body was returned to Hungary and he was buried in his home town of Kenderes
Kenderes
-Location, geography:The town is located along Route 4, halfway between the cities of Debrecen and Szolnok. It lies in the Great Hungarian Plain, thus its geography is defined by flat expanses. The town is primarily surrounded by agricultural zones...
. The reburial in Hungary was the subject of some controversy in the country.
Titles and styles
- 1 March 1920–15 October 1944: His Serene Highness the Regent of Hungary
Full title as Regent
His Serene HighnessSerene Highness
His/Her Serene Highness is a style used today by the reigning families of Liechtenstein and Monaco. It also preceded the princely titles of members of some German ruling and mediatised dynasties as well as some non-ruling but princely German noble families until 1918...
Miklós Horthy, Regent
Regent of Hungary
The Regent of Hungary was a position established in 1920 and held by Miklós Horthy until 1944.-Historical examples:On the untimely death of Albert in 1439, Hunyadi was of the volition that Hungary was best served by a warrior king and lent his support to the candidature of young King of Poland...
of 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...
.
See also
- History of HungaryHistory of HungaryHungary is a country in central Europe. Its history under this name dates to the early Middle Ages, when the Pannonian Basin was colonized by the Magyars, a semi-nomadic people from what is now central-northern Russia...
- Mediterranean naval engagements during World War IMediterranean naval engagements during World War IThere was sporadic naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I between the Central Powers' navies of Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire and the Allied navies of Italy, France, Greece, Japan, America and the British Empire....
- World War II
- István HorthyIstván HorthyIstván Horthy de Nagybánya ) was Hungarian Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy's eldest son, a politician, and, during World War II, a fighter pilot.-Biography:...
- 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:...
- Magdolna Purgly de JószáshelyMagdolna PurglyMagdolna Purgly de Jószáshely was the wife of Admiral Miklós Horthy.-Early life:...
- The series El ángel de BudapestEl ángel de BudapestEl ángel de Budapest is a Spanish 2011 television World War II-Holocaust miniseries based on the book "Un español frente al Holocausto" written by journalist and radio executive director Diego Carcedo...
portrayed by László Agárdi
External links
- Horthy: MEMOIRS (in English)
- Romanian martyrs in Transylvania-in Romanian
- John Flournoy Montgomery, The Unwilling Satellite (e-book version on historicaltextarchive.com
- Miklós Horthy Association
- Miklós Horthy Association's photo archive
- Horthy, Miklós: The Annotated Memoirs (pdf)
- The memoirs of Admiral Miklós Horthy
- Biography of Admiral Miklós Horthy
- First World War.com -Who's Who – Miklós Horthy de Nagybanya
- Montgomery,John,Flournoy: Hungary-The unwilling satellite
- Horthy's visit to Germany in 1938 (color; GoogleVideo)