Hungary during World War II
In March 1944, the Nazis launched Operation Margarethe and German troops occupied Hungary, and mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland were set to begin. The infamous SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann went to Hungary to oversee the large-scale deportations. Between May 15 and July 9, Hungarian authorities deported 437,402 Jews, all but 15,000 went to Auschwitz-Birkenau.[4] One in three Jews killed at Auschwitz was a Hungarian citizen. [4]
In August 1944, Horthy replaced Sztójay with the anti-Fascist General Géza Lakatos. Under the Lakatos regime, acting Interior Minister Béla Horváth ordered Hungarian gendarmes to prevent any Hungarian citizens from being deported.
In September 1944, Soviet forces crossed the Hungarian border. On October 15, 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. The Hungarian army ignored the armistice. The Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust and, by kidnapping his son (Miklós Horthy, Jr.), forced Horthy to abrogate the armistice, depose the Lakatos government, and name the leader of the Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szálasi, as Prime Minister. Horthy abdicated and Szálasi became Prime Minister.
Soon Hungary became a battlefield. Szálasi promised greatness for Hungary and a prosperity for the peasants, but in reality Hungary was crumbling and its armies were slowly being destroyed. In cooperation with the Nazis, Szálasi restarted the deportations of Jews, particularly in Budapest. Thousands more Jews were killed by Arrow Cross members. Of the approximately 800,000 Jews residing within Hungary's expanded borders of 1941, only 200,000 (about 25%) survived the Holocaust.[5] Several thousand Roma were also killed as part of the Porajmos. The retreating German army demolished the rail, road, and communications systems. The advancing Red Army committed mass rapes, mass lootings, and numerous other war crimes.
As an integral part of German General Maximilian Fretter-Pico's Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico, the re-formed Hungarian Second Army enjoyed a modest level of combat success. From 16 September 1944 to 24 October 1944, during the Battle of Debrecen, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico managed to achieve a major win on the battle field. Avoiding encirclement itself, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico encircled and destroyed three Soviet tank corps of Mobile Group Pliyev under the command of Issa Pliyev. Earlier, in the same battle, Mobile Group Pliyev had easily sliced through the Hungarian Third Army. But success was costly and, unable to replace lost assets, the Hungarian Second Army was disbanded on 1 December 1944. The remnants of the Second Army were incorporated into the Third Army.
In October 1944, the Hungarian First Army was attached to the German 1st Panzer Army and participated defensively in the Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive.
On December 28, 1944, a provisional government was formed in Hungary under acting Prime Minister Béla Miklós. Miklós immediately ousted Prime Minister Ferenc Szálasi's government. The Germans and pro-German Hungarians loyal to Szálasi fought on.
The Red Army completed the encirclement of Budapest on 29 December 1944 and the Battle of Budapest began and continued into February 1945. Most of what remained of the Hungarian First Army was destroyed about 200 kilometers north of Budapest between January 1 and February 16, 1945.
On January 20, 1945, representatives of the Hungarian provisional government signed an armistice in Moscow.
The siege of Budapest ended with the surrender of the city on February 13, 1945. But, while the German forces in Hungary were generally in a state of defeat, the Germans had one more surprise for the Soviets. In early March 1945, the Germans launch the Lake Balaton Offensive. This offensive was almost over before it began. By March 19, 1945, Soviet troops had recaptured all the territory lost during a 13-day German offensive. [6]
After the failed offensive, the Germans in Hungary were defeated. Most of what remained of the Hungarian Third Army was destroyed about 50 kilometers west of Budapest between March 16-25, 1945. Officially, Soviet operations in Hungary ended on April 4, 1945 when the last German troops were expelled. Some pro-fascist Hungarians like Szálasi went with the Germans.
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Aftermath
On May 7, 1945, General Alfred Jodl, the German Chief of Staff, signed the unconditional surrender of all German forces. On 11 June 1945, the Allies agreed to make 9 May 1945 the official "Victory in Europe" day. [7]
By signing the Peace Treaty of Paris, Hungary again lost all the territories that it gained between 1938 and 1941. Neither Western Allies nor the Soviet Union supported any change in Hungary's pre-1938 borders.
The Soviet Union annexed Sub-Carpathia, which is now part of the Ukraine.
The Treaty of Peace with Hungary[8] signed on 10 February 1947 declared that "The decisions of the Vienna Award of 2 November 1938 are declared null and void" and Hungarian boundaries were fixed along the former frontiers as they existed on 1 January 1938, except a minor loss of territory on the Czechoslovakian border. Half of the ethnic German minority (240,000 people) was deported to Germany in 1946-48, and there was a forced "exchange of population" between Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
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References
- ^ Hungary: The Unwilling Satellite John F. Montgomery, Hungary: The Unwilling Satellite. Devin-Adair Company, New York, 1947. Reprint: Simon Publications, 2002.
- ^ Slovakia - US State Department
- ^ Hungary - Shoah Foundation Institute Visual History Archive
- ^ a b c The Holocaust in Hungary Holocaust Memorial Centre.
- ^ Victims of Holocaust - Holocaust Memorial Centre.
- ^ Page 182, The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
- ^ Page 298, The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
- ^ Treaty of Peace with Hungary
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See also
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Bibliography
- Randolph Braham (1981). The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. Columbia University Press.
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External links
- Axis History Factbook — Hungary
- WW2 bunkers, fortifications, maps and museums (in English and Hungarian)
- Map
- Map
- Map
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