Gusztáv Jány

Gusztáv Jány after March 1943

Sign at the Budapest Military Museum

Gusztáv Jány [ ˈgustaːv ˈɟaːni ] (officially Hungarian : vitéz Jány Gusztáv ; German also Gustav von Jány ; name until 1924 Gustav Hautzinger ; born October 21, 1883 in Rajka ; † November 26, 1947 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian officer in the first and second World War , last in the rank of colonel general . His name is particularly associated with the fall of the 2nd Hungarian Army in January 1943. This military debacle on the Don Arch in southern Russia is also known as the "Hungarian Stalingrad " or the "blackest day in the history of the Hungarian army ". He was sentenced to death by the Hungarian People's Court for war crimes and executed in 1947 .

Origin and education

Hautzinger came from a German - Polish family. His father, Sándor (Alexander) Hautzinger, was a grocer and farmer. In 1896 the family moved to Budapest. Hautzinger visited u. a. the Lutheran Lyceum in Ödenburg and the Lutheran Gymnasium on Deák Square in Budapest.

From 1902 to 1905 Hautzinger studied at the Pest Ludovika Military Academy . After graduating, he was appointed lieutenant . From 1909 to 1912 Hautzinger attended the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt for further studies.

First World War

During the First World War, Hautzinger was primarily employed as a staff officer in Galicia and was promoted to captain in November 1914 . In 1918 he was transferred to the War Ministry.

Interwar period

From February 1919 Hautzinger took part in the Hungarian-Romanian War as a member of the Szekler Division under Colonel Károly Kratochvill . The division capitulated on April 29, 1919 and was taken prisoner by the Romanians . Hautzinger did not return from captivity until the end of August 1920.

In October 1920 Hautzinger became chief of staff of a division stationed in Debreczin . On June 17, 1924, the elevation to Vitéz took place ; at the same time, Hautzinger Magyarized his surname to Jány using his mother's maiden name.

In September 1931 Jány returned to the Ludovika Academy as a teacher and was the commander of the Military Academy from 1932 to 1936. Jány spent the remaining years up to the Second World War in the troop service and in the military chancellery of the Reich Administrator Horthy .

Second World War

From March 1940 Jány commanded the newly established 2nd Hungarian Army. The first military operation of this army was the occupation of Transylvania in September 1940 after the second Vienna arbitration .

Column of prisoners with soldiers from the Axis in early 1943

In April 1942, Jány led the poorly trained and poorly equipped army on the side of the German Wehrmacht in the war against the Soviet Union . In particular, there was a lack of anti-tank guns (Pak). There was also too little ammunition available. Even the food supply was inadequate. A weapon aid of 250 anti- tank guns and 180 8,8 guns promised by the German side never came. With the Hungarian 1st Panzer Division, the army had only one motorized combat unit, albeit with outdated tanks .

The 2nd Army was initially assigned to Army Group South under von Bock and from June 1942 to Army Group B under von Weichs . She fought u. a. 1942 in the Battle of Voronezh and in January 1943 on the Donbogen between Voronezh and Pavlovsk . The only action reserve in the event of a Soviet breakthrough was the so-called Cramer z. b. V. ready. It comprised not quite two German infantry divisions, a tank group, an assault gun division and the Hungarian 1st Panzer Division. In a memorandum to Horthy, he warned of possible consequences early on.

On January 12, the Red Army launched a major attack from the Uryw bridgehead. The attack tore open the front of the Hungarian IV Army Corps in several places. The Hungarian troops were able to hold the front for roughly 24 hours before they retreated. On January 14th, the Soviet troops also attacked the Hungarian VII Army Corps from the Shchuchye bridgehead. Subsequently, the Hungarian III standing on the left wing. Army corps attacked. The Panzer Corps Cramer z. b. V. was refused to him. Adolf Hitler alone determined the use of this reserve . This task force was the only German reserve on the southern section of the German Eastern Front in January 1943.

Three days after the offensive began, large parts of the Hungarian army were in retreat. Only a few cut-off formations remained in their positions on the Don. Because of the Soviet superiority and the lack of anti-tank weapons, the Red Army could not be stopped. Colonel-General von Weichs, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group B, now asked Hitler for permission to move the Hungarian front back to the line of the Aidar River. Hitler refused permission to do so. When on January 15, Soviet tanks with mounted infantry approached Alexejewka, the seat of the Hungarian Army High Command, parts of the Hungarian and Italian armies threatened to be encircled. Weichs sent Major General Hermann von Witzleben , German general at the Hungarian Army High Command 2 , to Jány unofficially. Witzleben was supposed to persuade Jány, in the interests of his army, to order the withdrawal at his own risk, without waiting for Hitler's approval, because a withdrawal contradicted Hitler's instructions. Jány demanded clear instructions from the High Command of Army Group B, which Weichs did not want to give him. It was not until January 17 that the high command of Army Group B, the Hungarian army subordinate to it, gave the order to act according to the situation . Jány let more precious hours pass before he gave an order to withdraw to all subordinate troops. An orderly withdrawal of his troops was now ruled out. Despite great personal commitment, Jány could not avert a quick and devastating defeat of his army.

Of the initial 200,000 Hungarian soldiers and 50,000 Jewish forced laborers in the army construction crews, around 100,000 were killed in the fighting in January 1943, another 35,000 were wounded and 60,000 were taken prisoner. Only 40,000 members of the army later returned to Hungary. These losses were the highest losses any Hungarian army could ever suffer in a single battle.

Jány issued a daily order for his army on January 24, 1943. In the order of the day, Jány accused his soldiers of cowardice that they had "completely lost their honor on the battlefield". "With the hardest hand, if necessary by shooting on the spot, order and an iron discipline must be restored, with no exception whether an officer or a common soldier is the culprit!" Thundered the Colonel General. The German troops deserved admiration: “We don't deserve them…” In a new daily order on April 4, 1943, he radically corrected himself and had his previous order declared invalid.

All court martial proceedings because of the defeat, which Colonel General Jány had ordered at the end of January / beginning of February 1943, were discontinued “by higher authorities”. The government in Budapest only intended to initiate a court martial against Jány himself. When Jány was awarded the German Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on March 31, 1943, an investigation was waived in Budapest for political reasons. Jány returned on l. May 1943 with the last troop transport of his army back from Russia. He was ceremoniously received back home, but replaced as commander. His successor as commander of the 2nd Army was Géza Lakatos . He was no longer given a new command. In autumn 1943 he was retired at his own request.

Jány lived in Budapest until November 1944 and then fled the approaching front with his sick wife to Germany. There he surrendered to US troops in Eichendorf on May 1, 1945 and became a prisoner of war .

post war period

Grave of the Hautzinger-Jány family in the Farkasréti cemetery in Budapest

On June 19, 1945, Jány was expelled from the Hungarian army in absentia. He was released from American captivity in 1946 and then worked as a cobbler in Bavaria. After the death of his wife, he voluntarily returned to Hungary in October 1946, although the Americans offered him exile in Western Europe and he was warned against a trial. One reason for Jány's return is said to have been his wish to take responsibility for the downfall of the 2nd Army. It was not his officers who were to blame for the fall of his army, but, if anything, he was solely responsible for it. Jány was soon arrested in Hungary. The Hungarian People's Court sentenced him to death for war crimes in September 1947 . Jány renounced a petition for clemency and was executed by shooting on November 26, 1947 .

In the early 1990s, allegations were raised that Jány was personally responsible for the suffering and murder of tens of thousands of young Hungarian Jews . However, there is evidence that Jány protested to Colonel General von Salmuth against the mistreatment and murder of the Jewish slave laborers under his command by the SS and the Wehrmacht .

In 1993 Jány was rehabilitated by a Hungarian military court . Its role in World War II has meanwhile been reassessed in Hungary.

Web links

Commons : Gusztáv Jány  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

1. ↑ "Vitéz" is not a name, but denotes belonging to the order of the same name ; in German translation for example knight or noble , but without legal quality in the sense of historical nobility law .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Peter Gosztony. The Stalingrad of Hungarians In: The Time. Vol. 48, No. 2, 1993, ISSN  0044-2070 , p. 62.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Esther Vécsey: Somewhere in Russia Budapest Sun, February 20, 2003. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Péter Szabó: Jány Gusztáv. In: Rubicon. No. 8, 1997, ISSN  0865-6347 , Appendix III-IV.
5. ^ Gabor Baross: Hungary and Hitler. Problems behind the Iron Curtain Series No. 8. ( Memento of the original from July 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Danubian Press, Astor 1970.  
6. ^ Spencer C. Tucker: Who's Who in Twentieth Century Warfare. Routledge, London 2001. p. 157. ISBN 0415234972 Accessed June 14, 2009.
7. ^ Gabor Aron Study Group. Hungary in the Mirror of the Western World 1938–1958 ( Memento of the original dated November 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Corvinus Electronic Library, Budapest 1998. Retrieved June 14, 2009.  
8. ↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 418.
9. ↑ Ágnes Kenyeres (ed.): Magyar életrajzi lexikon (1000–1991). Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1994. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Order of Knights of the Vitéz: Vitéz Jány Gusztáv . Retrieved June 16, 2009.
11. ↑ Nicholas Horthy: Memoirs ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Annotated by Andrew L. Simon. Simon Publications, Safety Harbor 2000, ISBN 978-0-96657-343-5 .  
12. ^ Péter Szabó: Jány Gusztáv vezérezredes a népbíróság előtt. Politikai érdekek diktálták ötven éve a vádiratot. In: Magyar Nemzet . Vol. 60, No. 222, 1997, ISSN  0200-7347 , p. 10.
13. ↑ Moshe Y. Herczl: Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry. NYU Press, New York 1993, ISBN 978-081473-520-6 , p. 166.
14. ↑ Randolph L. Braham : The Hungarian Labor Service System (1939-1945): An Overview . In: US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.1 MB) . Symposium Presentations, Washington 2004.  
15. ^ British Broadcasting Corporation. Hungary honors 'war crimes' generals. January 16, 2002. Retrieved June 14, 2009.