Battle for Hungary

Battle for Hungary

Part of: Second World War

date	October 6, 1944 to April 4, 1945
place	Budapest , Hungary
output	soviet victory

Parties to the conflict
Soviet Union	German Empire Hungary
Commander
Fyodor Tolbuchin Ivan Petrow Rodion Malinovsky	Hans Frießner Otto Wöhler Károly Beregfy

The battle for Hungary is the name of the entire phase of the war on the Eastern Front on the then Hungarian territory in the final phase of the Second World War , which began largely with the withdrawal of the German Eastern Front from the Ukraine - under the high command of Colonel General Johannes Frießner - towards Hungary in autumn 1944. The phase includes the Battle of Budapest from October 1944 to February 1945, the ten-day Lake Balaton offensive in March 1945 until the end of Operation “Spring Awakening” and the Vienna Operation from March 29, 1945; it finally ended with the complete conquest of Hungary by the Red Army on April 4, 1945. The German Wehrmacht - from December 1944 under the command of General der Infanterie Otto Wöhler - and units of the Royal Hungarian Army under the direct command of the Chief of the Hungarian General Staff Colonel-General Károly Beregfy , tried to secure the oil wells and fuel stores there, which were strategically extremely important for the operational readiness of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS units .

prehistory

→ Main article : Operation Jassy-Kishinev

After the German 6th Army was almost completely crushed in the Kischinjow ( Chișinău ) battle from August 20, 1944, parts of the 8th Army withdrew to Hungary via the Carpathians. After August 23, 1944, a coup and Romania was eliminated from among the Axis powers and the Romanian army from now on side of the Allies against the German Wehrmacht and its remaining allies, especially even Hungary, fought the saw High Command of the Armed Forces and Adolf Hitler forced to withdraw the remaining troops as far as Eastern Hungary.

There, the positioned Army Group South , under the command of Colonel General Johannes Frießner , new and presented with the 6th and 8th Army of the Armed Forces and three divisions of Army Group F . Together they had 3500 guns, 300 tanks and 500 aircraft, including those of Jagdgeschwader 4 , which previously secured oil production in Romania . There was also the Hungarian 2nd Army under the command of General Lajos Veress Dálnoki .

On the middle section of the Eastern Front, the 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Ivan Konev in the Dukla area and the 4th Ukrainian Front under Army General Petrov as part of the Carpathian-Uzhgorod operation had moved into Slovakia during the Eastern Carpathian operation . Both fronts had orders to support the Slovak National Uprising in early September . After the successful Eastern Carpathian operation, the 2nd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts had united at Csap and bound the German 1st Panzer Army and the Hungarian 1st Army , also called Army Group Heinrici , which as a result could not support the 8th Army as the bulk the 2nd Ukrainian Front began the advance on Miskolc and Budapest.

Fight in Transylvania

The Hungarian 2nd Army (Lieutenant General Lajos Veress von Dálnoki) advanced on September 5, 1944 between Cluj-Napoca and Târgu Mureș , the former Hungarian Torda-Aranyos County . The aim was to secure the areas of northern Transylvania that had fallen to Hungarians in Transylvania since the Second Vienna Arbitration , but also to occupy additional parts of southern Transylvania that had remained Romanian. Two days later, on September 7th, Romania declared war. As early as August 25, 1944, the Sănătescu government installed by King Michael I , especially because of the bombing of Bucharest and the open acts of war by the commanding general and commander of the German Air Force in Romania, Lieutenant General Alfred Gerstenberg , commanded German combat units , the German Reich the declared war .

Hungarian tank Turán II in Transylvania

Equipped with Zrinyi assault guns , Turán II main battle tanks and some Nimrod anti-aircraft tanks , the Hungarian 2nd Army advanced as far as Nădlac in a line along the northern bank of the Maros River . The fighting began on September 13th, the Hungarian units were able to stop the attacking Soviet units, but lost most of their Turán tanks in direct tank combat with the superior T-34 tanks. When strengthening Soviet and Romanian units from the Torda region advanced against the Hungarian positions, they had to retreat westwards via Cluj-Napoca towards Székely . Numerous members of the Hungarian and German population groups of Transylvania also fled within their columns of retreat.

Hungarian Army Toldi light tank

→ Main article : “Second World War” in the article History of Timișoara

Counterattacks by the Soviet 46th and 53rd Armies of the 2nd Ukrainian Front and the Romanian Divizia 9 Cavalerie Română and Regimentul 13 Călărași had already started on September 12th against the German units located in the Banat region and especially near Timișoara . In view of the Soviet-Romanian superiority and despite the supportive intervention of the 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division coming from Serbia under the command of SS Brigade Leader Fritz Schmedes, they had to retreat to the Béga and the Temesch and the entire area of ​​the Banat - Abandon the plain up to the eastern bank of the Tisza , freeing the way for the Soviet troops towards the Hungarian heartland.

Fight in the Torda area

From September 15, Hungarian and German troops tried to stop the Soviet units by closing the then Hungarian-Romanian border near Torda (Thorenburg). The Hungarian Chief of Staff Colonel-General Elemér Kozar subordinated the Hungarian 2nd and 3rd Armies of the Army Group Fretter-Pico , under the command of General of the Artillery Maximilian Fretter-Pico . For the time being, they were also able to successfully stop the Romanian army units in the region around Câmpia Turzii and Torda and set up a battle line to Mirăslău . The Soviet troops had already succeeded in forcing the German troops in Romania, coming from Luduş , on the defensive. The Soviet 6th Guards Panzer Army advanced with their T-34 tanks in the direction of the Hungarian-German positions. Colonel-General Kozar then sent the Hungarian 2nd Panzer Division under Major General Laszlo Hollósy-Kuthy and the Honved Regiments 25 and 26 under Colonel Géza Böszörményi to meet these enemy units . Together with the German units, these formed a bridgehead and were able to hold up the Romanian-Soviet units, consisting of the Soviet 7th Rifle Division and the Romanian 18th Infantry Division, until October 7th.

On September 19, 25 Soviet tanks broke through the bridgehead position and were able to penetrate Torda at short notice. However, massive German air raids forced them to retreat. The Hungarian Colonel Böszörményi was also killed in the fighting, a circumstance that reduced the morale of the Hungarian soldiers.

Already at this time Miklós Horthy had plans to end the war against the Soviet Union, and he commissioned his new Prime Minister, Géza Lakatos, to start ceasefire and peace negotiations with the Soviet Union.

In the meantime the strengthened Soviet units gathered in Transylvania in order to initiate the second phase of their Operation Torda on September 22nd . During the first wave of attacks, the Hungarian-German troops were pushed back up to four kilometers from Torda. On the morning of September 23, the German 23rd Panzer Division under Lieutenant General von Radowitz launched a counter-offensive. These were only stopped and pushed back on September 24th by Romanian-Soviet tank divisions and motorized units. From September 26th, the Soviet troops broke through on several sections of the front, so that the Hungarian-German resistance there largely collapsed by the beginning of October. They gathered their remaining strength and were forced to withdraw from Transylvania largely without a fight.

Colonel-General Károly Beregfy receives the report from the Arrow Cross members about the successful overthrow at the Budapest Castle

Horthy took this development as an opportunity to force the efforts of Lakatos to achieve a separate peace after the loss of Transylvania to secure the remaining home country. In order to end the efforts of Lakatos, the German commando company "Panzerfaust" kidnapped Miklós Horthy Jr. on October 15, 1944 under the leadership of Otto Skorzeny . (1907–1993), the son of the imperial administrator . Horthy then announced in a radio address that he had asked the Allies for a ceasefire. The Arrow Cross Party then deposed him, forced him to revoke his proclamation, and installed a fascist pro-German government under Ferenc Szálasi that was ready to continue the war. Lakatos was also forced to resign and was placed under house arrest by the Arrow Cross in Sopron from October 21, 1944 to April 1, 1945 .

After the Soviet troops had occupied all of Romania, they stood on the Danube and Tisza in Hungarian territory. Attempts by Army Group South to stop the subsequent 2nd Ukrainian Front failed because of the numerical superiority of the Red Army, which had 10,200 guns, 825 tanks and 1,100 aircraft. During the Debrecen operation from 6 to 27/28 October attempted Marshal Malinovsky with the 6th Guards Panzer Army and the mechanized cavalry groups Pliyev and Gorshkov to break through Debrecen north to the Tisza. After German counter-attacks, three Soviet corps were encircled and suffered heavy losses.

Impending loss of oil reserves and the consequences

After Romania changed sides , the last significant oil reserves of the Greater German Empire were in Hungary. Hungarian oil production, which in 1943 had grown to around 838,000 tons of crude oil, was by no means enough to keep the entire Wehrmacht moving, but from mid-1944 it was the only way to continue the war. Relocating the local fuel reserves to other theaters of war was only possible to a limited extent, if at all, as rail traffic had largely collapsed due to the Allied air sovereignty. Therefore, the Wehrmacht was forced to use the little oil that was still available as close as possible to its production facilities. Due to the considerable Hungarian oil reserves and existing oil refineries at the time, Army Group South could be fully supplied and Army Group Center partially supplied. In practice, Army Group South was the only major German formation that at that time was still able to carry out attack operations in a larger radius. The oil refineries at Komárom and Pétfürdő were largely or completely destroyed by US air strikes on March 14 and 16 . Since the German hydrogenation plants had repeatedly been targets of the bombing raids since May 1944 and the production of German synthetic gasoline fell drastically, one of the most important goals of the German troops had failed. Only the Zala and Zistersdorf oil fields, which in January 1945 already supplied 80% of the total fuel production, were still usable. To the Chief of the Wehrmacht Command Staff in the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), Hitler justified Colonel General Alfred Jodl and the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, in order to preserve the last oil reserve, the advisability of a counteroffensive in Hungary. However, he ignored the fact that this would only have been possible under the precondition of local success, which was no longer the case at that time.

First Soviet offensive on Budapest

On October 29, 1944, Marshal Malinovsky regrouped the 2nd Ukrainian Front to the west and opened the battle for Budapest . The Soviet 46th Army put its focus in the direction of Kecskemét and broke through the front of the Hungarian 3rd Army (about 17,400 men under General József Heszlényi ) with the 37th Rifle Corps and the 2nd Mechanical Corps to a width of 25 kilometers. A counterattack by the German 24th Panzer Division failed, and Kecskemét fell into Soviet hands on October 31. The Soviet advance on the southeastern apron of Budapest was stopped for the time being by counter-attacks by the German 1st and 13th Panzer Divisions on November 5th in front of the "Attila Line". The 22nd SS Volunteer Cavalry Division , mostly recruited from Danube Swabia from September onwards, was able to recapture the heights of Kazankuti and Birö between Dunaharaszti and Gyal on November 8th . Because the advance of Malinowski's troops seemed too slow to the Stawka, the 3rd Ukrainian Front , operating southwards, under Marshal Tolbuchin, received orders to cross the Danube and take part in the conquest of Budapest. In order to prepare to surround the city from the south and west, the Soviet 57th Army crossed the Danube in the Kisköszeg area between November 7th and 9th and built bridgeheads at Apatin and Batina on the western bank of the river.

After the success Marshal Tolbuchins in Apatin-Kaposvár operation the German High Command had the 1st and 23rd Panzer Division from the room Hatvan pull and after Transdanubia loss for the threatened "Margaret" between the Balaton and Lake Velence keep can. On December 4, Malinowski gave the 46th Army (General Petruschewski ) the order to build an additional Danube bridgehead between Százhalombatta and Ercsi , in order to take Budapest before Tolbuchin. Regardless of the strong artillery positions of the German 271st Infantry Division on the western bank, the Soviet troops won four bridgeheads with heavy losses at the river crossing between Adony and Erd-Ofalu, which could only be secured after the advancement of Tolbuchin's troops. Colonel-General Frießner had three armored divisions deployed in the eastern apron of the city, which the Soviets were able to bring to a standstill. While the III. Panzer Corps (General Breith) took over the defense of Budapest, the LVII secured . Panzer Corps (General Kirchner ) the area between Cegléd and Szolnok and the IV. Panzer Corps "Feldherrnhalle" (General Kleemann ) in the Jászberény area .

Enclosure of Budapest

Malinowski's troops were able to break through in the east of the Hungarian capital between Acsa and Galgamacsa and relied on enclosing the city in the north. The Soviet 6th Guards Panzer Army (General Kravchenko ) was reintroduced, occupied Balassagyarmat on December 9th and reached the Danube at Vác (Waitzen). On December 21, Kravchenko's armored troops captured Leva and were able to cross the Gran River on the same day , the northern enclosure of Budapest emerged. At the same time, Tolbuchin's troops broke through the "Margaret Line" from the south, 60 kilometers wide. The 18th Panzer Corps under Major General Goworunienko threatened the defensive positions in front of Bicske on December 22nd . On December 23, the railway line between Budapest and Vienna was interrupted, the following day Budapest was completely surrounded by Soviet troops.

Hitler reacted in the usual manner and had Colonel-General Frießner and General der Artillerie Fretter-Pico replaced by General Wöhler and General Balck . The German 8th Army now deployed in the area between the rivers Hron and Eipel received a new commander-in-chief in General Kreysing . The deposed Commander-in-Chief of the Hungarian 1st Army, Colonel General Béla Dálnoki-Miklós , had left for the Soviet Union in mid-October after Horthy was arrested and the peace efforts had failed. From December 1944 he was Prime Minister of a counter-government in Debrecen, which had been installed by Moscow and declared war on Germany on December 31, 1944.

German relief attempts (Konrad company)

German reinforcements for Hungary

After the Red Army had completely enclosed the Hungarian capital Budapest in December 1944 , the Wehrmacht began intensively preparing a major offensive (code name: Operation "Konrad") in early 1945 to re-establish contact with the 78,000 encircled German and Hungarian soldiers.

Similar to the Ardennes offensive on the Western Front in December 1944, the Wehrmacht in Hungary carried out no fewer than five major offensives to stop the advance of the Soviet troops in Transdanubia . From a German perspective, Hungary became one of the main theaters of war from December 1944. There was no Army Group that received as many reinforcements as Army Group South in Hungary. Between September 1944 and February 1945 around 15 tank, 4 tank grenadier, 8 infantry and 4 cavalry divisions were ordered to Hungary. The Wehrmacht used its most modern weapons, as far as available, including the Panzerkampfwagen V Panther , the Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger and the heavy Jagdpanzer VI Jagdtiger .

On January 1, 1945, the Wehrmacht still had 471 Tiger tanks, 79 of which were used in Hungary alone. By March 15, this number was finally increased to 122, with the total number already reduced to 205 due to severe losses on other front sections. This means that more than half of all Tiger tanks still available were used in the fighting in Hungary at that time.

As early as mid-January 1945, Hitler made the decision to withdraw the 6th Panzer Army under its commander SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich from the Ardennes , to refresh it briefly and to relocate it to the Eastern Front as reinforcement. This was at a time when the failure of the Battle of the Bulge had not yet been officially admitted, but it was already clear that the hopes associated with it would not be fulfilled. In a briefing at the Führer Headquarters in Adlerhorst , he formulated this step with the words: “so as not to lose the law of action entirely”. At that time, the Red Army leaders were in front of Tata and Várpalota . Southern Transdanubia had also been occupied by Soviet troops up to Nagykanizsa .

Due to the Soviet offensive on the Vistula that began on January 12, the Chief of the Army High Command Colonel General Heinz Guderian wanted to deploy the 6th Panzer Army from the Ardennes with the other divisions that had been regrouped from the west to defend the Soviet attack wedge, consisting of the 1st. Belorussian Front , the 2nd Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front , to be able to grasp at their flanks as long as they had not become too strong. The Soviet tank armies were approaching Berlin directly , and apart from the Oder there was no longer any significant obstacle between the formations of Zhukov and the capital of the Reich. However, Hitler insisted on dividing these forces and thus being able to clear up the threatening situation in Hungary first. In his opinion, the remaining divisions would be sufficient to support the Oder front. He responded to Guderian's objections in this regard with the ironic words: [...] “You want to attack without oil? Well, let's see what comes of it. ” In his circle, he commented on Guderian's objections with the words,“ His generals just don't understand warfare ”.

From the outset, Hitler was adamant about keeping Budapest, which is why he forbade any failure there . To support the trapped, on December 24, 1944, he had also ordered the IV. SS Panzer Corps as well as the 96th and 711th Infantry Divisions to Hungary, which comprised around 260 tanks and 70,000 soldiers. He transferred command to SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Otto Gille , who had already broken open a kettle as part of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsk operation and received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with oak leaves, swords and diamonds. Guderian also traveled personally to Hungary for a few days to check the measures there.

The plans of the Soviet side also had far-reaching consequences due to the German reinforcements. According to the plans drawn up by the headquarters of the Supreme Commander's Command (Stawka) in autumn 1944, Budapest should be reached by mid-November and the Graz - Vienna - Brno - Olomouc line by mid-December. This advance was intended to secure the attack on Berlin from the south and to politically secure the Soviet “sphere of interest” in south-eastern Europe. These goals, however, came nowhere near as the Red Army lagged four months behind Stalin's schedules.

Relief attacks in the Pilis Mountains

On January 1, 1945 also began in the area Komárom (Komarno dt.) SS Panzer Corps that arrived at that time only half and unloaded IV. A counter-offensive, while the 96th Infantry Division from the north with assault boats on the Danube translated and built two bridgeheads in the rear of the Soviet troops. As part of this offensive, Esztergom was recaptured on January 6th . At the same time the Soviet attack on the southern front intensified and the 2nd Ukrainian Front and the 3rd Ukrainian Front , under the command of Army General Malinovsky , had started a general attack north of the Danube. The Danube alone separated two tank units operating against one another, each advancing in opposite directions. As early as January 8th, the Soviet troops had approached Komárom within one kilometer, so that the German units threatened further encirclement. At the headquarters of Army Group South, it was decided to undertake a risky counter-operation. With the help of the newly arrived 20th Panzer Division , the front was temporarily held.

The IV SS Panzer Corps under General Gille intended to break through the Soviet defenses in the Esztergom region. The Hungarian-German units operating here at Tatabánya and Székesfehérvár (German: Stuhlweissenburg) were used as flank protection and later had to divert and tie up some combat units of the Soviet army. During this fierce fighting numerous small settlements in Fejér County were destroyed, which were not rebuilt after the Second World War. More and more disastrous reports came from besieged Budapest, which further enhanced operations in the north. After the failed attempt to break through in the Vértes Mountains , the Panzer Corps attempted to relieve Budapest with a northern attack over the Pilis Mountains (Operation "Konrad 2").

On January 7th, the relief attack began, which was supposed to bind the Soviet forces and relieve the SS tank units already in action. The III. Panzer Corps under General der Panzertruppe Hermann Breith had positions east of Mór , Csókakő and Söréd , in the small area of ​​Mór , as well as three kilometers southwest of Csákberény , east of Magyaralmás , northwest of Sárkeresztes and east of with the 1st , 3rd and 23rd Panzer Divisions Iskaszentgyörgy in the small area of ​​Székesfehérvár . Their advance from the southern Vértes Mountains was north towards Csákvár and Bicske .

On the opposite side stood the Soviet 20th Guards Rifle Corps (Major General NI Birjukow ) and the 7th Mechanized Corps (Major General FG Katkow ), which were already waiting in deeply structured positions for the German attack. Parts of the Breith combat group were able to advance from the Magyaralmás area in an easterly direction and conquer smaller towns. While the Panzergrenadier Regiment 128 occupied Sárkeresztes , the Panzergrenadier Regiment 126 got stuck in strong Soviet anti-tank fire east of Borbálamajor.

On January 8, parts of the 2nd SS Panzer Division and the 23rd Panzer Division launched another attack east of Sárkeresztes. These were initially able to secure the connection road from Székesfehérvár to Zámoly , which was later one of the routes of retreat for the German units, but then got stuck in front of the Soviet anti-tank positions . 25 Soviet armored vehicles, 38 anti-tank guns, 60 guns and several trucks were destroyed in the fighting, but the German units had also lost 16 armored vehicles.

Company Konrad II

On January 9, Operation Konrad 2 started from Esztergom . For this purpose, around 200 tons of supplies had been collected in order to be able to transport them to Budapest if successful. The 711th Infantry Division attacking in the south-east managed to cut a gap in the Soviet lines, in which the 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking" also moved. Gille mentioned in his front-line notes: “Opponents weak, completely surprised. Difficult mountain terrain. Pre-alpine character. Midnight, the first reports of success, prisoners mostly members of the Budapest containment divisions. Anti-tank guns and mortar defense. No losses of your own. 'Westland' is making good progress ”. By January 11, the Westland Panzer Regiment had also fought its way over the Pilis Mountains and penetrated the Pilisszentkereszt community , which was about 21 kilometers from Budapest. Since the last retreat two weeks earlier, there were still numerous German vehicles and wounded soldiers in the village, who were again taken care of by the German soldiers. Due to the sometimes very anti-German mood, there had been pogroms there on both sides in the meantime , with captured Soviet soldiers and wounded German soldiers being murdered.

The Army Group again asked for permission to attempt to break out of Budapest, also hoping to be able to take away the wounded who were no longer able to walk by conquering an airfield near Pomáz and to take care of the troops that had broken out. However, Hitler continued to forbid any such actions and also forbade any further relief attack, which had already approached Budapest within 17 kilometers.

Failure of the German relief attacks

Some of the advance detachments of the SS Panzer Division Wiking had already reached the junction of the road leading to Pomáz immediately before Csobánka when they received the order to withdraw on the evening of January 12th. This was all the more difficult to understand for these associations, because in the remaining 17 kilometers to Budapest, because of the difficult-to-reach hilly terrain, Soviet attacks were hardly to be feared. For the units of Gille there was therefore the risk that his forces advancing on the Pilis Mountains would be in the immediate vicinity of Soviet troops at Dorog . Hitler and the General of the Panzer Troop Hermann Balck did not share this view and despite the protests of the IV SS Panzer Corps they ordered the accelerated regrouping of the armored divisions in front of Székesfehérvár (German: Stuhlweissenburg). From there, should Operation Konrad 3 start.

The Soviet generals, completely surprised by this offensive that began on January 18, were hit hard by this counter-attack, as the assessment of the situation to the Stawka “The reconnaissance department of the staff of the 4th Guard Army was not up to date” . On the same day, Gilles tanks overran the counterattack of the 7th Mechanized Corps of Soviet troops, while at the same time the 133rd Rifle Corps and the 18th Panzer Corps of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were cut off from their rear connections. On the first day of the offensive, the IV. SS Panzer Corps pushed into the Soviet front about 60 kilometers deep and 30 kilometers wide and broke through it in places. On January 19, the German tank units reached the Danube in the Dunaújváros area , tearing apart the Trans-Danubian battle line of the Soviet troops. The area gained in this attack amounted to about 400 square kilometers, in less than four days, and was one of the last great successes for the German side. The balance for the Soviet side was correspondingly negative and the situation at the crossing points on the Danube was sometimes chaotic. Within a few days, the Soviet high command moved more than 40,000 soldiers and large amounts of war material to the eastern bank, with these being constantly bombed by the German air force. On January 22nd, after heavy street fighting, Székesfehérvár fell and the Hungarian SS combat group Ney , which at that time had already reached regiment strength, moved into the city, but lost about a quarter of its population. The conquest of Székesfehérvár was a necessary prerequisite for all further attacks, as almost all supply routes led through this city. From 19 to 20 January the military situation for the 3rd Ukrainian Front was very threatening, as there were no more Soviet troops between Budapest and the advancing German tank units. On January 21, the German attack leaders reached the Váli River, which flows 28 kilometers southwest of Buda , and at the same time the advancing Soviet tanks appeared in this region. The German tanks were only able to drag themselves over the icy steep slopes of the water with difficulty . Nevertheless, by January 26, this offensive had approached the Budapest pocket to about 25 kilometers. A German combat group was even able to establish a radio link with the defenders of Budapest.

These German successes hit Stawka completely unexpectedly, especially since the Soviet dictator Stalin no longer wanted to embark on adventures towards the end of the Second World War. Even the outbreak of war he had through his relentless Ausharrungsbefehle million soldiers into captivity sent. Now he even considered the complete evacuation of South Transdanubia at times and left Marshal Fyodor Ivanovich Tolbuchin free for further measures . He recognized, however, that a complete evacuation would be tantamount to the total loss of armaments, all ordnance and war materials of two armies, since due to time constraints only the withdrawal of the soldiers would have been possible. Tolbuchin therefore opted for the riskier and at the same time bolder option. He ordered that the bridgehead in southern Transdanubia should be kept in any case, because in his opinion it was hopeless to give up the already conquered areas in the hope of another smooth crossing of the Danube. He rearranged his forces and launched an attack on January 27th . The German wedge that had penetrated as far as the Danube was extremely vulnerable, since the Soviet divisions coming from Lake Velence and the Simontornya area could cut it off from its rear lines at any time.

Soviet counter-offensive from January 22, 1945

Compared to the enormous forces that were deployed, the successes of the 2nd Ukrainian Front turned out to be minor, which challenged the enemy directly to a large encircling operation. This failed, however, although on January 25th only 16% of the tanks of the IV SS Panzer Corps (50 of 306 in total) were ready for action. The remaining tanks were under repair as a result of the fierce fighting. Malinowski sent the 23rd Panzer Corps to the main combat area without prior coordination with the Stawka, since otherwise he considered a breakthrough of the German troops to Budapest inevitable there. Such a breakthrough could have had devastating consequences for the Soviet troops in view of the small and exhausted attacking forces, so that, in retrospect, Malinowski's quick action was not justified. On the first day of the Soviet counter-offensive, the German defense shot down 122 Soviet tanks, with only minor losses, 100 of which belonged to the 23rd Panzer Corps. Nevertheless, it was not possible for the German units to stop the Soviet offensive because the attack on the flank of the German front began at the same time. This enabled the Soviet units to penetrate the northern part of Székesfehérvár . On January 22nd, Hitler then ordered the 6th Panzer Army to be relocated to Hungary immediately in order to stop the Soviet offensive.

The 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" - under the command of SS-Oberführer Otto Baum , from Italy - and the SS Panzer Division Totenkopf - under the command of SS Brigadführer and Major General of the Waffen-SS Hellmuth Becker , from the Warsaw Front - ordered to Hungary.

The final battle in Budapest

→ Main article : Battle of Budapest

SS-Obergruppenführer and fortress commander of Budapest Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch

After Stalin's strategic mistakes prevented the capture of Budapest in the autumn of 1944 - he would have had to wait five days before attacking in order to have the attacking armies fully on the ground - the Red Army was only able to conquer Budapest after several months of siege with heavy losses . At the beginning of December 1944, Hitler declared Budapest a fortress .

At the beginning of 1945 the fighting in Budapest intensified and reached the suburbs of the Hungarian capital. The Soviet troops succeeded in occupying more and more areas around and in the city until they were finally able to conquer the Buda district west of the Danube almost completely on February 9 . The first Soviet tanks, coming from Budakeszi , entered Buda on December 24, 1944, but this front stabilized in the following days. Initially, neither the Soviet units nor the German-Hungarian defenders capable enough were infantry to Buda to summon to the trench warfare in a war of movement to turn. So until the beginning of January 1945 there was no coherent front line. Smaller units of the attacking Red Army were able to establish themselves in the villas on the Rosenhügel . The front ran from south to north along the embankment at the Lágymányosi híd , the Sashegy (Eagle Mountain), the Farkasréter Cemetery , the Orbán Mountain , the Rose Hill, the Castle District and the Kiscelli út. Although the attackers did a lot in the first weeks of the encirclement, they were only able to change the front line insignificantly. Because of the relief attacks that started on January 18, the Buda side even had a break in fighting until January 25. The German-Hungarian defenders also hoped for Hitler's permission to break out of the cauldron. The fortress commander and general of the Waffen-SS and the police, Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch , put together a mobile combat group from the last available reserves. However, this soon had to be used to support the wavering defense, and Hitler continued to forbid an independent breakout ( halt order ). On January 25, the Soviet attackers opened a new offensive with strong forces in the central section of the Budapest defense. The Margaret Island was conquered at great cost between 19 and 28 January. Between January 26th and 28th, the Soviet attack also gained more and more space in the Városmajor (Eng. Stadt-Meierhof) and on Rosenhügel, and Soviet stormtroopers advanced to Csaba utca . Therefore, the defensive line on Rosenhügel had to be abandoned because of the threat of a clutch. The main battle line moved directly towards the castle hill . Despite the poor supply situation and numerous wounded, Hitler ordered on January 27th that Greater Budapest was to be held until the relief attacks were successful, even though they had to cease their operations on his orders. On January 30th, the first Soviet attack spikes reached the northern edge of the Blutwiese, at the western foot of the castle hill, and were able to take the strategically important main landing site of the supplying gliders under direct fire. Nevertheless, these gliders continued to land here, also and precisely because most of them were flown by largely untrained and very young pilots of the Hitler Youth . 13- to 16-year-old children from the Budapest section of the “German Youth” had to show the airplanes the runway with flashlights , and some of the theater lights brought in from the Pest side were used. Also on January 30th, a Soviet storm troop, supported by Hungarian volunteers, stormed the school in Attila út and was able to conquer the first house at the foot of the castle hill. This attack, which temporarily reached Várfok utca, was only repulsed after four days by the German-Hungarian defenders in a grueling house-to-house battle . At the same time, Soviet special commandos with flamethrowers conquered the streets around the Sashegy (Alderberg) and the positions of the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" at the Farkasréter cemetery, which were also destroyed there, about one kilometer to the west . By February 6, the inner-city front shifted in such a way that the Adlerberg was encircled. The supply of the soldiers was no longer guaranteed beforehand, so most of the soldiers had been living on supplies from the population for weeks, but from this point on it was no longer possible to distribute the already insufficient supplies. There was a lack of fuel, and because of the shelling, the streets were only accessible at night and only on foot, and rubble and shell holes had blocked them from vehicles. The starving Budapest population tried to plunder the supply bombs despite the death penalty . Hungarian and German soldiers from the defenders and marauding Arrow Cross soldiers fought each other when it came to taking possession of the food supply bombs. In the hospitals, bandages were removed from the dead in order to be able to treat the new wounded. Despite this hopeless situation, the defenders started counterattacks again and again on Wildenbruch's orders. The Soviet attacking troops suffered such high losses that at the end of January they began to recruit Hungarian prisoners of war into their own battalions. They were given the promise not to come to Siberia. By February 13, 20 independent companies were formed in this way from over 3,100 Hungarian prisoners of war. About 600 of them died in the fighting that followed. Between February 6 and 9, the southern station on the edge of the Blutwiese was contested, and at the same time the Soviet attacks collapsed in the southern section of the defense. Here, the German-Hungarian defenders were able to hold the embankment between the Danube and the Adlerberg until February 13th. Aware that the fighting was nearing an end, awards began.

House fighting in Buda

From February 3, the German-Hungarian main line of defense extended from the Buda bridgehead at the Margaret Bridge to Széll-Kálmán-Platz and further on the northern corner of the Blutwiese on the short section of the Krisztina körút to the mouth of the Kékgolyó utca , where the Soviet attackers were already standing in front of the Südbahnhof. The Buda Post Palace in Andrássy út and the southern blocks of the Krisztina körút were still in German hands, whereas the Soviet troops who broke through on Bors Street (today Hajnóczi utca ) were already in the two houses on the northern edge of the Blutwiese. The situation between Kékgolyó utca and the Sas mountain in Újbuda was even more confusing . Here the main line of defense ran even further west. The Germans stayed in the Farkasréter cemetery, in the streets at the eastern foot of the Orbán Mountain and in Istenhegyi utca to Nárcisz utca , whereas the Soviet troops had already occupied Németvölgyi utca and the Böszörményi utca that ran parallel to it reached Hegyalja utca opposite the main entrance of the Farkasréter cemetery . Just south of the Sas mountain there was still a continuous German line of defense.

Also on February 3, the Apostolic Nuncio in Budapest, Angelo Rotta , on behalf of the Budapest Diplomatic Corps, visited the commanding officer of the defenders, SS General Pfeffer-Wildenbruch , in his bunker headquarters. He was supposed to ask Hitler to finally show consideration for the suffering and destruction of the Budapest population. Hitler replied that his order was immutable; Budapest was to be held to the last.

On February 4, the Soviet troops attacking from Orbán Mountain broke through the defensive line and reached Németvölgyi utca . They attacked the south station from Nagyenyed and Kékgolyó utca and thus enclosed the Sas mountain. The 1st Hungarian Army Corps reported on the supply situation: "Members of soldiers and other civilians, tormented by hunger, overcome any feeling of shame and go to the kitchens of the commandant's offices and Honvéd units and beg here" . In the early morning of February 5, the last seven gliders landed in Budapest; they brought 97 tons of ammunition, 10 tons of fuel, 28 tons of food and four containers with engine oil and spare parts. On the same day, the post palace had to be cleared by the German-Hungarian defenders because of the further advance of the Soviet troops to the Krisztina-körút .

On the following day, February 6, 1945, heavy fighting broke out in the vicinity of the south station and Hegyalja utca , with the Soviet attackers also using flamethrowers . An attempted counter-attack by the 8th SS Cavalry Division from the south-east and north-west on the Sas Mountain could only briefly prevent the Soviet troops from advancing. The Hungarian combat units deployed there then stopped fighting after they ran out of food and ammunition. The German units tried to break out in the direction of Burgberg.

Army tank soldiers in a Panzer VI "Tiger II" (King Tiger) in a defensive position on Burgberg in October 1944

From February 7th, the Soviet troops were able to occupy the western and northern parts of the southern station and reached what was then Gömbös-Gyula-utca (today Alkotás utca ).

As a result, the Soviet units attacked on February 8 from the Németvölgy cemetery, in the direction of Avar utca , which runs parallel to the southern railway line . On that day, Hungarian units were able to penetrate the Post Palace one last time and occupy part of the building. Also on this day, the Air Force dropped four tons of supplies for the last time - by parachute .

After the Gellértberg and the Südbahnhof were partially occupied by Soviet troops on the evening of February 9th , Hungarian volunteer organizations in the Red Army tried unsuccessfully to advance to Naphegy (Sonnenwirtswiese). The battle line now ran along the line Karácsonyi utca (today Kuny Domokos utca ), Győző utca , and the upper section of Mészáros utca , Hegyalja utca , Harkály utca and Alsóhegy utca . The heaviest fighting took place between the embankment of the Budapest suburban railway and Villányi utca .

On February 10th, Soviet tanks advanced to Döbrentei Square and threatened the connection between the citadel , Lágymányos (today's Újbuda ) and the castle district , with parts of a Soviet battalion advancing as far as the direct vicinity of the Elisabeth Bridge, which had already been blown up on January 18 . However, these were repulsed by a counterattack by German troops using heavy artillery and self-propelled guns . After further heavy and loss-making fights in the upper section of Kelenhegyi utca , the citadel and the embankment of the suburban railway, the white flag was hoisted on the orders of a Hungarian major and the fighting there stopped. Only to the south of the Gellértberg was there isolated resistance, with a large number of the German soldiers retreating to the castle. After the Soviet troops had taken the rock chapel on Gellértberg in the evening, in which an emergency hospital was the defenders, the last fighting in Budapest's 11th district ended.

The breakout from Budapest

During the entire siege of the city of Budapest, the General Command of the German-Hungarian Defense worked out several breakout plans, all of which were rejected and forbidden by Hitler. SS General Pfeffer-Wildenbruch did not order an outbreak until February 11th, after all supply and relief measures by Army Group South were impossible. He notified his superiors, had all radio equipment destroyed and at around 8 p.m. started the breakout from the besieged city, which was largely already occupied by Soviet troops.

The outbreak took place without taking the heavy weapons and tanks with them, as there was already a lack of fuel and the streets were impassable due to the innumerable anti- tank barriers and piles of rubble from the destroyed houses. The troops were supposed to advance westwards by the shortest route through the forests and over the flat mountains around Buda. What was critical for the associations here was that the edge of the forest was about 15 to 18 kilometers away from the eruption site and in between there was unprotected (as it was not forested) flat farmland and grassland (meadows with vineyards on the edge). Furthermore, there was the ultimately unfulfilled hope of a relief attack by Army Group South in this area, which should secure the outbreak. However, since this Army Group was not sufficiently informed about Pfeffer-Wildenbruch's plans, such a support attack did not take place. In addition, the wrong information of the Enlightenment came that on the Ausbruchsweg only Soviet stage associations would be located and thus the sole use of handguns would be sufficient. Countless civilians also joined the breakout troop units, some of whom were on the run from the Soviet units with a lot of luggage and prams . Pfeffer-Wildenbruch was aware of the situation and was able to assess that such an action was not possible without heavy losses. Accompanied by around 500 SS soldiers, he therefore chose the safer route through the Ördög-árok canal (Devil's Ditch ), which was largely safe over a length of about five kilometers.

Survivors of the outbreak later reported that the then well-known Hungarian hit "Your escape is pointless, your running is of no use, you cannot move away from the map" was broadcast over loudspeakers of the Soviet propaganda troops and shouts like "We know you are coming , we are waiting for you! ” rang out in Hungarian.

After the first thousands escaped from the positions of the 180th Soviet Infantry Division, which already cost countless deaths, they were stopped by strong Soviet combat units at the road junction at Budagyöngye . The soldiers of the second breakout group did not dare to advance any further, whereupon Lieutenant Colonel Georg Wilhelm Schöning and Helmut Wolff realized that it was impossible to advance towards today's Szilágyi Erzsébet fasor . They then gave the order to a battalion of the division to make the breakout across the blood meadow in the direction of Kékgolyó utca and thus reached the hill of Svábhegy (German: Schwabenberg) in front of Budakeszi .

The attempt to escape through the canal of the Teufelsgraben failed. Pfeffer-Wildenbruch fled to a nearby villa and surrendered to the Soviet soldiers on February 12 without a fight.

The roughly 20,000 German and Hungarian soldiers who broke through were continued to be pursued by Soviet units.

Summary of the fighting for Budapest

The Siege of Budapest was one of the longest and bloodiest city battles during World War II . 102 days of fighting passed between the appearance of the first Soviet tank on the city limits of the Hungarian capital and the capture of the royal castle on the western side of the city. For comparison: the direct battle for Berlin lasted only about two weeks; the one in the city of Vienna only from April 6 to 13, 1945 . With the exception of Warsaw, the other European capitals hardly or not at all became theaters of war.

The cities that were also declared fortresses and were heavily contested, such as Königsberg (today Kaliningrad ) or Breslau (today Wrocław ) only withstood the besiegers for 77 and 82 days respectively. The conquest of Wroclaw was not forced by the Stawka either, the local fortress commander finally capitulated on May 6, 1945.

The intensity of the Budapest fighting can only be compared with the siege of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg ), the Battle of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) and during the Warsaw Uprising .

• The Wehrmacht needed 63 days to suppress it.
• The blockade of Leningrad lasted about three years, but there was no street fighting there.
• Stalingrad was a direct theater of war for about four months.

The approximately 800,000 inhabitants of Budapest were fully exposed to the fighting, which the contemporary military records have already compared with those of Stalingrad.

The Budapest population mourned about 38,000 deaths. Without counting the Soviet victims, every second victim of the siege was a civilian. The Soviet Army killed almost 80,000 people, which was slightly higher in number than the German-Hungarian defenders and the civilian population as a whole.

The units, which were mainly composed of Hungarian Germans (Volksdeutsche) and deployed in Budapest, such as the 18th SS Panzergrenadier Division Horst Wessel , the 22nd SS Cavalry Division Maria Theresia , the SS Police Regiments 6, 8, 12 and the 8. SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" were almost completely destroyed during the fighting or when they broke out.

Continuation war in Hungary

After the fighting in Budapest ceased on February 13th, it shifted to the forests of Nagykovácsi , where the German and Hungarian units tried with heavy losses to reach the main battle line of Army Group South behind the Zsámbék Basin and near the Gerecse Mountains . where they were constantly confronted with Soviet air attacks. The forested areas alone offered some protection from Soviet infantry and cavalry units which were accompanied by tanks. The German lines at Mány , Zsámbék ( Eng . Schambeck ) and Szomor could only be reached if the unforested Zsámbék basin was overcome, where a bar made of Soviet tanks was positioned. Ultimately, only 624 soldiers and officers, out of about 20,000 who had escaped, reached the German main battle line by February 16, 1945.

On the evening of the same day, the first group, led by the Hungarian Lieutenant László Szilasi Szabó , an actor in civil life, reached the hill near Anyácsa-Puszta between Szomor and Máriahalom . Hours later, the group of around 300 to 400 men, led by Helmut Wolff and Wilhelm Schöning, arrived. The soldiers had previously formed smaller groups of 15 to 25 people, as this was the best way to organize the advance.

Some of the German soldiers, who did not make it to their own lines, hid in the woods until spring, and in some cases even until summer 1945, and were able to hide again in Budapest for a while. It became known here, for example, that a Hungarian family, who had already offered protection to many Jews , gave a German soldier refuge until May 1945 after the Soviet occupation. Other German soldiers tried to flee Budapest in civilian clothes after several days.

Preparations for Operation Spring Awakening

→ Main article : Lake Balaton offensive

From February 15, 1945, Army Group South opened a new offensive in Hungary. Hitler sent an SS Panzer Corps for this purpose, followed by the remnants of the 6th Panzer Army, which had not yet arrived there at this time. With Operation Spring Awakening , the Third Reich's last major offensive was planned and initiated. Hitler and the OKW had already made a corresponding decision about a total war effort in Hungary in January 1945 when he ordered the 6th Panzer Army to be relocated to Hungary. The stationing of this tank army in the Frankfurt (Oder) - Fürstenwalde area of the 1st Belarusian Front under the command of Marshal Zhukov was simulated by a radio deception . Sepp Dietrich , as the commander-in-chief of this tank army, appeared in person at numerous offices in and around Berlin to camouflage the relocation of his units via Dresden , Prague and Brno to Vienna. First and foremost, the 1st and 12th SS Panzer Divisions of the 1st SS Panzer Corps arrived in the Győr – Komárom area . Due to the severe damage caused by rail traffic, the relocation was repeatedly delayed. Hitler and his general staff officers in the OKW planned a “small” and a “large” variant at the beginning of the relief attacks on Budapest. The "little one" saw the relief of the capital, which has meanwhile been canceled and no longer played a role due to the loss of Budapest. As a "large" variant, he wanted to have the complete reconquest of Transdanubia carried out. He had already communicated these plans to his general staff during the third attempt at relief in the Hungarian capital.

The 6th Panzer Army was supposed to lead the main strike against the 3rd Ukrainian Front in southwest Hungary and push it back across the Danube. The army was reinforced by the 356th and 44th Infantry Divisions , the 23rd Panzer Division , and the 3rd and 4th Cavalry Divisions of the Wehrmacht. The operations were supported by attacks by the 2nd Panzer Army south of Lake Balaton and Army Group E from Yugoslavia with additional nine Croatian divisions. This 2nd Panzer Army of the Wehrmacht, operating between Balaton and the Drau , had given Hitler instructions to prepare a long-range attack against the Kaposvár area under the code name "Eisbrecher" . From the southeast, in the direction of the Croatian Osijek and Donji Miholjac , this should then lead an attack on the southern flank of the 3rd Ukrainian Front.

The Army Group Balck should at the same time out of the room Székesfehérvár an offensive southwards start thus by a pincer attack , with the 2nd Ukrainian Front under the command of Colonel General Ivan Konev , to encircle two Soviet armies. To this end, Hitler issued several “ Führer's orders ” about camouflaging and keeping the supply of the two SS tank corps secret. Among other things, cuffs and epaulettes had to be taken off and the license plates of the vehicles had to be covered. The death penalty was threatened for the slightest breach of secrecy. The divisions of the I. SS Panzer Corps were disguised as "replacement squadrons" of the IV. SS Panzer Corps and the divisions of the II. SS Panzer Corps as "training groups". The high command of the 6th Panzer Army was given the cover designation "Higher Pioneer Leader Hungary".

First, Hitler wanted to eliminate the danger of a Soviet offensive from the Esztergom area, from where the Soviet units, under the command of Issa Alexandrowitsch Pliyev , had formed a bridgehead and the oil refineries in Komárom and Bratislava , which were still in German hands , as well as the Wiener Pforte threatened. This bridgehead was to be destroyed by the attack of two tank corps, over which Garam's own bridgeheads were formed. The I. SS Panzer Corps and the Panzer Division Feldherrnhalle 2 had the task of attacking the Soviet bridgehead from the north and northeast.

This operation was favored by the fact that sufficient infantry was available and Army Group South still had 260 ready-to-use tanks available for the attack. Furthermore, the Soviet commander-in-chief of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Marshal Malinovsky, the Army Group Pliyev and the 6th Guards Panzer Army had withdrawn from the bridgehead a few weeks beforehand to refresh themselves from the bridgehead, leaving the Soviet units only from the 24th and 25th Rifle Corps and two tank brigades existed.

Due to the weather, the attack began on February 17th at 4 a.m., during which, despite the thaw, the front was broken through and the bridgehead was pushed in by 30% within 24 hours. The Soviet units then built up a deeply structured defense. To support the offensive, the 96th Infantry Division launched a landing operation across the Danube from south to north and formed its own bridgehead there in the rear of the Soviet defense. The division was still very familiar with the region, as a few weeks earlier they secured the retreat of the German eastern front in the opposite direction. During strong floods, the Danube rose by 3.3 meters in one day, the combat group above managed to bring 20 assault guns to the other bank, although they suffered considerable losses due to the Soviet air superiority. The 7th Guard Army then had to vacate their south wing with considerable losses. In the central section of the bridgehead, however, the Soviet riflemen still held their positions. The last of the towns defended by Soviet troops were finally repossessed on February 24th. As a result of this German operation, several Soviet divisions were crushed and the two rifle corps lost almost all of their heavy weapons. The Wehrmacht report reported 700 prisoners, 4000 counted dead, 90 shot down tanks and 334 captured artillery. However, the German losses were also considerable. About 6500 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing and 156 tanks and assault guns were no longer operational, so that the divisions of the I. SS Panzer Corps fell back to their original position after the Battle of the Bulge. Even more serious, however, was the fact that the elaborate camouflage of the deployment of the 6th Panzer Army was largely disclosed. For the OKW, the success of Operation "Südwind" was a necessary prerequisite for all counter offensives in the Transdanubia region, although the remaining Soviet bridgehead continued to endanger Komárom, Bratislava and Vienna and the German attack group operating south of the Danube could not be fought for further operations . The situation continued to resemble that of early January 1945, when the 6th Guards Panzer Army had almost captured Komárom and Érsekújvár (then Hungary).

The situation of the civilian population

Arrow cross members

While both warring parties were preparing for the final offensive in Hungary, the Arrow Cross ruled there under the leadership of Ferenc Szálasi , who had taken power in October 1944. These led a dictatorial system, as a result of which 76,000 Jews were deported and thousands of Hungarian Jews were shot on the banks of the Danube in October 1944 . The Hungarian historian Krisztián Ungváry gives figures here, whereby it was about 2,600 to 3,600 Jews who were murdered in this way immediately after they came to power. Massacres took place all over Budapest. B. on January 12, 1945 in the Jewish hospital on Maros-Strasse, when around 90 doctors were shot by a group of Arrow Crossers. The leader of a larger murder squad was the former water polo athlete from 1936 and member of the Hungarian national water polo team, Márton Hommonay . However, in February 1945 they only controlled a few counties in northwestern Hungary. At that time, Szálasi was mainly in his command post in Kőszeg near Steinamanger on the Austrian border, where he had fled with his government after the Soviet occupation of Budapest, and worked on his "Books of Hungarism". Every week he traveled with his close staff in a kind of "state inspection" and visited the villages around Kőszeg, Szombathely and Zalaegerszeg . There the residents were allowed to ask questions, which Szálasi answered. At the same time, however, there were also posters everywhere, according to which all those who displayed so-called “despairing behavior” would be immediately shot. Above all, this included any doubts about the victorious end of the war. In spite of this, the terrorist methods of the party militia at Szálasi were occasionally addressed and criticized, whereupon some replacements were made, but nothing really changed in terms of the general arbitrariness and the terror.

Szálasi bunker and headquarters near Kőszeg (Güns)

The worst conditions for the civilian population, however, prevailed during the construction of the south-east wall on the border with Austria. More than 50,000 Hungarian Jews had to do earthworks here under indescribable conditions, and many thousands of them died. These facts were raised in the Hungarian parliament, but only because the deputies feared that the watching population might turn against Szálasi and help the approaching Soviet troops. The then National Socialist MP Károly Maróthy , according to the minutes of the parliament, said the following at a plenary session: […] “… one cannot allow them to feel sorry for some cases. (…) Something must also be done with the dying so that they do not groan all day long in the ditch. One must not allow the population to see the mass extinction. (…) The deaths should not be listed in Hungarian death registers. [They] should not be registered by the Arrow Cross authorities, but by the Germans. "

In the region of present-day District Oberwart still several hundred Jewish were forced laborers by the SS, members of the Hitler Youth and the Volkssturm in the massacres of Rechnitz and German shooters murdered.

Operation Spring Awakening

→ Main article : Lake Balaton offensive

After all divisions of the German 6th Panzer Army had arrived in Hungary on March 6, 1945, Operation Spring Awakening began. With this offensive Hitler put everything on one card. It was already foreseeable that the Western Allies and the Red Army would begin their offensive on the other fronts as well.

The weather conditions for this offensive were poor, as the thaw had set in since the end of February and it was raining heavily. There were only a few roads available for the vehicles, and the Soviet aerial reconnaissance monitored all movements of the German troops. The Soviet General Staff had already had reliable information about the planned operation at the end of February. In the planned attack area, the German staff had only limited knowledge of the Hungarian terrain and the weather conditions there.

Despite urgent information from several Hungarian officers, who pointed out that the area of ​​the Sárvíz Canal near Sárbogárd was not suitable for an attack with armored forces at this time of year, the plans for the offensive were adhered to. In order to increase the mobility of the tanks, the Balck army group set up so-called "street courts", which were supposed to immediately try anyone responsible for road restoration who failed to do their duty. With the exception of tanks and assault guns that could only be used to a limited extent, the German troops were inferior in all areas to the advancing Soviet troops. This inferiority was particularly evident in the artillery field. The 6th Panzer Army had only about 400 guns (10 pieces per front kilometer) at their disposal in their 40-kilometer attack strip. The Soviet units, on the other hand, had up to 65 guns and grenade launchers per front kilometer at their disposal, which was a 6.5-fold superiority.

Operation planning of the Lake Balaton operation

However, the Soviet defensive positions were only about 25 to 40 kilometers deep. The area of ​​operations was divided with Lake Balaton and Lake Velence by two natural barriers, which, however, considerably restricted the maneuverability of the attacking German tanks. The Soviet defense was therefore particularly densely developed. At the focal points of the battle, they then deployed 2,500 to 3,000 anti-tank mines as well as 65 guns and grenade launchers per front kilometer. The anti-tank was reinforcement of independent Pakregimentern from the reserve of Stawka increased to 28 antitank guns per kilometer front.

On March 6, 1945 at 1 a.m. the attack of the German units across the Drau began, at Nagybajom supported by the 2nd Panzer Army , under the command of General der Artillerie Maximilian de Angelis , with low forces, which could hardly gain any terrain. At 4 o'clock the main forces of the 6th Panzer Army began their operations between Lake Balaton and Lake Velence. Shortly after the start of the operation, the high command of Army Group South became nervous because, in spite of radio calls to the contrary, there was no sign of support from the II SS Panzer Corps until the evening.

From March 7, the Soviet defense system was broken open in places, but the rate of advance was so slow that one could not speak of a strategic breakthrough. The Commander-in-Chief of Army Group South, General der Infanterie Wöhler, discovered, however, that the Soviet armies had not yet used their available operational reserves in the front area. The 6th Panzer Army also had to report to the nervous Hitler daily about casualties and failures of tanks and assault guns.

Withdrawal of the German troops

Despite the German problems, the situation became serious for the Soviet Commander-in-Chief Tolbuchin. The slow but sure advance of the 6th Panzer Army led him to overestimate the German combat strength. On March 9, he asked the Stawka to be allowed to use the 9th Guard Army for defense. He even considered retreating with his staff or with the entire front to the other side of the Danube. Stalin refused and replied: […] “Comrade Tolbuchin, if you think you can delay the war for another five or six months, then you should order your troops back. It will undoubtedly be quieter there. But I doubt you would. That is why it is necessary to defend yourself on the left bank of the Danube, and you should stay there with your staff. ” After the weather conditions had improved from March 12th and the paths and roads were largely stabilized, the German offensive already stalled. Between Siófok or Pincehely , in the south of Hungary, and Lake Velence, the third Soviet line of defense had not even been reached by the German attack. In spite of this, Army Group South had to report 12,358 dead, wounded and missing soldiers in the first week of the attack, whereby this only concerned the German casualties. 31 tanks had also completely failed. In theory, 1796 units were available in the meantime, but only 772 of them were actually ready for use. The low number of failures can be explained by the fact that due to the weather and road conditions, contrary to the original plans, these could only be used sporadically. The Soviet casualties were even higher, with a total of 32,899 soldiers dead, wounded and missing. The 3rd Ukrainian Front lost 152 tanks and 415 anti-tank guns.

As of March 14th, the IV. SS Panzer Corps and the Hungarian 3rd Army reported unanimously that the Soviet armies had used up to 1,000 vehicles. The German aerial reconnaissance also confirmed these findings. Thereupon Army Group South and the 6th Panzer Army planned to stop the attack in order to regroup the forces at Székesfehérvár, on the one hand to counter the threatening Soviet counterattack and on the other hand to improve the offensive force of their own troops, with better terrain east of the Sárvíz Canal to be able to exploit. Knowing that Hitler would not allow this regrouping, these plans were rejected. In view of the experience and combat strength of one's own troops in favorable weather and well-chosen terrain, the militarily sensible variant was thus discarded. The 20th Panzer Division alone was sufficient in January 1945 to stop the attack by the entire 6th Guards Panzer Army, and the IV SS Panzer Corps destroyed almost all of Tolbuchin's rapid troops as part of Operation Konrad 3 .

On March 15, Army Group South had a total of 1796 tanks, of which 1024 were being repaired. This also shows that their type of use was ultimately a serious bad planning by the OKW. The three sections of the King Tiger were almost completely ignored during the attacks. Also on armored personnel carriers of the 6th Panzer Army were still 957 pieces available on March 15, which is worth noting that by that date only one vehicle was lost by total failure of these vehicles. From this it can be seen that this effective offensive weapon was not used at all due to the weather conditions and that the top German command with their deployment orders made a decisive contribution to the failure of the entire operation.

The Soviet counter-attack on Vienna and Bratislava

Attacking Red Army soldiers in Hungary

With a strong superiority in terms of soldiers and material behind it, the Red Army began its counter-attack in Hungary, with the strategic goals of Vienna and Bratislava . The declared goal was to conquer Vienna, the second largest city in the German Empire. With the freshly replenished 9th Guards Army and the 6th Guards Armored Army, it had two generously equipped elite formations and thus not only secured itself quick military successes, but also a moral disillusionment among the Hungarian soldiers.

Due to the weather, thick fog was north of Székesfehérvár, the Soviet double attack planned for the morning of March 16 was delayed by a few hours. According to plan, the 2nd Ukrainian Front was to lead the main attack in the direction of Bratislava and attack the 3rd Ukrainian Front in the direction of Vienna. On March 9th, Stalin changed these plans by assigning the 9th Guard Army to Marshal Tolbuchin's front and forming reinforcements for the attack in the direction of Vienna. On the part of the artillery, the superiority of the Soviet armies was most clearly felt. 5,425 guns and grenade launchers were used over a length of 31 kilometers . In contrast, the German troops had only 14 guns and grenade launchers per kilometer available in the same section. So the superiority was 1 in 12.5.

The order of the 2nd Ukrainian Front was to break through the German front between the Vértes and Gerecse Mountains around Csákvár and to extend the attack to Komárom and Győr. In total, the attack group of the 3rd Ukrainian Front had 745,600 soldiers; the troop strength of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, which was to advance north of the Danube, was over 272,200 soldiers. These units advanced on the right wing of the 3rd Ukrainian Front and, together with the 4th Guards Army already deployed there, attacked the fuses of the 6th German Army, whose task was to keep the back of the SS Panzer Army clear.

The Soviet attacks quickly showed success north of Székesfehérvár, where only weak Hungarian units held the front. The IV. The 6th SS Panzer Army was therefore ordered back to the north and took over the front section up to the Danube, while the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht was now responsible for the southern front section up to Lake Balaton. The SS Panzer Corps was able to hold its positions for the time being. By the evening of March 16, Soviet units had also broken into the main front of the Balck Army Group in the Vértes Mountains over a width of 30 kilometers and a depth of 10 kilometers. Stalin personally then ordered Malinovsky to hand over the 6th Guards Panzer Army to Tolbuchin in order to be able to expand the successes in his sector. Due to the necessary relocations, this unit could only be deployed from March 19 and led to a disastrous loss of time for the Soviet operation.

Colonel-General Heinz Guderian , Chief of the Army High Command, who recognized the imminent danger from the Soviet offensive, ordered at the same time “a fundamental switch of all plans”, but Hitler could not change his mind about his plans. For all tactical questions above the battalion level, he demanded a detailed "telex assessment of the situation" from the High Command of Army Group South. During these disagreements between the Führer Headquarters and Army Group South, the Red Army achieved the decisive breakthrough, after 42 Soviet divisions and eight fast motorized units advanced against the positions of the Wehrmacht. After these successes, the Soviet peaks of attack crossed the ridge of the Vértes Mountains.

The 6th Army narrowly escaped being encircled because the Soviet troops were missing a full three kilometers to Lake Balaton to cut off the return route for the divisions of this army. The Balck army group blamed the Hungarian units for this, which, according to their allegations, had set off into the Vértes Mountains “without enemy pressure”. In fact, the positions were actually plowed up by a heavy attack with artillery shells and Katyusha rocket launchers, and several Soviet army corps penetrated into every gap in the front. The gap that now resulted between the 6th SS Panzer Army in the north and the 6th Army in the south could no longer be closed.

On the morning of March 16, the attacks of the Soviet 46th Army began, whose first battalions were in the natural narrowness between the Vértes and Gerecse mountains around Tatabánya , so that they were able to reach a depth of up to ten kilometers by the same evening to penetrate the German-Hungarian positions. Balck's unsuitably optimistic, sometimes unrealistic attitude was expressed in several unreal stop orders. On March 17th he reported that the enemy had not yet broken through, which prompted his superior, Colonel General Wöhler, to write a note on March 15th [...] "For the KTB [war diary]" "Gen.d. Pz.Tr. [General der Panzertruppe] Balck's assessment of the situation shows the well-known optimism even where he is out of place . "

Not until March 18 did Hitler give permission to pull out the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, to regroup the front in the direction of Székesfehérvár and to swap the front line of the Balck Army Group with that of the 6th Panzer Army. This castling had a detrimental effect on both the command of the Army Group and the further course of the battle. The Soviet advance accelerated and the front gradually collapsed.

After the Soviet 6th Guards Panzer Army began their attack on March 19, it pushed forward quickly and effectively towards the west to Várpalota . There it partially enclosed the German troops over a width of ten kilometers and there was also a threat of encirclement. At the same time, the 46th Army and the 3rd Hungarian Army surrounded Esztergom and Komárom. On the Danube, the Soviet troops attempted a landing operation with a flotilla , which was supposed to establish another bridgehead in the German lines on the south bank of the river. This could be temporarily cordoned off by the German-Hungarian associations and thus the retreat of around 20,000 soldiers, especially the 96th Infantry Division , to the north bank, which took place in the following days, could be secured, which was the fourth time within three months Side of the Danube changed.

In the rest of Hungary controlled by Germans and Arrow Crossers, many Hungarian soldiers, officers and members of the paramilitary militias tried to go into hiding. In particular, the Waffen-SS offered the Hungarian members of the Honvéd army to train, supply and re-arm them for about six months. As early as November 1944, similar promises had caused a mass report among Hungarian conscripts, who were later deployed mainly in East Prussia , West Prussia and Silesia . On the other hand, the mood towards the Germans changed in a large part of the Hungarian associations and among the civilian population. Many had been withdrawn from their Hungarian staffs and placed under German units. This approach was not popular with the Hungarian soldiers or officers, as they felt senselessly “burned out” and began to hate the Wehrmacht. Colonel-General Károly Beregfy , the chief of the Hungarian general staff, said in a meeting with the Plenipotentiary General of the German Armed Forces in Hungary Hans von Greiffenberg : "[...] the lower management and the population are outraged about the sale of the Magyars to Germany for assistant purposes and it is questionable whether the not too strong new [Arrow Cross] government can hold its own. In conclusion, I have to say that the general opinion in Hungary is that Bolshevism cannot be worse than fleeing to Germany, but in the first case you can at least stay in your own country. "

The withdrawal from Hungary

Representation of the directions of attack 1944-45 (green arrows also show the direction of attack by the Red Army in the direction of Vienna)

The counter-offensive launched by the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts on March 16 made rapid progress, and the German divisions were now pushed back towards the frontier very quickly and with heavy losses. These losses were compounded by senseless stop orders from the OKW and Hitler. The Soviet units literally drove the German units in front of them, which always included the risk that the gaps in the front could be used to encircle and encircle them. On March 21, SS-Gruppenführer Ullrich, as commander of the 5th SS Panzer Division, gave up the town of Székesfehérvár against the “Führer's order”, which was the third time in four months that it changed occupiers. The German offensive had stalled south-west of Lake Balaton and their units were in a deep cut in the Soviet lines. Since these positions had been outflanked for days from the north, the threat of the loss of Székesfehérvár and Várpalota , the encirclement of the entire attack group.

Hitler and the OKH ignored these facts. The head of the command department in the OKH, General of the Infantry Hans Krebs remarked: “There is a risk that we will slip if we give up the town [Székesfehérvár]. In addition, there is nowhere on the entire Eastern Front where the balance of forces is as favorable as in Army Group South (...) The Führer is angry because the attack by the 6th Panzer Army did not bring better results. "

Guderian also expressed his dissatisfaction when he replied to the Chief of Staff of Army Group South: [] The “clumsiness and negligence” of the leadership was outrageous. This is the only reason for the failure. "Fraktur has to be spoken to with the leaders" . Hitler and Colonel General Otto Wöhler, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army Group, upheld the order that no piece of land could be given up without a fight. The front leadership of the most endangered groups, south-west of Lake Balaton, opposed this order and slowly withdrew their troops to the north-west, which also happened later, despite the violation of the “Fuehrer's order”. was not punished.

The 6th SS Panzer Army withdrew towards Northern Burgenland and Vienna and was pursued by the three Soviet armies of the guards. The 6th Army of the Wehrmacht chose the route in the direction of southern Burgenland and Styria and was pursued by the Soviet 26th and 27th armies. On March 22nd, only a 2.5 to 3 kilometer wide corridor was open, connecting the seven clasped divisions. The 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen" was able to keep this corridor open until most of the German soldiers had left the encirclement. The heavy armament had to be largely given up. During the fierce retreat, the deployed SS Panzer Regiment shot down 108 Soviet tanks in one day, but at the same time the 44th Division "Hoch- und Deutschmeister" was almost completely destroyed, and its commander Lieutenant General Hans-Günther von Rost was also killed in the fighting .

Although the encirclement of the German armies had failed, it was an important success for the commander-in-chief of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Marshal Tolbuchin, who was now able, after the first stage of the "Vienna attack operation", the breakthrough of the front and annihilation of the 6th. Panzer Army to initiate the second stage immediately, the pursuit of the German troops as far as the Vienna area. To this end, he had spared the 9th Guards Army and the 6th Guards Panzer Army, which were not allowed to intervene in the fighting during the German offensive, even when the situation of the Soviet troops appeared threatening at times in the second week of March. This enabled both fronts to perform a quick deep operation with rested bandages. The reason for this hurry was also that Stalin feared that the Wehrmacht might sign a special capitulation in Italy and that, contrary to his plans, the Allied troops could advance in Austria faster than he liked.

Even the defensive positions of the " Südostwall ", which had been expanded at an accelerated rate since September 1944 and some of them were already completed , could not guarantee this, especially since the existing German workers and forced laborers were nowhere near enough to complete the planned fortifications before the arrival of the Soviet units. Therefore, in the "Hungary Action" organized for the recruiting of the Wehrmacht and SS, pioneer and construction soldiers were also targeted. The largest group of workers here were the 76,209 Hungarian Jews, whose deportation, however, was interrupted from summer to autumn 1944 at the instigation of the Hungarian government of Lakatos. It was not until the end of November 1944, when the Arrow Crosser took office, that these were resumed, but due to the ongoing fighting in Hungary and the Allied air raids on the rail connections, the main route was to Hegyeshalom, these could not be brought at the desired speed and only driven to the imperial borders in exhausting marches under the supervision of Hungarian guards. Special concentration camps were also set up here along the construction sites. In addition to the Hungarian Jews, members of eleven nations built the fortifications.

Ultimately, it was luck on the one hand and partly wrong decisions by the Soviet army command on the other hand, which made it possible that the German divisions were not completely encircled or worn out during the withdrawal from Hungary. The retreating armies of Army Group South also no longer succeeded in building a coherent and stable defense in Hungary. Balck, Guderian and Wöhler shifted responsibility to each other and also accused the Waffen SS and their own soldiers of “failure”. The Waffen-SS leadership again accused Colonel-General Balck, as a radio message to the 6th Panzer Army on March 23 stated: [] “Division completely smashed and used to the last. Request for immediate removal from Verband Balck. "

In this last phase of the already lost battle for Hungary, the OKH and the leadership of Army Group South sacrificed a large number of German soldiers and officers through senseless and unscrupulous orders and severely punished them for the smallest offenses against the stop orders. The orders on the so-called “preservation of male discipline”, for example, ordered the immediate shooting of the “slackers”. By April 3, 1945, more than 500 soldiers were shot dead without a trial in the area of ​​the 6th Panzer Army of the Wehrmacht alone. The generals and the OKH were able to use any means to increase morale. After a large part of the heavy armament at Lake Balaton had to be left behind, the released tank crews were sent to the front lines with a handgun without taking the expected losses into account, as they were insufficiently trained in this type of combat. Hitler, who also accused the SS Panzer divisions of failure, instructed Himmler to investigate the matter. But he did not even try to get to the division command posts. When, on March 26th, the request of the 6th SS Panzer Army to detach itself from the Balck Army Group and further retreat beyond the borders of the Reich, Hitler ruled with the words: [] "The Leibstandarte no longer has the right to to bear my name ”. As a result, Himmler issued the so-called sleeve stripe order , according to which the corresponding bandages had to be removed from the uniforms. For reasons that have not been handed down, he ignored the fact that these have not been worn at all since the camouflaged transfer to Hungary. The gaps in the front between the Balck Army Group and the 6th SS Panzer Army could no longer be closed until they reached Styria, Lower Austria and Vienna, as the command structure of the Army Group gradually collapsed and subordinate relationships changed almost daily.

During the retreat, the divisions of Army Group South lost more than 2,500 tanks and armored personnel carriers, and this due to a lack of fuel and thus mostly without enemy influence. Some of them were blown up, and if this could not be done in time, they were left on the street. Especially on the north bank of Lake Balaton, in the area around Veszprém , the Bakony Mountains and Keszthely , whole columns of intact armored vehicles were left behind. The 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Front were able to set up their own companies from the vehicles captured in this way and also use them against the Germans.

The 2nd Ukrainian Front had already started its attack north of the Danube on March 25th. The German defense was unable to stop it in this section. Only at the then German-Slovakian border could a coherent front be formed again. This last partial success of the German units was made possible because this attack was only opened nine days after the major Soviet offensive in western Hungary and Tolbuchin's troops could not encircle the 3rd Hungarian Army and the northern wing of the Balck Army Group, which were still crossing to the north bank .

At the same time the Western Allies crossed the Rhine in Germany , the 1st Ukrainian Front was advancing in East Prussia and Silesia , and the Allies were preparing for union with the 2nd , 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, as well as the Prague Operation and north the battle for Berlin . The 1st Belarusian Front under Zhukov was already 60 kilometers from Berlin in the battle for the Seelow Heights . In Austria, after the complete occupation of Hungary, the Soviet units initiated the decisive battle for Vienna , where at the end of March the first divisions of the 6th Armored Guard Army, the 4th and 9th Guard Army in southern Burgenland, in Rechnitz and Schachendorf in the Oberwart district , invaded Austria and was largely captured by the following 26th Army in the first week of April.

Remains of Army Group South

After the Army Group South in Hungary had been almost completely destroyed and the remnants had to withdraw to the Reich territory in the Ostmark (today Burgenland and Lower Austria ), they were collected there, restructured and on April 2, 1945 as Army Group Ostmark , under the High command of Colonel General Lothar Rendulic , newly established. She was involved in the fighting in the Battle of Vienna until May 7, 1945 , and surrendered on May 8, 1945.

The whereabouts of the German and Hungarian front commanders

• Colonel-General Heinz Guderian had been transferred to the Fiihrer Reserve by Hitler on March 28, 1945 and was taken prisoner by the US on May 10, 1945, from which he was released on June 17, 1948.

• General of the infantry Otto Wöhler was transferred to the Führerreserve on April 7th, after the defeat in Hungary, became a prisoner of war and in the OKW trial in Nuremberg in 1948 was sentenced to eight years in prison and released in January 1951.

• General of the infantry Hans von Greiffenberg was picked up by American units while fleeing from the Soviet troops in Austria and was taken prisoner of war until 1947.

• General of the Artillery Maximilian de Angelis led the remains of the 2nd Panzer Army back to Carinthia and Styria in south-eastern Styria . There he was captured by the United States on May 9, 1945. They extradited him to Yugoslavia on April 4, 1946 , where he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment as a war criminal in October 1948 . He was then extradited to the Soviet Union , where he was again sentenced to two times 25 years, but released and released on October 11, 1955 after Konrad Adenauer's visit to Moscow , where he agreed to release around 10,000 German prisoners of war returned to Germany.

• General of the Panzer Troop Hermann Balck surrendered with the remnants of the 6th Army in May 1945 in Austrian Styria and was a US prisoner of war until 1947.

• Lieutenant General Joseph von Radowitz refused to accept the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves on May 2, 1945 and was taken prisoner by the US shortly afterwards. He was in this until 1947 and was reactivated as part of the rearmament and appointed major general in the Bundeswehr on December 1, 1955.

• SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer and Colonel-General of the Waffen-SS Sepp Dietrich was still involved in the fighting around Vienna with the 6th SS Panzer Army , after which he was captured by the US and was imprisoned for life in the Dachau internment camp as part of the Malmedy trial sentenced, which he only partially, until his release in 1951, in War Criminals Prison No. 1 had to sit down.

• SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch , was taken prisoner by the Soviets on February 11, 1945, sentenced to 25 years of forced labor there in 1949 and released in October 1955 when the ten thousand returned home .

• SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS Herbert Otto Gille led his corps as far as Carinthia , where he became a prisoner of war near Radstadt on May 8, 1945 , from which he was released on May 21, 1948.

• SS Oberführer Otto Baum surrendered with the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" also on May 8, 1945 at Völkermarkt / Carinthia to the British troops and was in their captivity until the summer of 1946.

• General of the Panzer Troop Hermann Breith , withdrew with his troops to the Austrian Alpine foothills , where he surrendered to the US units on May 8, 1945 and was taken prisoner of war until May 1947.

• SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Waffen SS Hellmuth Becker moved with his division to Vienna and took part in the fighting there. Shortly before the city surrendered, he was ordered to go west and surrender to the Americans there. The commander of the American unit refused to accept the division's surrender. Thereupon he attempted the honorable surrender to the Soviet troops, but was captured by them. In November 1947 he was sentenced to three times 25 years of forced labor by a Soviet military court in Poltava and was sent to prisoner of war camp 377 in Sverdlovsk . On February 28, 1953, he died there for reasons not known in detail, whereby a shooting for sabotage by eyewitnesses was alleged.

• Lieutenant Colonel Helmut Wolff was involved with the Feldherrnhalle 2 tank division in the fighting for Vienna, which surrendered to the Red Army on May 8, 1945. After being a prisoner of war he was reactivated as part of the rearmament and later became a colonel in the Bundeswehr and commander of the 32nd Panzer Grenadier Brigade .

• The Hungarian Defense Minister (until March 27, 1945) and Commander-in-Chief of the Hungarian Army, Colonel General Károly Beregfy , was dismissed by Ferenc Szálasi on April 30, 1945 due to incapacity in all of his offices and was then taken prisoner by the Soviets while fleeing in Austria. These handed him over to the Hungarian authorities, who sentenced him to death for war crimes in February 1946 and hanged him publicly in Budapest on March 12, 1946, together with the head of the Arrow Cross, Gábor Vajna .

• Prime Minister Ferenc Szálasi fled with his government via Vienna to Munich , where he was captured by the US in May 1945. They extradited him to the Hungarian authorities on October 3 of the same year, where he was sentenced to death by a people's court on February 5, 1946 for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The public execution by hanging took place on March 12, 1946 in Budapest. His appeal to the People's Court was only processed one day later by Justice Minister István Ries and, despite the execution that had already taken place, it was rejected as not debatable and “unworthy of mercy”. President Zoltán Tildy also followed this stance, although Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy had already drawn up a draft law that would suspend the execution of the death penalty and convert existing convictions into long prison sentences. The draft law was presented to the Hungarian parliament for discussion two days after the public executions, on March 14, 1946, but the death penalty was not abolished until 1990 due to political developments in Hungary. Szálasi was buried anonymously in a secret location.

literature

• Franz v. Adonyi-Naredy: Hungary's Army in World War II. (= The Wehrmacht in combat. Vol. 47, ISSN  0511-4233 ). Kurt Vowinckel, Neckargemünd 1971.
• Gabor Baross: Hungary and Hitler (= Problems behind the Iron Curtain Series. 8, ZDB -ID 1111135-5 ). Danubian Press, Astor FL 1970.
• Friedrich Brettner : The last battles of the Second World War. Pinka - Lafnitz - Hochwechsel, 1743 m. 1. Volks Gebirgs Division, 1. Panzerdivision, Divisionsgruppe Krause, 117th Jägerdivision, Kampfgruppe Arko 3. Self-published by Friedrich Brettner, Gloggnitz 2000, ISBN 3-9500669-3-4 .
• Hans Frießner : betrayed battles. The tragedy of the German armed forces in Romania and Hungary. Holsten-Verlag, Hamburg 1956.
• Peter Gosztony : Germany's comrades in arms on the Eastern Front. 1941-1945. (Dedicated to Béla K. Király on the occasion of his 70th birthday). Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-87943-762-9 .
• Peter Gosztony: Final battle on the Danube 1944/45 (= A Molden-Taschenbuch. Vol. 126). License issue. MTV - Molden-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Vienna et al. 1978, ISBN 3-217-05126-2 .
• Peter Gosztonyi: Hitler's foreign armies. (The fate of the non-German armies in the Eastern campaign) (= Bastei-Lübbe-Taschenbuch. 65029). Revised License issue. Lübbe Verlagsgruppe, Bergisch Gladbach 1980, ISBN 3-404-65029-8 .
• Péter Gosztonyi: Magyarország a második világháborúban. 3 volumes. Herp-Fonda GmbH, Munich 1984, ( Hungary in World War II. Hungarian);
  • Volume 1: Tanulmányok és riportok, Magyarország második világháborús szerepéről. ISBN 3-922587-30-5 ;
  • Volume 2: Magyarország a második világháborúban. ISBN 3-922587-35-6 ;
  • Volume 3. ISBN 3-922587-50-X .
• Heinz Höhne : The order under the skull. The history of the SS. Licensed edition. Orbis-Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-572-01342-9 .
• Josef Paul Puntigam : From Lake Balaton to the Mur. The fighting in 1945 in the border triangle. Hannes Krois, Feldbach 1993.
• Manfried Rauchsteiner : The war in Austria 1945 (= writings of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum. 5). 2., rework. u. exp. Edition Austrian Bundesverlag, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-215-01672-9 .
• Martin Seckendorf: The occupation policy of German fascism in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Italy and Hungary (1941–1945) (= Europe under the swastika. 6). Hüthig, Berlin et al. 1992, ISBN 3-8226-1892-6 .
• Norbert Spannenberger : The People's League of Germans in Hungary 1938-1945 under Horthy and Hitler (= writings of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe. Vol. 22). 2nd, improved edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-57728-X .
• Gábor Vályi (Ed.): Liberated Hungary 1945–1950. Information Department of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, Budapest 1950, (German).

Web links

• Complete map for the operation (Russian)
• Front lines in Hungary from autumn 1944 to April 1945
• German war cemeteries in Hungary (PDF; 493 kB)
• Franz von Adonyi-Naredy: Hungary's Army in World War II. Neckargmünd: K. Vowinckel Verlag 1971. 219 p. (PDF; 307 kB) online

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Krisztian Ungvary: The Battle of Budapest, Herbig 2001, p. 34 f.
2. ↑ Krisztián Ungváry: The Battle of Budapest, p. 30.
3. ↑ Krisztian Ungvary: The Battle of Budapest, Herbig 2001, p. 41 f.
4. ^ Krisztián "A second Stalingrad", Krisztián Ungváry on the battle for Budapest, Herbig-Verlag, Munich (1999 ), Die Zeit December 1, 1999, online
5. ↑ dhm.de
6. ↑ Russian He was taken prisoner by the Soviets, sentenced to 25 years of forced labor in 1949 and released in October 1955 when the ten thousand returned to Germany. He died in 1971.
7. ↑ For a long time Stalin prevented the population from leaving the city, which was overcrowded with refugees, because he was of the opinion that staying there would increase the morale of the fighting soldiers. Even women and children had to dig anti-tank trenches, help expand the defensive positions and, in some cases, even intervene in combat. In August 1942 there were around 600,000 people in the city. Over 40,000 civilians were killed in air raids in the first days of the battle. It was not until the end of August that people began to settle in areas beyond the Volga. But with such a large population it was too late for a complete evacuation of Stalingrad. Around 75,000 civilians had to stay in the destroyed city. Many had to live in holes in the ground and many froze to death in the winter of 1942/43; others starved to death because there was no more food. Neither the Red Army nor the Wehrmacht showed any consideration for the civilian population.
8. ↑ Nations and their self-images: post-dictatorial societies in Europe - by Regina Fritz, Carola Sachse, p. 139. ( preview in the Google book search)
9. ^ Gerhard Botz, Stefan Karner: War. Memory. History. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2009, p. 324. ( Preview in the Google book search)
10. ^ Gerhard Botz, Stefan Karner: War. Memory. History. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2009, pp. 324-325. ( Preview in Google Book Search)
11. ↑ Margit Szöllösi-Janze: The Arrow Cross Movement in Hungary , Oldenbourg Verlag, ISBN 3-486-54711-9 , p. 21. ( Preview in Google book search)
12. ↑ Gregor Holzinger (Red.), Jakob Perschy, Dieter Szorger: The drama Südostwall using the example of Rechnitz. Dates, deeds, facts, consequences. Burgenland Research, Volume 98, ZDB -ID 503890-x . Office of the Provincial Government of Burgenland (Department 7 - Culture, Science and Archives, Main Section for the Provincial Archives and Provincial Library), Eisenstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-901517-59-4 . - Table of contents online (PDF) .
13. ↑ Harald Strassl, Wolfgang Vosko: The fate of Hungarian-Jewish forced laborers using the example of the south-east wall construction in 1944/45 in the Oberwart district. With special consideration of the mass crimes of Rechnitz and German riflemen. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, Vienna 1999, Permalink Austrian Library Association .
14. ↑ Lászlo Varga, Hungary: Dimension of Genocide. The number of Jewish victims of National Socialism , Munich (1991), pp. 331–352, p. 340.
15. ^ Liberation of Budapest and war crimes trials
16. ^ Liberation of Budapest and war crimes trials