Hungary in World War II

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Hungary had been an ally of the National Socialist German Reich since 1941 during World War II .

Hungary in Europe (1942)

history

The interwar period

The Kingdom of Hungary was among the losers of the First World War . After the aster revolution in 1918 , Hungary was re-established as an independent state, initially as a democratic republic under Mihály Károlyi . After the four-month intermezzo of the Soviet republic in 1919 under Béla Kun , Hungary transformed into an authoritarian, conservative state.

In 1920 Hungary lost over 70 percent of its national territory in the Trianon Peace Treaty . a. the Burgenland , the Slovakia , Transylvania , Croatia and Slavonia . More than 3.5 million of its citizens came under the rule of newly formed neighboring states, only 8.6 million remained in the reduced national territory. Like Austria, Hungary became the successor state of the k. u. k. Monarchy obliged to make reparations, which were to be made through payments over a period of 33 years. Sharp restrictions limited the strength of his armed forces.

The recovery of " Greater Hungary " through the revision of the Treaty of Trianon became the doctrine of a new army, the Royal Hungarian Honved . It went back to the 4000 officers with whom Miklós Horthy , the last commander in chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy , had ended the Soviet republic. Anti-communism became the army's second doctrine. Hungary remained formally a monarchy, but was ruled by Miklós Horthy as imperial administrator . Since the early 1930s, the army has been looking for ways to arm.

Ally of National Socialist Germany

Territorial acquisitions of Hungary 1938–1941
Administrative division of Hungary 1941–44

In German foreign policy after the First World War, Hungary was to play the role of a "pro-German outpost" in the region of south-eastern Europe, which was largely dominated by France . Until the outbreak of the Second World War , Hungary had economic ties to German industrial and banking companies, also politically close to Germany. Original concerns of the Budapest government, which did not want to make itself too dependent on the German Reich , were offset by territorial ambitions. Leading forces in Hungary hoped for a revision of the Trianon Peace Treaty from close ties to the German Reich. In the first Vienna arbitration in 1938, areas with a Hungarian majority in southern Slovakia and Carpathian Ukraine were separated from Czecho-Slovakia and awarded to Hungary. In the wake of the Slovak-Hungarian War in 1939, with German help, Hungary got to other areas at the expense of Slovakia . Since the summer of 1940 the situation came to a head due to the territorial claims of Hungary and Bulgaria against Romania . In the second Viennese award of Germany and Italy on August 30, 1940, to which Romania submitted, Hungary's territorial claims were partially satisfied. Under heavy German pressure, Hungary joined the three-power pact on November 20, 1940, followed by Romania and Slovakia , which had been concluded between the German Reich, Italy and Japan. Bulgaria and Yugoslavia followed , albeit with limited military obligations. This meant that Hungary and these countries were in a common southeastern area on the side of the Axis powers with the obligation to provide military assistance. When German troops invaded Yugoslavia in the Balkans campaign in April 1941, Italian, Bulgarian and Hungarian units followed. Hungary annexed areas in northern Yugoslavia ( Mur region , southern Baranja , southern Batschka ), which covered 11,601 square kilometers with 1.145 million inhabitants. Since June 27, 1941, Hungary took part in the war against the Soviet Union with the “fast corps” , initially with 30,000 soldiers, and from April 1942 with the 2nd Army of over 200,000 men. Great Britain then declared war on Hungary on December 7, 1941. As part of its alliance commitments, Hungary declared war on the United States on December 12, 1941 . Hungary's economic dependence on Germany also grew. The German Reich used all of Hungary's military and economic resources. Exports to Germany, which in 1939 were 50.4 percent of Hungarian exports, rose to 73.6 percent. Hungary was on the way to becoming a vassal state of the "Greater German Reich".

In the 1940s, the Árpád Line was built on the border with the Soviet Union .

As an occupying force in the Eastern campaign

Nine Hungarian divisions with 90,000 men were deployed in the rear area of Army Group B and Army Group Center to fight partisans. They were divided into two occupation groups, the "Occupation Group East" controlled the 300 square kilometer area of Kiev - Gomel - Redina Buda - Priluki . The "Occupation Group West" secured the railway lines between Brest - Kolomea - Berditschew - Gomel . The only way the Hungarian occupation forces used against the Soviet partisans was to create “dead zones” and to use severe reprisals. Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary in May 1942:

"When the Hungarians report that they have 'pacified' a village, there is usually nothing left of the village or of the inhabitants."

Occupation of Hungary by Germany

Admiral Horthy's enthusiasm for the war campaign against the Soviet Union faded as quickly as the prospect of a quick victory, and he looked for ways to get out of the war while retaining the territory, which had been considerably enlarged with German help since 1938. After the Battle of Stalingrad , the Hungarian 2nd Army with 200,000 men was surrounded by the Red Army when the Red Army breached the front south of Voronezh , and it became clear to the government of Miklós Kállay that Hungary would have to switch to the Allies. In August 1943, parts of the Hungarian government first made contact with the Allies, which the German secret service became aware of, without any countermeasures being taken. However, the situation changed fundamentally after the battle of Kursk and the Allied landing on Sicily (July 10, 1943), which led to the break of the Berlin-Rome axis . Germany was determined to prevent a "second Italy". Operations plans had been drawn up under the code name “Margarethe” since September 1943, and on March 19, 1944, eight divisions invaded Hungary from Belgrade, Zagreb, Vienna and Cracow. The armed forces of Hungary offered no resistance, Horthy remained in office as head of state. On March 23, 1944, a new German-friendly government was formed under Prime Minister Döme Sztójay , which received its instructions from Germany. Hungary was forced to continue the war with increased efforts. Germany renounced its own military administration in Hungary, but installed an occupation machine headed by the representative of the Greater German Reich , Edmund Veesenmayer . It also included representatives from the highest Reich authorities, especially the economic and armaments departments, as well as a separate Higher SS and Police Leader . The General of the Infantry Hans von Greiffenberg was to provide for new Hungarian divisions .

On April 4, 1944, the USAAF launched a day raid against Budapest, which was soon followed by a night raid by the Royal Air Force (RAF).

On the night of 5./6. May the RAF flew another attack; he aimed at railway grounds in Budapest.

A large wave of arrests began after the invasion. The first arrests were carried out by the approximately 500–600 forces from Sipo and SD , who were under the direction of SS-Obergruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner , head of the RSHA . After that, internal security and the fight against the partisan movement, which was particularly active in the border counties, was transferred to the "cleansed" Hungarian administration. Three quarters of the arrests that followed were for communist activities . From autumn 1944 the terror was directed against the Hungarian soldiers, who in increasing numbers, often in closed units, withdrew from armed service for the Germans. Draconic punishments, including kin detention , were designed to stop the collapse of the Hungarian Collaborating Army. According to estimates by the German authorities, around 200,000 Hungarians fought on the other side by the beginning of 1945 .

In August 1944, the Red Army began its attack on Romania, and after the Battle of Jassy-Kishinev the situation changed dramatically. After a coup , Romania switched sides and declared war on Germany. On September 14, the Red Army began the Belgrade operation (until November 24, 1944); they occupied Bulgaria without encountering any resistance. On October 15, after the German commando company "Panzerfaust" led by Otto Skorzeny Horthy's son of the same name, Miklós Horthy jr. (1907–1993) had kidnapped, the imperial administrator proclaimed over the radio ( Magyar Rádió ) that he had asked for an armistice for Hungary. The Arrow Cross then dropped Horthy. He was forced to withdraw and taken to Germany. The Arrow Cross, a fascist movement, took power (supported by Wehrmacht troops ); Ferenc Szálasi became the new Prime Minister. The Hungarian state apparatus was retained. Because of the approaching front, the number of Wehrmacht soldiers stationed in Hungary was increased. They were subordinated to Army Group South .

The murder of the Hungarian Jews

After a phase of material exploitation under Miklós Kállay , the next phase of persecution took place in 1944. With the German invasion troops, a 200-man special task force of the RSHA under the leadership of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann came with the task of initiating the " final solution " and monitoring its implementation by the Hungarian authorities. The German estimates were about one million Jews . The stages of the final solution , as they were to be carried out by the Hungarian authorities, were registration, labeling, disenfranchisement, ghettoization, forced labor, expropriation and deportation.

Hungary was occupied by German troops on March 19, 1944 (" Operation Margarethe "). On March 23, 1944, a new government was formed under Prime Minister Döme Sztójay . Soon the Jewish Hungarians were completely disenfranchised by 107 laws. Ghettoization began on April 16, 1944; Eleven days later, under the direction of Adolf Eichmann , the mass deportations to Auschwitz began on April 27 . The prisoners in ghettos and camps were carried out by the Hungarian gendarmerie.

From May 15, during the so-called " Hungary Action ", more than 10,000 people came daily, mainly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp , where the majority were immediately driven into the gas chambers. 150,000 able-bodied Jewish men were placed in work detachments, where the principle of " destruction through work " applied. After the Swedish King Gustav V , the Vatican and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Hungarian Protestant bishops and the Hungarian Primate Serédi, among others, called for the deportations to be stopped, the last 200,000 Budapest Jews were deported at the beginning of July Banned by Horthy in 1944 and suspended on July 9th. After the collapse of Army Group Center in the Soviet summer offensive (" Operation Bagration ") and the breakthrough of the Allies who landed in northern France on June 6, 1944 , Horthy tried to refuse any further collaboration in the annihilation of the Jewish residents of the country. He replaced the Sztójay government with General Géza Lakatos . By then, according to a telegram from Edmund Veesenmayer on July 11, 437,402 Jews had been deported within two months. Sinti and Roma were persecuted and murdered in Hungary as part of the Porajmos . There is no reliable information about the number of victims, they vary between 5,000 and 70,000.

After the Arrow Crossers came to power, the deportations continued on a smaller scale, often in the form of foot treks towards the Austrian border due to a lack of transport. For tens of thousands these became death marches . Tens of thousands also died in the Budapest ghetto as a result of the unbearable living conditions and the pogroms of the Arrow Cross members.

The efforts of neutral states to rescue Budapest's Jews proved successful. By the end of October 1944, the Salvadoran Consulate Secretary George Mandel-Mantello issued over 1,600 protection passes . Thousands of other letters of protection were issued by the Swiss diplomats Carl Lutz , Harald Feller and Friedrich Born , the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and the Apostolic Nuncio Angelo Rotta ; these diplomats have all been honored by the Israeli institution Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations . Of the 825,000 people who lived within Hungary's borders from 1941 to 1945 and were considered Jews, around 565,000 (68.5%) died in the Holocaust , the remaining 260,000 survived the war years.

The German minority in Hungary

In 1944 around 700,000 people of German nationality lived in Hungary, the Hungarian Germans . That was about 4.8 percent of the population. They were much less Nazi-minded than the German population of the Yugoslav and Romanian territories that Hungary had annexed. The leadership of the Volksbund der Deutschen in Hungary followed only about 40 percent of the Hungarian Germans. The main task of the ethnic group leadership was to recruit soldiers for the Waffen SS . Under great reprisals , around 120,000 Germans from Hungary have been recruited for the Waffen SS since 1941.

The advance of the Red Army

Advance of the Red Army in 1944/45

The Red Army occupied Hungary gradually from the end of September 1944. German occupation troops and Hungarian collaborators offered resistance to the Soviet troops in the battle for Hungary for over half a year. At the end of 1944 they broke into the western part of southern Hungary, reached Lake Balaton in the north and surrounded and besieged Budapest. That meant the loss of the iron ore mines, the steel and smelting works, the largest electricity works, the coal and bauxite mines for the German armaments industry. Of the thirteen Hungarian refineries, only three were still operating after air raids. The industrial plants and economic goods of Hungary that remained in the enemy-free area were now relocated to the Reich. In December 1944, the Hungarian National Bank was relocated: 51 wagons with gold, silver, notes and securities were removed. The gold went to Austria, 110 tons of silver to the Altreich .

In 1944, Budapest was partially damaged by Anglo-American bombing raids. The greatest destruction of the capital, however, came from the 102 days of confinement and siege of Budapest by Soviet forces from the end of December 1944 to the beginning of February 1945, as well as by the trapped German and Hungarian troops, who also moved all bridges when they withdrew to the Buda side of the basin burst across the Danube . 38,000 Budapest civilians died during the siege. The Budapest ghetto was liberated by the Red Army on January 18, 1945. The last fighting on Hungarian territory ended on April 4, 1945; some Hungarian units continued to fight in Austria and Bavaria until the beginning of May .

As early as December 22, 1944, a provisional government of the Hungarian National Independence Front was formed in the Soviet-occupied Debrecen , under Prime Minister Béla Dálnoki-Miklós , which declared war on Germany on December 31 and concluded an armistice with the Allies on January 20, 1945.

The war and occupation cost Hungary great human losses, in addition to the almost 500,000 Jews, another 600,000 people. That was more than 18 percent of the pre-war population. The economic consequences were also catastrophic. Sixty percent of the livestock, agricultural machinery and implements were destroyed, a quarter of the machinery and equipment in industry, almost all motor vehicles and almost all rolling stock on railways. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1946 , Hungary had to cede all the territories it had gained since 1938.

Documentation and research into crimes

In Budapest there has been the Holocaust Documentation Center (Holokauszt Emlékközpont) since 2004, in addition to the long-standing exhibition part in the General Budapest History Museum , the Jewish Museum at the Great Synagogue in Dohány utca and the House of Terror , the former seat of the Arrow Cross members, four places where the Shoah is documented and researched with different focuses.

In the early 2000s - about 60 years after the events - archive materials were released in Russia.

literature

Movie

  • James Moll: The last few days . USA, 90 min, Holocaust documentary, 1998. ( Oscar 1999 for Best Documentary; interviews with five survivors).

See also

  • German small state in the Balkans , a buffer state considered by the German Reich between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, to be set up in the event of Hungary's refusal to go to war against Yugoslavia on the side of the German Reich in 1941.
  • Auschwitz album (handed down by Lily Jacob (1926 - December 17, 1999). The photos taken by an SS man show the processes inside the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp at the end of May or beginning of June 1944 - during the so-called Hungarians by the SS. Action)
  • Éva Fahidi (born 1925 in Debrecen, survivor)
  • Tom Lantos (Lantos Tamás Péter, 1928-2008; survived after being arrested and escaped in Budapest)

Web links

Commons : Hungary in World War II  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller: On the side of the Wehrmacht: Hitler's foreign helpers in the "Crusade against Bolshevism" 1941–1945. Fischer TB, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-18150-6 , p. 38.
  2. ↑ Restriction of the armed forces to a long-serving professional army (Art. 103) of 35,000 men (Art. 104) without air forces (Art. 128; see also Part XI. Aviation (Art. 260 to 267)).
  3. ↑ MGFA (ed.): The German Reich and the Second World War . Stuttgart 1990, Volume 8, pp. 852 f.
  4. ↑ Quotation from Christian Hartmann : Wehrmacht in the Eastern War . Munich 2010, p. 758.
  5. ↑ Sydney Morning Herald.
  6. ^ RAF Follows US Raid on Budapest .
  7. ^ Budapest bombed by RAF - Big explosions in Railway Yards
  8. ↑ Holly Cartner (Ed.): Struggling for Ethnic Identity. The Gypsies of Hungary. A Helsinki Watch report. Human Rights Watch, 1993, ISBN 1-564-32112-6 , p. 5.
  9. ↑ www1.yadvashem.org ; Margit Szöllösi-Janze : The Arrow Cross Movement in Hungary. Historical context, development and rule. Oldenbourg, Munich 1989, p. 427.
  10. ^ Encyclopedia Judaica , Volume 8, p. 1108.
  11. ↑ «Corpses are lying around everywhere»: 75 years ago the Red Army besieged Budapest Ivo Mijnssen in Budapest for more than 100 days in nzz.ch, February 12, 2020, accessed on February 16, 2020.
  12. ↑ Krisztián Ungváry: The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II. Yale University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-300-11985-2 .