Zoltán Szügyi

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Zoltán Szügyi , Hungarian Vitéz rimaszombati Szügyi Zoltán (born February 8, 1896 in Huszt , † November 23, 1967 in Budapest ) was an Austro-Hungarian and Hungarian officer in the Hungarian armed forces in the First and Second World Wars . Most recently he held the rank of major general . Szügyi was the holder of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross , which was only awarded to eight Hungarian citizens. After the war, Szügyi was convicted and imprisoned as a war criminal in the People's Republic of Hungary .

biography

After successfully completing high school , Szügyi originally wanted to learn the profession of engineer . At the request of his parents, however, he switched to that of a teacher , not least because of the better income opportunities. The outbreak of the First World War prevented his ambitions in this regard . Szügyi volunteered for the Royal Hungarian 12th Infantry Regiment . To be accepted as a minor, he forged his parents' signature on the admission papers.

Austria-Hungary and World War I

From September 30, 1914 to December 2, 1915 Szügyi acted as a troop officer in the Royal Hungarian 12th Honved Infantry Regiment . There the young Szügyi experienced a rapid population development for the time. On December 21, 1914 he was promoted to corporal , on January 15, 1915 to junker , on May 1, 1915 to ensign of the reserve and on July 24, 1915 to lieutenant of the reserve . From December 1915 to the beginning of April 1916 Szügyi was ill. After his recovery he returned to his regular regiment, in which he was then employed as a troop officer until June 1918. During this time took place on April 1, 1916 his promotion to lieutenant , and on November 1, 1917 to lieutenant . After a severe wound on June 22, 1918, his fifth, and subsequent recovery, Szügyi was assigned to the Székler division . With this division Szugyi took part in the Hungarian-Romanian War . The division capitulated on April 29, 1919 and fell into Romanian captivity , which Szügyi was also held in until October 1919.

Horthy era and World War II

After his return to Hungary, Szügyi served from October 17, 1919 to January 20, 1920, initially in the Ministry of Propaganda in the military department there. On January 20, 1920 he joined the General Staff . From June 1921 to mid-January 1922 Szügyi again acted as a troop officer in the Royal Hungarian 2nd Honved Infantry Regiment . In this capacity, Szügyi acted as a guard for King Károlys IV. On his second entry into Hungary on October 20, 1921. Szügyi had previously been honored with the Vitéz title in August 1921 . On January 15, 1922, he was posted to the War Ministry in Budapest, where Szügyi was promoted to captain on November 1, 1926 . In the War Ministry he worked in the VI. Group. On January 1, 1929, Szügyi was put into temporary retirement . The background to this decision were the long-term consequences of a wound he suffered in the First World War, which had led to lung bleeding . Szügyis retreat into retirement was the Great Depression loaded so that he decided in 1931 to enter into military service again.

On May 1, 1931 he returned and was used there until October 1, 1937 as a company commander in the Royal Hungarian 10th Honved Infantry Regiment . During this time he attended a telephone course for troop officers. Szügyi then took on the duties of a troop officer from October 1, 1937 to November 1, 1938 in the Szolnok Infantry Brigade . In this position he was promoted to major on November 1, 1937 . After the general staff training that followed, Szugyi was appointed head of department in the V Corps on November 1, 1938 ; a position he held until early August 1941. This time was only interrupted from April to November 1940, when he was Chief of the General Staff in the 5th Honvéd Military District. On July 1, 1940, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in this position .

On August 1, 1941 Szügyi was appointed commander of the 1st Honvéd Paratrooper Battalion . On October 1, 1941, the battalion was given the honorary name of its first commander, Árpád Bertalan , who was killed in a jumping accident on April 12, 1941. The unit now called 1st Honvéd Paratrooper Battalion "vitez Bertalan Árpád" commanded Szügyi until October 14, 1942. The battalion did not take part in any major military action on the side of the German Wehrmacht . However, individual soldiers were deployed on the Eastern Front. On October 14, 1942, Szügyi gave up command of the parachute battalion and was appointed commander of the Royal Hungarian 43rd Honvéd Infantry Regiment . It was here that he was promoted to colonel on November 1, 1942 . The regiment was under the Hungarian 2nd Army . The army was almost completely destroyed a few months later, in January 1943, in the Soviet operation Ostrogoshsk-Rossosh . On February 5, 1943, Szügyi arrived in Kiev, drawn by the rigors of the withdrawal . On February 8, 1943, he gave command of the 43rd Honvéd Infantry Regiment and was reappointed commander of the 1st Honvéd Paratrooper Battalion "vitez Bertalan Árpád" on February 18, 1944 .

The paratrooper battalion under Szügyi's command was held back by Miklós Horthy as an "elite unit" for the impending home defense of Hungary from the actual events at the front, also at repeated pressure from the Wehrmacht. In the summer of 1944 the Red Army was at the Carpathian Mountains and Szügyi's battalion, which had grown to regimental strength in the meantime, was transferred to the front. The battalion was subordinated to the 1st Hungarian Army . In August 1944, Szügyi learned of the planned conversion of the battalion into a division. During this time, Horthy secretly sought a separate peace with the Western Allies. In this context, Szügyi was ordered in August 1944 to rally with his troops in Budapest. There the Hungarian Chief of the General Staff was supposed to give him further instructions. However, Szügyi in Budapest could not achieve this. Since Szügyi's associations delayed in Budapest and no other commands collected Szügyi arrived "from above" einliefen with him, his associations in the Károly Barracks in Kelenföld where the battalion in the October 17, 1944 Hungarian Royal Division Szent Laszlo renamed has been.

Szügyi's division, which was still being set up, was relocated to Pápa and further equipped. The planned operational readiness for November 1, 1944 could not be maintained, because the Wehrmacht withdrew units of the division into their fighting on the Danube bridge head in Pest and Kéthely . In the Battle of Budapest , the von Szügyi division came into action as a single unit. The division was responsible for securing the southern retreat route in the Letkés area and the Ipoly . In the course of the battle the division was almost completely destroyed. Some units suffered 95 percent losses. However, she managed to hold off the Soviet 7th Guard Army for a week until the German units, a total of three tank divisions , had withdrawn from the encirclement.

During this time, Szügyi was promoted to major general on January 1, 1945 and received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from his German superior General of the Armored Troop Hermann Balck for the excellent performance of his division . Subsequently, Szügyi's division was removed from the combat mission and was in the refreshment phase until mid-March 1945. The division was then subordinated to the German 6th Army . A false report at the end of March 1945 led to confusion when it was claimed that Szugyi's division had defected to the Red Army as a whole. Unaware of the actual situation, Balck thereupon issued the order on March 31, 1945 that all Hungarian soldiers fighting in the area of ​​the 6th Army were to be disarmed. Szugyi was able to convince Balck of the opposite over the phone. On April 4, 1945 Szügyi's division of the 2nd Panzer Army was subordinated to General of the Artillery Maximilian de Angelis . There she acted as rearguard for the German I. Cavalry Corps . As instructed, the division then withdrew further west, where it surrendered to English troops in the Klagenfurt area on May 11, 1945.

However, the Szugyi division was not disarmed because the Allies feared that Tito could assert territorial claims against Slovenia . Therefore the division was kept ready for a few days "under arms" by the English. On May 17, 1945 the division was ordered to a new internment room. Here an unusual curiosity arose from the command of the 46th British Division , at whose request Szugyi's division paraded in front of the British. The friendship between Szügyi and the British commander deepened in the period that followed. As much as the British commander Szügyi offered to move west when he learned that Szügyi was to be charged as a war criminal in his home country. The deal offered, which Szügyi declined with thanks, included appropriate travel documents, a chauffeur and a 24-hour time window until he was reported to be absent.

People's Republic of Hungary

On March 15, 1946, Szügyi was handed over to the Hungarian authorities, who sentenced him to 10 years in prison on November 28, 1949 as a war criminal . In the course of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 , Szügyi was liberated. His release did not last long. After the uprising was put down, Szugyi was arrested again and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1957 he was released from this for unknown reasons.

After the confiscation of all his private property and without a pension, the former general earned his living as a simple laborer by u. a. was also used as a wheelbarrow driver. Szügyi died on November 23, 1967 after a serious illness.

Awards

National awards

International awards

literature

  • Attilla Ótott Kovács: The Hungarian holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag 2006, ISBN 978-3-938845-02-8 , pp. 103-114.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Kovács p. 103.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Kovács p. 104.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Kovács p. 113.
  4. ↑ a b c Kovács p. 114.
  5. ↑ a b c Kovács p. 106.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Kovács p. 107.
  7. ↑ a b c d Kovács p. 108.
  8. ↑ Kovács p. 109.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h Kovács p. 110.
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Kovács p. 111.
  11. ↑ Szügyi Zoltán in Agnes Kenyeres (ed.): Magyar életrajzi lexikon . Budapest 1981
  12. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Kovács p. 112.
  13. ↑ Entry No. January 1, 3225 Schlesinger, Edward, from: "Evidence of 28,139 families of the nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary, letter S", according to: Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven - A magyar történelmi nemesség családneveinek listája, ", in: WIKIa Szlachta (Online version)
personal data
SURNAME Szugyi, Zoltán
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian military, most recently major general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Huszt , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1967
Place of death Budapest