October 1944: German occupation of Hungary

After hearing that the Hungarian regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy, had been negotiating an armistice with the USSR, Germany forced him to resign on 16 October 1944. Following the removal of Horthy, Germany placed the country under the control of Ferenc Szalasi, the leader of the fascist Arrow Cross Party. Hungary remained a member of the Axis under the Szalasi government until its occupation by the USSR in February and March 1945.

Earlier that year, in March 1944, Germany had occupied key locations in Hungary after Hitler discovered that the Hungarian Prime Minister, Mikos Kallay, was holding discussions on the possibility of surrendering to the Allies. Horthy had remained Hungarian regent only by acquiescing to the occupation of his country, which he viewed as a fait accompli, but resented the Germans and resolved to get Hungary out of the Second World War. Horthy continued negotiations for an armistice with the USSR, carried out through his son, Miklos Jr.

Germany sought to prevent the surrender of Hungary, particularly after Romania and Bulgaria had defected to the Allies. Once Hitler became aware of Horthy’s negotiations with the Soviets, he ordered Horthy’s removal. On 14 October 1944, SS men kidnapped Horthy’s son. Hearing of this kidnapping, Horthy announced on the radio on 15 October that he had secured an armistice with the USSR. Shortly afterwards, Horthy was confronted by German soldiers and surrendered. The Arrow Cross, which had already been informed of the planned coup by the Germans, seized the radio station and countermanded Horthy’s announcement. Some Hungarian armies, most prominently that under Bela Miklos, defected to the USSR, but most continued to fight for the Axis. On 16 October, Horthy was forced to resign and pass the regency to Szalasi. Horthy made this decision, politically, based on a belief that resistance would be futile due to German occupation and, personally, on the threats to his son’s life if he did not submit.

The occupation of Hungary by German forces in March 1944 initiated the Holocaust in Hungary as Hungary’s Jews, who had previously been protected under Horthy’s rightist government, were deported to death camps. Roughly 400,000 Jews had been killed between March and October 1944. The rate of killing increased after Szalasi came to power, as his Arrow Cross Party murdered over 30,000 Jews and Romani and sent an additional 80,000 Jews to the death camps. The scale of the Holocaust in Hungary thus greatly expanded as a result of the German occupation and the removal of Horthy.

The removal of Horthy and his replacement with Szalasi kept Hungary in the Axis camp for several additional months, protecting Germany’s southern flank and securing German access to Hungarian oil reserves. If Germany had not removed Horthy, and occupied the country in March 1944, it is almost certain that Hungary would have surrendered to the Allies. Strategically, Hungary’s Carpathian Mountains formed a formidable natural barrier to Soviet advance into the key industrial areas of Austria and Czechia, where a huge portion of Germany’s arms industry was located. The surrender of Hungary also would have cut off the German retreat from Yugoslavia and Greece, leaving over a million German soldiers trapped in the Balkans. After the surrender of Romania, Hungary was Germany’s only significant source of oil. Without access to the oil fields around Lake Balaton, Germany would be unable to sustain its war effort on a scale large enough to resist Allied advance.