Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
war was just as disastrous for Hungary as the 1914-18 one had been and Horthy began
secret discussions with the Allies.
When Hitler caught wind of this in March 1944 he sent his army in. Ferenc Szálasi, the
deranged leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party, was installed as prime minister and
Horthy was deported to Germany.
The Arrow Cross Party arrested thousands of the country's liberal politicians and labour
leaders. The puppet government introduced anti-Jewish legislation similar to that in Ger-
many, and Jews, who lived in fear but were still alive under Horthy, were rounded up into
ghettos by Hungarian pro-Nazis. From May to July of 1944, just 10 months before the end
of the war, 450,000 Hungarian Jewish men, women and children - 60% of Hungarian Jewry
- were deported to Auschwitz and other labour camps, where they starved to death, suc-
cumbed to disease or were brutally murdered. Many of the Jews who did survive owed their
lives to heroic men like Raoul Wallenberg, a Budapest-based Swedish diplomat, Swiss con-
sul Carl Lutz and Scottish missionary Jane Haining. All of them are remembered with
monuments and/or street names in the capital.
Budapest now became an international battleground for the first time since the Turkish
occupation, and bombs began falling everywhere. By Christmas 1944 the Soviet army had
surrounded Budapest. By the time Germany surrendered in April 1945, three-quarters of the
city's homes, historical buildings and churches had been severely damaged or destroyed.
Some 20,000 Hungarian soldiers and 25,000 civilians of Budapest had been killed. As they
retreated the Germans blew up Buda Castle and knocked out every bridge that spanned the
Danube.
Hungary under Admiral Horthy confused even US President Franklin D Roosevelt. After
being briefed by an aide on the country's government and leadership, he reportedly said:
'Let me see if I understand you right. Hungary is a kingdom without a king run by a regent
who's an admiral without a navy?'
The People's Republic
When the first postwar parliamentary elections were held in Hungary in November 1945,
the Independent Smallholders' Party received 57% of the vote. But Soviet political officers,
backed by the occupying army, forced three other parties - the Communists, Social Demo-
crats and National Peasants - into a coalition. Two years later, in a disputed election held
under a complicated new electoral law, the Communists declared their candidate, Mátyás
