On the German Occupation of Hungary

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Hungary’s plans to build a controversial new memorial commemorating the German occupation of the country has been postponed until after the April elections. Nevertheless, several major Jewish organizations are still boycotting Hungary’s Holocaust Memorial Year. Despite the heated ongoing debate, let’s take a step back and look at the historical context of the issue at hand.

Without politicizing this complex and tragic phase of history, two basic questions should be clarified relating to the March 19, 1944 occupation of Hungary. First, are we talking about a German occupation? Second, was it actually an occupation? The answer to both is a resounding yes.

Because of Central Europe’s difficult geopolitical situation – which was in no small part thanks to the shortsighted Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI – Hungary’s foreign policy inched closer and closer to Nazi Germany during the 1930s. Hungary’s largely short-sighted political elite (including Hungary’s war-time leader Admiral Miklós Horthy) played into Hitler’s game of pitting Central European countries hoping for territorial gains against each other. At the same time, however, Hungary’s drift towards Berlin faced significant opposition not only by the left, but also by the right—Prime Minister István Bethlen, members of the aristocracy in the Upper House in Parliament, members of the Catholic clergy, and the rank and file of the loyalist and liberal parties all opposed closer ties with Germany.

Although many Hungarian political elites were unambiguously supportive of Berlin from 1938-39, it is important to note that the shameful anti-Jewish laws that emerged during this time did face serious opposition in both Hungarian public life and in Parliament. After Hungary entered the war on the side of Germany in 1941, however, there were constant tensions between the two countries. Germany continually made new demands—like more and more Hungarian troops to fight the Russians on the bloody eastern front—which the Hungarian political class was unwilling or reluctant to meet. Prime Minister Miklós Kállay unsurprisingly wanted to spare Hungarian lives, especially after the Don River catastrophe during the siege of Stalingrad in which 85% of the 200,000 Hungarian soldiers ended up dead, wounded, or imprisoned. But Hitler insisted. When Berlin became convinced of the ambivalence of the Hungarian political elite, they set out to plan the occupation of Hungary as early as 1944.

Hitler called for Admiral Horthy in mid-March of 1944 and told the admiral that the two countries were to remain allies despite Germany sending troops to Hungary. On the dawn of March 19, 1944 the Wehrmacht troops arrived in Hungary from four directions; on March 20, 1944 Prime Minister Miklós Kállay found refuge at the Turkish Embassy in Budapest until November, when the Nazi-collaborating Hungarian Arrow-Cross authorities arrested him and deported him to the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Horthy then appointed former ambassador to Germany Döme Sztójay Prime Minister, and other members of the government who did not approve of the German occupation were similarly replaced with Nazi sympathizers. The new government coalition was made up of the previous governing party and committed fascists. Under German pressure, opposition newspapers were banned, opposition parties in the Parliament were dissolved, and several opposition members of the Parliament – liberals, monarchists, smallholders, and social democrats – were arrested. In order to make sure that German interests were fully served, Hitler sent SS officer Edmund Veesenmayer to Hungary as the Führer’s Reich plenipotentiary in Budapest.

Though Hungarian law had already stigmatized Jews, their fate was officially sealed once the Nazis took control. During the months following the occupation, hundreds of new regulations made the lives of the Jews in Hungary impossible, ghettos were set up during the spring and autumn of 1944, followed by mass deportations to Nazi concentration camps.

The active participation and even cooperation of Hungarian political, military, and police leaders in this dark time is undeniable; as is the reality of German pressure and occupation. It is difficult to know if large-scale deportations would have happened without German troops occupying Hungary, but it is certain that the lives of all Jews in Hungary were immediately and directly threatened once the occupation took place.

Although the German presence was in reality an occupation, the appointment of the Hungarian Sztójay government made the arrangement constitutional in a formal sense. Hungary’s sovereignty after March 19, 1944 was radically reduced, and those who acted upon the remaining sovereignty that Hungary had – namely, the Sztójay government – served German and not Hungarian interests. The occupation, in addition to directly serving the political interests of the Nazis, also served German territorial expansionism. The occupation accomplished Nazi political control and German “Lebensraum” imperialism. After the German occupation, Berlin took over the management of the lives of German minorities in Hungary with the help of the loyal Volksbund and raw material exports to Germany (crops, oil, coal) drastically increased. The Sztójay-government agreed that Hungary would bear all the costs of the German occupation. Just like Hungary would bear all the costs of the Soviet occupation between 1945 and 1989.

— Márton Békés, PhD. is a Budapest-based historian and political scientist. He is editor in chief of Jobbklikk blog and Kommentár Magazine, and managing editor of Ősök tere, a weekly history-themed television program.

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