On October 29, 1944, troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front launched a large-scale offensive as part of the Budapest strategic operation. Later, units of the 3rd Ukrainian Front and ships of the Danube Flotilla joined them. The successful implementation of the plans of the Soviet command allowed the Red Army to liberate the central part of Hungary from the Nazis and get closer to the southern borders of the Reich.

Between two wars

After the end of World War I, Entente members on July 4, 1920 signed a peace treaty with Hungary as one of the successors of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the place of signature (Grand Trianon Palace of Versailles) it is customary to call it Trianon. According to the document, vast territories of Hungary were torn away in favor of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania, which France patronized. Hungary lost 72% of its land, 64% of the population (including three million ethnic Hungarians), access to the sea and most of its industrial potential. The conditions of the world were perceived in the country as a national tragedy.

Since March 1920, Hungary in the status of regent (under the vacant royal throne) was headed by the former commander of the fleet of the empire, Admiral Miklos Horthy. He established an authoritarian regime in the country, banned the Communist Party and inspired the population with revenge ideas.

After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Horthy became one of his key allies. In gratitude for this, the Nazi leader, after the Munich agreement, organized, within the framework of the Vienna Arbitration, the transfer to Hungary of part of the lands that were previously part of Czechoslovakia and Romania. In addition, the Reich authorities refused to help Ukrainian nationalists when in the spring of 1939 they tried to create the so-called Carpathian Ukraine in Transcarpathia - these territories also went to Budapest.

On November 20, 1940, Hungary officially acceded to the Berlin Pact of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Hungarian industry supplied the Reich with weapons for preparing an attack on the USSR. In the spring of 1941, Budapest, along with Berlin and Rome, took part in the aggression against Yugoslavia, having received for this from Hitler Vojvodina and part of Slovenia.

  • Miklos Horthy
  • © Wikimedia commons

Attack on the USSR

In words, Horthy actively supported Hitler. He called "Russian expansion" a real danger to Hungary and called for the dismemberment of the USSR. However, after the attack of the Reich on the Soviet Union, the regent took a break and did not immediately enter the war.

The situation changed on June 26, 1941, when unknown planes attacked the Slovak city of Kosice, controlled by Hungary. Hitler accused the USSR of what happened, although historians subsequently suggested that German or Romanian aircraft could have carried out the bombing under the guise of Soviet. After what happened, on June 27, 1941, Hungary declared war on the USSR. About 44 thousand Hungarian military personnel were immediately thrown to the front, the number of the group began to increase in the future.

Hungarian units operated in Western Ukraine, near Uman, Kharkov and Voronezh. In the Battle of Stalingrad, more than 200 thousand Hungarian troops participated. During these battles, the 2nd Hungarian Army was almost completely destroyed.

In addition to front-line actions, the Hungarian units were also involved in punitive operations - the destruction of peaceful settlements and the blocking of partisan areas. Military personnel of the Hungarian 105th light division, in particular, took part in the destruction of civilians in the village of Koryukovka, Chernihiv region, where about 6.7 thousand people were killed by SS men and Ukrainian policemen a day.

However, the catastrophic losses on the Eastern Front in 1943 greatly changed the mood of the Hungarian leadership. Hitler heard rumors that official Budapest was ready for negotiations with Moscow. Therefore, in March 1944, he ordered Operation Margaret to be carried out - to send German troops to Hungary and force Horthy to remove politicians from the government who were skeptical about the alliance with Germany.

In addition, in 1944, Budapest was forced to change its policy on the “Jewish question”. Despite the fact that representatives of the Jewish population had been severely persecuted since 1938 (professional restrictions and slave labor in “labor battalions” were introduced for them), there was no direct genocide in Hungary. After the German units were brought into Hungary, Hungarian Jews began to be placed in the ghetto, and from there sent to German death camps.

  • Mass arrests of Jews in Budapest, October 1944
  • © Wikimedia commons

By the fall of 1944, Soviet troops approached the border of Hungary. Realizing the reality of the threat of war on its territory, Horthy’s circle, despite pressure from the Nazis, began to try to enter into negotiations with Moscow. On October 15, the Hungarian regent announced a truce with the USSR. By this time, Hitler ordered the special forces of the SS to neutralize the Horthy. Hitler’s saboteurs were taken hostage by the regent’s son and then captured his residence using tanks.

As a result, Horthy agreed to withdraw his signature on the armistice documents and renounce power in favor of the leader of the pro-Nazi party “Crossed Arrows” Ferenc Salashi. Under him, the killing of Jews and repression against the opposition intensified. In total, according to the calculations of historians, the Nazis and their local accomplices destroyed about 70% of the representatives of the Hungarian Jewish population - about 600 thousand people.

In October 1944, Soviet troops expelled German-Hungarian troops from Transcarpathia as part of the Carpathian-Uzhgorod operation, and liberated Northern Transylvania and the left bank of the Tisza during the Debrecen operation.

Budapest operation

“In October 1944, the Soviet command decided to develop an attack on Budapest without an operational pause. The bet counted on the fact that the enemy’s forces weakened after a series of defeats and this would force them to retreat from the Hungarian capital. The Headquarters also hoped that, due to growing disagreements between Germans and Hungarians, the Hungarian units would not actively resist and, possibly, would go over to the side of the Soviet troops, ”Anton Kobets, an employee of the scientific and methodological department of the Victory Museum, told RT.

On October 29, 1944, the offensive towards the Budapest troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front began. The 3rd Ukrainian Front, which completed the Belgrade operation, concentrated on the Yugoslav-Hungarian border in order to strike from the south. With the help of the ships of the Danube Flotilla, its units were to seize bridgeheads on the right bank of the Danube.

The troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front successfully broke through the enemy’s defenses and in early November reached the approaches to Budapest, but here they encountered difficulties.

“Contrary to expectations, the German command managed to organize three lines of defense around Budapest and a powerful defensive unit in the city itself,” Kobets said.

According to him, during the Soviet offensive, the Germans managed to inflict several counterattacks. For two months, the Red Army unsuccessfully stormed the defense of Budapest, while moving along the flanks around the city.

  • Red Army troops in Budapest
  • RIA News
  • © George Zelma

“On December 20, 1944, troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts broke through the Margarita line (enemy fortifications between the Danube and Lake Balaton) and, simultaneously starting an offensive north of Budapest, met on December 26 in the Esztergom region, completing the encirclement of the 188-thousandth group Nazi troops in Budapest, ”writes in the book“ Born in Battles ... ”Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General Ivan Russiyanov.

According to him, "the Nazis defended themselves with the despair of the doomed."

“The fascist command issued a special order according to which the German troops in Budapest had to stand to death. The order also said that the families of those who retreat or surrender will be shot, ”wrote Russiyanov.

On December 29, the Soviet command sent parliamentarians to Budapest with a proposal for surrender - captains Ilya Ostapenko and Miklos Steinmets. Despite the white flags, the Nazis opened fire on negotiators. Both officers died.

“In Budapest, the Nazis concentrated 13 tank and two motorized divisions. They didn’t create such a density of tank troops anywhere throughout the Great Patriotic War, ”said military historian Yuri Knutov in an interview with RT.

However, Kobets said, on January 18, Soviet troops occupied Pest, the eastern part of the city. 63 thousand enemy soldiers and officers were taken prisoner. And on February 5, 1945, Soviet troops managed to suppress the main centers of enemy resistance. On February 13, the last Hitler units in Budapest surrendered. The next day, the Red Army completed the defeat of the Nazi units, which during the assault were able to seep through the encirclement.

“During the fighting for the capital of Hungary, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front captured more than 138 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, led by the commander of the encircled group, Colonel-General Pfeffer-Wildenbruch and his headquarters. In order not to endanger himself, the German general preferred to sit out in a sewer pipe while the shots of Soviet artillery rattled above, ”recalls Hero of the Soviet Union Marshal Matvey Zakharov in the book May 9, 1945.

According to Knutov, the storming of Budapest became one of the most difficult “urban” operations of the Soviet troops: “It is not for nothing that the legendary song mentions precisely the“ medal for the city of Budapest ”.

The expert also emphasized that in the ghetto in Budapest, Soviet soldiers managed to save 70 thousand Jews, whom the Nazis did not manage to kill under pressure from the advancing Red Army. This was the largest case of rescue of the Jewish population in Central Europe.

“The role of the Budapest operation is difficult to overestimate. Hitler did not in vain say that the loss of Hungary and Austria for him is worse than the loss of Berlin. The Reich was losing stability, a number of important sources of raw materials and allied forces. During the Budapest operation, the Red Army withdrew Hungary from the war and approached Austria. This was the sentence of Nazi Germany, ”Knutov concluded.