Hungary in World War II

Chapter 4 traced revisionism's own rise from a rejected appeal into an actual, ongoing item of Hungarian foreign policy. This chapter covers what happened once that policy actually began to succeed — and the catastrophic real cost that success carried with it.

The Vienna Awards: Real Territorial Revisionism Delivered

Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, acting as arbitrators, awarded Hungary real, substantial territory twice in quick succession. The First Vienna Award, on 2 November 1938, returned part of southern Czechoslovakia — modern-day southern Slovakia — to Hungary. The Second Vienna Award, on 30 August 1940, returned northern Transylvania from Romania. Chapter 4's own real revisionist grievance, pursued through diplomacy since the 1920s, was finally being answered — but only through Hungary's own deepening dependence on the two powers doing the arbitrating.

Deepening Into the Axis

Hungary formally joined the Tripartite Pact on 20 November 1940, binding itself openly to Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Teleki's Real Protest

Just weeks later, on 12 December 1940, Prime Minister Pál Teleki personally signed a Treaty of Eternal Friendship with Yugoslavia. That treaty did not survive four months. When Horthy agreed to let German troops pass through Hungary to attack Yugoslavia in April 1941, Teleki, learning of it by telephone around midnight on 3–4 April, went home and took his own life the same night, his body discovered the next morning.

Escalating Legislation

Chapter 5's own Numerus Clausus was not the endpoint of Hungarian antisemitic policy — it was the starting point. Through the years that followed, Hungary passed a real, documented series of increasingly restrictive anti-Jewish laws, steadily narrowing economic and civil rights well before the catastrophe of 1944.

The German Occupation

By March 1944, with Hungary's own continued loyalty to Germany in doubt, Hitler summoned Horthy to Austria on 18 March — and while the Regent was away, German tanks entered Budapest. Operation Margarethe was complete by 19 March 1944. A new government under Döme Sztójay, answerable to German authority, was installed on 23 March.

The Deportations

Adolf Eichmann arrived in Budapest to personally supervise the deportation of Hungary's Jewish population, setting up headquarters at the Majestic Hotel and coordinating directly with Hungarian authorities. Between 15 May and 9 July 1944, a real, documented 434,351 to 437,402 Jews were deported in 147 trains — overwhelmingly to Auschwitz, where approximately 80% were murdered on arrival.

Horthy Halts the Deportations

Real, direct international pressure from three heads of state changed the outcome for those who had not yet been deported: Pope Pius XII appealed on 25 June, President Roosevelt threatened direct military retaliation on 26 June, and King Gustaf V of Sweden appealed on 30 June 1944. Horthy ordered the deportations halted on 6–7 July 1944 — after well over 400,000 people had already been sent to their deaths.

Operation Panzerfaust and the Arrow Cross

Horthy, by autumn 1944, was secretly negotiating a separate armistice with the advancing Soviet forces. Hitler, learning of this, dispatched commando Otto Skorzeny to keep Hungary in the war. On 15 October 1944, Skorzeny's men abducted Horthy's own son, Miklós Horthy Jr., trussing him in a carpet and transporting him first to Vienna and then to Mauthausen concentration camp. That same afternoon, Horthy announced Hungary's armistice with the Soviets on the radio — and within hours, German forces moved in and took him into custody, coercing him to sign a document renouncing the armistice and abdicating.

Hands-On Exercises