Hungarian units on the eastern front. "Monstrous atrocities": what the Hungarians allowed themselves during the Great Patriotic War. How the Hungarians ended up on the side of Germany
The history of relations between Russia and then the Soviet Union with Hungary has enough "blank spots". One of them is the fate of the Hungarian prisoners of war in the USSR in 1941-1955. This article was written as a result of many years of fundamental research into the history of keeping foreign prisoners of war on the territory of the Soviet Union in the period 1941-1956, the factual base of which was made up of documents from the central state archives of the USSR, including trophy documents.
The criminal policy of the leaders of Hitlerite Germany was the cause of the tragedy not only of the German people, but also of the peoples of the satellite countries. The people of Hungary, who were dragged into the war against the USSR, became a hostage to Hitler's political adventure. However, the historical past of the Soviet Union and Hungary did not have grounds for enmity and hatred between the peoples of these countries. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of the population of Hungary, including the personnel of the Hungarian army, was not interested in war with the Soviet people, did not believe in the need for a war with the USSR, especially for the interests of Nazi Germany. According to the first post-war prime minister of Hungary, his country fought on the side of Germany because the Germans had created a fifth column before the war. Of course, this statement is not without foundation.
Pre-war Hungary was home to about a million Swabian Germans, a wealthy and privileged segment of the population. In percentage terms, Hungarian Germans accounted for 6.2% of the total population of the country on June 30, 1941. Many of the officers in the Hungarian army were of German descent. Some changed their surnames to Hungarian or modeled on Hungarian. Naturally, the Hitlerite government made the most of the possibilities of the Hungarian Germans and Hungarian fascists to involve Hungary in the war with the Soviet Union.
The accession of Hungary on November 20, 1940 to the triple pact Germany - Italy - Japan placed it in the category of direct opponents of the USSR and significantly influenced the nature of relations between the USSR and Hungary.
In view of this, the Hungarian government significantly increased its armed forces, which by the end of 1940 already amounted to about one million people. The population of the country and the personnel of its armed forces began to prepare for war. At the same time, people began to form an attitude towards captivity. As a result of mass propaganda work in the army, it was possible to arouse a steady fear of Soviet captivity among soldiers and officers. This mood lasted almost until the end of 1944. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of Hungarian prisoners of war at the end of 1941 - beginning of 1942 declared that if they knew about the benevolent attitude towards the prisoners, they would surrender immediately upon arrival at the front. As events developed during the Second World War, by the beginning of 1944, anti-war and anti-German sentiments became widespread in the Hungarian army and the population of Hungary (according to sociological research), and interest in our country began to increase. In particular, professor Zibar, a professor of the Lyceum in Ayud, expressed surprise at the high culture of Soviet officers, said: "... we were not sufficiently aware of Russia, and the whole of Central Europe did not understand Russia well."
Having entered the war with the Soviet Union, the Hungarian government sent to the front at first, albeit few in number, but selected troops. The number of Hungarian soldiers and officers who participated in hostilities against the USSR in the period from June 27, 1941 to 1943, is shown in Table 1.
Accordingly, the number of Hungarian prisoners of war also increased (see table 2).
It should be noted that on June 30, 1941 of the total population of Hungary (16 million 808 thousand 837 people), i.e. 100%, were: Hungarians (Magyars) - 82%, Germans - 6.2%, Ukrainians - 4 , 6%., Slovenes - 3.9%, Jews - about 3%, Romanians and other nationalities - 2.3%. To some extent, this determined the national composition of the prisoners of war from this army.
Hungarian prisoners of war, 1942-1943
The official records of the Office of the NKVD of the USSR for Prisoners of War and Internees (UPVI of the NKVD of the USSR), which was directly and solely responsible to the Soviet government for the maintenance and registration of prisoners of war, lack the required clarity. For example, in some registration documents all Hungarian prisoners of war appear as “Hungarians”, in others “Magyars”, and in others - “prisoners of war of the Hungarian army” or “Germans of Hungarian citizenship”, etc. Therefore, it was not possible to make an accurate calculation based on nationality. The problem was only partially resolved.
An analysis of documentary materials for the 1st quarter of 1944 showed that on March 1, 1944, there were 28,706 prisoners of war of the Hungarian army (2 generals, 413 officers, 28,291 non-commissioned officers and a private) in the USSR. Of this number of prisoners of war, according to the "Hungarians" column, 14,853 people (2 generals, 359 officers, 14,492 non-commissioned officers and privates) "pass". What nationality were the remaining 13,853 prisoners of war remained unclear. Also, there are arithmetic errors and typos in the official docs. All this required not only recalculating the data already collected, but also comparing them with materials from other archives and departments.
It was possible to establish the ethnic composition of the Hungarian army prisoners of war in the Soviet Union on January 1, 1948. Then 112 955 people were held captive. Of these - by nationality:
a) Hungarians - 111,157, and only 96,551 people were Hungarian citizens; the rest had citizenship of Romania (9,286 people), Czechoslovakia (2,912), Yugoslavia (1,301), Germany (198), USSR (69), Poland (40), Austria (27), Belgium (2), Bulgaria (1 person);
b) Germans - 1 806;
c) Jews - 586;
d) Roma - 115;
e) Czechs and Slovaks - 58;
f) Austrians - 15;
g) Serbs and Croats - 5;
h) Moldovans - 5;
i) Russians - 3;
j) Poles - 1;
k) Ukrainians - 1;
m) Turks - 1.
All prisoners of war of the listed nationalities had Hungarian citizenship. From official sources it is clear that from June 27, 1941 to June 1945, 526,604 military personnel and their equated citizens of Hungary were captured. Of these, on January 1, 1949, 518,583 people left. Those who had departed were distributed as follows: repatriated - 418 782 people; transferred to the formation of Hungarian national military units - 21,765 people, transferred to the registration of internees - 13,100; released from captivity as citizens of the USSR and sent to the place of residence - 2,922 people; freed men captured during the liberation of Budapest - 10 352; transferred to the GULAG camps of the NKVD of the USSR - 14 people; convicted by military tribunals - 70; sent to prisons - 510; escaped from captivity and was caught - 8; other departures - 55; died for various reasons - 51,005; were registered as prisoners of war and were held in prisoner of war camps on January 1, 1949 - 8,021 people.
On October 1, 1955, the total number of prisoners of war of the Hungarian army in the USSR was 513 767 people (49 generals, 15 969 officers, 497 749 non-commissioned officers and privates). Of these, from June 1941 to November 1955, 459,014 people were repatriated, including: 46 generals, 14,403 officers and 444,565 privates. 54,753 people died in captivity in the USSR for various reasons, including 3 generals, 1,566 officers and 53,184 non-commissioned officers and privates. The main causes of death were wounds and illness resulting from participation in hostilities; industrial injuries; diseases caused by an unusual climate and poor living conditions; suicide; accidents.
The difference between the officially accepted number of Hungarian citizens captured by Soviet troops in 1941 -1945. (526 604 people), and our data on those held in captivity in the USSR (513 767 people) is 12 837 people. The fact is that 2,485 people were recognized as citizens of the USSR (and not 2,922, as it was determined on January 1, 1949), and the remaining 10,352 people were released from captivity in Budapest in April-May 1945 and were not taken to the territory of the USSR. ...
How did the Soviet state contain such a huge number of prisoners of war, how was it treated?
With the outbreak of World War II, the Soviet state expressed its attitude towards prisoners of war of the enemy army in the Analysis of the content of the "Regulations on prisoners of war", shows that it observes and takes into account the basic requirements of international humanitarian law on the treatment of prisoners of war and the Geneva Convention on the maintenance of prisoners of war of July 27, 1929 of the year. General and special sections of the "Regulations on prisoners of war" were detailed, supplemented or clarified by decrees and decisions of the Council of People's Commissars, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, as well as orders and directives of the NKVD (MVD) of the USSR, UPVI (GUPVI) of the NKVD (MVD) of the USSR.
On the main fundamentally important issues of the maintenance of prisoners of war, their material, food and medical and sanitary provision, the Soviet government made about 60 decisions from 1941 to 1955, which were communicated to officials and prisoners of war both directly and through the publication of departmental regulations. Such acts were issued only by the UPVI (GUPVI) of the NKVD (MVD) of the USSR during the specified period, about three thousand.
For the sake of historical justice, it should be recognized that the actual practice of POW camps was not always adequate to the norms of humanity.
For various reasons (disorganization, negligence in the performance of official duties, military and post-war difficulties in the country, etc.), in some prisoner-of-war camps, there were cases of low organization of public services, cases of lack of food, etc. For example, during a planned inspection by the commission of the GUPVI NKVD of the USSR of the front camp for prisoners of war No. 176 (Focsani, Romania, 2nd Ukrainian Front) in January 1945, which contained 18,240 prisoners of war (of which Hungarian - 13,796; officers - 138, non-commissioned officers - 3025, privates - 10 633 13, a number of shortcomings were identified. Hot food was provided twice a day, the distribution of food was poorly organized (breakfast and lunch lasted 3-4 hours). The food was very monotonous (there was no fat and vegetables), sugar was not provided. It was found that the orders received by the camp administration for potatoes, sugar and bacon fat were not sold until January 25, 1945. In other words, it was necessary to go to food bases and get the specified products, but the responsible officials did not do it in time. It should be emphasized that even after such a comprehensive check, the situation in the camp did not improve significantly. This gave rise to repatriation. In December 1945, the Hungarian anti-fascist prisoners of war who were on their way home through camp No. 176 should write a collective letter about the shortcomings they saw in the maintenance of prisoners of war to the secretary of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party M. Rakosi. And he, in turn, sent it personally to K.E. Voroshilov. On this fact, the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs conducted an official investigation. The head of Camp 176, Senior Lieutenant Puras, was punished.
In terms of food and medical supplies, Hungarian prisoners of war, like prisoners of war of other nationalities, were equated with the servicemen of the rear units of the Red Army. In particular, according to the telegram of the General Staff of the Red Army No. 131 of June 23, 1941 (and its content was duplicated by the telegram of the General Staff of the Red Army No. VEO-133 of June 26, 1941 and the orientation of the UPVI NKVD of the USSR No. 25/6519 of June 29, 1941 g.), the following nutritional norms were established for one prisoner of war per day (in grams): rye bread - 600, various cereals - 90, meat - 40, fish and herring - 120, potatoes and vegetables - 600, sugar - 20, etc. etc. (14 items in total). In addition, voluntarily surrendered prisoners (deserters) in accordance with the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of November 24, 1942 were given a daily bread rate of 100 g more than the rest.
The Soviet government controlled the food supply for the prisoners of war. During the period from June 1941 to April 1943, three decrees were issued concerning the nutrition of prisoners of war and measures to improve it: Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 1782-790 of June 30, 1941 and No. 1874-874 of November 24, 1942; Resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR (GKO USSR) No. 3124 dated April 5, 1943.
To improve the food supply of prisoners of war, stalls were organized at each camp (although, due to wartime, they began to function only after 1944). For physically weakened prisoners of war, according to the order of the NKVD of the USSR of October 18, 1944, new nutritional standards were established (in particular, bread began to be given out 750 g per day per person). The normal attitude of the Soviet state towards Hungarian prisoners of war is evidenced by numerous reviews written by them with their own hand, as well as photographic documents.
At the same time, it should be noted that in winter conditions, especially in the period from December 1942 to March 1943, the provision of food to servicemen during their evacuation from places of captivity to front-line camps (the distance to them was sometimes equal to 200-300 km) was poorly organized. There were no feeding points in sufficient quantity on the evacuation routes. Food was provided by dry rations 2 - 3 days in advance. Weakened and hungry in the environment, people immediately ate all the products they received. And this sometimes led not only to a loss of strength, but also to death. Later, the noted shortcomings were eliminated.
The results of the study showed that Hungarian prisoners of war were mostly hostile to the Germans (citizens of Germany), they wanted to actively fight with weapons in their hands against them.
Of the 60,998 Hungarian prisoners of war held in the camps of the NKVD of the USSR on December 20, 1944, about 30% asked the leadership of the NKVD of the USSR (through the administration of the camps) to enroll them in the Hungarian Volunteer Division. Taking into account the mass wishes, on December 27, 1944, the head of the UPVI of the NKVD of the USSR, Lieutenant General I. Petrov, personally sent to L. Beria a draft decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR on the issue of organizing the Hungarian Volunteer Infantry Division from prisoners of war. The project was developed jointly with the General Staff of the Red Army. The formation of the division was planned to begin in the city of Debrecen (Hungary): by 25% at the expense of Hungarian prisoners of war held in the rear camps, and by 75% from the number of Hungarians who surrendered in the front camps (there were 23 892 people). It was planned to equip the personnel of the division with captured weapons. Matthias Rakosi was directly involved in solving this important political issue for Hungary. In total, 21,765 people were released from captivity and transferred to the formation of Hungarian military units.
It should be noted that if the recruitment of these military units with enlisted personnel did not cause difficulties, then there were clearly not enough officers. This was due to the fact that the commanding staff from among the Hungarian prisoners of war were mostly negatively opposed to the Soviet state and its policies. Some, for example, Majors Batond and Zvalinsky, in February 1945 agreed to be enrolled in the 6th Infantry Division of the Hungarian Army in Debrecen, as it turned out, with the aim of carrying out decomposition work among its personnel. They spread all kinds of rumors, such as: "The GPU will arrest the best people and send them to Siberia," and so on.
The repatriation of Hungarian prisoners of war was carried out systematically. So, according to the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 1497 - 341 of June 26, 1945, 150,000 Hungarian prisoners of war were repatriated, and according to the order of the USSR Council of Ministers No. 2912 of March 24, 1947 - 82 Hungarian prisoners of war. According to his decree No. 1521 - 402 of May 13, 1947 "On the repatriation of prisoners of war and internees of Hungarians during May - September 1947" it was planned to repatriate 90,000 people, but in fact 93,775 were repatriated; according to the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1039-393 of April 5, 1948, 54,966 Hungarian prisoners of war were repatriated, etc. Before repatriation, a full cash settlement was made with each Hungarian prisoner of war: he received that part of the money earned in captivity in the USSR, which remained after deductions for his maintenance. Each of them left a receipt to the effect that the settlement with him was made in full and he did not have any claims against the Soviet state.
UPVI of the NKVD of the USSR in January 1945 was renamed into the Main Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR for Prisoners of War and Internees (GUPVI NKVD USSR)
TsGA, f. 1p. op, 01e, d. 35. ll. 36-37.
Ibid, f. 1p. op 01е, file 46 pp. 212-215, 228-232, 235-236; op. 30s. d., l.2
Suicide cases were committed mainly to avoid punishment for war crimes or because of nervous strain and weakness of spirit. So, on June 2, 1945 at 3:45 a.m. at the army reception center for prisoners of war No. 55 (Zwegl, Austria), the Hungarian prisoner of war Colonel-General Hesleni József, the former commander of the 3rd Army, committed suicide by opening his forearm veins with a piece of Hungarian army, fighting on the side of the Germans. Regarding this suicide, the Hungarian prisoner of war Lieutenant-General Ibrani Michal said: “Various rumors about the punishment of the perpetrators of the war, about the execution of Hungarian generals showed him a hopeless future” (see TsGA, f. 451 p. Op. 3, d. 21, ll. 76-77).
TsGA, f. 4p. op. 6, d.4, ll. 5-7.
Ibid f. 1p. op. 5a, 2, ll. 294-295.
Ibid f. op. 1a, 1 (collection of documents)
Ibid f. 451p. op. 3, d.22, ll. 1-3.
Ibid. Ll. 7-10.
Ibid. Ll. 2-3.
Ibid f. 1p. op. 01e, 46, ll. 169-170.
In the summer of 1942, when German troops occupied the right-bank half of Voronezh, violent actions began on the part of the Hungarian division. The soldiers killed people with axes and crowbars, burned and raped people. The captured Soviet soldiers were tortured before death. The command of the Soviet troops issued an unofficial order to their soldiers: "Do not take Magyar prisoner."
The occupation lasted until January 25, 1943. During this time, 160 thousand Hungarians found their last refuge on the Voronezh land. There were no prisoners from the Hungarian division. The German army lost about 320 thousand soldiers in the battles for Voronezh.
The decline of the Hungarian army
Most of today's Hungarians have a relative who took part in the "Voronezh tragedy". The Hungarian army at that time numbered about 250 thousand people, of which more than half died near Voronezh.
Only a few Hungarian soldiers were able to defect and walk to their homelands. It was this army that all the citizens of Hungary were proud of.
As a result of the First World War, Hungary lost, while losing territory and slowing down in economic growth. Two-thirds of the country and the population have moved away from its composition. Several million Hungarian citizens have become subjects of other states.
The German government took advantage of Hungary's dire situation and made it a member of the Axis. With a successful operation of the German troops, Hungary would have received its lands back. It was this factor that influenced the decision of the ruler Miklos Horthy.
After the occupation of Czechoslovakia at the end of the 30s, some of its territories were transferred to Hungary.
For these lands they had to pay not only with food, but also with the blood of their own soldiers. In 1941, the Third Reich demanded the joining of Hungarian troops to fight the USSR. The Hungarian leadership allocated a corps of 40 thousand soldiers. The corps equipment was destroyed. A large number of soldiers were killed and wounded. At the end of that year, the corps was returned to its homeland.
Then Germany again demanded military support. In mid-1942, Hungary was forced to send the 2nd Hungarian Army, consisting of eight divisions. In addition to the Hungarians, the division included representatives of the territories that were annexed to Hungary.
Successfully advancing along with the Germans, many soldiers chose land allotments for themselves. Earlier, the Germans said that any Hungarian soldier after the end of the war will be able to settle in the conquered territories. Hungarian units were mainly used as guards in the rear. These soldiers stood out for their particular cruelty towards the civilian population and prisoners of war.
At the end of 1942, the German command decided on the active participation of Hungarian units in hostilities. So the "conquerors" found themselves at the forefront.
In January 43, Soviet units began an active offensive. This is how the first Hungarian soldiers were captured. All the survivors tried to defect in every possible way and began to flee. But due to transport problems, most of the soldiers had to go on foot in the harsh winter. Many of them died from the cold. During the retreat, almost all equipment and weapons were lost. For several weeks of active fighting, the Magyar army lost more than half of its soldiers.
As a result of the Second World War, Hungary lost not only the acquired territories, but also some of those that belonged to it shortly before the military conflict.
On February 13, 1945, Budapest was liberated by Soviet troops. Today the 70th anniversary of this event is celebrated. Hungary, among Hitler's allies, resisted the Soviet Union the longest - until March 1945 inclusive. This does not mean that the Hungarian leadership did not try to get out of the war following the example of Romania and Bulgaria, on the contrary, since the spring of 1944, it began secret negotiations with the West. When Hitler found out about this, he reprimanded the Hungarian dictator Admiral Horthy and sent German troops into Hungary, ostensibly to help the Hungarians.
Nevertheless, on August 29, under the influence of the Romanian events, the government of General G. Lakotosh openly declared the need to negotiate not only with the British and Americans, but also with the Soviet Union. The Germans reacted instantly, and several more German divisions were introduced into the territory of Hungary. And, however, Horthy continued separate negotiations, offering the United States and Great Britain an armistice on the condition that Soviet troops stationed on the country's border would not be allowed into Hungary. Having received a refusal, he was forced to enter into negotiations with Stalin, who demanded that he enter the war on the side of the anti-Hitler coalition. As a result, on October 15, 1944, the Horthy government announced an armistice with the USSR.
Nevertheless, Admiral Horthy, unlike the King of Romania, Mihai, failed to withdraw his country from the war. In Budapest, a coup d'état supported by Germany took place, and Horthy's son was kidnapped by an SS detachment led by the famous saboteur Otto Skorzeny and taken hostage, then Skorzeny captured the admiral himself. Under the threat of the execution of his son and his own destruction, a few days later the admiral handed over power to the leader of the pro-German Arrow Cross Party Ferenc Salashi and was taken to Germany.
After Salasha came to power, mass actions began to exterminate hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews and Roma and deport them to Germany; As the Soviet troops approached, the prisoners were taken out of the camps and driven inland to the German border (the so-called death march), as a result of which about 70,000 Jews died. The massacres in Hungary are considered one of the last episodes of the Holocaust. In the wake of violence and genocide, Salashi called on the Hungarians to resist the "Russian invasion" and, unfortunately, the Hungarian people for the most part responded to this call, as well as to participate in the genocide of Jews and Roma.
For many years, for the sake of the imaginary "friendship of peoples" and the preservation of the socialist camp, we were bashfully silent about this. Meanwhile, the fierce resistance of the Hungarians was not inferior to the German in the defense of East Prussia and Berlin. Here is a fragment of General Pliev's memoirs about the assault on Debrecen:
“In front of them, the Berettio Canal became an obstacle, on which the enemy met our units with a fierce barrage of fire. I had to lie down. Our artillery and Katyusha attacked the enemy positions. It seemed that the entire opposite bank of the canal was plowed up with fire and metal, all centers of resistance were suppressed. But as soon as our troops tried to force the channel, the enemy coast again bristled with fire. "
What could have caused such fierce resistance? On the one hand - Slavic-Hungarian antagonism, on the other - Hungarians' complicity in Nazi crimes and fear of revenge, especially on Hungarian territory. Indeed, on the Eastern Front, the Hungarians often behaved even worse than even the Germans. These factors, coupled with Salash's intense propaganda and the threat of reprisals against the deserters and their families, led to fierce resistance from the Hungarians. Yes, six thousand Hungarians fought on our side, and 22 divisions, more than three hundred thousand people, fought against us. The Hungarians began to surrender en masse to Soviet troops only in March 1945. The liberation of Hungary was greeted with joy by the Orthodox minorities - Romanians, Serbs, Rusyns, as they expected relief from the Hungarian infidel and foreign language oppression.
The Hungarian operation turned out to be the bloodiest, ruthless, difficult and longest among all the operations in 1944, since it moved into 1945 and lasted until the end of March. The Germans and Hungarians not only defended themselves, but also went over to the offensive, at times the situation resembled the failures of 1941-1942. At first this was not obvious and the operation was entrusted to one 2nd Ukrainian Front. Later, the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Front, allied Romanian, Bulgarian and Yugoslav divisions had to be involved.
The single operation was divided into two major strategic operations - Debrecen and Budapest. In the Debrecen operation, the 2nd Ukrainian Front of Marshal R.Ya. Malinovsky. The front consisted of more than 300 thousand people, 10200 guns and mortars, 750 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1100 aircraft. He was opposed by Army Group "South" of General Field Marshal G. Friesner, consisting of the 8th and repeatedly battered 6th German armies, 2nd and 3rd Hungarian armies and three divisions of Army Group "F", numbering slightly more than 200 thousand people, 3500 guns and mortars, and about 500 tanks and 850 aircraft. Our troops did not have an overwhelming superiority in men and equipment.
On the morning of October 6, after a short artillery and air preparation, the strike group of the 2nd Ukrainian Front went over to the offensive. A noticeable success was outlined only in the sector of the 53rd army, which immediately broke through the enemy's defenses and in stubborn battles defeated the main forces of the 3rd Hungarian army, advancing 80-100 km. to the Kartsaga area. The troops of the right wing of the front met fierce resistance in the Cluj area, the strike of the 6th Guards Tank Army of Kravchenko and the mechanized cavalry group of Pliev got stuck in the focus defense. This is how General Pliev later recalled the German defense:
“The defense in the area of \u200b\u200bthe group's offensive was a well-developed system of engineering structures, which consisted of three defensive lines equipped with trenches, barbed wire, and minefields; bridges, roads and other objects were also mined. The second defensive line rested on the Berettio Canal, ran at a distance of six to ten kilometers from the first line and was a tough nut to crack. The settlements of Sharkad, Gyula, Bekeshchaba, Keresh-Tarcha, Seghalom and others were turned into powerful centers of resistance. "
During the offensive, the Germans and Hungarians offered fierce resistance, destroying the tanks of Kravchenko's 6th army. Only the introduction of the 7th Guards Army corrected the situation. On October 20, the 6th Army and Pliev's group captured Debrecen with flank attacks, and the 7th Guards Army reached the Tisza River in the Szolnok area. In response, a powerful German counterattack followed by two German tank corps and one Hungarian at Szolnok. Fierce oncoming battles began, which lasted a whole week. In the end, our troops managed to break through to the Tisza. As a result of the Debrecen operation, our troops advanced 135-270 km, defeated 10 divisions, captured 42 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, destroyed 915 tanks, hundreds of guns and aircraft. But success came at a high cost - the loss of 20,000 killed and half of the tanks (350 tanks),
Nevertheless, without a pause, on October 29, the Headquarters began the famous Budapest operation, which ended only on February 13, 1945.By the beginning of the operation, the 2nd Ukrainian Front had 7 combined arms, 1 tank and 1 air army, 3 tank and 3 mechanized corps, which ensured superiority over the enemy in manpower - 2 times, for artillery - 4 times, tanks and self-propelled guns - 2 times, aircraft - 2.6 times. This seemed to bode fast success for the operation. At the disposal of the German command was a total of 190 thousand soldiers and officers, a heavily fortified large city and three defense lines that rested their flanks against the Danube on the first day of the 46th army broke through the enemy's defenses and already by November 2 came from the south to the approaches to Budapest, but the Germans immediately transferred three tank and one motorized divisions here, launched a counterattack and stopped our troops. The losses of our troops approached the daily loss on the Kursk Bulge, and then the troops of four more armies of the front were involved, which launched an offensive from the east and northeast, covering Budapest from the north. The 4th Guards Army with the 18th Panzer and 5th Cavalry Guards Corps began to fight its way between Lake Balaton and Budapest through the Margarita fortification line. On November 11-26, the front's troops broke through the enemy defenses between the Tisza and Danube and, advancing in the north-western direction up to 100 km, approached the outer defensive line of Budapest, but this time they could not capture the city. Faced with stubborn enemy resistance, Soviet troops halted their attacks. Heavy battles, often developing into oncoming ones, went on for a whole month.
In early December, an offensive was launched against Budapest by the forces of the center and the southern wing of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. As a result, Soviet troops reached the Danube north and northwest of Budapest, cutting off the retreat route to the north for the enemy's Budapest group on December 5. Troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front (3 Soviet and 1 Bulgarian combined arms and 1 air army — 1 tank and 2 mechanized corps) by that time had crossed the Danube and reached northeast of Lake Balaton and created conditions for joint actions with the 2 nd Ukrainian Front. The Germans, having transferred their reserves, tried to counterattack on December 7 and launched strong counterattacks, successfully parried by the 46th Army. The 57th Army moved south of Lake Balaton, the 4th Guards Army linked up with the 46th Army. The enemy's Budapest grouping was captured by Soviet troops from the north and southwest.
On December 20, a new offensive by Soviet troops began, which faced two German counterstrikes, under which the 6th Panzer Army fell. They managed to squeeze the formations of the 7th Guards Army and by the end of December 22 to reach the rear of our tankers. The hardest defensive battles ensued, which our units had already begun to forget about. But Soviet aviation dominated the air, heavy artillery was also at its best. As soon as the German tank wedges fell under the most powerful bombing and artillery strikes, the entire plan of the enemy collapsed. It took two of our fronts two days, from 24 to 26 December, to push back the counterattacking Germans and close the ring around the Budapest grouping in the Esztergom area. At the same time, it was possible to pin down, cut off from Budapest a powerful group under the command of SS Obergruppenfuehrer K. Pfeff-Wilden-Bruch, numbering 188 thousand people, which they began to methodically destroy with artillery and aviation fire.
To the Budapest garrison on December 29, the front commanders Marshals of the Soviet Union R.Ya. Malinovsky and F.I. Tolbukhin was presented with an ultimatum. The Germans committed a grave war crime, ordering to shoot our envoys - Captain M. Steinmetz, who was shot at the front line and Captain I. Ostapenko, who was killed with a machine-gun burst in the back. Here is how P.F. Plyachenko: "At the appointed time, the fire from our side stopped. Everyone glared at the place where the car with the parliamentarians was supposed to appear. Here it is. To the right of the NP on the Vecses - Budapest road, Captain Steinmetz was driving They waved their hands to someone and slowly withdrew towards the front edge. But as soon as the car approached the enemy trenches, a shot rang out. A point-blank shot. white flag and waved it over his head. And then an enemy splinter struck him to death. Sergeant Filimonenko was also killed. Only the seriously wounded Lieutenant Kuznetsov was saved. All those who were at the observation post with bated breath looked at the sudden tragedy, not believing their eyes: It seemed incredible, monstrous. Shoot the envoys! The Nazis once again showed their animal insides. and gripped the steel of the machine gun. The heart imperiously demanded revenge on the enemy ...
At the same time, on the opposite bank of the Danube, the leading edge was crossed by the Soviet envoy captain I.A.Ostapenko. He was accompanied by the chief of staff of the first battalion of the 1077th rifle regiment, senior lieutenant N.F. Orlov and the foreman of the commandant company of the headquarters of the 23rd rifle corps E. T. Gorbatyuk. At the enemy positions they were met by a group of Nazis and, blindfolded, led them to their headquarters. On the way back, when the envoys passed the last line of the ring of fire, the Nazis stabbed them in the back. Ilya Ostapenko was killed. By a lucky coincidence, Orlov and Gorbatyuk survived. After the tragic death of the parliamentarians, Soviet troops launched an assault on Budapest, in which a vicious enemy settled. From now on, the responsibility for the destruction of the city fell on the Nazi command "
The assault began, which ended the victorious 1944. It took a whole month and a half to finally take Budapest. Pest fell on January 18, Buda on February 13. It should be noted that, despite the atrocities of the Nazis, the Soviet command ordered our artillery and aviation to destroy in Budapest and on its outskirts only military facilities of the Nazis and Salashists, to protect industrial enterprises, residential areas, scientific, historical and other values \u200b\u200bfrom destruction in every possible way. This order was carried out scrupulously.
The inevitable destruction and casualties among the civilian population are entirely on the conscience of the German and Hungarian commanders. The troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts liberated the central regions of Hungary and its capital - Budapest, the 188,000-strong enemy grouping was surrounded and destroyed, Hungary was withdrawn from the war
The successful completion of the Budapest operation dramatically changed the entire strategic situation on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front and made it possible to develop deep coverage of the entire southern flank of German troops.
It should be noted that the liberation of Hungary had favorable consequences for her. On December 21-22, 1944, the first session of the Provisional National Assembly took place in liberated Debrecen, which formed the Provisional National Government. It included such figures as Laszlo Raik, K. Kish (what is his name?), And then - Janos Kadar. In general, the government was formed on a coalition basis, since in addition to the communists, it included representatives of the Social Democratic, Democratic, and National Peasants' parties.
The new government signed an armistice agreement with the USSR on January 20, 1945, and then declared war on Germany. As a result, two divisions were created, which later formed the basis of the Hungarian People's Army and entered the operational subordination of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. Together with Soviet troops, they liberated Hungary from Nazism. Thanks to the liberation of the Red Army, Hungary was saved from fascism, freed from indemnities and reparations. Unfortunately, this was not appreciated either in 1956 or after 1990. However, there are many people in Hungary who are grateful to Russia for liberation from fascism, and I am sure that descendants will preserve this memory.
In the memory of the Russian people, the capture of Budapest was reflected in the song "Enemies burned down their home" (words by M. Isakovsky, music by M. Blanter).
The soldier grew drunk, a tear rolled down,
A tear of unfulfilled hopes
And shone on his chest
Medal for the city of Budapest.
For the liberation of Hungary, about 14,000 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed. Eternal memory to them!
Deacon Vladimir Vasilik, Candidate of Philology, Candidate of Theology, Associate Professor of the Faculty of History of St. Petersburg State University, member of the Synodal Liturgical Commission
A fire burned brightly there. Two Magyars were holding the prisoner by the shoulders and legs and slowly ...
Sergey Drozdov. "Hungary in the war against the USSR".
At the end of November 1941, "light" Hungarian divisions began to arrive in Ukraine to carry out police functions in the occupied territories. The headquarters of the Hungarian "Occupation Group" is located in Kiev. Already in December 1941, the Hungarians began to be actively involved in anti-partisan operations.
Sometimes such operations turned into very serious military clashes. An example of one of these actions is the defeat of General Orlenko's partisan detachment on December 21, 1941. The Hungarians managed to surround and completely destroy the partisan base.
According to Hungarian data, about 1000 "bandits" were killed. The captured weapons, ammunition and equipment could be loaded with several dozen railway cars.
On August 31, 1942, the head of the Political Directorate of the Voronezh Front, Lieutenant General S.S. Shatilov sent a report to the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army A.S. Shcherbakov about the atrocities of the fascists on the Voronezh land.
“I am reporting on the facts of the monstrous atrocities of the German invaders and their Hungarian lackeys over Soviet citizens and captured Red Army soldiers.
Parts of the army, where the head of the political department, Comrade. Klokov, the village of Shchuchye was liberated from the Magyars. After the invaders were expelled from the village of Shchuchye, political instructor M. A. Popov, military assistant A. L. Konovalov and T. I. Chervintsev discovered traces of the atrocities of the Magyars over the citizens of the Shchuchye village and captured Red Army men and commanders.
Lieutenant Vladimir Ivanovich Salogub, being wounded, was captured and brutally tortured. More than twenty (20) stab wounds were found on his body.
Junior political instructor Fyodor Ivanovich Bolshakov, seriously wounded, was taken prisoner. Bloodthirsty robbers mocked the immovable body of the communist. Stars were carved on his hands. There are several stab wounds on the back ...
In front of the eyes of the whole village, citizen Kuzmenko was shot by the Magyars because they found 4 cartridges in his hut. As soon as Hitler's slaves burst into the village, they immediately began to take all men from 13 to 80 years old and drive them to their rear.
They took more than 200 people out of the village of Shchuchye. Of these, 13 people were shot outside the village. Among those shot were Nikita Nikiforovich Pivovarov, his son Nikolai Pivovarov, Mikhail Nikolayevich Zybin, head of the school; Shevelev Zakhar Fedorovich, Korzhev Nikolai Pavlovich and others.
Many residents' belongings and livestock were taken away. Fascist bandits stole 170 cows and more than 300 sheep taken from citizens. Many girls and women have been raped. I will send the act on the monstrous atrocities of the Nazis today. "
And here is the handwritten testimony of a peasant Anton Ivanovich Krutukhin, who lived in the Sevsky district of the Bryansk region: “Fascist associates of the Magyars entered our village Svetlovo 9 / V-42. All the inhabitants of our village hid from such a pack and they, as a sign that the inhabitants began to hide from them, and those who could not hide, they shot them and raped several of our women.
I myself am an old man born in 1875 was also forced to hide in a cellar. Shooting was going on throughout the village, buildings were on fire, and Magyar soldiers robbed our things, stealing cows and calves. " (GARF.F. R-7021. Op. 37. D. 423. L. 561-561ob.)
On May 20, Hungarian soldiers on the 4th Bolshevik Sowing collective farm arrested all the men. From the testimony of the collective farmer Varvara Fyodorovna Mazerkova:
“When they saw the men of our village, they said they were partisans. And the same number, i.e. On 20 / V-42 they seized my husband Mazerkov Sidor Borisovich, born in 1862, and my son Mazerkov, Alexei Sidorovich, born in 1927, and tortured them, and after this torture they tied their hands and threw them into a pit, then lit straw and burned people alive in a potato pit. On the same day, they not only burned my husband and son, they also burned 67 men ”. (GARF. F. R-7021. Op. 37. D. 423. L. 543-543ob.)
Abandoned by residents who fled from the Hungarian punishers, the villages were burned out. Natalia Aldushina, a resident of the village of Svetlovo, wrote:
“When we returned from the forest to the village, the village was unrecognizable. Several old people, women and children were brutally killed by the Hungarians. Houses were burnt, cattle, large and small, were driven away. The pits in which our things were buried were dug up. There was nothing left in the village but black brick. " (GARF.F. R-7021.Op. 37. D. 423. L.517.)
Thus, in only three Russian villages of the Sevsk region, at least 420 civilians were killed by Hungarians in 20 days. And these are not isolated cases.
In June - July 1942, units of the 102nd and 108th Hungarian divisions, together with German units, took part in a punitive operation against the Bryansk partisans under the code name "Vogelsang". During the operation in the forests between Roslavl and Bryansk, punitive forces killed 1,193 partisans, wounded 1,400, 498 were captured, and more than 12,000 residents were evicted.
Hungarian units of the 102nd (42nd, 43rd, 44th and 51st regiments) and 108th divisions also took part in punitive operations against the partisans "Nachbarhilfe" (June 1943) near Bryansk, and "Zigeunerbaron »In the districts of the present Bryansk and Kursk regions (May 16 - June 6, 1942).
Only during the operation "Zigeunerbaron" punitive forces destroyed 207 partisan camps, 1584 partisans were killed and 1558 were taken prisoner. "
What was happening at the front at that time, where the Hungarian troops were operating. The Hungarian army, in the period from August to December 1942, fought long battles with Soviet troops in the Uryv and Korotoyak area (near Voronezh), and could not boast of any special successes, it was not to fight with the civilian population.
The Hungarians did not succeed in eliminating the Soviet bridgehead on the right bank of the Don; they failed to develop an offensive on Serafimovichi. At the end of December 1942, the Hungarian 2nd Army buried itself in the ground, hoping to survive the winter in its positions. These hopes did not come true.
On January 12, 1943, the offensive of the Voronezh Front troops against the forces of the 2nd Hungarian Army began. The very next day, the defense of the Hungarians was broken through, some parts were seized by panic.
Soviet tanks entered the operational space and smashed headquarters, communications centers, ammunition and equipment depots.
The entry into battle of the 1st Hungarian Panzer Division and units of the 24th German Panzer Corps did not change the situation, although their actions slowed down the pace of the Soviet offensive.
Soon the Magyars were utterly defeated, having lost 148,000 people killed, wounded and prisoners (among those killed, by the way, was the eldest son of the Hungarian regent, Miklos Horthy).
This was the largest defeat of the Hungarian army in the entire history of its existence. In the period from 13 to 30 January alone, 35,000 soldiers and officers were killed, 35,000 were wounded and 26,000 were captured. All in all, the army lost about 150,000 people, most of the tanks, vehicles and artillery, all supplies of ammunition and equipment, about 5,000 horses.
The motto of the Hungarian Royal Army "The price of Hungarian life is Soviet death" did not come true. There was practically no one to give out the reward promised by Germany in the form of large land plots in Russia for the Hungarian soldiers who distinguished themselves on the Eastern Front.
The 200,000-strong Hungarian army alone, which consisted of eight divisions, lost about 100-120 thousand soldiers and officers then. How much exactly - then no one knew, and they do not know now. In January 1943, about 26 thousand Hungarians were taken prisoner by the Soviet Union.
For a country as large as Hungary, the defeat at Voronezh had even more resonance and significance than Stalingrad was for Germany. Hungary, in 15 days of fighting, immediately lost half of its armed forces. Hungary could not recover from this catastrophe until the end of the war and never again deployed a grouping equal in number and combat ability to the lost formation.
The Hungarian troops were notable for their cruel treatment not only with partisans and civilians, but also with Soviet prisoners of war. So, in 1943, when retreating from the Chernyansky district of the Kursk region, “Magyar military units drove away with them 200 prisoners of war of the Red Army and 160 Soviet patriots held in a concentration camp. On the way, the fascist barbarians locked all these 360 \u200b\u200bpeople in the school building, doused them with gasoline and burned them alive. Those who tried to escape were shot. "
You can give examples of documents about the crimes of Hungarian military personnel during the Second World War from foreign archives, for example, the Israeli archive Yad Vashem of the national Holocaust and Heroism memorial in Jerusalem:
“On July 12-15, 1942, on the Kharkeevka farm in the Shatalovsky district of the Kursk region, soldiers of the 33rd Hungarian infantry division captured four Red Army servicemen. One of them, senior lieutenant P.V. Danilov, they gouged out his eyes, knocked his jaw to the side with the butt of a rifle, inflicted 12 bayonet blows in the back, and then buried him half-dead in the ground in an unconscious state. Three Red Army men, whose names are unknown, were shot ”(Archive Yad Vashem. M-33/497. L. 53.).
A resident of the city of Ostogozhsk, Maria Kaidannikova, saw how Hungarian soldiers on January 5, 1943, drove a group of Soviet prisoners of war into the basement of a store on Medvedovsky Street. Soon screams were heard from there. Looking out the window, Kaidannikova saw a monstrous picture:
“There was a bright fire burning there. Two Magyars held the prisoner by the shoulders and legs and slowly roasted his belly and legs over the fire. They then raised him above the fire, then lowered him lower, and when he was quiet, the Magyars threw his body face down on the fire. Suddenly the prisoner twitched again. Then one of the Magyars, on a grand scale, thrust a bayonet into his back ”(Archive Yad Vashem. M-33/494. Sheet 14.).
After the disaster at Uryv, the participation of Hungarian troops in hostilities on the Eastern Front (in the Ukraine) resumed only in the spring of 1944, when the 1st Hungarian Panzer Division tried to counterattack the Soviet tank corps near Kolomyya - the attempt ended in the death of 38 Turan tanks and a hasty retreat 1st Panzer Division Magyars to the state border.
In the fall of 1944, all the Hungarian armed forces (three armies) fought against the Red Army, already on the territory of Hungary. But the Hungarians remained the most loyal allies of Hitlerite Germany in the war. Hungarian troops fought with the Red Army until May 1945, when ALL (!) Hungarian territory was occupied by Soviet troops.
8 Hungarians were awarded the German Knight's Crosses. During the Second World War, Hungary gave the largest number of volunteers to the SS troops. In the war against the USSR, more than 200 thousand Hungarians died (including 55 thousand who died in Soviet captivity). During the Second World War, Hungary lost about 300 thousand soldiers killed, 513 766 people were captured.
There were 49 Hungarian generals alone in Soviet prisoner of war camps after the war, including the chief of the General Staff of the Hungarian army.
In the postwar years, the USSR began the repatriation of prisoners of war of Hungarians and Romanians, apparently as citizens of countries where regimes friendly to our country were established.
OWL. SECRET 1950 Moscow, the Kremlin. On the repatriation of prisoners of war and internees citizens of Hungary and Romania.
1. Allow the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the SSR (Comrade Kruglov) to repatriate to Hungary and Romania:
a) 1270 prisoners of war and internees citizens of Hungary, including 13 generals (Appendix No. 1) and 1629 prisoners of war and internees citizens of Romania, on which there are no compromising materials;
b) 6061 prisoners of war citizens of Hungary and 3139 prisoners of war citizens of Romania - former intelligence, counterintelligence, gendarmerie, police, who served in the SS troops, security and other punitive units of the Hungarian and Romanian armies, captured mainly in Hungary and Romania, since they do not have materials about their war crimes against the USSR.
3. Allow the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (Comrade Kruglova) to leave in the USSR 355 prisoners of war and internees Hungarian citizens, including 9 generals (Appendix No. 2) and 543 prisoners of war and internees Romanian citizens, including Brigadier General Stanescu Stoyan Nikolai, convicted of participation in atrocities and atrocities, espionage, sabotage, banditry and large-scale theft of socialist property - until the serving of the sentence determined by the court.
4. To oblige the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (Comrade Kruglova) and the USSR Prosecutor's Office (Comrade Safonov) to bring 142 Hungarian prisoners of war and 20 Romanian prisoners of war to criminal responsibility for atrocities and atrocities committed by them on the territory of the USSR.
5. To oblige the Ministry of State Security of the USSR (Comrade Abakumov) to accept from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR 89 prisoners of war citizens of Hungary who served in the gendarmerie and police on the territory of the Transcarpathian and Stanislavsk regions, document their criminal activities and bring them to criminal responsibility.
Appendix 1
LIST of POW generals of the former Hungarian army convicted by the Military Tribunals for crimes against the USSR:
- Aldea-Pap Zoltan Johan, born in 1895 General - Lieutenant
- Bauman Istvan Franz 1894 General - Major
This year marks the 69th anniversary of the defeat and inglorious death in January 1943. near Voronezh, on the Upper Don, of the 2nd Hungarian Army, which fought during the Second World War in the same ranks with the Nazi Wehrmacht on one of the sectors of the Soviet-German front.
According to media reports, in Hungary itself, since January 12, 2012, many different mourning and memorial events have been held dedicated to this truly tragic event for many Hungarians.
In Hungary, there is practically not a single family that was not affected by the Voronezh tragedy, and this is understandable, since from the entire composition of the 250 thousandth Hungarian army that fought on the Soviet-German front, according to various sources, from 120 to 148 thousand soldiers and officers died.
However, these figures of losses are not complete, the real losses of the Magyars still remain unknown, not many of them were captured on the Don, only 26 thousand were they who managed to survive, as well as those few fugitive deserters who were able to secretly sneak back home on foot, mainly from them, most of the Hungarian population and learned that Hungary no longer had an army.
The very army that they were all proud of and with the help of which they were going to restore the so-called "Great Hungary".
What were they all missing? Why send in the summer of 1942. to certain death such a huge number of their youth? Hungary is located almost in the very center of Europe, a wonderful climate, beautiful nature, flowering orchards, wheat fields, satiety, comfort and prosperity reigned around, why was it necessary to invade a foreign country?
The main reason for the growth of Hungarian revanchism at that time was that after the First World War, Hungary, as the defeated side, suffered significant territorial and economic losses, according to the so-called Trianon Treaty, the country lost about two-thirds of its territory and population. The terms of this agreement also led to the fact that almost 3 million Hungarians became foreign nationals, that is, they ended up outside their country.
In the late 1930s, the Germans, taking advantage of the wounded national sentiments of the Hungarians, promised the Horthy government to help expand Hungary in exchange for joining the Axis countries.
And they kept their word, as a result of the so-called infamous "Munich Agreement", after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, in the period from 1938 to 1940, Hungary received some of the territories it lost as a result of the First World War, mainly from the structure of Czechoslovakia occupied by fascist Germany , Yugoslavia and even Romania at the same time, without participating directly with these countries in military conflicts.
However, for all these territorial increments of Hungary it was necessary to pay and now pay with the lives of its citizens, as the saying goes "free cheese is only in a mousetrap."
With the outbreak of World War II, it was no longer enough for the Germans to receive only one raw material and food from Hungary.
In the very first months of the attack on the USSR, the Germans demanded that Budapest allocate Hungarian national troops for the Eastern Front.
In July 1941. Horthy allocated for the Wehrmacht a separate corps, or as this grouping of Hungarian troops was also called, the Carpathian group with a total number of more than 40 thousand soldiers and officers.
For four months of battles with Soviet troops, the corps lost over 26 thousand people. 4 thousand of them were killed, almost all of their tanks, 30 aircraft and more than 1000 vehicles.
In December 1941, the Hungarian "conquerors", beaten and frostbitten, returned home, they were still very lucky, almost half of them managed to survive. True, the desire to create "Great Hungary" among many of them has noticeably diminished.
However, Horthy was deeply mistaken, believing that it would be enough to get by with a one-time dispatch of troops to the Russian front, in the future Germany demanded more active actions from its ally to participate in the war, and already in the summer of 1942. Hungary sent the 2nd Hungarian Army to the Eastern Front.
The 2nd Army consisted of 8 fully equipped divisions, in addition to the Hungarians, the formations and units of the army were also staffed by peoples whose territories were previously occupied and included in the "Great Hungary", these are the Romanians from Transylvania, Slovaks from South Slovakia, Ukrainians from Transcarpathia and even the Serbs from Vojvodina.
At the beginning, everything went well for them, they followed in the wake of the Germans, and during short stops, after a glass of Palenka, they chose land plots for their future estates, because the Germans promised every Hungarian soldier who distinguished himself at the front a large land plot in the conquered territories of Russia and Ukraine.
True, they could not fight against the regular troops of the Red Army on their own, without the close support of the German army, they could not, therefore, the Germans mainly used them in battles against partisans or as guard units in the rear, here they were the real masters, in the sense of mocking civilians and Soviet prisoners of war.
The cases of robberies and facts of violence against the civilian population, all that they did in the territories of the Voronezh, Lugansk and Rostov regions, many elderly people cannot forget to this day.
The Honvedians treated the captured Red Army men especially cruelly, the Germans and those who treated the prisoners were much more tolerant, where did the Modyar Honvedians get such anger and hatred towards the captured Red Army men?
This desire to mock defenseless, unarmed people, probably due to the fact that on the battlefield with weapons in their hands, these "heroes" simply had no chance of defeating their opponent in a real battle, since the Russians, and then the Soviets, always crushed them and put to flight, since the First World War.
In the fall of 1942, the rear walks for the entire Hungarian army ended, the Germans drove all the Hungarians into the trenches to the front line, before that, the Germans also took away from their allies and all the warm clothes that their compatriots had sent them from Hungary.
And only then the Magyars finally realized that now they would have no time for jokes. That before them there would be no more poorly armed partisans or defenseless prisoners of war.
Now, in front of many of them, a depressing uncertainty and painful death from the cold and massive artillery fire of the advancing Red Army awaited.
And soon on January 12, 1943, all their "conquests" ended ingloriously, this is when Soviet troops crossed the Don River on the ice and during the last phase of the Battle of Stalingrad in the Ostrogozh-Rossoshansk offensive operation, in the period from January 13 to January 27, 1943, completely destroyed and captured on the upper Don all the Hungarian and Italian troops allied to the Nazis.
All those who survived and escaped the cauldron rushed to the west. The indiscriminate retreat of the remnants of the Hungarian army began, which turned into a widespread and indiscriminate, shameful flight.
True, it was very problematic to escape, the transport was all without fuel, the horses were all eaten, the conquerors walked, day and night, in a fierce cold, most of them died, the remains of Hungarian soldiers were simply covered with snow, like a white shroud.
During their retreat to the west, the Hungarians lost most of their equipment and weapons.
Losses in people, for a country with a population of 10 million, were truly catastrophic and irreparable.
Among the dead was the eldest son of the Regent of the Kingdom, Miklos Horthy. This was the largest defeat of the Hungarian army in the entire history of its existence, in just 15 days of fighting, Hungary lost half of its armed forces.
The defeat at Voronezh had even a much greater resonance and significance for Hungary than Stalingrad for Germany.
Many of the then occupants still received their land plots in Russia as promised, but they received them only as their graves.
As a result of the Second World War, Hungary lost not only all the territories conquered with the help of Nazi Germany, but also lost some of those that it had before the war, the history of World War II once again showed what happens to those states that want to improve their position at the expense of their neighbors.