page_title: Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946) / World War II
context_page_description: The Kingdom of Hungary, sometimes referred to as the Regency or the Horthy era, existed as a country from 1920 to 1946 under the rule of Regent Miklós Horthy. Horthy nominally represented the Hungarian monarchy. In reality there was no king. Attempts by Charles IV to return to the throne were prevented by Horthy.
  Hungary under Horthy was characterized by its conservative, nationalist and fiercely anti-communist character. The government was based on an unstable alliance of conservatives and right-wingers. Foreign policy was characterized by revisionism - the total or partial revision of the Treaty of Trianon, which had seen Hungary lose over 70% of its historic territory along with over three million Hungarians, who mostly lived in the border territories outside the new borders of the kingdom. Hungary's interwar politics were dominated by an obsession with the territorial losses suffered in this treaty.
  Germany's influence in Hungary has led some historians to consider that the country increasingly became a client state of Germany after 1938.
context_section_description: After the successful revision policy Hungary sought further solutions to the remainder of its former territories and demanded the concession of Transylvanian territory from Romania. The Axis powers were not interested in opening a new conflict in Central Europe; both countries were facing strong diplomatic pressures to avoid any military operations. Finally both parties accepted the arbitration of Germany and Italy, known as the Second Vienna Award, and as a result Northern Transylvania was assigned to Hungary. Shortly afterward, the Kingdom of Hungary joined the Axis powers. Hitler demanded that the Hungarian government follow Germany's military and racial agenda to avoid potential conflict in the future. Anti-Semitism was already an established political cause by the far right in Hungary. In 1944, after the ousting of Horthy by Hitler and before the installation of the National-Socialist Arrow Cross Party, the Hungarian government readily aided Nazi Germany in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust, where most of them died.
  In April 1941, Hungary let the Wehrmacht into her territory, thus supporting Germany and Italy in the invasion of Yugoslavia. After the Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed, Hungary joined the military operations and was allowed to annex the Bačka (Bácska) region in Vojvodina, which had a relative majority of Hungarians, as well as the region of Muraköz (present-day Prekmurje and Medjimurje), which had large Slovenian and Croatian majorities, respectively.
  On 27 June 1941, László Bárdossy declared war on the Soviet Union. Fearing a potential turn of support to the Romanians, the Hungarian government sent armed forces to support the German war effort during Operation Barbarossa. This support cost the Hungarians dearly.  The entire Hungarian Second Army was lost during the Battle of Stalingrad.
  By early 1944, with Soviet forces fast advancing from the east, Hungary was caught attempting to contact the British and the Americans to secretly escape the war and establish an armistice with the Allies. On 19 March 1944, the Germans responded by invading Hungary in Operation Margarethe.  German forces occupied key locations to ensure Hungarian loyalty. They placed Horthy under house arrest and replaced Prime Minister Miklós Kállay with a more pliable successor. Döme Sztójay, an avid supporter of the Nazis, became the new Hungarian Prime Minister. Sztójay governed with the aid of a Nazi military governor, Edmund Veesenmayer.
  By October of the same year, the Hungarians were again caught trying to quit the war, and the Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust. They replaced Horthy with Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi. A new pro-German "Government of National Unity" was proclaimed, and it continued the war on the side of the Axis. Szálasi did not replace Horthy as Regent, but was appointed as the "Nationleader" (Nemzetvezető) and Prime Minister of the new Hungarian Fascist regime. There has been some debate as to what extent the Hungarian state of the 1930s and '40s can be classified as fascist. However, the regime's increasing economic dependence on Germany, its passage of anti-Semitic legislation and its participation in exterminating local Jews all place it within the realm of international fascism.
  On 21 December 1944, a Hungarian "Interim Assembly" met in Debrecen, with the approval of the Soviet Union. This assembly elected an interim counter-government headed by Béla Miklós, the former commander of the Hungarian First Army. At the end of March 1945, Szálasi's regime was driven out of Hungary.
caption: Hungarian armor and infantry in retreat, August 1944
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