German Forces

Hungarian tragedy, 1944.

Bundesarchiv.

Jewish women caught up in the roundup of Jews conducted by Adolf Eichmann and the Hungarian Arrow Cross movement, Budapest, 1944. While anti-Semitism was certainly present in Hungary in the 1940s - in an extreme form among adherents of the Nazi-style Arrow Cross movement - Hungarian Jews enjoyed effective protection as long as the "Horthy Regency" government remained in power. Certainly, the régime itself had a mild flavor of anti-Semitism itself. However, in general, it followed the approach of the old Austria-Hungarian dual monarchy still, in a sense, represented by Regent Horthy, which tolerated a sort of low-level anti-Semitism, but basically saw no point in "Final Solution" type approaches against a useful sub-community in Hungary. This changed drastically and suddenly when Horthy's regime was overthrown by the Germans (in practice, by Nazi super-commando Otto Skorzeny and his SS special forces paratroopers, backed up by the (probably confused) soldiers of the Volunteer Cavalry Division of the SS, "Maria Teresa"). The "Regency" was replaced by a rabidly anti-Semitic puppet government of the Arrow Cross which, freed of Horthy's control, conducted their own local pogroms and willingly co-operated with the German programme of Jewish "resettlement". The very protection of their community by the Horthy régime left the Jews of Hungary very exposed in this new dispensation, since they had up to this lived openly in the community. As a result, it was relatively easy for Eichmann and his SD and Arrow Cross collaborators to round up the Jews and ship them for "resettlement" to Auschwitz, where Commandant Richard Baer, with the expert assistance of former Commandant Rudolf Hoess, duly annihilated them. The only real inhibition to this process involved difficulties with arranging transport. However, Eichmann, an expert in such matters, did his best to ensure that the death trains ran on time. Best regards, JR.