Hungarian Forces

BUDAPEST SIEGE: Hungarian Defenders

Out of a total of about 80,000 Axis defenders, roughly 40,000 soldiers belonged to Hungarian military units. As always, battle-ready soldiers constituted a fraction of the total "food ration counts." The following Hungarian units each numbered above 1,000 fighting men: 10th Infantry Division, 12th Reserve Division, Billnitzer and other assault artillery battalions, recent draftees, Kozma AA battalions, paratrooper brigade, Budapest Guard Battalion, Budapest Assault Brigades, technical units, university student battalions, Vannay Battalion, gendarmerie brigades, and smaller hussar, Hungarist, and other detachments. These numbers exclude supply KISKA units and police companies. The military training of these men ranged from experienced to novice, and their fighting spirit spread from defeatist, to lukewarm, to determined. A regular Honved unit above, shown in Buda Castle during October, 1944, indicates its professed loyalty to the new Arrow Cross regime by wearing special armbands.