Editing Hungary (section)

=== World War II (1941–1945) ===
{{Main|Hungary during World War II|Holocaust in Hungary|Soviet occupation of Hungary}}
[[File:Hungary 1941-44 Administrative Map.png|thumb|Kingdom of Hungary, 1941–1944]]

Hungary formally entered World War II as an Axis power on 26 June 1941, declaring war on the Soviet Union after unidentified planes bombed [[Košice|Kassa]], [[Munkacheve|Munkács]], and [[Rakhiv|Rahó]]. Hungarian troops fought on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] for two years. Despite early success at the [[Battle of Uman]],<ref name="J. Lee Ready 1995 page 130">J. Lee Ready (1995), ''World War Two. Nation by Nation'', London, Cassell, page 130. {{ISBN|1-85409-290-1}}</ref> the government began seeking a secret peace pact with [[Allies of World War II|the Allies]] after the [[Second Army (Hungary)|Second Army]] suffered catastrophic losses [[Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh offensive|at the River Don]] in January 1943. Learning of the planned defection, German troops [[Operation Margarethe|occupied Hungary]] on 19 March 1944 to guarantee Horthy's compliance.

In October, as the Soviet front approached, and the government made further efforts to disengage from the war, German troops ousted Horthy and installed a puppet government under Szálasi's fascist [[Arrow Cross Party]].<ref name="J. Lee Ready 1995 page 130" /> Szálasi pledged all the country's capabilities in service of the German war machine. By October 1944, the Soviets had reached the river Tisza, and despite [[Battle of Debrecen|some losses]], succeeded in encircling and [[Siege of Budapest|besieging Budapest]] in December.

On 13 February 1945, Budapest surrendered; by April, German troops left the country under Soviet military occupation. 200,000 Hungarians were expelled from Czechoslovakia in exchange for 70,000 Slovaks living in Hungary. 202,000 ethnic Germans were expelled to Germany,<ref>Alfred de Zayas "A Terrible Revenge" (Palgrave/Macmillan 2006)</ref> and through the 1947 [[Paris Peace Treaties, 1947|Paris Peace Treaties]], Hungary was again reduced to its immediate post-Trianon borders.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-680-8285A-08, Budapest, Festnahme von Juden.jpg|thumb|[[Jewish]] women being arrested on Wesselényi Street in [[Budapest]] during [[the Holocaust]], {{circa}} 20–22 October 1944]]

The war left Hungary devastated, destroying over 60% of the economy and causing significant [[World War II casualties#endnote Hungary|loss of life]]. In addition to the over 600,000 Hungarian Jews killed,<ref name="ind09/96">{{cite news|last=Bridge|first=Adrian|title=Hungary's Jews Marvel at Their Golden Future|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/hungarys-jews-marvel-at-their-golden-future-1361842.html|date=5 September 1996|newspaper=[[The Independent]]|access-date=20 April 2009}}</ref> as many as 280,000<ref name=EU38>{{cite web|url=http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/bitstream/1814/2599/1/HEC04-01.pdf|title=The Expulsion of 'German' Communities from Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War|last1=Prauser|first1=Steffen|last2=Rees|first2=Arfon|date=December 2004|series=EUI Working Paper HEC No. 2004/1|publisher=European University Institute|location=San Domenico, Florence|access-date=5 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091001022039/http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/bitstream/1814/2599/1/HEC04-01.pdf|archive-date=1 October 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref> other Hungarians were raped, murdered and executed or deported for slave labour.<ref>University of Chicago. Division of the Social Sciences, Human Relations Area Files, inc, A study of contemporary Czechoslovakia, University of Chicago for the Human Relations Area Files, inc., 1955, Citation 'In January 1947 the Hungarians complained that Magyars were being carried off from Slovakia to Czech lands for forced labor.'</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Istvan S. Pogany|title=Righting Wrongs in Eastern Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BB4NAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA202|year=1997|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-3042-0|page=202}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Alfred J. Rieber|title=Forced Migration in Central and Eastern Europe, 1939–1950|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=it0-Zi2nEX0C&pg=PA90|year=2000|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-7146-5132-3|page=50|quote=A presidential decree imposing an obligation on individuals not engaged in useful work to accept jobs served as the basis for this action. As a result, according to documentation in the ministry of foreign affairs of the USSR, approximately 50,000 Hungarians were sent to work in factories and agricultural enterprises in the Czech Republic.}}</ref><ref>Canadian Association of Slavists, Revue canadienne des slavistes, Volume 25, Canadian Association of Slavists., 1983</ref><ref>S. J. Magyarody, The East-central European Syndrome: Unsolved conflict in the Carpathian Basin, Matthias Corvinus Pub., 2002</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Anna Fenyvesi|title=Hungarian Language Contact Outside Hungary: Studies on Hungarian as a Minority Language|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y3JYwHGYn7MC&pg=PA50|year=2005|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=978-90-272-1858-2|page=50}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Norman M. Naimark|title=The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MVSjHNKUKoEC&pg=PA70|year=1995|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-78405-5|page=70}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=László Borhi|title=Hungary in the Cold War, 1945–1956: Between the United States and the Soviet Union|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IO-4TxlTaMAC&pg=PA57|year=2004|publisher=Central European University Press|isbn=978-963-9241-80-0|page=57}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Richard Bessel|author1-link=Richard Bessel|author2=Dirk Schumann|title=Life After Death: Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of Europe During the 1940s and 1950s|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NilW70Yol74C&pg=PA133|year=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-00922-5|page=142}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Tibor Cseres|title=Titoist Atrocities in Vojvodina, 1944–1945: Serbian Vendetta in Bácska|url=https://archive.org/details/titoistatrocitie0000cser|url-access=registration|year=1993|publisher=Hunyadi Pub.|isbn=978-1-882785-01-8}}</ref> After German occupation, Hungary participated in [[the Holocaust]],<ref name="bbc-no-warning-to-hungary-jews">{{cite web |author=Mike Thomson |date=13 November 2012 |title=Could the BBC have done more to help Hungarian Jews? |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20267659 |publisher=BBC (British broadcasting service) |quote=the BBC broadcast every day, giving updates on the war, general news and opinion pieces on Hungarian politics. But among all these broadcasts, there were crucial things that were not being said, things that might have warned thousands of Hungarian Jews of the horrors to come in the event of German occupation. A memo setting out policy for the BBC Hungarian Service in 1942 states: "We shouldn't mention the Jews at all". By 1943, the BBC Polish Service was broadcasting the exterminations. And yet his policy of silence on the Jews was followed until the German invasion in March 1944. After the tanks rolled in, the Hungarian Service did then broadcast warnings. But by then it was too late "Many Hungarian Jews who survived the deportations claimed that they had not been informed by their leaders, that no one had told them. But there's plenty of evidence that they could have known", said David Cesarani, professor of history at Royal Holloway, University of London.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007259|title=Auschwitz: Chronology|work=Ushmm.org|access-date=13 February 2013}}</ref> deporting nearly 440,000 Jews, mainly to [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]]; nearly all of them were murdered.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Herczl | first1=Moshe Y. | last2=Lerner | first2=Joel | title=Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry | publisher=NYU Press | year=1993 | jstor=j.ctt9qg6vj | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg6vj }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/the-holocaust-in-hungary|title=The Holocaust in Hungary|publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|encyclopedia=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref> The Horthy government's complicity in the Holocaust remains a point of controversy and contention.