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February 1945: The last siege of castle Buda
http://www.osa.ceu.hu/galeria/sites/siege/framee.htmlThe Siege of Budapest was one of the longest and bloodiest battles of WWII. Between the appearance of the first Soviet tank and the final capture of Buda Castle, 102 days were to pass. In comparison, Berlin and Vienna fell after 2 weeks and 6 days respectively, while no other European city, with the exception of Warsaw, was the scene of a major battle. Even those German units that persevered the longest, like Königsberg (Kaliningrad) and Breslau (Wroclaw), resisted the attackers for 77 and 82 days respectively. The fierceness of the battle of Budapest can be compared only to the sieges of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Stalingrad (Volgograd) and Warsaw. Budapest has been one of the most besieged capital cities in Europe, which bares witness to its strategic importance: there have been 15 different major battles fought here throughout history, yet not one of them comes close to the siege of 1944-1945 in the scope of its destruction. The stifling of the Warsaw uprising took 63 days, the blockade of Leningrad lasted almost 3 years but no battles were fought on the streets. Stalingrad was a combat zone for 4 months, but most of the civilian population was evacuated prior to the struggle. At the same time, more than 800,000 people were eyewitnesses to the bloody conflict that contemporaries compared to Stalingrad in its ferocity. The casualties of the Red Army were 80,026 dead and 240,056 wounded during the military operations in Budapest and its vicinity, and for each Soviet soldier killed elsewhere in Hungary, two lost their lives in the capital city. The material damage was also great.
The entire German-Hungarian loss of life amounted to about 60% of Red Army losses. Between November 3, 1944 and February 16, 1945, there were about 40,000 dead and 62,000 wounded (including victims of the attempt to break out of the blockade). In terms of numbers, Hungarian losses did not surpass that of the Germans and were a far cry from the Soviet casualties. However, this was the most inane sacrifice of all three. Regardless of his allegiance, the Hungarian soldier was but a spectator of the destruction of his country. Many felt that it was their duty to fight even when the outcome was obvious, others capitulated right away citing Horthy Miklós' order of cease-fire. To chose meant to wager between the lesser of two evils: persistence only prolonged the bloody war initiated for the wrong cause, capitulation did not ensure true liberation. During the siege, very few took the risk of taking photographs. Almost all pictures taken by the defenders were destroyed. Therefore this exhibition primarily presents materials of the Soviet war correspondents and civilians, as well as the pictures taken after the siege. For this very reason, there is virtually no evidence of several significant events and important people. The street battles, the atrocities or the anti-Fascist resistance cannot be revisited either. When planning this exhibition, we worked from materials that were at posterity's disposal, therefore, it is primarily buildings that feature in the photographs. Nevertheless, this does not diminish the tragedy of the thousands who perished in the midst of those destroyed buildings. This exhibition commemorates these human destinies.
Leutnant von Rosen in King Tiger 300 and newly refit s.Pz.Abt. 503 prepare to leave for Hungary, 15 October 1944
Neuaufstellung der sPzAbt. 503 im Herbst 1944 in Paderborn
1,4 MB Video
On 22 September, 1944, Schwere Panzer Abteilung 503 under the Command of Freiherr Von Rosen had received forty-five new King Tigers with Henschel turrets, these were the ones which were the subject of a weekly newsreel report which Lt. Von Rosen paraded in this film before his full company of King Tigers in one of the most incredible and powerful images of armor in display ever captured on footage. It was this same armored force that was sent to Hungary in Operation "Budapest" on 15 October 1944, that crushed the revolt by Admiral Horthy and the Hungarian government to negotiate a cease-fire with the Russians. At midday Von Rosen's King Tigers rolled in perfect order through Budapest, and drove up to the Danube Bridge and blocked all traffic, to ensure that no resistance was meet. Here again the powerful presence of the King Tiger was again being felt at maximum impact. German countermeasures against Admiral Horthy's seat of government were already underway led by Otto Skorzeny and the presence of Lt. Von Rosen's King Tigers..
'The Most Dangerous Man in Europe': Otto Skorzeny was the most successful commando of World War II. An Austrian trained as an engineer, Skorzeny's first big operation was the rescue of Benito Mussolini. In October 1944, Hitler sent Skorzeny to Hungary when he received word that the country's Regent, Miklós Horthy was secretly negotiating his country's surrender to the Red Army. This surrender would have cut off a million German troops fighting in the Balkan peninsula. Skorzeny, in another daring "snatch" operation, kidnapped Horthy's son Nicolas and forced his father to abdicate as Regent. A pro-German government was installed in Hungary and fought with Germany until that country was overrun by the Red Army.
Horthy was holed up in castle in Castle Hill. If Skorzeny went in shooting, the Hungarians would certainly not remain allies of the Germans. So he arranged a military parade for early one Sunday morning. His men were in dress uniform and standing at attention as they drove straight up to the fortress gates. Sure enough, the flustered guards let them pass.Skorzeny flew to Budapast and scouted out the situation. It turned out that the Admiral was very much under the influence of his son Miklos Horthy. Miklos was negotiating through Tito (from Yugoslavia) with the Russians. It was thought that if young Miklos was taken out of the picture, then the Admiral would see the error of his ways and stay on the German side. The decision was made to nab young Mr. Horthy in the act of "treason". Miklos was meeting with the Yugoslavs when Skorzeny and his crew shot their way into the meeting and captured him. Otto rolled him up in a carpet and hauled him to the airport. Admiral Horthy did not react as hoped. He announced over the radio that Hungary was surrendering to Russia and that Germany had lost the war. This would not do. Otto had the Burgberg (the palace) surrounded by an SS panzer division and then later that evening in an incredibly balsy move DROVE up road to the Burgberg as far as he could and bulled his way past the rest of the obstacles and captured the Admiral and forced the surrender of the Hungarian troops at the palace. He then promptly flew Horthy off to Berlin to pseak with Hitler. A puppet Government was installed and Hungary stayed in the war until the end.
On October 12th 1944 the s.Pz.Abt. 503 is shipped to Hungary to support the local Fascists of the Arrowed Cross in their coup against the Hungarian government which planned to leave the war. This is Tiger 200, the 2nd Company's commander tank.
http://www.net.hu/corvinus/lib/mirror/mirror05.htmBy the 14th of October both sides had completed their plans. The Germans, to strengthen their political influence, transferred Rahn, who had been the German ambassador to Italy, to Hungary. To fortify the military might, General von dem Bach was moved from Warsaw to Budapest, along with 42 Tiger tanks. Skorzeny, with the same paratroopers who had freed Mussolini from his detention, was also made available.
Horthy moved the only available small Hungarian unit which was stationed in Budapest to defend Castle Hill. The commanding Generals of the First and Second Armies were ordered to stop all resistance at the time his call for armistice would be broadcast through Radio Budapest.
On the morning of October 15th Horthy informed the Crown Council of his decision and requested Veesenmayer to see him at noon. On the same morning the son of Horthy, Miklos, Jr., left Castle Hill to meet Tito's envoy and was abducted en route by Skorzeny. During his meeting with Veesenmayer Horthy's declaration for armistice was announced through Radio Budapest. The call for armistice came as a real surprise for the Hungarian masses and the army itself. Emil Kovarcz, who captured Radio Budapest with his commandos, made it possible to publish General Voros's order to the army which, in effect, counteracted Horthy's "cease fighting" order. The result was that although the commanding generals of the Hungarian Army went over to the Soviets, the army itself continued to fight.
In the confusion Prime Minister Lakatos met with Veesenmayer and requested the release of Horthy, Jr. and General Bakay. He also stated that because the Hungarian Army continued the resistance against the Soviets, in spite of the Armistice Order, the Germans could withdraw to Hungary's western border. Veesenmayer did not accept this suggestion. The person who unwillingly gave ammunition to Veesenmayer in his argument with Lakatos was the Commander of the Guards, Lazar, who, following the order of Horthy, mined and barricaded all the roads to Castle Hill. Per order of the German High Command, Skorzeny moved against the Hungarian defenders and captured Horthy and his family. Veesenmayer repeatedly visited Horthy. When Veesenmayer promised that Horthy, Jr., would be freed, reunited with his family and transferred to Germany, Horthy signed two documents. In the first document he retracted his armistice order; in the second he appointed Szalasi as his successor. The Parliament confirmed the validity of Horthy's signature and Szalasi became legally the new leader of the nation.
The Germans wanted to restart the deportation of the Jews but Szalasi refused. Hitler wanted to have 50,000 Jewish workers to build the eastern wall in defense of Austria. Szalasi promised 25,000, under Hungarian supervision only and to be utilized on the Hungarian side of the border. Under German pressure this number was increased and the march towards Austria degenerated into an inhuman process.
Szalasi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baron Gabor Kemeny and the Minister of Defense, H. Beregffy, visited Hitler on December 4, 1944. Szalasi wanted to have Budapest declared to be an "open city." Hitler disagreed and demanded the defense of Budapest until spring of 1945 when he would begin the new German offensive with the help of the "secret weapons" which would end the war with a German victory.
Following the meeting Hitler permitted the entry of all Hungarian refugees into Germany and more than one million Hungarians crossed the Hungarian/Austrian border.
Budapest was defended by 70,000 German and Hungarian soldiers. The Soviets succeeded the encirclement of the city on December 24, 1944. The city fell 52 days later. The remainder of Hungary fell to the Soviets by April 4, 1945.
King Tiger with Henschel or Krupp's production turret from schwere Panzer Abteilung 503, Feldherrnhalle in Budapest, 1945. The gunner's sight is a single monocular above the driver. Zimmerit coating was applied at the Henschel factory from August to November 1944. However, this was discontinued in late November due to reports that it caused fires when hit by an armor piercing projectile. This was later found to be false but news never reached the frontlines and many late models were without zimmerit coating.
Loaded on trains on 12 October, 1944, the 503rd was unloaded in Budapest, Hungary on 14 October, 1944. This King Tiger of sPzAbt 503 is seen in Budapest, October, 1944. An order dated December 21, 1944, sPzAbt 503 was renamed sPzAbt Feldherrnhalle and attached to PzGren. Div. FHH.
18. Oktober 1944: Verlegung nach Szolnok
http://www.angelfire.com/goth/bobtank/rosen.htmlOn 21 October 1944, during the fighting in Hungary, Schwere Panzer Abteilung 503 destroyed its 1,500 enemy tank. Lt. Von Rosen accounted for the 1,500th kill. The Red Army in its first attempt to take Budapest on November 7, 1944 failed. Here the Russians committed Joseph Stalin II heavy tanks, where they were picked-off one after another and were destroyed thanks to the King Tiger's greater rate of fire. Further Russian attacks were repulsed in the days that followed. Leutnant Freiherr Von Rosen's King Tiger company alone destroyed 25 Soviet tanks. On January 4, 1945, Schwere Panzer Abteilung 503 was renamed Schwere Panzer Abteilung Feldherrnhalle. Lt Von Rosen continued to fight with distinction with the Division Feldherrnhalle in these last desperate battles in Hungary against superior Russian forces at the Command of his King Tiger tanks, in which he was awarded the German Cross in Gold. He was wounded in the final weeks of the war and sent to a military hospital and was not released until June 30, 1945. For which the war was already over. There is no doubt that the King Tiger attained legendary fame, and was superior to all other tanks in the world at that time. In a post-war interview, Freiherr Von Rosen was asked to say which was the most formidable opponent he experienced in the King Tiger tank, in the east, he said it was the JS II, in the west, he said no tank whatsoever, that it was the US Air Force!
PzKpfw VI Tiger IIs with Henschel Turret, sPzAbt Feldherrnhalle, Budapest, spring 1945. Besides, this Abteilung, the units that participated in changing the Hungarian government, were SS-Jagdverbaende Mitte, SS-Fallschirm-Jaeger-Batallion 600 and 22 SS-Freiwilligen-Kavallene-Division Maria Theresa. Budapest, October 1944
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Qu...er2/tiger2.htmSoviet armies enetered in Hungary and by February Budapest was surrounded and cut off. Operation Konrad was commanded to link up with the German-Hungarian defenders and heavy fights exploded in the following battles. After initial success, Soviets literally submerged the attackers with fresh armies in enveloping manouvre. While the Tigers took an heavy price of the enemy tank units they were decimated.
The history so pointed in a strange way: we see Tiger units moving from a front to another, from France to Russia, from Russia to Poland, from France to Hungary than back in France and then returning in the East. All of these movements were carried out by trains with the German transport system on the point to collapse by bombings. Tigers were destroyed in rail stations, abandoned because the survival were needed somewhere else or burnt by their crews to prevent capture. Again others were cannibalized for spare parts. Those few tanks which managed to reach the battlefield in good conditions wrote the legend of the invincible King Tiger.
Hungarian Army during manoeuvres. In photograph one can see a column of Hungarian Raba-Botond trucks. 1st Hungarian Army, 1944
Hungarian artillery crew is changing a 75mm Bofors gun over to fire position. Hungary, 1944
Soldiers of 22.SS-Freiwilligen-Kavallerie-Division Maria Theresa in a street in Budapest. Hungary, October 1944
Hungarian soldiers are training in shooting the German antitank weapon Panzerfaust 30. Standing behind the instructor is the Hungarian General Beregfy Karoly Hungary, 1944
Officers of Cossack cavalry units in a Hungarian village. 3rd Ukrainian Front, October 1944
Grenadiers from 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking are penetrating deep into the Soviet defences through forest roads. Hungary, January 1945
Positions of 48th Guards Rocket Mortar Regiment commanded by Colonel B. Ya. Breyev. These BM-13 launchers are mounted on US-produced lorries Studebaker US 6x4. Budapest, troops of 2nd Ukrainian Front, end of January 1945
http://www.wssob.com/008divfgy.html8th SS-Kavallerie Division Florian Geyer:
December 1944: Soviets reach shores of Lake Balaton, Hungary; division strength: 13,000; division fighting troops from the Soviet IV Guards Mechanized Corps.
Axis forces pull back to the "Budapest Bridgehead" positions
Dec 4: Hungarian Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi orders the house-to-house defense of Budapest
Dec 17: Division sets up Feldlazarett at Budapest's Hotel Britania.
Dec 24: Budapest surrounded by 250,000 Soviet troops from the 2nd & 3rd Ukrainian Front; siege begins, 800,000 civilians trapped in city. SS units pullback to Buda on the west bank of the Danube river.
Dec 27: Soviets capture Vesces
Dec 28: Budapest resupply situation becomes critical
January 1945: heavy combat Budapest.
Jan 1: Division reports 439 casualties (KIA, WIA, MIA) since Dec 1.
Jan 7: Heavy combat Kispest district
Jan 11 & 14: Arrow Cross gangs? stage pogroms in Budepest's Jewish Ghetto.
Jan 12-15: Heavy combat
Jan 17: Franz-Joseph bridge destroyed; all axis troops evacuated from Pest.
Jan 19: Buda pocket roughly 1 km long, 1km deep
February 1945: Feb 5: the surviving 88mm guns of Kampfgruppe Portugall withdrawn to the Castle Hill/government center area. Feb 11: Remnants of division attempt last-ditch breakout attempt
Feb 12: Division annihiliated in fall of Budapest.; only 170 survivors of division reach German lines; Division CO SS-Brigaführer Joachim Rumohr commits suicide; remaining survivors transferred to 37th SS cavalry Division
Soviet reconnaissance group in Budapest. Left to right: Junior Lieutenant A. Nebogin, privates I. Chernomoshentsev, G. Shanidze, V. Lisenkov, ? Boyko. 3rd Ukrainian Front, February 13, 1945
Hungarian officers are surrendering. It can be seen from this photograph that they belong to various combat arms: cavalry, aviation, irfantry. Budapest, February 13, 1945
Soldiers of Wehrmacht and SS-troops are surrendering. Soviet-German Front, February 13, 1945
15. März 1945 Budapest mit 26 Tiger 2, 19 einsatzfähig.
April 1945: Rückzug nach Österreich, 12 Tiger werden während des Rückzugs vernichtet.
Mai 1945: Rückzug nach Böhmen.
Soviet soldiers in Budapest
The Siege of Budapest: the Nadir in Hungarian History.
Istvan Deak, Seth Low Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University, in a talk sponsored by the Center for European & Eurasian Studies, presented a rich and detailed first-hand account of the siege of Budapest in November 1944-February 1945 and discussed the fate of the Jewish population of Hungary and the only major ghetto to survive World War II.
The siege of Budapest and Europe's only major surviving ghetto, November 1944-February 1945, is an extraordinary tale that has yet to be told in great detail in any language other than Hungarian. Istvan Deak, at that time a boy of 18 in Budapest and today Emeritus Professor of History at Columbia University, is in a unique position to tell it, and he did so on Thursday May 1st for a crowd of a around 50 UCLA faculty, students, and members of the community.
The story is of a metropolis and its nearly one million inhabitants, including at least 120,000 Jewish survivors, and it has all of the elements of a great drama or film: extraordinary heroism, extraordinary cowardice, good people, horrid people, insanely murderous Hungarian Nazis and wildly destructive and rapacious Soviet soldiers, rape, banditry, and indescribable suffering, not only in the Jewish ghetto but also in the caves underneath the Royal Castle in Buda where thousands of wounded German and Hungarian soldiers either rotted alive or were burned to death. There was fierce fighting between German and Soviet soldiers for control of every block and building in the city, down to a ruined bathroom or a gutted cinema. The siege of Budapest was perhaps not the most dramatic of sieges, not as devastating as Warsaw in 1939 and again in 1944, Stalingrad in 1942-43, or Leningrad in 1941-43, but it was terrible enough. Nothing akin to it has ever been experienced in Western Europe.
In 1941, Budapest was a city of about 1,165,000 inhabitants. During the war, thousands fled to the West, while thousands of men were on military duty or were doing labor service. The city's population also swelled with refugees from the East, especially from Transylvania. By the time of the siege in 1944-45, there were less than a million people in the Hungarian capital, literally all living in cellars, aside from the nearly 80,000 German and Hungarian soldiers who fought the Soviet advance. A third of these soldiers were killed and the rest would end up in Soviet captivity along with numerous civilians. Of the Jewish population in the country as a whole, some 825,000 had been identified as Jews by law in 1944, and of these 453,000 were deported until the Summer when the policy was halted in the face of international pressure. The rest awaited a different fate. At least 120,000 Jews survived the siege: around 80,000 in the only remaining ghetto in Europe; another 20,000 living in houses protected by neutral countries like Sweden; and another 20,000 hidden by Christian families. This was less than the 200,000 Jews in Budapest before the war, but not an insignificant number.
The Soviet army had Budapest surrounded on Christmas Eve 1944. Up to that point the city had survived the war largely intact. There had been some bombing by American forces in the summer of 1944, but it had been directed at industrial areas and the railroads. During the siege, there was shelling, but no heavy artillery. There was no food, electricity, gas or water, but because Budapest was still quite old fashioned in many respects, the people managed with wells, wood, coal and private baking for the duration of the siege. The conditions in the ghetto were much worse, with no food being delivered at all after December 24, 1944. Pest, on one side of the Danube, was liberated by Soviet troops first, on January 14, 1945, while Buda held out for another month against the Soviet advance. The taking of the Royal Castle and the caves beneath it was a massacre, with only some 700 escaping the fighting.
When it was over, in 1945 the population of Budapest had dwindled to 833,000 some 28% less than in 1941. Of this number almost 50% more women than men had survived the war. Only 25% of the buildings were intact, but at the same time less than 4% had been completely destroyed.
The Soviets picked up where the Germans left off. The expulsion of minority populations began with the Jews and then the Germans. The end of World War II was also the end of minority life in East Central Europe.Péter GosztonyiDuring the 1960s, I had the chance to talk to or to exchange letters with a number of senior officers of the German 6th Army, including Generals Balck and Gaedcke. I was in a position to talk to Gille and Harteneck, the corps commanders in the 1945 January German offensives. I also contacted a number of senior Hungarian officers who had served in Transdanubia. Most importantly from the point of view of the present subject, in the early 1970s I met General Walther Wenck, in 1945 deputy to Colonel-General Guderian, Chief of Staff of the OKH. (He was a personal friend of both Generals Balck and Grollman, the latter chief of staff of Army Group South). From conversations with these German commanders I was able to establish that the ultimate objective of the three German offensives in January 1945 was not to rescue the Fortress Budapest garrison. Hitler wanted to hold Budapest at all costs, as a forward bastion. The objective of the German offensives was to establish a corridor between the German forces in Transdanubia and Budapest. In other words, had the German counter-offensive been successful, Budapest would have remained a battlefield for further weeks, perhaps even months.
But the siege didn't end until 1990 ...
Budapest, 1956
http://hungaria.org/hal/hungary/inde...=14&menuid=248The long awaited end of the Soviet rule came at the end of the 80s: The Soviet-union got into deep economic troubles and their empire, which looked so threatening even few years earlier, crashed like a rotten tree. The Central-European nations suddenly found their freedom. The process in Hungary started in 1988 and in the next two years the Communists gradually and peacefully gave up their supremacy. The free and democratic elections in 1990 brought the end of Communism.
Although the XX. century was one of the most disastrous century in Hungarian history, its last decade seems to give some hope to the nation that has suffered so much. Hungary has regained its freedom and has now the chance to fulfil its main goal which was set more than a thousand years ago by its founders and which has been the focal point in the country's history since then: to join Europe.
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