Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Peter Longerich (grave mercy .TXT) 📖

to Hungary to

investigate the situation in the country, established a close connection between

the Hungarian reticence concerning Judenpolitik and the expectations prevailing

in the post-war era. He wrote that the government and wide sections of the

bourgeoisie expected ‘clemency and benevolent treatment’ from the British and

the Americans ‘because of their hospitable attitude towards Jewry. They see Jewry

as a guarantee of “Hungarian concerns” and believe that through the Jews they can

demonstrate that it was only under duress that they waged this war alongside

the Axis powers, but through latent sabotage indirectly provided a contribution to

the opponents of the Axis powers.’195 Thus it had to be German policy—this is the logical conclusion to be drawn from these trains of thought—to strive to tear up

that ‘guarantee’, if they wanted to keep Hungary on their side.

In late May 1943, however, Prime Minister Kállay demonstrated in a speech that

he did consider the ‘complete resettlement of Jewry’ as the ‘definitive solution’ of

the ‘Jewish question’, but that he would only address this once he had had ‘an

answer to the question of where the Jews are to be resettled to’. So the Germans

could not expect speedy consent to the deportations from the Hungarians. 196

The Germans gradually set about undertaking the solution of the ‘Jewish

question’ in Hungary without Kállay. In a further report about the situation in

Hungary, which he wrote after a further fact-finding trip to Budapest in December

1943,197 Veesenmayer stressed that the solution of the ‘Jewish question’ in Hungary represented ‘a rewarding and compelling task for Reich policy . . . grappling with it

and cleaning it up’. In writing that the ‘cleaning up’ of the ‘Jewish question’ was

‘the precondition for the engagement of Hungary in the Reich’s battle for defence

and existence’, Veesenmayer once again made it clear that the intensification of

the persecution of the Jews in Hungary was the ideal instrument to render their

‘ally’ compliant.

The Hungarian government’s stubborn refusal to hand over the Jews resident in

the country was, from the point of view of the Nazi regime, the decisive gauge with

which the progressive erosion of Hungarian loyalty to the Reich since Stalingrad

could be measured. The German insistence on the issue proved crucial in keeping

the ‘ally’ under control. If the Hungarian government, so the German calculation

ran, could be forced to hand over the Jews domiciled in the country, the Hungar-

ians would lose their ‘guarantee’ vis-à-vis the Western Allies, and would thus be

bound for good or ill to their German ‘partner’.

Murders and Deportations, 1942–3

407

At the beginning of 1944, the German–Hungarian relationship increasingly

deteriorated. In February 1944 Hungarian troops retreated from the Ukraine;

their secret negotiations with the Western Allies were just as well known to the

Germans as the war-weariness and the growing anti-German attitude in the

country. With the occupation of the country by German troops in March 1944,

the formation of the new Hungarian government under Sztojay, previously the

mission head in Berlin, the appointment of Veesenmayer as the new ambassador

and Plenipotentiary of the Greater German Reich in Hungary (effectively the

German governor), and the establishment of an SS apparatus in the country, the

political and technical preconditions for the deportations were in place. 198

At Veesenmayer’s instigation, in April the Sztojay government offered 50,000

Jewish workers for armaments projects; a further 50,000, it was agreed, would

follow in May. 199 According to a familiar pattern, ‘labour deployment’ provided the pretext on the basis of which the SS prepared the complete deportation and

extermination of the Hungarian Jews. The perfidious system of concentration and

deportation tested in German-occupied Europe for years was to be installed in

Hungary, with the active support of the Hungarian authorities and without

encountering any notable resistance among the non-Jewish population—in a

form that had been more or less perfected. 200

In March and April the new Hungarian government was induced to introduce

comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation that created preconditions for the deport-

ations. On 23 April the Hungarian trade ministry had all Jewish shops closed and

expropriated, and on 26 April the Hungarian cabinet undertook to send 50,000

Jewish forced labourers (‘with their families’) to Germany, and put the compul-

sory organization of Hungarian Jews, already established by Eichmann, under

Hungarian control. 201

The Germans were not only exceedingly well informed about the legislative and

administrative measures of the Hungarian government, but also exercised, ‘in

constant personal contact’ and ‘in an advisory capacity in the drafting and

implementation of ordinances’, a ‘control’ over the ‘operation of Hungarian

Jewish laws’. 202

On the orders of the Sonderkommando of the RSHA, which had been sent to

Budapest, and of which Eichmann had personally assumed leadership, a Jewish

council was set up, initially for the capital, later for the whole country. 203

On 27 April Goebbels recorded statements by Hitler about Horthy, which reveal

that the Hungarian Reich administrator had become so involved in German

Judenpolitik that he could now to some extent be seen as a relatively reliable

ally: ‘At any rate, he now no longer obstructs the cleansers of public life in

Hungary; on the contrary, he is now murderously angry with the Jews and has

no objections to us using them as hostages. He even suggested the same thing

himself . . . At any rate the Hungarians will not escape the rhythm of the Jewish

question. Whoever says A must say B, and the Hungarians, having started with

408

Extermination of the European Jew, 1942–1945

Judenpolitik, can for that reason not halt it. From a certain point onwards

Judenpolitik propels itself.’ After further anti-Semitic tirades the dictator con-

tinued: ‘By and large one can say that a long-term policy is only possible in this

war if one starts out with the Jewish question.’204

To simplify the deportations, the country was divided into zones. In each

zone the Jews were first brought by the Hungarian police from smaller villages

to the larger towns, where ghettos or camps were set up. After this, zone by zone,

the deportations to Auschwitz occurred, in only a few days in each case. 205 First the territories annexed by Hungary from 1938 onwards, the Carpatho-Ukraine

(Zone I) as well as Northern Transylvania (Nordsiebenbürgen) (Zone II). The

‘concentration’ began in the Carpatho-Ukraine on 16 April, in Northern Transyl-

vania on 3 May, the deportations to Auschwitz from these two zones on 15 May.

They were gradually followed by the Old Hungarian Provinces (Zones III–V),

where the concentration process