|
Rev.
Henry A. Fischer
A
WATERSHED IN DANUBE SWABIAN HISTORY
Henry
A. Fischer
A presentation at Mount Angel, Oregon
September
18, 2010
At
the Danube Swabian Treffen
1.
World
War One: The Watershed
2.
Setting
the Scene
3.
The
Treaty of Trianon: June 4, 1920 (Map)
4.
Horthy
and Hitler and the German Minority
5.
Franz
Basch: Volksbund
6.
The
Reichstag Speech: October 6, 1939
7.
Prelude
to War
8.
The
Die Is Cast
World War One: The Watershed
The First World War and its aftermath mark a watershed in Danube Swabian
history and set the scene for the beginning of the end of their life
together as a people; the destruction of their communities; their
dispersal throughout the world; the loss of their culture and sense of
identity; their expulsion from their beloved Heimat: all the
ties that held them together personally, as families and as communities.
It would see a parting of the ways of the various threads that made up the
tapestry of Danube Swabian experience since their arrival in the Habsburg
lands along the Danube in the eighteenth century during the Great Swabian
Migration and Schwabenzug.
Their communities had developed in six
major regions of the Kingdom of Hungary each with
different and separate patterns of settlement, with the settlers
representing various regions of South Western Germany that would impact on
the dialect spoken, the culture and various traditions that were
maintained among them; each of the settlement areas faced unique
conditions and political situations out of which emerged a more or less
common history. The major common outside influence and force that
shaped and formed their life and history was the fact that they were
subjects of the Kingdom of Hungary; subject to its laws, policies,
institutions and aspirations. In this multi-ethnic Kingdom, the
Magyars were a minority in their own house and sought to rectify that
through the assimilation of the other minorities. This was their
major thrust during the 19th Century when Hungarian became the
language of instruction in the schools of the minorities and was the
official language in the courts and all phases of public life. This
would be true for all of the Danube Swabian communities in all of the
settlement areas but all of that would change after the First World War
when there would be a parting of the ways.
The Batschka, Syrmien, Slavonia and the western Banat would find
themselves in the successor state of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes the so-called south Slavs or Yugoslavia. The eastern Banat
would fall into the hands of Romania, while Swabian Turkey, Sathmar and
the Hungarian Highlands would remain in Hungary. Each of the three
nations would deal with their German population in their own way and in
each case the German population would adopt their own response to their
situation as much as it was possible for them to do so. This will
become the key to understanding the different and varying responses of the
various governments to their Danube Swabian population during the trauma
of the Second World War. The inter-war years were crucial for what
would follow and I will attempt to delineate that for the Danube Swabians
in Hungary and hopefully someone in future will address the situations in
former Yugoslavia and Romania during that time frame that is beyond the
scope of my presentation.
Setting the Scene:
A
sense of betrayal stalked the land and mistrust permeated all levels of
government and those being governed as the First World War went through
its final death agony and ground to a complete halt on November 3, 1918
when an armistice was signed between the Western Powers and
Austria-Hungary even though it would drag on for eight more days on the
Western Front. Ten days after the armistice, the Dual Monarchy
of Austria-Hungary was declared dissolved and disappeared from the map of
Europe and was rather brutally carved
up by its successor states with the full blessing of the
Western Powers.
On November 16, 1918 the Hungarian National Assembly declared independence
and the establishment of the People’s Republic of Hungary. Count
Mihály Károly was elected as its first President promising the
introduction of universal male suffrage in the next election in order to
win the support of the Social Democrats and trade unionist allies who
assisted him in coming to power. He would face the fierce opposition
of the ancient regime: the vested interests of the magnates,
nobles, gentry, the moneyed upper and middle class, the military and
higher clergy of the Roman Catholic Church who made up the electorate in
the past who accounted for less than five per cent of the population.
These political forces were united in their efforts to bring down the
populist and democratic government and restore the old order of class and
privilege at the helm of government and conspired to carry out a quick
military takeover. Yet on the day of the declaration of independence
of Hungary, Béla Kun, a Hungarian Army officer born and raised in a
Jewish family in Transylvania, arrived in Budapest along with eight
companions disguised as army surgeons who had all just recently returned
from captivity in Russia. Their mission was to carry out Lenin’s
directive to set in motion events that would lead to the founding of a
Hungarian Soviet Republic.
All cross the country; all eyes were now focused on Budapest, a virtual
seething political cauldron, where Hungary’s fate was about to be
sealed.
Hungary was without allies, besieged on all sides, falling victim to the
aspirations of its land-grabbing neighbours in their quest for territorial
expansion at Hungary’s expense. They were all free to act at will,
with the full support of the French government, who along with the other
Western Powers, refused to accept the legitimacy of the Károlyi
government in Budapest. In early December 1918 France was adamant in
its demand for the immediate withdrawal of the Hungarian armed forces and
government administrators from Slovakia. By the end of the year
armies of the newly formed fledgling Czech state occupied most of what had
once been Upper Hungary. The Czechs further demanded that a sizeable
land corridor be established to pass through central Hungary to enable
them to join up with their fellow Slavs who lived to the south, in the now
so-called Yugoslavia, a union of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. France
supported the idea but the other Western Powers were rather cool to the
scheme.
The Serbian Army occupied southern Hungary as far as Pécs while their
government squabbled with Romania over who would have control of the Banat.
After occupying Transylvania in mid-December, the Romanian Army advanced
further into Hungary and France ordered Hungary to avoid bloodshed at all
costs by providing a demilitarized zone between the two armies. In
an attempt to pacify the Hungarian people over the territorial losses that
were taking place, Károlyi initiated negotiations with the Swiss Red
Cross for the repatriation of the remaining 430,000 Austro-Hungarian
prisoners of war in Russia. His efforts were scuttled by France to
rob Hungary of the possibility of having any additional manpower to
prevent the takeover of more of its territory. It was the intention
of France and the occupying successor states to make the recent
territorial changes permanent and a weakened powerless Hungary was
necessary in order to affect that.
In an attempt to drive the final nail into the coffin of the Károlyi
government, France issued a communiqué on March 20, 1919 giving Romania
the green light to occupy the Great Plains of eastern Hungary. The
insatiable Czechs for additional territory in Slovakia also made new
demands. In order to save face and not accept responsibility for the
loss of still more territory, Count Mihály Károlyi resigned from office
and handed over power to a coalition of dissident left wing Social
Democrats and trade unionists who had joined forces with the recently
established Communist Party led by the same thirty-two year old Bélá
Kun, protégé of Lenin and a season revolutionary, who had spent the past
few months stealthily working towards manipulating the takeover of the
government.
The Hungarian Soviet Republic came into existence on March 22, 1919 with Béla
Kun at its head calling for a national military response to the threat of
the partition of Hungary by the successor states and played down the
Communist nature of the regime he was putting into place behind the
scenes. Once again the Western Powers refused to accept the
legitimacy of the government in power in Budapest and postponed any
discussions for a peace treaty and the final settlement of Hungary’s
future borders. Meanwhile, the successor states used the
creation of a Communist Republic on their doorstep as a pretext for
invading Hungary. In this way they would not have to allow the local
populations in their annexed territories the right to self-determination
expressed through the results of a plebiscite. The plebiscite was
but one of the Fifteen Points related to national minorities that had been
promised by the American President, Woodrow Wilson, the rather late
arriving ally of the Western Powers, who was an ill-informed expert on all
matters European. It would be Romania that would be the first to
test these troubled waters.
On April 17, 1919 the Romanians launched yet another invasion of Hungary
from Transylvania and their armies swiftly rolled across the Great Plains
of eastern Hungary heading towards Budapest. By the end of April
they were less than sixty miles from the capital when Béle Kun called
upon the citizenry to take up arms and join the Red Army and drive out the
invaders from the sacred soil of their Magyar Fatherland. The
leaders of the trade unions recruited workers’ battalions numbering more
than fifty thousand men who were quickly equipped and sent directly to the
Front. By the end of May they retook every major town and city in
the Great Plains and the fleeing Romanians retreated to the safety of
Transylvania, resulting in an outburst of patriotic fervour all across
Hungary over the victory won by the workers’ brigades of Budapest.
Béla Kun was astute enough to use that to his own advantage.
In early June he decided it was time to consolidate his hold on power and
appealed to the awakened nationalism of the people and the newly created
Red Army and ordered an invasion to retake Slovakia. By the end of
June, the Hungarian Red Army occupied a considerable part of former Upper
Hungary. An order issued from Paris by the Western Powers put a
halt to the invasion and occupation which led to the immediate withdrawal
of the Red Army because of a promise by the Western Powers made to Kun to
cease all further hostilities against Hungary. There was now a
temporary lull in military activity on the part of Hungary’s rapacious
neighbours in light of its recent military successes. This breathing
space provided the counter-revolutionaries in Hungary more opportunities
to spread their propaganda among the large landowners, businessmen,
financiers, industrial workers, peasants, members of the middle class,
Magyar nationalists and Roman Catholic clergy who had been most affected
and aggrieved by the economic and anti-religious measure imposed by the
budding Communist regime.
All of Kun’s attempts to create his version of a Marxist utopia failed
utterly. Businesses and retail stores closed; land reforms that were
undertaken were a disaster; farmers refused to sell their produce at state
regulated prices and city dwellers went out into the countryside to barter
for food. Inflation was rampant. Banks and financial
institutions fell into the hands of government appointed hacks; workers’
committees governed industries. Opponents of the new regime and its
policies were arrested, imprisoned and executed depending on the nature of
their crime against the Soviet Republic. There were two hundred and
thirty-four victims who lost their lives during the Bolshevik Terror.
A disproportionately large number of their opponents and victims were
Jews. Ironically that fact was totally ignored by the virulent
anti-Semitism that was now sweeping the land. It was at the heart
and core of the counter-revolution that perceived Bolshevism as an
anti-Christian Jewish plot to rule the world based on the fact that there
were a number of Jews among the leaders of the Communist Party. The
Magyar Nationalist counter-revolutionaries saw the Jews as an undesirable
foreign element in Hungary’s body politic that needed to be eradicated
to preserve the racial purity and integrity of the nation.
An active underground emerged. Uprisings against the government were
planned by trade unionists, deserters from the Red Army, politicians from
both the left and the right of the political spectrum and most importantly
secret agents of Admiral Miklós Horthy. As Minister of War of the
counter-revolutionary government that had been set up in the southern city
of Szeged with the tacit approval of Romania that occupied the area and
with the full support and connivance of France, he was gathering a
National Army of dissidents to overthrow the Kun government. With
all of this opposition arrayed against him, Kun knew his situation was
precarious. In power for only four months, he and his acolytes were
now unable to enforce their authority in Budapest or in the countryside
except for isolated pockets of strength in Pécs and Kaposvár in
southwestern Hungary.
The final death knell of the Hungarian Soviet Republic was sounded on July
24th with another Romanian invasion of Hungary and a subsequent
uprising in Budapest that saw Béla Kun flee the country on August 1st.
After one hundred and thirty-three days, the failed Hungarian experiment
with Marxism ended and went underground for the next twenty-five years.
Red Kaposvár, as it would be soon become known, would be the last
Communist stronghold to fall in the face of the onslaught of Horthy’s Nemzeti
Hadsereg and the subsequent brutal White Terror that would be
unleashed all across the country.
Romanian troops entered Budapest on August 6th as the internal
government structures collapsed after the departure of Béla Kun.
Swift reprisals were taken against all suspected sympathizers of the
former regime, trade unionists, journalists, Jews and Social Democrats
carried out by death squads consisting of reactionaries, scoundrels and
freebooters that were associated with the officers of Horthy’s National
Liberation Army. It was only a foretaste of what was yet to come.
The loot-laden Romanian Army was forced to abandon Budapest on November 14th
on orders received from the French government. France was anxious to
place the counter-revolutionary archconservative government of their
choice in power through a totally bogus election.
Admiral Miklós Horthy, an established war hero, entered Budapest in his
full dress blue naval uniform under the weight of countless medals,
service ribbons and awards with gold epaulets on his shoulders, astride a
white stallion surrounded by troops of his National Liberation Army and
took control of the city in the name of the counter-revolution on November
16th. In addressing the populace of the city he upbraided
them for their betrayal of the values held sacred by the old order that
was being re-established and placed in power once more. He assured
Budapest it would pay a high price for its flirtation with democratic
reform and would eventually welcome the stability the counter-revolution
would bring to Hungary.
Under Horthy’s auspices the two-year reign of his White Terror would be
set loose. The savagery of the acts of violence and bloodletting
that were carried out against its victims whether men, women or children
had no parallel in Hungarian history since the darkest periods of the
Middle Ages. The perverse brutality and indescribable tortures
inflicted upon their prisoners and the horrible deaths of thousands
silenced all opposition. It was a time when the informer was king.
These systematic and sporadic killings were showcased as reprisals for the
Red Terror but yet they targeted Social Democrats, peasants, journalists
and Jews who were known supporters of the democrat reforms Horthy and his
followers feared and hated the most. Hungary gave Europe its first
taste of state Fascism. Nationalism was taken to the nth degree.
In future, worship of the nation could and did cover a multitude of other
sins.
On March 1, 1920 the National Assembly made up of members of the old order
that longed for the kind of power they had known in the glory days of
feudalism in Hungary, re-established the Kingdom of Hungary but without a
King and voted to install Admiral Horthy as Regent and Protector of
Hungary. After receiving a small delegation from the National
Assembly, he accepted the position but only on condition of additional
powers, which included the authority to appoint and dismiss prime
ministers, to convene and dissolve parliament and command the armed
forces. After being granted these sweeping powers, he took the oath
of office and began his twenty-four year Regency, maintaining a
stranglehold on all attempts at democratization of the nation and its
government; forcing Magyarisation on its remaining minorities and
providing a guide for institutionalizing Fascism that was on the rise all
across Europe and passing and enforcing the first anti-Jewish laws since
the Middle Ages.
The Treaty of Trianon, the final peace treaty with Hungary was concluded
on June 4, 1920 without Hungarian participation in the negotiations.
Hungary lost two thirds of its former territory and one third of the
Magyar population. For the first time in Hungary’s history,
Magyars were the overwhelming majority of the population within its own
borders with the German and Jewish populations forming the only large
minorities.
The Treaty of Trianon: June 4, 1920 (Map)
Horthy and Hitler and the German Minority
There
was a rumour going around that Regent Horthy probably slept in some type
of naval attire. He was never seen in public without wearing his
full-dress Admiral’s regalia, which seemed strangely out of place, since
Hungary was a landlocked country without a seaport or a navy. In
addition to his uniform there was always an appropriate colourful silk
sash draped over one shoulder on which he pinned every military and navel
decoration he could lay his hands on. He preferred a white ostrich
plume on his tri-corner hat that he felt gave his appearance a special
flair indicative of his position as the Head of State and created the
illusion he was taller than he actually was. For that reason he
always rode on his white horse when in public so that the cheering crowds
had to look up to him. These were only some of his fetishes that
reflected his vanity and arrogance.
As the Commander in Chief of the Imperial Fleet of the vanquished
Austro-Hungarian Empire, he had risen to power at the head of the
Hungarian Nationalist Army that had put down the Red Revolution in 1919 as
noted before and then unleashing his White Terror to stabilize and
strengthen his personal hold on political power. He had ruled
unchallenged ever since, surrounded by a cadre of anti-Semitic military
officers like himself, right-wing politicians and outright Fascists like
Szálassi, the leader of the infamous Arrow Cross Party, who all did his
bidding and were determined to realize the goal held in common by all
Hungarian political parties regardless of their stated ideology. It
was best summed up in their rallying cry: Nem. Nem soha.
No. No never. This slogan was an expression of their
refusal to accept the territorial and population losses Hungary had
suffered as a result of the Treaty of Trianon following the First World
War. All polices, both domestic and foreign, had to pass the litmus
test of how they would affect or bring about the return of the Lost
Territories in the neighbouring successor states. A revisionist
dream gripped the soul of Hungary and Regent Horthy would prove to be the
greatest dreamer of them all.
A Magyar confession of faith was born during the 1930s that always
accompanied the singing of the National Anthem at sports and entertainment
events, governmental and public gathers and even services of worship:
Hiszek egy Istenben…
I
believe in one God
I
believe in one Fatherland
I
believe in the eternal justice of God
I
believe in the resurrection of Hungary.
Amen
As part of Hungary’s stated foreign policy and using their position at
the League of Nations, no opportunity was lost to present their case
protesting loudly that the minority rights enshrined in the Treaty of
Versailles were not being granted to the three million Magyars cut off
from their homeland, living in the successor states oppressed by alien
regimes. The truth of the matter was that the situation of the
Hungarian minorities living outside of Hungary was far better than that of
the minorities within what remained of Hungary. That was primarily
true of the German minority, known as the Swabians, who lived in their
insular agricultural enclaves in various regions of the country and were
the only large minority left in Hungary after the Kingdom had been so
mercilessly truncated by the Major Powers at Versailles.
The Swabians, who the Hungarians referred to as the Svábok, also included
other German speaking populations and the term Danube Swabian was
virtually unknown in Hungary having only recently been invented by an
Austrian geographer. The Swabians became the target for total
assimilation while at the same time talk of deportation of the unwilling
became rampant in the nationalist press. The whole issue began to
come to the fore in 1933 with the government’s organized campaign for
all citizens of Hungary to adopt a Hungarian surname. This struck
much too close to home and gave birth to opposition from various quarters
within the German community. It was a clear violation of minority
rights and there were those who raised the matter publicly leading to
arrests and public convictions of some of their spokesmen. In this
way the issue became known abroad, notably in Germany where there were
calls for the rectifying of the situation. In the following years
more pressure was applied against the Swabians in the matter of their
schools, resulting in interventions on their behalf by the German
government and most especially after Hitler’s ascendancy to power.
Special agreements were dawn up between the two governments regarding the
German minority (as it was called) primarily because of lucrative trade
treaties and incentives mutually beneficial to both nations and support
for one another’s foreign affairs objectives in calling for a revision
of the terms of the treaties concluded at Versailles. That was
especially true of Hungary’s goal to regain their Lost Territories
which fit in quite nicely with Hitler’s overall plans for the Balkans
where he needed a compliant and willing ally. In the face of immense
public resistance; the opposition of all political parties and the
negative editorial stance of the all of the major newspapers, Regent
Horthy sanctioned the organization of the Volksbund der Deutschen in
Ungarn (The Folk Union of the Germans in Hungary) on November 26, 1938
to carry out its official cultural, social and educational program under
the leadership of Dr. Franz Basch. The nationalist opponents of the Volksbund
saw it is an affront to Hungary’s national interests if not treasonable
because of the organization’s stated opposition to assimilation.
Regent Horthy mistrusted both the organization and its leadership and kept
both under stick surveillance. He was simply providing window
dressing in order to court Adolph Hitler to achieve his own ends. It
was all part of the give-and-take nature of the relationship between
Hitler and Horthy, Germany and Hungary. The Munich Agreement signed
September 29, 1938 had provided the incentive for his decision.
While the word waited anxiously, as the major European Powers met with
Hitler and attempted to negotiate the Sudeten Crisis in
Czechoslovakia, Regent Horthy bided his time at home. He had been
personally affronted and stung by Hitler’s barbed comment directed at
him during his state visit to Germany earlier in August. Horthy had
expressed reluctance to provide troops for Hitler’s planned take-over of
Czechoslovakia in order for Hungary to annex its Lost Territories:
the southern counties of Slovakia, known as the Feldvidék and the
Carptho-Ukraine bordering Poland. He had indicated he was afraid to
risk war with the well-equipped Czechoslovakian army and hoped to regain
the territory through diplomatic means. At the time Hitler had
sneered, “If you want to share in the meal you must help in the
kitchen.” The two dictators had kept their distance ever since
although Horthy kept diplomatic channels open just in case.
With the total capitulation of the European Powers to Hitler’s demands
and the signing of the Munich Agreement, the subsequent rape of
Czechoslovakia followed in its wake.
The first step in what would lead to the total dismemberment of
Czechoslovakia took place at the Belvedere Palace in Vienna where
negotiators representing Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy met with
representatives from Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In addition to the
Hungarian Foreign Minister Kálman Kánya to represent him, Regent Horthy
had assigned then Minister of Education, Pál Count Teléki to state the
case for Hungary’s claims to its Lost Territories. On
November 2, 1938 the largely populated Feldvidék and the southern
portion of Carpatho-Ukraine were awarded to Hungary in what would become
known as the First Vienna Accords. Unopposed units of the Hungarian
Army completed the occupation of the newly awarded territories by November
10th. On the following day, Regent Horthy in his
full-dress naval uniform, seated on his white prancing charger made his
triumphant entry into Kassa the principal town in the region. He was
met there by adoring crowds of thousands as he officially welcomed one
million Magyars back home into the fold.
Going through the motions of officially permitting the organization of the
Volksbund two weeks later on November 26th was a small
price to pay for what Horthy had achieved and experienced that day in
vindication of his foreign policy. He later described it in his
diary, “As I passed along the roads, people embraced one another, fell
upon their knees and wept with joy because liberation had come to
them at last…”
Early in 1939, it was revealed to Horthy that his Prime Minister, Béla
Imredy, a well known pro-Fascist anti-Semite was in fact of Jewish
descent. He was immediately forced from office. Remembering
the outstanding work that Count Teléki had done during the negotiations
that had led to the Vienna Accord, the Regent appointed him his new Prime
Minister on February 15, 1939. Hungary joined the Anti Comintern
Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan and became part of the Axis on
February 24th and withdrew from the League of Nations a few
weeks later. Then as a further reward for marching lock-step with
the Nazi Führer and his policies, on March 19th Hitler gave the
green light for Horthy to order his army to occupy the northern portion of
the Carpatho-Ukriane up to the Polish border as Germany took over what
remained of Czechoslovakia by force.
Still not content with his recent acquisitions of territory, Horthy now
cast a covetous eye in the direction of Transylvania that Hungary had lost
to Romania. Its reunification with Hungary became central to his
foreign and domestic policies with the full support of a compliant Prime
Minister who was beginning to have reservations about the directions in
which Adolph Hitler was heading and began to caution the Regent in that
regard. Not gaining the kind of support he had hoped from Hitler for
the reacquisition of Transylvania and the bellicose response of the
Romanians to his demands by sending troops to its borders with Hungary,
Regent Horthy had second thoughts. It became the opportunity Prime
Minister Teléki had been awaiting and he persuaded him to steer a more
independent course for Hungary.
Prior to the launching of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939,
Hitler demanded that Horthy provide freedom of passage for his troops
through the Carpatho-Ukraine to attack Poland from the south. Teléki
convinced the Regent not to comply. Horthy declared Hungary was a
non-belligerent nation and refused to allow German forces to travel either
though or over Hungary. Budapest would await a response as Hitler
concentrated on defeating Poland, fully aware that the German dictator
would not rupture their relationship because of any possible affect on the
German minority and the aspirations the Führer had for using the Volksbund
to meet his own ends.
Franz
Basch: Volksbund
Dr.
Franz Basch the self-proclaimed university intellectual had been born in Zürich,
Switzerland on July 13, 1901 to a Swiss mother and a Swabian father from
the Banat. At the age of two, his family relocated to the Basch
family home in Hatzfeld, in that portion of the Banat that was originally
ceded to Yugoslavia in the Treaty of Trianon after World War One but later
became part of Romania. Because all of his preparatory studies for
university had been done within the framework of the Hungarian educational
system and the Hungarian language he opted to attend university in
Budapest both for practical and career related reasons and cast his lot
with whatever the future held for Hungary his newly adopted homeland.
During his student days at university, he came under the influence of Dr.
Jakob Bleyer who was professor of German studies at the Jesuit operated
Peter Pazmany University in Budapest. Dr. Bleyer, like Basch
himself, had been born in what became Yugoslavia but had chosen to remain
with Hungary and had been part of the first Horthy government in which he
served as Minister of Minorities a position from which he resigned due to
pressures from the nationalists who did not believe he could be trusted
because of his desire to ensure the rights of the German minority.
Returning to a career in the academic world he focused his attention on
the preservation of the history, culture, traditions and language of the
German minority in Hungary. In order to accomplish this goal he and
his close associates mostly fellow academics from within the German
minority promoted the formation of local educational societies in the
Swabian villages to carry out the program by establishing libraries,
dancing groups, choirs, youth events, gatherings and folk festivals to
celebrate their heritage. Together these local societies formed the
membership of the government approved, Ungarländische Deutsche
Volksbildungverein (UDV) of which he was the president. (The
Germans of Hungary Educational Society)
Franz Basch joined the student and scholarly circle gathered around Dr.
Bleyer and was soon brought to his personal attention. Bleyer was
impressed with him not because of his intellectual brilliance but because
of what Bleyer described as his energetic personality; his intensity; his
grasp of issues and fiery magnetism. He became the professor’s
protégé and was groomed for a future leadership role in the
movement as his heir apparent. After receiving his Doctor of
Philosophy degree and teaching diploma at Budapest University he assumed
the functions of the General Secretary of the UDV until the death
of Jakob Bleyer in 1933. He was almost immediately forced out of his
position by Gustav Gratz who had succeeded Bleyer to the presidency, who
charged Basch with fomenting discord within the organization because of
his radicalizing tendencies.
In his previous position he had become the self-styled spokesman for the
younger more radical elements within the movement who were impatient with
the slow pace of progress being made under the older conservative
leadership. They demanded an active political role for the
organization in confronting the Hungarian government and its minority
policies and achieving more autonomy for the German minority and securing
the rights guaranteed to them in the Treaty of Versailles. This went
far beyond Bleyer’s original intentions and his policy of working in
close harmony with the Hungarian state as much as possible.
Basch’s ongoing attacks against Hungary’s assimilation policies led to
a backlash within the organization that led to the forming of factions and
a parting of the ways with the young radicals who sought another forum to
achieve their aims.
Basch would eventually come into his own in 1934 while speaking at an UDV
event in Bátaapáti, a German Lutheran community in Tolna County,
where he railed against the government legislation calling for the Maygarization
of German family names. He publicly declared, “Whoever does
not honour his father’s name is not worthy of his ancestors and betrays
them.” This comment was picked up by the Hungarian press and seen
as traitorous and he was vilified all across the country. He was put
on trial for slandering the honour of the Hungarian people and for
bringing contempt on Hungary in the eyes of the world. After serving
a three-month prison sentence, he and his fellow radicals continued in
their agitation within the UDV but with limited success.
Making a second public denunciation of the name changing legislation again
in 1936 he was put on trial and sentenced to five months in prison.
In order to disassociate itself from Basch’s anti-government
pronouncements, the General Assembly of the UDV met on August 2,
1936 and formally expelled Franz Basch and his followers from its
membership.
As a result of his second imprisonment and the action taken by the UDV,
Franz Basch came to the attention of the Nazi leadership in Germany.
Overnight, he was lionized in the German press as the victimized Führer
of the German minority in Hungary and through official Reich
intervention he was released from prison early in 1937 and later pardoned.
Nazi officialdom saw the value in promoting Basch and his associates as
the legitimate spokesmen for the German minority in Hungary in their
future dealings with the Hungarian government. But, he would require
mentoring for the task, consistent with Nazi objectives both
for the German minority and Hungary and the advancement of National
Socialism. They would discover in Franz Basch an apt and willing
learner.
In a sense, National Socialism came naturally to him and his close
associates who saw within its ideology the thrust and impetus they needed
to achieve their goals in Hungary. In their eyes the German minority
was simply part of the Reich living in Hungary and that met a responsive
chord within the Nazi leadership who offered the financial support and
political clout and foreign intervention that could help them achieve
their ends. The anti-Semitism of Jakob Bleyer and his leading
followers within the UDV was almost legendary and was fertile soil
for the racial policies of Nazism that Basch and his circle fully embraced
as they began to shape and form a new Society that would become the Volksdeutsche
Kameradschaft (The Folk German Brotherhood) to rival the UDV and
did so without government sanction and was therefore illegal. Hand
in hand with Basch’s efforts to enlist the support of the German
minority to his cause, representatives and agencies within the German
Reich government worked to promote the legitimacy of Basch and his
fledgling movement with the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior responsible
for affairs related to the Germany minority beginning early in 1937.
They
agreed to turn a blind eye to the illegal activities of the Kameradschaft
that began to disrupt life in the Swabian communities as rival
factions began to form. Horthy welcomed this schism in the ranks of
the UDV. He saw it as a sign of its imminent demise and was prepared
to simply let matters run their own course.
While the Hungarian negotiators participated in the discussions that would
lead to the Vienna Accords in early November 1938, Franz Basch was
summoned to Germany for discussions with the Nazi establishment to
finalize the formal documents outlining the goals and objectives for a new
organization to represent the German minority in Hungary.
Negotiations had been ongoing and Basch had become a familiar face to all
concerned and his judgment related to Hungarian affairs was respected.
At his suggestion they accepted the focus of the organization be placed on
the cultural aspirations of the German minority for now and all
references to any political role be avoided except for his pet project:
the recognition of the organization as the representative of the
German nation in Hungary. It was the only stipulation with
which Horthy would not concur because he saw it as an infringement on
Hungarian sovereignty over its German citizens. Basch was prepared
to wait for a more propitious opportunity to present itself in the future.
The Horthy government on November 21, 1938 officially sanctioned the
organization of the Volksburnd der Deutschen in Ungarn and its goals and
objectives were submitted to the Ministry of Interior for approval.
The announcement was met with newspaper headlines calling for the
deportation and expulsion of the entire German minority as the only
credible solution to Hungary’s nationalities problem. Meanwhile,
five days later on November 26th the constituting assembly of
the Volksbund with seven hundred persons present took place in
Budapest. Franz Basch was the keynote speaker. He was clear in
telling his listeners that their new organization marked a total break
with the past and everything associated with the UDV and they would
strive for the cultural autonomy they needed to achieve their wider goals
in concert with and through the support of the German Reich
government.
On December 23, 1938 the UDV officially went out of existence.
All of its local branches were disbanded and their activities and programs
were brought to an abrupt halt. The Volksbund now had the
field all to itself and was fully prepared to fill the vacuum. The
focus of their efforts now shifted to the insular and sometimes isolated
villages where the vast majority of the German minority lived all across
Hungary. It was only natural that Franz Basch would first set his
sights on those in Swabian Turkey where the highest concentration of
Swabians was to be found in all of Hungary. In going there he also
know of the divisions, conflicts and bad feelings that were already
tearing many of these communities apart as the villagers struggled with
the question of what it meant to be an ethnic German living in Hungary and
what it would mean for the future.
The village of Cikó is situated in the heartland of Swabian Turkey in
southern Tolna County, located among its lofty forested hills that provide
a panoramic view of the market town of Bonyhád only six kilometers in the
distance. On April 30, 1939 a festival was held there to celebrate
the formation of the Volksbund with an estimated thirty thousand
participants present, at least according to “Deutsche Volksbote”
which was the Volksbund newspaper whose publication costs were
bourn by the German Reich. Other estimates were more modest and in
the neighbourhood of eight thousand five hundred.
The local inhabitants had to undertake the organization and make
preparations for the event and from the outset they were beset with
difficulties. The nearby town of Bonyhád was the centre of
opposition to the Volksbund and many of its leading citizens were
calling for the creation of a movement among the German minority to
demonstrate their loyalty to Hungary and repudiate the aspirations of the Volksbund
and discouraged participation in the event. There was also local
opposition in Cikó, coming chiefly from among the older generations and
the landowning families. Weeks before the planned event the local
supporters of the Volksbund prepared banners, flags and
decorations. They were mysteriously destroyed and after new ones
were assembled they were guarded night and day by a group of local youth
until the day of the assembly. Fights brought out in the local Wirtshaus
(tavern) among the rival groups; heated arguments took place between
neighbours; extended families were torn apart; lifetime friendships were
destroyed. Cikó’s Dorfgemeinschaft (village sense of
community) was unraveling. This kind of strife and disunity among
its inhabitants had been totally unknown in the two hundred and thirty
year history of the village.
The vast majority of the participants that converged on Cikó for the
festival came from the southern districts of Swabian Turkey. On
their arrival, others greeted them with shouts of: “Heil!”
They called one another “Volkskamerad” and many wore the
official uniform adopted by the Volksbund or that worn by the UDV
in the past. After Basch and the other leading Volksbund
dignitaries arrived the assembly attended Mass. An outdoor band
concern followed in the afternoon and then the local groups who were
represented marched in formation carrying their Volksbund flags led
by two Hungarian flags and passed by the reviewing stand where the Volksbund
leaders stood and raised their right arms in the “German salute”.
Then the speeches followed.
Before it was Basch’s turn to address the assembly two telegrams were
read. The first was from Regent Horthy who expressed his personal
good wishes and every success to the Volksbund and the role it
would play in the life of Hungary. The other was from the Prime
Minister who encouraged them in their cultural aspirations and continued
loyalty to the Hungarian state. Basch and his cohorts were only too
well aware of both men’s actual attitudes towards them but knew their
hands were tied in order to maintain their current close relationship with
Hitler and his regime.
For Basch’s part he reciprocated and expressed his personal loyalty to
Hungary and its government waxing eloquent about his greater loyalty to
the Volk (using that loaded word with all of its racial
implications) and their Hungarian Fatherland. Both of which he
claimed had produced the need to form the Volksbund. He also
spoke of his deep respect for Adolph Hitler, the Führer of their
German Motherland who was the greatest friend that their Hungarian
Fatherland could ever have. The Volksbund would become the
bridge forever connecting their Fatherland and Motherland.
Later in the day, the local Volksbund organization was formed in
Cikó, the first in all of Hungary. Within the week there were
almost one thousand members; an executive was elected and positions of
responsibility were assigned. With no government interference to
worry about, plans were immediately drawn up by Basch to inaugurate a
massive membership drive beginning in the fall once the harvest was in.
That changed quickly following the German invasion of Poland and
declaration of war by Britain and France.
Adolph Hitler addressed the German Reichstag following the quick
defeat of Poland on October 6, 1939. In his rambling speech he went
on interminably vindicating Germany’s response to Poland’s unprovoked
attack along the German frontier that had been repulsed by an
avenging German Army fighting against great odds. He must have
stretched the limits of his own imagination to have concocted the scenario
he presented to the German people and the rest of the world for the
unprovoked invasion and subjugation of Poland that had fallen quickly to
the double thrust of German and Russian aggression.
He ended his diatribe outlining the next five steps that would have to be
taken after the collapse of Poland with short statements on establishing
new boundaries; bringing peace and order; maintaining security and
restoring economic life. Then he added a fifth urgent step that had
to be taken in future that I am certain immediately had the full attention
of both Regent Horthy and Franz Basch.
Hitler went on to say: “The most important task, however, is to
establish a new set of racial conditions, that is to say, through the resettlement
of nationalities in such a manner that the process ultimately results in
obtaining better defined borders than in the present case. The
problem is not simply restricted to the particular sphere of Poland but of
a task with far wider implications both for Eastern and Southern Europe
which are to a great extent inhabited by various splinter groups of
German nationality, whose existence can no longer be assured or
maintained.”
I can imagine Regent Horthy snap: “Repeat that!” to his
interpreter hardly able to believe what he had just heard. While I
can imagine Franz Basch turn green.
Hitler continued: “Their very existence is the reason and cause
for continued international disturbances. In this age of the
principle of nationalities and of racial ideals it is utopian to believe
that members of a highly developed people can be assimilated without
trouble. It is essential for a farsighted ordering of the life of
Europe that a resettlement be undertaken to remove at least part of
the cause for future European conflicts.”
Regent Horthy had just heard Hitler propose the final solution to
Hungary’s Swabian problem: resettlement elsewhere.
For his part, Franz Basch was totally aghast. Once the Swabian
population in Hungary heard of Hitler’s plan to resettle and remove them
from their beloved Heimat it would unleash unrest in the villages
and raise hostility against him and the Volksbund for aiding and
abetting Hitler in achieving his aims. If word got out it would
completely destroy the credibility of the Volksbund and would make
it impossible to accomplish its goals and those of the Third Reich.
It was all a terrible blunder!
The entire leadership of the Volksbund was in immediate panic mode.
They still hoped that time was on their side before the news filtered down
to the-less-than-well-informed Swabian villagers in their isolated rural
communities with few radios. Franz Basch was called upon to take
charge of damage control with both the Hungarian and Reich governments.
He appealed personally to officials in the Ministry of the Interior and
those close to the Regent to officially oppose such a proposed
resettlement of Hungary’s German citizens as interference in the
internal affairs of Hungary. Horthy instructed the Ministry not to
respond to his request. Franz Basch was informed unofficially that
the matter was Adolph Hitler’s issue and not that of the Hungarian
government. He should take his concerns directly to him. He
knew that to get a retraction on the part of the Führer was
impossible. He wrote hurriedly to Heinrich Himmler to ask Reich
officials to tone down the rhetoric and hopefully things would simply
settle down if there was simply less said about it in the future.
Himmler concurred with him but word was out in the scattered Swabian
communities and suspicions of complicity on the part of the Volksbund
were rampant across Hungary.
The threat of resettlement added renewed impetus for action on the part of
those who opposed the Volksbund and gave birth to the Treu Zur
Heimat Bewegung (Loyal to the Homeland Movement) that came to birth in
Bonyhád to thwart the efforts and plans of the Volksbund.
The Volk Kampf was now about to begin throughout the nation.
Regent Horthy waited until early November before responding to the Reichstag
speech. He wrote personally to Hitler indicating his gratitude for
the proposed resettlement of the German population of Hungary because it
would stabilize what could have otherwise become a volatile situation.
After writing he informed the Ministry of the Interior he indicated the
need to make plans for future land reform in order to entice Magyars
living outside of Hungary to return home by offering them the land,
livestock, homes and property of the Swabians after their resettlement.
In a reflective moment he commented that he could finally be able to
change the face of Swabian Turkey and make it Magyar once more and do the
same in other parts of the country.
Prelude to War:
With the beginning of 1940, as Hitler secured his position in the West,
Horthy cast his covetous eyes in the direction of Transylvania once again.
By July, Horthy was prepared to launch an invasion and sent military and
diplomatic officials to Munich to meet with the representatives of the
Axis Powers to obtain their blessing. Both Italy and Germany held
back from becoming diplomatic umpires between the two belligerents who saw
both Hungary and Romania essential to their own plans. Nor did
Hitler want to rock the boat with the Romania in order to safeguard his
interests in the German minority that included both the Transylvania
Saxons and the Banat and Sathmar Swabians. He offered a compromise
allowing Hungary to annex the northern portion of Transylvania and giving
Romania the green light to annex a portion of disputed territory with
Bulgaria. The compromises were offered while he carried a big stick;
his military might that intimidated his allies. Hungary added 44,000
square miles to its territories along with 2,700,000 inhabitants.
The vast majority were Hungarians but also included 50,000 Transylvania
Saxons and an equal number of Sathmar Swabians. Horthy made another
excursion into liberated Lost Territories to the acclaim and
adoration of over 1,5000,000 Magyar compatriots. This fortified
Hungary’s revisionist dream, even if only partially.
This was ratified at a meeting at the Belvedere Palace in Vienna on August
30, 1940 and would become known as the Second Vienna Accords. Less
noticed than the recent land acquisitions of Hungary detailed in the
agreement at the expense of Romania was the wording of that part of the
agreement that would regulate the relationship of the German minority in
Hungary with the Reich. In fact, the matter had never been discussed
and the Hungarian delegation was taken off guard and felt under duress
when forced to act. The Prime Minister Teléki threatened suicide
unless it was reworded. They were able change some of the wording to
lessen the impact of the proposed rights of the Volksbund in
Hungary and allow the members to espouse and promote National Socialism
The inclusion of these stipulations in the Accord was a result of goals
that the Reich authorities had decided upon for the ethnic German
minorities in South and Eastern Europe and for which the department:
Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle had been established by Hitler on
July 2, 1938 and was part of the SS apparatus. The purpose of the VOMI
as it was called under the leadership of Rudolph Hess and later Heinrich
Himmler was to transform the various German Volk group
organizations into a functioning instrument of the Nazi Party and its
program. In other words, said less prosaically, in future they would
become the vehicle for the recruitment of canon fodder for the Nazi war
effort.
As a result of the Accord the Hungarian government was forced to
acknowledge that the Volksbund was the only legitimate
representative of the German minority in Hungary and they had the right to
acknowledge themselves as a distinct national group within Hungary.
Theoretically they had established an organization that included all
Germans in Hungary and membership meant to adopt the National Socialist
worldview. Basch was well aware that the Reich had no intention of
helping the Volksbund achieve its cultural goals but was to act as
an outpost of the Reich. It must be understood by us that the force
of the Accord in terms of the German minority in Hungary was not in
response to their wishes but rather a furthering of the interests of the
Third Reich. The Hungarian Prime Minister and other government
officials saw the concessions in the Accord as an infringement on
Hungarian sovereignty and led to fierce debate in parliament about the
appropriateness of collective rights for the German minority…a state
within a state. But that did not resonate well as Hungarian foreign
policy drew it closer to the Reich. A whole range of economic and
trade agreements were quickly put into effect much to Hungary’s benefit
and the Volksbund and its activities slipped under the radar as it
pushed its agenda of membership recruitment so that by the end of 1940
there were 95 local groups made up of some 75,000 members.
But Basch’s activities and energy had to be redirected to deal with a
new problem. How to incorporate the Transylvania Saxons and Sathmar
Swabians into the Volksbund when they brought new dynamics into
play because of the relative autonomy they had enjoyed under
more benevolent Romanian rule operating a whole complex of German
educational institutions, at every age level up to university and
technical schools had been developed by the Saxons unlike their Swabian
compatriots in Hungary whose young people were practically functionally
illiterate in the German language. The Saxons had political
aspirations and their own political party, which would have been unheard
of in Hungary. They were not prepared to accept Basch’s leadership
and tried to take an independent course to safeguard their rights and
privileges, as they had known them under the Romanians. These were a
few of the dynamics that were beginning to surface among the various
Danube Swabian and German groups in response to the different governmental
policies in the jurisdictions in which they lived.
To make matters worse the Fidelity movement: Loyal to the
Homeland that had its beginnings in Bonyhad was spreading
especially in Swabian Turkey following the news of Hitler’s announcement
of resettlement. There was a similar movement emerging in the
numerous Swabian enclaves around Budapest. Basch had his hands full
and ideology was now the least of his worries as he began to feel pressure
to provide volunteers to serve in the German Wehrmacht and Waffen
SS. He was hesitant to support such a move because it would
mean a citizen of Hungary would have to swear allegiance to a foreign Head
of State. In most places that would be known as treason. The
implications were mind-boggling and yet several hundred young men had been
enticed to go to Germany to participate in sports event and would end up
on the battlefront with their families unaware of what became of them.
It was a foretaste of things to come. Clandestine recruitment of
volunteers for the German military would be ongoing.
For some time Hitler had been courting the Yugoslavian Government’s
participation in the Tripartite Pact, which their foreign minister signed
on March 26, 1941 in Vienna. On his return to Belgrade he found that
a bloodless military coup d’état had taken place that
rejected the alliance and accepted a British guarantee of its security
instead. Hitler feared his southern flank would be
exposed while already preparing his Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of
Russia, the following year. A military operation against the
recalcitrant Yugoslavs was planned immediately. The Hungarian
ambassador in Berlin was sent home by air with a message for Regent Horthy:
“Yugoslavia will be annihilated, for she has just renounced publicly the
policy of understanding with the Axis. The great part of the German
armed forces must pass through Hungary but the principal attack will not
be made on the Hungarian sector. Here the Hungarian
Army should intervene, and, in return for its co-operation, Hungary will
be able to reoccupy all those former territories, which she had
been forced at one time to cede to Yugoslavia. The matter is urgent.
An immediate and affirmative reply is requested.”
An offer like this was hard to turn down to a revisionist dreamer like
Horthy but his Prime Minister would not assent to the invasion because
Hungary had signed a Treaty of Eternal Friendship with Yugoslavia in
December of the previous year. He cautioned the Regent to remain out
of the conflict unless the Hungarian minority in Yugoslavia was in some
kind of danger. The vision of Lost Territories
returning to the bosom of Hungary was too much of a temptation for Regent
Horthy to resist. But as always he was hesitant to commit any troops
but the Hungarian military was prepared to act and without any government
approval General Werth, Chief of Staff of the Hungarian Army made a
private agreement with the German High Command for the transport of German
troops across Hungary. Teléki denounced the General for treason.
When the aging Prime Minister received the news that the German Army had
just started its March into Hungary on the night of April 3, 1941 he
committed suicide. On April 6th Germany launched its
invasion of Yugoslavia and in eleven days the war was over.
Once hostilities were over the Hungarian Army occupied the Batschka in
lieu of its co-operation in the war effort but was denied control of the
Western Banat, which remained under the jurisdiction of the German Army,
and they were promised that it would later be ceded to Hungary.
Croatia had declared its independence with Hitler’s support so there was
no likelihood that it would return to Hungary in the near future.
Hitler retained control of the Western Banat to punish Horthy for his
refusal to send his troops into battle. The local German minority in
the Batschka were shocked by the arrival and occupation by Hungarian
troops and they were unwelcome in their villages and their leaders made no
bones about it. Franz Basch and the Volksbund attempted to
take control of the Swabian Cultural Association that had been established
and developed in Yugoslavia and it took Reich persuasion to enable him to
do so over the objections of the Batschka Swabian leadership and those in
the Banat and Croatia were able to assert their independence. In
future the Swabians in the Batschka and those in Hungary would share many
similar experiences because of the Volksbund.
To his chagrin Basch discovered that because of their past experiences
under the Yugoslavian government and the advances they had made in terms
of their language rights, schools, the development of their own political
party and a cultural association the Batschka Swabians were not prepared
to take a back seat to Basch’s leadership. They too had won young
“Renewers” as they were called who were infected with National
Socialism and were impatient with Basch because of what they saw was his
subservient role when it came to direct relationships with the Hungarian
Government and his sometimes lackluster pronouncements that did not
satisfy the convinced Nazis.
The
Die Is Cast:
In early 1942, the Hungarian government responded favourably to the
proposal made by the VOMI that Franz Basch act as the Führer
of the expanded Volksbund in all of the territories that now made
up “Greater Hungary”. They also provided economic, educational
and cultural incentives as part of the agreement. They requested
only one additional concession on Hungary’s part; permission for the
young men in the German minority to fulfill their military duty by serving
in the German Wehrmacht or the Waffen SS.
Surprisingly, the Hungarian Prime Minister who had always been seen as
being pro-German rejected the proposal. The radicals in the Volksbund
were outraged and demanded action on Basch’s part. In the
meanwhile, the German ambassador in Budapest instructed Basch to tone down
any criticism of the Hungarian government action and restrain his members
to avoid endangering Hungarian-German relations.
Unfortunately, Franz Basch did not listen but took up the cause based on
the “Führer principle” that he was above taking advice
from anyone. He attacked the Hungarian government publicly in a
speech reported in the press. The Reich ambassador was called in to
the Prime Minister’s office and he received a dressing down for the
actions of Basch and the Volksbund. The VOMI informed
Basch to co-operate because the invasion of Russia was just around the
corner and Hitler needed Hungarian support, both economic and military to
accomplish that. He further added it was time that the German
minority picked up the tab for past support by the Reich. In April
of 1942 a direct agreement was signed by Hitler with the Hungarian
government, that the Volksbund be authorized to carry out a
recruitment drive among the men of the German minority for volunteers to
serve in the Waffen SS. There was however a caveat:
the volunteers had to be members of the Volksbund and would lose
their Hungarian citizenship by doing so. It was assumed that meant
that they would receive Reich citizenship in return but that never
materialized. Over 25,000 reported to the recruitment centers and
7,500 were accepted into the SS and 10,200 were taken into the Wehrmacht.
Almost 10,000 of the volunteers came from the Batschka where the drive had
been most successful.
The reaction in the Swabian villages was mixed and there was an obvious
decline in enthusiasm for the Reich and its war effort because of the way
the recruitment had been carried out in some communities where coercion
was used on the young men. The Volksbund suffered membership
losses and the Loyalty Movement and its growing success outraged Basch and
his associates. It’s counter-propaganda cost the Volksbund
thousands of members and the support of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran
clergy played an important part in holding the Volksbund
accountable for its anti-Hungarian agitation. In Tolna and Baranya
the heartland of Swabian Turkey the Loyalty Movement had already attracted
10,000 members. In corresponding with the VOMI, Franz Basch
now recommended the introduction of compulsory conscription into the
German armed forces.
In an attempt to counteract the charges of the Loyalty Movement the Volksbund
in the mind of the Swabian public, Basch and his associates all
professed to be Hungarian patriots. Basch ordered that all local
branches of the organization put up pictures of Regent Horthy next to that
Adolph Hitler and always include Hungarian flags in parades at all Volksbund
events. In response, the leaders of the Loyalty Movement issued a
challenge to Basch and his cohorts to volunteer for the SS
themselves.
On June 22, 1942 Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa the invasion of
Soviet Russia. A force of 4,500,000 men streamed across the frontier
into Mother Russia including units from Finland, Croatia, Romania,
Slovakia, Italy along with the Waffen SS and German Wehrmacht
as the Luftwaffe flew overhead. Four days later, Regent
Horthy finally yielded to Hitler’s demands and on June 27th
declared war on the Soviet Union. The Hungarian Second Army
consisting of 200,000 poorly armed and equipped troops joined in the
Crusade against Bolshevism. The die was cast and everything that
would follow had consequences for the German minority in Hungary that no
one had ever envisioned except for Adolph Hitler himself. The
expulsion of the German population of Hungary at war’s end was the
direct result of three men meeting in Potsdam to redraw the map of Europe
once more. But then that’s another story for another time.
I was six and one half years old living at 23 Oak Street in Kitchener,
Ontario in Canada on the night it was announced that Hungary had entered
the Second World War. As usual my father and Uncle Adam were huddled
around the shortwave radio for the nightly report from the BBC, Dr. Joseph
Goebbels shrieking from Radio Berlin and at eight o’clock as usual it
was time for Gabriel Heatter. I remember that night he did not begin
his program with his familiar trademark introduction: “There’s
good news tonight!” He used that to boost the morale of his
listeners in those very dark days of the Second World War. Instead
he began by saying; “There’s bad news tonight for all of the people of
Hungary and what is now in store for them…”
From
the expressions on the face of my father and uncle I knew they were
apprehensive about what they were about to hear but little did we know
then that this was the beginning of the end…for the Children of the
Danube and the world they had known.
September
2010
|
