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Hungarian occupation of Yugoslav territories

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The Hungarian occupation of Bačka and Baranja was the military occupation and annexation of the Bačka and Baranja regions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by Hungary during World War II. Yugoslav Bačka is now part of Vojvodina, an autonomous province of Serbia, and Yugoslav Baranja is part of modern-day Croatia. The occupation commenced on 11 April 1941 when 80,000 Hungarian troops crossed the Yugoslav border in support of the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia that had commenced five days earlier. There was some resistance to the Hungarian forces from Serb Chetnik irregulars, but the defences of the Royal Yugoslav Army had collapsed by this time. The Hungarian forces were indirectly aided by the local Volksdeutsche minority, which had formed a militia and disarmed around 90,000 Yugoslav troops. Despite the very limited resistance, Hungarian troops killed approximately 3,500 civilians during these initial operations, including some ethnic Germans.

The occupation authorities immediately classified the population into those that had lived in the occupied territories when they had last been under Hungarian rule in 1920 and the mostly Serb settlers who had arrived since the areas had been part of Yugoslavia. They then began collecting thousands of Serb members of the population into concentration camps and expelled them to the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, Independent State of Croatia and Montenegro, ultimately expelling 47,000–60,000 Serbs from these territories. This was followed by the implementation of a policy of "magyarisation" of the political, social and economic life of the occupied territories, which included the re-settlement in Bačka and Baranja of 15,000–18,000 Hungarians and Székelys from other parts of Hungary. "Magyarisation" did not impact the Volksdeutsche, who received special status under Hungarian rule.

Small scale armed resistance to the Hungarian occupation commenced in the latter half of 1941 and was answered with brutal repression. The insurgency was to a large extent concentrated in the ethnic-Serb area of southern Bačka in the Šajkaška region, where Hungarian forces brutally avenged their losses. In August a civilian administration took over the government of the so–called "Southern Territories" (Template:Lang-hu), and they were formally annexed to Hungary in December. In January 1942 the Hungarian military conducted raids during which they killed 2,550 Serbs, 743 Jews and 47 other people in such places as Bečej, Srbobran and Novi Sad.

In March 1944, when Hungary realised that it was on the losing side in the war and began to negotiate with the Allies, Germany took control of the country, including Bačka and Baranja, during Operation Margarethe I. Prior to their withdrawal from the Balkans in the face of the advance of the Soviet Red Army, the Germans evacuated 60,000–70,000 Volksdeutsche from Bačka and Baranja to Austria. Bačka and Baranja reverted to Yugoslav control when the Germans were pushed out of the region by the Red Army in late 1944.

Background

Main article: History of Vojvodina

At the Paris Peace Conference following the conclusion of World War I, the Entente Powers signed the Treaty of Trianon with the restored Kingdom of Hungary. Among other things, the treaty defined the border between Hungary and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), and divided the regions of Bačka and Baranja between Hungary, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and Romania. Sizable Hungarian and German minorities remained in the areas incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. During the inter-war years Hungary agitated for a revision of the borders in the Bačka and Baranja regions in its favour, and relations between these countries were greatly strained until 1940. In December 1940, the two countries signed a treaty of perpetual amity declaring perpetual peace and eternal friendship between them.

Ethnographic overview of the regions of Bačka and Baranja in 1931. Areas with an ethnic Hungarian majority in green. Areas with a Serbian and/or Croatian majority in yellow

In 1931, the population of Yugoslav Bačka and Baranja was 837,742, comprising 784,896 in Bačka and 52,846 in Baranja. According to the 1931 census, the population of Yugoslav Bačka consisted of 259,351 Hungarians (33%), 178,849 Volksdeutsche (23%), 144,241 Serbs (18%) and small numbers of other minorities including Croats. The population of Yugoslav Baranja consisted of 16,059 Volksdeutsche (30%), 15,663 Hungarians (30%), 6,060 Serbs (11%) and 1,893 Croats (3.6%). In the two regions combined, Hungarians made up 33% of the population, with Volksdeutsche making up 23%, and Serbs comprising 18%.

Between 1938 and 1940, following German-Italian mediation in the First Vienna Award and the Second Vienna Award and the Hungarian invasion of Carpatho-Ukraine, Hungary enlarged its borders. Hungary absorbed parts of southern Czechoslovakia, Carpathian Ruthenia and the northern part of Transylvania, which the Kingdom of Romania ceded. One of the ethno–cultural areas that changed hands between Romania and Hungary at this time was the Székely Land. Due to the support Hungary received from Germany for these border revisions, Hungary established even closer relations with Germany. On 20 November 1940, Hungary formally joined the Axis Tripartite Pact. On 12 December 1940, at the initiative of the Prime Minister, Count Pál Teleki, Hungary concluded a friendship and non-aggression treaty with Yugoslavia. Although the concept had received support from both Germany and Italy, the actual signing of the treaty did not. Germany was preparing an attack on Greece, and the invasion would be made easier by the neutralisation of Yugoslavia. After the Yugoslav military coup of 27 March 1941, Pál Teleki was unable to stop the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Miklós Horthy from granting permission to the Germans to cross Hungarian territory in order to invade Yugoslavia. Teleki concluded that his country had disgraced itself by siding with the Germans against the Yugoslavs, and shot himself. The new Prime Minister of Hungary, László Bárdossy, ordered the Hungarian army to occupy Bačka and Baranja.

Invasion

Main article: Invasion of Yugoslavia

On 10 April 1941, Horthy issued a declaration to the effect that Hungary had to ensure the welfare of the lands it had lost in the Treaty of Trianon. The following day, under the pretext of protecting the Hungarian minority in Bačka and Baranja, the Hungarian 3rd Army occupied those regions of Yugoslavia with the Mobile, IV and V Corps and with I & VII Corps in reserve.

The rapid maneuvers of the German army during the invasion had forced the tactical withdrawal of Yugoslav forces facing Hungarian army units and there was no significant fighting between the two armies. The Hungarian forces advanced south to the Danube between Vukovar and the confluence with the Tisza without any real military resistance. The Hungarian General Staff considered irregular resistance forces to be their only significant opposition.

On 12 April, the Hungarian 1st Parachute Battalion captured canal bridges at Vrbas and Srbobran. Meanwhile, Sombor was captured against determined Chetnik resistance, and Subotica was also captured. The following day, the 1st and 2nd Motorized Brigades occupied Novi Sad, then pushed south across the Danube into the northern part of Croatian Syrmia capturing Vinkovci and Vukovar on 18 April. These brigades then drove south–east to capture the western Serbian town of Valjevo a day later. Other Hungarian forces occupied the Yugoslavian regions of Prekmurje and Međimurje. News of the success of the Hungarian armed forces in Yugoslavia were welcomed in the Hungarian Parliament.

Despite the very limited resistance, Hungarian troops killed approximately 3,500 civilians during these initial operations, including some ethnic Germans, and many more were arrested and tortured. On 14 April 1941, around 500 Jews and Serbs were bayoneted to death, probably as a warning to others not to resist.

While undergoing interrogation by the Americans after the war, Horthy falsely claimed that he had not wanted to invade Yugoslavia, but that his hand was forced by disorders and the massacre of the Hungarian minority in Bačka.

Geography

The Hungarian-occupied territory of Bačka consisted of that part of the Danube Banovina bounded by the former Hungarian-Yugoslav border to the north, the Danube to the south and west, and the Tisza to the west. The occupied territory of Baranja had also been part of the Danube Banovina, but was that area bounded by the former Hungarian-Yugoslav border to the north and west, the Drava to the west and south, and the Danube to the west.

Both Bačka and Baranja consist of flat, largely agricultural land of the Pannonian Plain.

Administration

At first, these territories were placed under military administration. The Hungarian authorities immediately introduced genocidal policies and endeavored to "magyarize" these territories. In the first two weeks of Hungarian rule, 10,000 Serbs were expelled to the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, Independent State of Croatia and Montenegro. Military rule remained in place until 16 August 1941, after which civil administration was introduced. On 14 December, these regions, referred to as the "Southern Territories" (Template:Lang-hu), were formally incorporated into Hungary and were given full representation in the Hungarian parliament. Although plans to deport 150,000 Serbs (including colonists from the interwar period, but also native inhabitants) to the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia were opposed by the German command in Belgrade, the Hungarian occupational regime did manage to expel 47,000–60,000 of them mostly to Serbia.

During the war, the Hungarian government resettled some of its pre-war population in Bačka and Baranja, primarily Székelys from areas of Transylvania ceded to Hungary by Romania in 1940. Between 15,000 and 18,000 were reportedly resettled in Bačka and Baranja.

The Hungarian authorities established concentration camps for Serbs from which they were eventually expelled to occupied Serbia. As part of "magyarisation", Hungarian political parties and patriotic organisations were encouraged to be active in Bačka and Baranja, which resulted in discrimination against "less–desirable elements" of the population such as Serbs, Croats and Jews. Discrimination extended to education and communication, where Hungarian and German were the only languages permitted in almost all secondary schools, and Serbo-Croat language books, newspapers and periodicals were virtually banned. Well–educated Serbs and Croats were basically excluded from appropriate employment. Despite this, Serbs and Croats that had lived in the territories prior to 1918 did retain their citizenship rights, and some lower–level non–Hungarian public employees were retained in their jobs. One former Serb senator and one former Croat parliamentary deputy sat in the Hungarian Parliament.

The Volksdeutsche of Bačka and Baranja were an economically strong minority that had been completely dominated by the influence of the Nazi Party by 1941. The shooting of some ethnic Germans by Hungarian forces during the initial occupation soured relations between the occupation authorities and the Volksdeutsche for some time, to the extent that the issue came to the attention of Adolf Hitler. They refused to be involved in the Hungarian administration, but were represented in the Hungarian Parliament and in 1942 were permitted to draft members of their community into the Wehrmacht. The official organisation of the Volksdeutsche in Hungary, the Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn was virtually a state within a state in Hungary during the war, including in Bačka and Baranja.

Districts

The occupied territory had all been part of the Danube Banovina of Yugoslavia before the war. Following the occupation, the Hungarian authorities divided the territory between two counties that corresponded with the administrative divisions when the area had formed part of the Kingdom of Hungary prior to 1920. These were the Bács-Bodrog County and Baranya County. The officials in these territories were appointed rather than elected. The counties were further divided into districts, and the authorities reverted many districts, cities and towns to the names used prior to 1920, and in some cases to names which had no historical precedent. Some examples of the name changes are shown below:

Districts of Bács-Bodrog County:

Name used by
Hungarian authorities 		Corresponding
Yugoslav name
Hódság Odžaci
Magyarkanizsa Stara Kanjiža
Óbecse Stari Bečej
Palánka Bačka Palanka
Topolya Bačka Topola
Újvidék Novi Sad
Zenta Senta
Zombor Sombor
Zsablya Žabalj


Cities:

Name used by
Hungarian authorities 		Corresponding
Yugoslav name
Szabadka Subotica
Újvidék Novi Sad
Zenta Senta
Zombor Sombor

The Holocaust in Bačka and Baranja

The Hungarian government had passed anti-Semitic laws in 1939, and these applied to Bačka and Baranja under occupation and annexation. Initially the laws were applied selectively due to the military then civilian administration changes. Some Jews that had settled in the territories were sent to Serbia where they were placed in the Banjica concentration camp in Belgrade and subsequently killed. Others were expelled to the Independent State of Croatia where they met the same fate, but it is unknown how many expelled Jews died in this way. After the violence of the initial occupation, no further massacres of Jews occurred during the remainder of 1941.

Forced labour was also used by the Hungarian authorities against the Jews of the occupied territories, with about 4,000 Bačka and Baranja Jews being sent to hard labour camps within Hungary, 1,500 Bačka Jews being among the 10,000 Hungarian Jews sent to perform labour tasks for the Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front in September 1942, and about 600 Bačka Jews sent to work in the Bor copper mine in Serbia in July 1943. Only 2 per cent of those sent to the Eastern Front survived the war.

After the occupation of Hungary by Germany in March 1944, the genocidal policies of the Hungarian authorities became comprehensive. Death marches, starvation and transfer to extermination camps were all used against Hungarian Jews. From 26 April 1944, the remaining Jews of Bačka and Baranja, mostly women, but including children and the elderly, were rounded up into local concentration camps then moved to larger camps in Hungary proper. Between 14,000 and 15,000 Jews from Bačka, Baranja and other parts of Hungary were collected at Baja and Bácsalmás then transported to Auschwitz where most were killed. In September 1944, the workforce of the Bor mine were forced marched for several weeks back to extermination camps where the survivors were killed. One of the two groups of workers numbered 2,500, but only a few survived.

Resistance and repression

Monument to the victims in Novi Sad

In Bačka and Baranja, the Volksdeutsche and Hungarian authorities contributed to significant losses amongst the local Serbs. After the resistance broke out in Hungarian-annexed Bačka and Baranja in the second half of 1941, the Hungarian military reacted with heavy repressive measures. These measures included the establishment of temporary concentration camps at Ada, Bačka Topola, Begeč, Odžaci, Bečej and Subotica, as well as at Novi Sad, Pechuj and Baja. About 2,000 Jews and a large number of Serbs were held in these camps for periods from two weeks to two months, usually followed by expulsion to the NDH or Serbia. The Partisans were never strong in Bačka and Baranja because the lowlands did not lend themselves to guerilla warfare, and because South Slavs only made up one third of the regional population. Some Partisan units raised in the occupied territories were sent to the NDH to reinforce Partisans formations operating there. Despite their initial resistance, the Chetnik movement was largely inactive during the occupation, maintaining some covert activity only. The Partisans and their regional committee had been largely destroyed by the end of 1941.

Less than a year of the beginning of the occupation, in January 1942, the Hungarian army and gendarmerie massacred more than 3,300 people in and around Novi Sad (called Újvidék by the occupation regime) on the excuse of searching for partisans. Raids were carried out in Šajkaška (Sajkásvidék) over 4–19 January; in Novi Sad (Újvidék) over 21–23 January; and in Bečej (Óbecse) over 25–29 January. Over the period 4–24 January, the Hungarian 15th Light Division commanded by Major General József Grassy and units of the Royal Gendarmerie killed 3,808 civilians, mainly Serbs and Jews. The operations were ordered by Lieutenant General Ferenc Feketehalmy-Czeydner, Grassy, Colonel László Deák and Royal Gendarmerie Captain Márton Zöldy, but, according to historian Zvonimir Golubović, they were planned by the highest military and civil officials of Hungary, including Chief of Staff Ferenc Szombathelyi, Minister of Internal Affairs Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer, Minister of People's Defense Károly Barta, President of the Hungarian government László Bárdossy, and Regent Horthy himself. With little evidence about the location and identity of the Yugoslav Partisans, the operation in Novi Sad (Újvidék) was carried out over a three-day period in the form of mostly random savagery that cost many lives. Victims of these raids were primarily Serbs and Jews, but also members of other ethnicities: Roma people, a small number of Russian refugees who had fled Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, and even some local Hungarians.

File:Novosadska racija 1942 1.jpg
Hungarian soldiers with victims of the January 1942 raids

In mid–1942, the Yugoslav government–in–exile reported that churches had been looted and destroyed, and that Serbian Orthodox holy days had been prohibited by the Hungarian administration. These reports stated that the Novi Sad camp held 13,000 Serb and Jewish men, women and children.

The liberation and aftermath

Monument of the 1942 raid victims near Žabalj

The occupation of Bačka and Baranja lasted until 1944. Fearing that Hungary might conclude a separate peace with the Allies, Hitler launched Operation Margarethe in March 1944, and ordered German troops to occupy Hungary. Several days after the Red Army entered the Banat on 1 October 1944, the German evacuation of Bačka, including the local Volksdeutsche, began. With the advance of the Partisans and the Soviet Red Army, some of the Germans of Bačka left from the region while some others stayed, despite the situation. In October 1944, Banat and Bačka were captured by Soviet troops. After a few weeks, they withdrew and ceded full control of the region to the Partisans. In November 1944, Josip Broz Tito declared that the Volksdeutsche of Yugoslavia were hostile to the nation, and ordered the internment of those Germans living in areas under Partisan control. About 60,000–70,000 Germans had been evacuated from Bačka; while an additional 30,000–60,000 Germans from Bačka were serving in the Wehrmacht at the time. Of the approximately 500,000 Volksdeutsche living in Yugoslavia before the war, about half were evacuated, 50,000 died in Yugoslavian concentration camps, 15,000 were killed by the Partisans and about 150,000 were deported to the Soviet Union as forced labourers. They were also stripped of their property. By 1948, only 55,337 Volksdeutsche remained in Yugoslavia. The first period of communist administration until the spring of 1945 was characterized by persecutions targeted against one part of the local population, with mass executions, internments and abuses. Victims of the communist regime were of different ethnic backgrounds and included some members of the Hungarian and German minority, but also members of the majority Serb population. Hungarian writer Tibor Cseres has described in detail the crimes he claims the Yugoslav communists committed against the Hungarian minority.

After the liberation of Yugoslavia, the military and national courts in Bačka prosecuted war criminals and traitors who during the period of occupation killed about 10–20,000 innocent men, women, and children from all parts of Bačka. The Security Service of Vojvodina captured the majority of these people. Meanwhile, some of those who were responsible for the genocide in southern Bačka were captured in, and extradited from, the newly-formed People's Republic of Hungary. Prof. Dr. Sándor Kaszás from Novi Sad University in his book Mađari u Vojvodini: 1941–1946 (Novi Sad, 1996) listed a total of 1,686 executed war criminals by name.

In accordance with the provisions of Article 14 of the Armistice Agreement, the Hungarian authorities extradited to Yugoslavia several top-ranking officers charged with complicity in the massacre of thousands of Serbs and Jews in the Bačka. The accused, including Gen Ferenc Szombathelyi, the former chief of the General Staff; Gen. Ferenc Feketehalmy-Czeydner, the commander of the Fifth Army Corps; Maj. Gen. József Grassy; and Capt. Márton Zöldi, were first tried in Hungary. The National Court of Hungary in Budapest found Ferenc Feketehalmy-Czeydner guilty as the main perpetrator of war crimes and sentenced him to death by hanging and the confiscation of his property.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Thomas & Szabo 2008, p. 14.
  2. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 137.
  3. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 169.
  4. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 170–171.
  5. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 138.
  6. ^ Kostanick 1963, p. 28.
  7. ^ Pavlowitch 2008, p. 84.
  8. Sajti 1987, p. 153.
  9. Kocsis & Hodosi 1998, p. 153.
  10. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 172.
  11. Tomasevich 2001, p. 173.
  12. Lemkin 2008, p. 261–262.
  13. Pearson 1996, p. 95.
  14. Ungváry 2011, p. 70.
  15. ^ Pogany 1997, p. 27.
  16. Frank 2001, p. 171.
  17. Eby 2007, p. 15.
  18. Coppa 2006, p. 115.
  19. Granville 2004, p. 102.
  20. Abbott, Thomas & Chappell 1982, p. 12.
  21. Wehler 1980, p. 50.
  22. Portmann 2007a, p. 76.
  23. Komjáthy 1993, p. 134.
  24. Cseres 1991, p. 61–65.
  25. ^ Mojzes 2011, p. 87.
  26. Tomasevich 2001, p. 62 & 169–170.
  27. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 172–173.
  28. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 170.
  29. Lemkin 2008, p. 261–263.
  30. Janjetović 2008, p. 156.
  31. Jordan 2009, p. 129.
  32. Mojzes 2011, p. 89–90.
  33. ^ Mojzes 2011, p. 90–91.
  34. Prpa–Jovanović 2000, p. 58.
  35. ^ Lemkin 2008, p. 263.
  36. Banac 1988, p. 107.
  37. Kádár & Vági 2004, p. 32.
  38. Golubović 1991, p. 221.
  39. Segel 2008, p. 25.
  40. Wolff 2000, p. 152.
  41. Ronen & Pelinka 1997, p. 59.
  42. ^ Ther & Sundhaussen 2001, p. 69.
  43. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 159.
  44. Ramet 2006, p. 137–8.
  45. Segel 2008, p. 26.
  46. ^ Klajn 2007, p. 133–136.
  47. Portmann 2007, p. 19. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPortmann2007 (help)
  48. Braham 2000, p. 36.

References

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