Horthy’s Broadcast, and the German Move on Budapest

Early on 15 October 1944, Otto Skorzeny and German troops seized Miklós Horthy Jr. at a meeting in Budapest. The younger Horthy had been led to expect envoys of Josip Broz Tito; instead, Skorzeny’s men attacked him, bound him in a carpet and took him to Vienna. He was then transported to Mauthausen concentration camp. The kidnapping removed Horthy’s son from the negotiations and gave the Germans a direct means of pressure on the Regent.

Horthy had been negotiating with Soviet forces through General Béla Miklós, seeking an end to Hungary’s participation in the war while preserving the government’s autonomy. At 2:00 p.m., he announced in a national radio broadcast that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviets. He also declared that hostilities against them would cease. The announcement put his break with Germany into the open; it did not put him in control of the radio station for long.

The Germans had already set plans in motion to replace Horthy’s government. With Nazi support, members of the Arrow Cross Party seized the station shortly after the broadcast. A party member prepared a counter-proclamation, transmitted under the name of General János Vörös, chief of the Hungarian Army’s General Staff. The commanding officers of the two Hungarian army units remaining in Budapest were arrested or disappeared, and their soldiers fell in line with the Arrow Cross. The political counterstroke arrived with unusual speed. It had, after all, been prepared in advance.

Later on 15 October, Edmund Veesenmayer and his staff took Horthy into custody. Horthy ordered that no resistance be made. Early on 16 October, Skorzeny led German troops and four Tiger II tanks to the Vienna Gate of Castle Hill, the seat of government. One Hungarian unit did not receive the order and fought the Germans for about 30 minutes.

On 16 October, back at the palace, Horthy was asked to sign a statement renouncing the armistice and abdicating in favour of Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi. Prime Minister Géza Lakatos told him that his son’s life was at stake; Horthy signed. The broadcast had announced a break with Germany, but within a day German force stood behind a new government, and Horthy was no longer in power.