German Troops Occupy Hungary

On March 19, 1944, Nazi Germany occupied Hungary. Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany since November 1940, but by spring 1944, the alliance was under strain. Nazi Germany decided to occupy their ally Hungary for military reasons related to Hungary’s role in the ongoing war effort. Because the Hungarians quickly acquiesced to German demands, most German troops remained in Hungary for only a short period of time. 

One of Nazi Germany’s goals following the occupation of Hungary was to carry out the deportation and mass murder of Jews from Hungary. Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann and his team of deportation experts came to Budapest specifically to facilitate the process. In March 1944, there were between 760,000 and 780,000 Jews that lived in Hungary. This was the largest Jewish population still alive in Europe. Within the next year, Germans and their Hungarian collaborators murdered about 500,000 Jews from Hungary.