Horthy - war criminal ?

Why are you so interested in my private opinion?
To give you a hint, my opinion is based on facts, not sentiments.

Let's talk facts, not feelings, shall we?

Gen. Dénes

Ok, if your opinion is based on facts not on sentiments then you should think he was a war criminal.

The facts are obvious. His armies butchered civilians. Maybe those responsible for the massacre in Serbia were trialed but those who killed Romanians in Northern Trasilvania were not.

When he sent the 16.000 Jews "back to where they came from", he knew very well he was sending them to death.

After the war there was a country (Yugoslavia) that asked for his trial as a war criminal.

I don't think Horthy was a major criminal or a monster. I don't think he planned all these crimes. But he tolerated them, which is enough to make him a war criminal. He was a patriot, trying to do what was best for his country, even when that meant killing thousands of innocents.

Imperialist and Zayets, do you think that the man whose army killed so many Romanian civilians without reason was not a war criminal, just because he wasn't judged at a phoney trial focused on Germans? Stalin was not a criminal either then, and so many others that escaped trial.

Denes, you know very well that not all the war criminals were trialed after the war. According to your logic, Stalin wasn't a criminal because he was never trialed. The question is whether his actions make him a war criminal or not.

First I notice that you see no problem with invading a defeated country in order to take the spoils.

But according to http://www.feldgrau.com/yugowar.html
the Hungarian 3rd Army crossed the border into Yugoslavia on 11 April 1941, while the armisitice with Yugoslavia was signed on 17 April.

First it is necessary to establish why is sombady declared criminal of war (I mean not politically) and after that is possible to discus. Like in american's trials is necessary to have precedents.

But comparing Antonescu with Horthy, Horthy is not a criminal of war because hungarian nation is a very united nation, while Antonescu was betrayed by the political parties and even by his king.

The rule is known: If you fight in a war is better to win or to have very powerful friends.
Crimes made by Russians (against everybody), Serbs (against minoritar german population in Voivodina), Czechs (in Sudetenland), Hungarians (against romanian population - they said that this is not true, and accuse Romanians for similar crimes) were not puted in a trial.

In principal because so called great powers dont agree that Romania joint to winner camp.The reasons is various,but this is another topic.In consequence,Romania dont have the posibility to assert his problems on Nuremberg.Where,as other members say before,was just a trial of winners against losers(especially germans nazis).Ofcourse,they was guilty,but the winners have their own criminals,who ,ofcourse, was not charged.And nobody cares about small countries and their problems,when they need to resolve their own problems,especially war reparation,who was paid by losers,even by Romania(one reason to not be considered in winner camp,and shes problems put away).The russians dont give 2 cents on war crimes against romanians(because they did war crimes against us),and Uk and USA dont care about this crimes against a country considered enemy,even if was the 4-th power(before France) in war against nazis.

For Denes,

I suggest you to read what is written on the site of US Holocaust Museum on Hungary BEFORE/AFTER German occupation about what happened to the Jews.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=...duleId=10005457


HUNGARY BEFORE THE GERMAN OCCUPATION

In 1939, the Hungarian government, having forbidden Jews to serve in the armed forces, established a forced-labor service for young men of arms-bearing age. By 1940, the obligation to perform forced labor was extended to all able-bodied male Jews. After Hungary entered the war, the forced laborers, organized in labor battalions under the command of Hungarian military officers, were deployed on war-related construction work, often under brutal conditions. Subjected to extreme cold, without adequate shelter, food, or medical care, AT LEAST 27,000 HUNGARIAN JEWISH FORCED LABORERS DIED BEFORE THE GERMAN OCCUPATION OF HUNGARY IN MARCH 1944.
In the summer of 1941, HUNGARIAN AUTHORITIES DEPORTED SOME 20,000 JEWS, most of whom resided in Subcarpathian Rus and none of whom had been able to obtain Hungarian citizenship. These Jews were deported to Kamenets-Podolski in the German-occupied Ukraine, where they were shot by Nazi Einsatzgruppe (mobile killing unit) detachments. IN JANUARY 1942, HUNGARIAN MILITARY UNITS MURDERED 3,000 JEWS AND SERBS IN NOVI SAD, THE MAJOR CITY IN HUNGARIAN-ANNEXED YUGOSLAVIA.



HUNGARY AFTER THE GERMAN OCCUPATION

Of approximately 825,000 Jews living in Hungary in 1941, ABOUT 63,000 DIED OR WERE KILLED PRIOR TO THE GERMAN OCCUPATION OF MARCH 1944. Under German occupation, just over 500,000 died from maltreatment or were murdered.

PS. BTW, wasn'y Horthy's Hungary first country in the world to pass the first racial war after end of WW1 (1920) ? If I am wrong, please correct me. Thank you.

This post has been edited by mateias on December 11, 2007 09:39 pm

Mateias, despite of what you try to allege, Horthy was not declared a war criminal - as demonstrated earlier in this thread. He was summoned to the Nuremberg Trails as witness only, then let go.

Rest assured, that if there would have been a slight chance for him to be convicted of anything related to his activity during W.W. 2, he would have surely faced trial once at Nuremberg. Well, he wasn't and died of old age in Estoril, Portugal, in 1957.

According to his last wish, he was reinterred in Hungary on 4 Sept. 1993, only after the last Soviet soldier had left his country.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 11, 2007 08:18 pm

As for Jews being deliberately killed by Hungarians in Hungary - except for a few isolated cases, like Sarmas, you mentioned earlier - it just wasn't the case. At least it was not government policy.
The round up of Jews and their subsequent deportation to Nazi-run lagers largely happened only after Hungary had been occupied militarily by the Germans, and according to the Germans' orders.

The event of Ujvidék (Novi Sad) you mentioned was not an anti-Jew pogrom, despite what is alleged, but rather a brutal anti-partisan sweep, when Jews fell also victim to the partisan hunt (but not because of their ethnicity).

Gen. Dénes

For Denes,
1. I did not say anything. I only told you to read what is officially stated by the most important Holocaust Memorial Museum after Yad Vashem. Tell them right now they are mistaken ! And mention this American official site in your book as a liar !

2. I only said about the First Racial Law passed in 1920. You avoid to answer this, too ?

Are you really anti-American ?

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsourc...t/hungholo.html


The counter-revolutionary regime, which followed the revolutions of 1918-1919, created an anti-democratic, conservative form of government that raised anti-Semitism to the level of official policy. The two revolutions and the traumatic loss of two thirds of the territory of Hungary at the end of World War I, were closely connected in the consciousness of society. Exploiting this, counter-revolutionary propaganda made the revolutions responsible for the disastrous peace treaty signed at Trianon in 1920. From there, it was but a small step to connect liberalism, the democratic civil movements, and the Communist Soviet Republic to the Jews. According to this theory, the Jews "had made" the revolutions and were therefore responsible for Trianon and for all the social and economic troubles of the mutilated country. Despite this anti-Semitic propaganda, many Jews were not to be persuaded, until World War II, that whereas before 1918 it had been "good" to be Jewish in the Monarchy, after 1918 it was "bad" to be a Jew in Hungary, as Ezra Mendelsohn has said.
The impoverished country, squeezed within the borders defined at Trianon, had nearly as many professionals and civil servants looking for jobs as in the earlier, larger country. In addition to those fleeing to the truncated territory from other parts of Hungary with a university degree, a considerable proportion of the children of middle-class families, fugitive from the lost territories, entered the universities. One attempt at solving this "overproduction" of professionals was Law XXV. of 1920, the first anti-Semitic piece of legislation in Europe, which limited the proportion of young people allowed to enter the universities according to the proportion of various "races or nationalities" within the nation as a whole. 2 For the first time, "The Israelites /were/ regarded as a separate nationality." The nearly half a million Jews made up 6 % of the total population of Hungary, which was below 10 million.
Between 1920 and 1938 no more discriminatory acts were passed in the Hungarian Parliament. This may be explained by the selective anti-Semitism of Regent Miklós Horthy and the leading politicians of the period, who distinguished between assimilated (Magyarized) Jews and immigrants especially from "Galicia."



This post has been edited by mateias on December 11, 2007 08:50 pm

Of course, Mateias, you did not say anything. I didn't say it either that you said it.
You only alleged it, as the title of this thread is "Horthy - war criminal?"

Gen. Dénes

P.S. By the way, I think all non-topic posts should be moved to another, more relevant thread. However, I personally fail to see how these information on Hungary's anti-semitic laws have any bearing on this forum, dedicated to the Rumanian military history...

1. I did not allege anything on Horthy being a war criminal. And I was not even "born" on this forum, somebody else started this topic in 2005.
2. As regards reprisals leading to execution of partisans (civilians, sometimes led by military people), it seems there are double standards: Voivodina (Horthy's troops) against Odessa (Romanian military HQs blowed up, leading to reprisals).
You just said that at Voivodina they just did a good thing because everything was quiet afterwards. Same happened in Odessa.
3. However, I think this has no justification at all, in spite of all the rules internationally accepted in an occupied territory (martial law).

This post has been edited by mateias on December 11, 2007 09:48 pm

Sorry, Denes !
I just remembered there are countries which could still consider him a war criminal:
- Yugoslavia
- Russia (Horthy was involved in Barbarossa plan as well, since June 27, 1941, with 3 army corps, being "provoked" by the Russians who dared to bomb Kosice/Kassa !)


2. BTW, for me it's not clear. Who bombed Kosice/Kassa ? Russians or ROMANIANS ? It's written so on this site. Do you think it was a false flag case arranged by Hungary like another famous case, that of Gliwice ?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Sec...Army#Commanders

the execution of partisans per se was not a war crime according to the standards of the day.
however given the nature of rather indiscriminate reprisals especially in YU or on the eastern front, it is certain that innocent people became victims too.

i read the quote provided 3 times without noticing any "good thing" stated in conjunction with the said executions. the statement about the reduction of partisan activity is a comment about the (military?) effectiveness of the reprisal and not a (moral) qualification.

Or is the real purpose of this thread, that of another "history revisionist" throwing his opinions around??

Kevin in Deva.

why not? after all, without contradictory opinions, there isn't much (history) to discuss. the german weekly magazine "Spiegel" seems to have come to the same opinion this week in starting a series about the russian october revolution, blaming the kaiser and militarism for everything, including the ozone hole, while giving leftist to say the least "radiclaized historians" as reference (Fritz Fischer).
So it seems like revisionism is back in fashion.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on December 12, 2007 01:14 pm