Why Hungary Sided With Hitler—and How It Backfired

Germany, Italy and Japan were the major Axis powers during World War II, but they were also joined by countries like Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia and Finland in the fight against the Allies. 

Similar to Germany, Hungarians felt unfairly punished by the treaties that ended World War I. Under the Treaty of Trianon (1920), Hungary’s territory was drastically reduced—it lost approximately 70 percent of its land and 63 percent of its population overnight.  

During the 1930s, especially after the Great Depression, Hungary’s political priorities started to align with Nazi Germany. Hungarians wanted their lost territories back and leadership saw a powerful ally in Adolf Hitler. As it turned out, joining the Axis powers proved to be a terrible miscalculation.  

During World War I, Hungary fought alongside the German Empire as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When the war ended in defeat, Austria-Hungary was dissolved and the two nations entered separate peace negotiations with the Allies.  

The Treaty of Trianon—named for the chateau in France where it was signed—was devastating for Hungary. It transformed its territory from a sprawling central European empire with access to the Adriatic Sea into a small, landlocked state surrounded by enemies. Hungary lost significant territory to Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and a small section to Austria. 

Hungary was reduced from 125,000 square miles to 36,000 square miles, while its population fell from 20.8 million to 7.6 million inhabitants, writes Hungarian historian Ignác Romsics. After Trianon, more than 3 million ethnic Hungarians found themselves citizens of foreign countries.

Hungary was also forced to pay millions in war reparations and reduce its armed forces. Widespread resentment over these conditions gave rise to a “revisionist” movement, determined to restore its prewar borders and former stature.

In 1927, Hungary made its first move to reassert itself in central Europe by signing a treaty of friendship with Benito Mussolini of Italy. Hungarian Prime Minister István Bethlen made Hungary’s intentions clear:  

“We did not lose provinces. We were partitioned,” said Bethlen in 1928. “To build a permanent peace on these borders is impossible. What can only be built on these borders is a prison, in which we are the guarded and the victors the guards. What we need is new borders.”  

After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, Germany looked like Hungary’s best option for regaining lost territory. The two countries became close trade partners and strategic allies.

When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, it justified the move as a reunification of ethnic Germans. Hungarian nationalists used the same logic, arguing that ethnically Hungarian portions of neighboring countries should be reclaimed.

After Hitler’s demands for Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland were met by Britain and France in the Munich Agreement (1938), Germany and Italy oversaw the First Vienna Award, which granted Hungary parts of southern Slovakia and Ruthenia. Two years later, Romania was also forced to cede territory to Hungary—part of Hitler’s effort to secure loyal allies as he expanded across Europe.

On November 20, 1940, Hungary officially joined the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan. The cost: Hitler demanded support for invading Yugoslavia in 1941. Britain and France warned that such action meant war with the Allies—leaving Hungarian leaders torn between neutrality and Nazi allegiance.

The dilemma was too much for Hungarian Prime Minister Pál Teleki. Faced with a difficult situation and fearing a deal with Germany, Teleki took his own life.  

“Teleki tried to walk down an increasingly narrow corridor with fewer and fewer exits,” says Romsics. “He took the view that despite Hungary’s collaboration with Germany, links with the western Allies had to be preserved. He wanted to stay out of the war if at all possible. When he realized that it was not further possible, he committed suicide.” 

“We have allied ourselves with scoundrels,” Teleki wrote in his suicide note. “We will become bodysnatchers! A nation of trash. I did not hold you back. I am guilty.” 

Teleki’s successors put their full faith in Hitler and the strength of the German war machine. When Hitler broke his pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Russia in June 1941, Hungarian leaders still believed they were on the winning side. Hungary's defense minister, Károly Bartha, confidently stated: 

“I think that, having defeated the Poles in three weeks, having finished off the French in about as much time, and having beaten the Yugoslav army in 12 days and occupied the entire Balkans in three weeks, in six weeks the Germans will be in Moscow and completely defeat Russia.” 

Hungary sent about 60,000 troops into the Soviet Union, joining Germany’s invasion. But as the campaign dragged on, they were compelled to commit more forces. By 1942, over 200,000 men were deployed deep inside Soviet territory, where they endured the frigid Russian winter.

In January 1943, the Soviets launched an offensive that absolutely obliterated the Hungarian line. Out of roughly 200,000 Hungarian soldiers, about 40,000 were killed, 35,000 wounded and 60,000 taken captive, reports Romsics.  

Demoralized and fearing an Allied victory, Hungarian leaders began covert negotiations with Great Britain and the United States to switch sides. In a top-secret mission called “Operation Sparrow,” two American operatives parachuted into Hungary in 1944 to plan its defection to the Allies, but they were immediately captured by Nazi intelligence. 

In response, Hitler ordered the German occupation of Hungary. Up until that point, Hungary’s Jewish population had largely evaded the Nazis. But during the occupation, Hungarian Jews were forced into ghettos and then deported to concentration camps. In total, about 440,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to their deaths at camps like Auschwitz, says Romsics.  

Under the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties that ended World War II, Hungary’s territory was reduced to the size set by the Treaty of Trianon (additional villages were ceded to Czechoslovakia). Even more devastating, Hungary lost independence and fell under Soviet control for decades.