Wartime Territorial Gains of Hungary and the Swabians of These Areas — Variations on an Old Theme

Abstract

As has been mentioned earlier, the tangible reward for Hungary’s membership in the Axis came in the form of territorial gains for that country under the First and Second Vienna Awards, and as a result of the partition of Yugoslavia in 1941. Accordingly, arch-revisionist Hungary was able, by the grace of Hitler and at the expense of Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia, to regain parts of what the Hungarians called “the torn off parts of the land.” These were regions which Hungary lost from its territory to the aforesaid countries under the Treaty of Trianon after World War I.1 With the annexations (which the Hungarians called a restoration of integral parts of historic Hungary) Hungary, during the inter-war period more than 92 percent Magyar, became again a rather multi-national state, since the number of her minorities swelled with the new additions to some 20 percent. Of these, 243,234 were Germans, increasing the total number of Hungary’s German populations to 720,291, that is to 4.9 percent.2 Through these successive gains Hungary became the host country of the largest German minority in Europe, a distinction which had only too many inauspicious undertones during the zenith of Hitler’s power.