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Battle Of Budapest
Part of World War II
A Soviet soldier writing "Budapest" in Russian on a signpost after the siege.
Date 29 December, 1944 — 13 February, 1945 Location Budapest, Hungary Result Strategic Soviet Victory
Belligerents
Axis	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
General Pfeffer-Wildenbruch	Rodion Malinovsky Fyodor Tolbukhin
Strength
180,000	500,000+
Casualties and losses
Low estimation: ~ 48,000 KIA ~ 51,000 POW High estimation: ~ 150,000 dead and captured Est. 40,000 civilian killed	Low estimation: ~ 70,000 KIA High estimation: ~ 160,000 KIA

The Battle of Budapest was a siege lasting from 29 December, 1944 to 13 February, 1945 in which Soviet forces captured the city of Budapest from German SS forces and Hungarian forces in World War II. It was one of the bloodiest sieges of the war, being comparable, in terms of casualties, to the sieges of Berlin and Stalingrad.

General Situation

At the end of 1944, Hungary remained the only satellite state of Germany, and thus was necessary both in a political and economical sense - German industry needed Hungarian oil wells located around the lake Balaton.

On 16 October, 1944, Hungarian leader Miklos Horthy was destitute by the local nationalist party, Crossed arrows. Any hope of a peaceful outcome for Hungary was lost - the battle would be a fight for death.

The Siege

Encircling Budapest

On 29 October, 1944, the Red Army started its offensive on Budapest. More than 1,000,000 men split into two operating maneuver groups rushing towards the city, planning to cut it from the rest of the German and Hungarian troops.

On 7 November, 1944, Soviet troops entered the eastern Budapest suburbs, 20 kilometers from the city's old town. Curiously, very few inhabitants wanted to leave the city.

On 19 December, after a necessary break, the Red Army resumed its offensive. On 26 December, the road linking Budapest to Vienna was seized by the Soviet Troops, therefore encircling the city.

Budapest was a major target for Stalin. Indeed, the Yalta Conference was appoaching and Stalin wanted to display his full strength to Churchill and Roosevelt. Therefore, he issued a directive to General Rodion Malinovsky, ordering him to seize the city as quickly as possible.

The 29 December, 1944, Rodion Malinovsky sent two emissaries in order to negociate the city's capitulation. The emissaries never came back. This particular point is widely disputed by the Soviet Union, with some German and Hungarian historians arguing that the emissaries were deliberately shot down. Others believe that they were in fact shot by mistake on their way back. In any case, Soviet commanders considered this act as a refusal and ordered the start of the siege.

The start and first German offensive

The offensive started from the eastern suburbs, advancing through the town of Pest, using large central avenues to speed up their progress. The defenders, overwhelmed, tried to trade space for time to slow down the Soviet's advance to a crawl. They ultimately withdrew to shorten their lines, hoping for better chances in the hilly areas of Buda.

On 1 January, 1945, the Wehrmacht lauched Operation Konrad, trying to launch an offensive through hilly terrain north of Budapest and break the siege. Simultaneously, Waffen-SS forces struck west of Budapest, trying to gain tactical advantage.

On 3 January, 1945, the Soviet command sent four more divisions to meet the threat, stopping the offensive less than 20 kilometers north of Budapest. On 12 January, 1945, Wermacht and Waffen-SS forces were forced to withdraw - Operation Konrad had failed.

Combat intensification

Meanwhile, urban warfare in Budapest gained in intensity. Supplies became a decisive factor because of the loss of the Ferihegy airport just before the start of the siege, on 27 December, 1944. Until 9 January, 1945, German troops were able to use some of the main avenues as well as the park next to Buda Castle as landing zones for planes and gliders, under constant artillery fire from the Soviets. Before the Danube froze, some supplies could be passed on barges, under cover of darkness and fog.

Nevertheless, food shortages were more and more common and soldiers must find new sources of food, including their own horses.

Quite quickly, Soviet troops found themselves in the same situation as in Stalingrad - but on the wrong side. Still, their troops were far more experienced in urban warfare, heavily relying on snipers and sappers to advance. Extreme temperatures strongly affect German and especially Hungarian troops, who start to desert in considerable numbers. Fights broke out even in the sewers, as both German and Soviet troops used them for moving troops. Six Soviet marines even managed to get to Castle Hill, to remain there for several hours and capture a German officer before returning to their own lines - still underground. But such prowesses were rare because of ambushes set up by Hungarian and German troops using local inhabitants as guides in the sewers.

In mid-January, Csepel Island was taken , along with its military factories that were still producing Panzerfausts and shells under Soviet fire. Meanwhile in Pest, the situation deteriorated, with the garrison facing the risk of being cut in half by the advancing Soviet troops.

On 17 January, 1945, Hitler agreed withdraw all of the remaining troops from Pest to try to defend Buda. All of the five bridges spanning the Danube were clogged with traffic, evacuating troops, wounded men and civilians. On 18 January, 1945, German troops destroyed the five beautiful bridges, despite protests from Hungarian officers.

Second German offensive

On 20 January, 1945, Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops launched their second major offensive, this time south of the city, blasting a 20-km hole in Soviet lines and advancing to the Danube, threatening Soviet traffic.

Stalin ordered his troops to stand ground at all costs, and two Army Corps that were dispatched to assault Budapest were hastily rerouted south of the city to counter the German offensive. Nevertheless, Waffen-SS troops got to less than 20 kilometres to the city and could not maintain their offensive due to fatigue and supply issues. Budapest defenders asked permission to leave the city and escape the encirclement. Hitler refuses.

On 28 January, 1945, German troops could no longer stand their ground and were forced to withdraw. The fate of the Budapest defenders was sealed.

The battle of Buda

Contrary to Pest, built on flat terrain, the city of Buda is built on hills. This allowed the defenders to place artillery and fortifications above the attackers, greatly slowing Soviet progression. The main citadel, Gellért Hill was defended by elite SS troops that succesfully repelled several Soviet assaults. Nearby, Soviet and German were fighting for the city cemetery, between shell-opened tombs, fights that would last for several days.

Fighting on Margaret Island, in the middle of the Danube, was particularly merciless. The island was still attached to the rest of the city by the remaining half of the Margaret Bridge and was used as parachuting area as well as for covering improvised airstrips set up in the downtown.

On 6 February, 1945, the Gellért Hill finally falls after a vicous Soviet attack launched from three points of compass simultaneously, after six weeks of fighting. Soviet artillery was finally able to dominate the entire city and to shell the remaining Axis defenders, concentrated on less than two square kilometres and suffering from malnutrition and diseases (daily rations were reduced to 150 grams of bread and meat from slaughtered horses). Nevertheless, the defenders refused to surrender and defended every street and house, fighting Soviet troops and tanks.

After capturing the southern railway station during a two-day bloodbath, Soviet troops advanced to the Castle hill. On 10 February, 1945, after a violent assault, Soviet marines establish a bridgehead on the Castle hill, while almost cutting the remaining garrison in half.

The Defenders' Sortie

In front of such a hopeless situation, General Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch decided, against Hitler's orders, to attempt to break out of the encirclement.

German and Hungarian troops used fog to their advantage and went in three waves. The first wave managed to surprise the Soviet soldiers and artillery, and its sheer number allowed them to escape. The second and third waves were less fortunate, as Soviet artillery had time to bracket the area and shell the escaping troops. Despite Soviet fire and heavy losses, 10,000 men managed to gain wooded hills north-west of Budapest and escape towards Vienna.

Aftermath

On 13 February, 1945, the remaining defenders finally surrendered. Budapest lay in ruins, with more than 80 percent of its buildings destroyed or damaged, and historical buildings like the Hungarian Parliament Building and the Castle in ruins. All five bridges spanning the Danube were destroyed. Some 40,000 civilians were killed, with an unknown number dying from starvation and diseases.

For the Wehrmacht, the siege of Budapest was their last major operation on the southern front, further depleting the Regular army and especially the Waffen-SS.

For the Soviet troops, the Budapest siege was a final rehearsal before the Battle of Berlin. It also allowed them to race toward Vienna, which would fall less than a month later.

References

• Nikolai Shefov, Russian fights, Lib. Military History, M. 2002
• The Siege of Budapest by Peter Zwack
• Ungvary, Krisztian, The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II, Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0300104685

• Battles and operations of World War II
• Battles of Hungary