Prelude to War

  With the beginning of 1940, as Hitler secured his position in the West, Horthy cast his covetous eyes in the direction of Transylvania once again.  By July, Horthy was prepared to launch an invasion and sent military and diplomatic officials to Munich to meet with the representatives of the Axis Powers to obtain their blessing.  Both Italy and Germany held back from becoming diplomatic umpires between the two belligerents who saw both Hungary and Romania essential to their own plans.  Nor did Hitler want to rock the boat with the Romania in order to safeguard his interests in the German minority that included both the Transylvania Saxons and the Banat and Szatmar Swabians.  He offered a compromise allowing Hungary to annex the northern portion of Transylvania and giving Romania the green light to annex a portion of disputed territory with Bulgaria.  The compromises were offered while he carried a big stick; his military might that intimidated his allies.  Hungary added 44,000 square miles to its territories along with 2,700,000 inhabitants.  The vast majority were Hungarians but also included 50,000 Transylvania Saxons and an equal number of Szatmar Swabians.  Horthy made another excursion into liberated Lost Territories to the acclaim and adoration of over 1,5000,000 Magyar compatriots.  This fortified Hungary’s revisionist dream, even if only partially. 

  This was ratified at a meeting at the Belvedere Palace in Vienna on August 30, 1940 and would become known as the Second Vienna Accords.  Less noticed than the recent land acquisitions of Hungary detailed in the agreement at the expense of Romania was the wording of that part of the agreement that would regulate the relationship of the German minority in Hungary with the Reich. In fact, the matter had never been discussed and the Hungarian delegation was taken off guard and felt under duress when forced to act.  The Prime Minister Teléki threatened suicide unless it was reworded.  They were able change some of the wording to lessen the impact of the proposed rights of the Volksbund in Hungary and allow the members to espouse and promote National Socialism 

  The inclusion of these stipulations in the Accord was a result of goals that the Reich authorities had decided upon for the ethnic German minorities in South and Eastern Europe and for which the department:  Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle had been established by Hitler on July 2, 1938 and was part of the SS apparatus.  The purpose of the VOMI as it was called under the leadership of Rudolph Hess and later Heinrich Himmler was to transform the various German Volk group organizations into a functioning instrument of the Nazi Party and its programme.  In other words, said less prosaically, in future they would become the vehicle for the recruitment of canon fodder for the Nazi war effort. 

  As a result of the Accord the Hungarian government was forced to acknowledge that the Volksbund was the only legitimate representative of the German minority in Hungary and they had the right to acknowledge themselves as a distinct national group within Hungary. Theoretically they had established an organization that included all Germans in Hungary and membership meant to adopt the National Socialist worldview. Basch was well aware that the Reich had no intention of helping the Volksbund achieve its cultural goals but was to act as an outpost of the Reich.  It must be understood by us that the force of the Accord in terms of the German minority in Hungary was not in response to their wishes but rather a furthering of the interests of the Third Reich.  The Hungarian Prime Minister and other government officials saw the concessions in the Accord as an infringement on Hungarian sovereignty and led to fierce debate in parliament about the appropriateness of collective rights for the German minority…a state within a state. But that did not resonate well as Hungarian foreign policy drew it closer to the Reich.  A whole range of economic and trade agreements were quickly put into effect much to Hungary’s benefit and the Volksbund and its activities slipped under the radar as it pushed its agenda of membership recruitment so that by the end of 1940 there were 95 local groups made up of some 75,000 members. 

  But Basch’s activities and energy had to be redirected to deal with a new problem.  How to incorporate the Transylvania Saxons and Szatmar Swabians into the Volksbund when they brought new dynamics into play because of the relative autonomy they had enjoyed   under more benevolent Romanian rule operating a whole complex of German educational institutions, at every age level up to university and technical schools had been developed by the Saxons unlike their Swabian compatriots in Hungary whose young people were practically functionally illiterate in the German language. The Saxons had political aspirations and their own political party which would have been unheard of in Hungary. They were not prepared to accept Basch’s leadership and tried to take an independent course to safeguard their rights and privileges as they had known them under the Romanians.  These were a few of the dynamics that were beginning to surface among the various Danube Swabian and German groups in response to the different governmental policies in the jurisdictions in which they lived. 

  To make matters worse the Fidelity movement: Loyal to the Homeland that had its beginnings in Bonyhad was spreading especially in Swabian Turkey following the news of Hitler’s announcement of resettlement.  There was a similar movement emerging in the numerous Swabian enclaves around Budapest. Basch had his hands full and ideology was now the least of his worries as he began to feel pressure to provide volunteers to serve in the German Wehrmach and Waffen SS.  He was hesitant to support such a move because it would mean a citizen of Hungary would have to swear allegiance to a foreign Head of State.  In most places that would be known as treason.  The implications were mind boggling and yet several hundred young men had been enticed to go to Germany to participate in sports event and would end up on the battlefront with their families unaware of what became of them.  It was a foretaste of things to come.  Clandestine recruitment of volunteers for the German military would be ongoing. 

  For some time Hitler had been courting the Yugoslavian Government’s participation in the Tripartite Pact which their foreign minister signed on March 26, 1941 in Vienna.  On his return to Belgrade he found that a bloodless military coup d’etat had taken place that rejected the alliance and accepted a British guarantee of its security instead.  Hitler feared   his southern flank would be exposed while already preparing his Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia, the following year. A military operation against the recalcitrant Yugoslavs was planned immediately.  The Hungarian ambassador in Berlin was sent home by air with a message for Regent Horthy: 

  “Yugoslavia will be annihilated, for she has just renounced publicly the policy of understanding with the Axis.  The greater part of the German armed forces must pass through Hungary but the principal attack will not be made on the Hungarian sector. Here the Hungarian Army should intervene, and, in return for its co-operation, Hungary will be able to reoccupy all those former territories which she had been forced to cede to Yugoslavia.  The matter is urgent.  An immediate and affirmative reply is requested.” 

  An offer like this was hard to turn down to a revisionist dreamer like Horthy but his Prime Minister would not assent to the invasion because Hungary had signed a Treaty of Eternal Friendship with Yugoslavia in December of the previous year.  He cautioned the Regent to remain out of the conflict unless the Hungarian minority in Yugoslavia was in some kind of danger.  The vision of Lost Territories returning to the bosom of Hungary was too much of a temptation for Regent Horthy to resist.  But as always he was hesitant to commit any troops but the Hungarian military was prepared to act and without any government approval General Werth, Chief of Staff of the Hungarian Army made a private agreement with the German High Command for the transport of German troops across Hungary.  Teléki denounced the General for treason.  When the aging Prime Minister received the news that the German Army had just started its March into Hungary on the night of April 3, 1941 he committed suicide.  On April 6^th Germany launched its invasion of Yugoslavia and in eleven days the war was over. 

  Once hostilities were over the Hungarian Army occupied the Batschka in lieu of its co-operation in the war effort but was denied control of the Western Banat which remained under the jurisdiction of the German Army and they were promised that it would later be ceded to Hungary.  Croatia had declared its independence with Hitler’s support so there was no likelihood that it would return to Hungary in the near future.  Hitler retained control of the Western Banat to punish Horthy for his refusal to send his troops into battle.  The local German minority in the Batschka were shocked by the arrival and occupation by Hungarian troops and they were unwelcome in their villages and their leaders made no bones about it.  Franz Basch and the Volksbund attempted to take control of the Swabian Cultural Association that had been established and developed in Yugoslavia and it took Reich persuasion to enable him to do so over the objections of the Batschka Swabian leadership while those in the Banat and Croatia were able to assert their independence.  In future the Swabians in the Batschka and those in Hungary would share many similar experiences because of the Volksbund.