A Circle of Violence: Hungarian Troops, Shifting Roles, and the Transfer of Experiences Across the Eastern Front, 1941–1945

Since 1938, the Royal Hungarian Army had been performing military administrative tasks as an occupation force in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. From July 1941 onward, as an integral part of the German occupation system, Hungarian troops participated in securing rear areas and conducting anti-partisan warfare on the Eastern Front. Subsequently, Hungarian units acquired substantial knowledge and experience in dealing with occupied civilian populations. However, starting in the autumn of 1944, Hungarian troops faced a shift in roles from occupiers on Soviet territory to perpetrators of violence against their own citizens at home. By the end of August 1944, the Hungarian armed forces were in fact no longer fighting the Soviet armies on foreign soil but within their own country. However, the pro-German Arrow Cross government, which had seized power in October 1944, lacked comprehensive plans for responding to the Soviet forces, offering evacuation as the only option for the local population. This article shows how in the process of Hungarian counter-offensives and the partial re-establishment of control over national territories, Hungarian troops applied to their own citizens the harsh coercive measures that they had previously implemented against civilians in Soviet territories, demonstrating how a transfer of violent practices took place across the Eastern front.