Four models of German puppets, 1943–1944
On December 11, 1944, Ferenc Szálasi, leader of the Arrow Cross Party and the formal head of the Hungarian government, fled Budapest. He took the Hungarian crown with him. By this point, his power extended to a narrow strip of land around the capital, Soviet troops were already at Pest, and the German army, which had placed him on the throne six weeks earlier, was preparing to retreat. The image of a puppet carrying away the main material symbol of the sovereignty of a country it does not control is almost caricatured. And almost accurate.
Between September 1943 and October 1944, Germany established four regimes in the territories of its former allies: Italian Social Republic Benito Mussolini's cabinet Deme Stoyai in Hungary, the government Crossed Arrows Salashi and the Presidency Preserved Jozef Tiso in Slovakia. They are often described with one word: puppet. This word obscures the picture more than it reveals it. The four regimes are structured differently, respond to different political objectives, and leave behind different traces. Comparing them is key to understanding how the Nazi apparatus governed the Allied territories in the final year of the war.
Salo: A State Built from Scratch
On September 12, 1943, German paratroopers Luftwaffe and members of the Friedenthal special forces unit, under the overall command of Otto Skorzeny, landed on Mount Gran Sasso in Abruzzo and freed Benito Mussolini from the hotel where he had been held since his removal and arrest in July. The Duce was taken to East Prussia, to Hitler's headquarters at the Wolfsschanze, via Vienna and Munich. On September 14, Mussolini met with Hitler, and nine days later, on September 23, 1943, a new state was proclaimed – Italian Social Republic. As for the history She entered under a short name Republic of Salo - through the town on the banks of the Garda, where the government was located.
Benito Mussolini talking to a young soldier of the National Republican Army, 1944
The Republic of Salo existed for about nineteen months – until April 25, 1945. Formally, it claimed sovereignty over all of Italy and its colonies. In reality, its jurisdiction was limited to the northern and central parts of the peninsula. Real power rested with two individuals: the German plenipotentiary representative, Rudolf Rahn, and SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, who commanded the occupation forces. Without them, the republic wouldn't have existed for a single day.
Salò was a regime-construct in its purest form. Nothing in its structure preceded the German decision to create it. The state, its flag, its government, its army, its press, its punitive apparatus—all of it was reassembled after Mussolini's liberation, and assembled by people who understood that without German divisions, the structure would crumble within a week. The Duce was formally head of state and prime minister, Rodolfo Graziani was Minister of National Defense, and Alessandro Pavolini was secretary of the revived Republican Fascist Party. Outwardly, all of this appeared to be a government. In reality, it was an administrative shell over the German occupation zone.
The peculiarity of Salo's model is that its first face was simultaneously facade and prisonerMussolini lived under German protection, his movements were monitored, and his decisions could be reversed or overturned at any moment. The Republic existed precisely within the borders held by the German army and lost territory in sync with them. By the spring of 1945, its effective jurisdiction had shrunk to a few provinces. On April 25, the Republic ceased to exist. Two days later, partisans captured Mussolini while attempting to flee to Switzerland and executed him.
Stoyai: a fuse that should not work
The Hungarian model differed fundamentally from the Italian one. After the German occupation on March 19, 1944, Horthy was not removed. The regent remained in the palace on Buda Hill. Only the prime minister was replaced.
On March 22, 1944, the new head of government became Deme StoyaiThis appointment was the result of direct pressure from Berlin and simultaneously a gesture designed to maintain the appearance of Hungarian continuity. Sztojai was well-suited for both tasks. A career diplomat, he served as Hungary's ambassador to Berlin from 1935 to 1944, and was a thoroughly pro-German figure long before the occupation. His loyalty didn't need to be forged; it was already part of his professional biography.
Döme Stojai (center) during World War II
This provides the key to the Stojai model. Horthy served as regent fuse of legitimacy – a figure whose presence allowed the Hungarian state to consider itself continuing, and Hungarian society to consider what was happening not an occupation, but a crisis. Standing in the prime minister's chair was guarantee that the fuse will not trip: in case of any hesitation on the part of Horthy, his government was already prepared to implement German decisions regardless of the regent.
The Sztojay cabinet operated from March 22 to August 29, 1944—a little over five months. This model was not a separate puppet government in the strict sense, but a transitional government that operated between Kállay, who was removed on the day of the occupation, and the future Arrow Cross government that would come to power after the October putsch.
And it was these five months that became the time of the most rapid and massive part of the Holocaust of the entire war. From May 15 to July 9, 1944, about 440 000 Jews – the majority in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Adolf Eichmann coordinated the deportations. The Reich’s plenipotentiary representative was Edmund Veesenmayer, an SS Brigadeführer who arrived in Budapest at the same time as the German troops. His telegrams to the German Foreign Ministry are a bureaucratic chronicle of the murder. June 13, 1944: “Jews from the Carpathian and Transylvanian regions have been loaded onto trains, a total of 289,357 in 92 trains with 45 cars.” June 15: About 340,000 Jews have been delivered to the Reich; the expected final number is 900,000.
Sztojay resigned on August 29, 1944. Horthy, cautiously searching for a way out of the war, replaced him with Géza Lakatos. Six weeks remained before the October Putsch. After the war, the Americans extradited Sztojay to Hungary, and a people's court sentenced him to death. He was executed on August 22, 1946, in Budapest.
Salashi: a puppet with almost no control
The third regime was established by Germany at the other end of the political spectrum—one that embraced not controlled conservatism, but ideological fury. And it was established at a time when any governable authority was virtually nonexistent.
The photograph was taken in Budapest, probably in the area of the Royal Palace, in October 1944, after Szálasi came to power in a coup orchestrated by Nazi Germany.
On October 15, 1944, at 14:00 p.m., Horthy went on the radio and announced that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. The Germans had been preparing for this move in advance. With Nazi help, Arrow Cross fighters seized the radio station; their representative wrote a counter-proclamation and broadcast it on behalf of General Vörös, Chief of the Hungarian General Staff. The commanders of two Hungarian army units in Budapest were arrested or disappeared; their soldiers were lined up with party detachments. Otto Skorzeny's column with heavy tanks The Tiger II approached the Vienna Gate of Buda Castle. One regiment, which had not received Horthy's orders, held out against the Germans for about half an hour. The Regent admitted that there was no resistance and ordered the troops to lay down. weapon.
That same evening, Horthy was detained by Edmund Veesenmayer. Threatened with the life of his son, Miklós Jr., who had been taken to a German concentration camp, where he would remain until May 8, 1945, Horthy signed a document repudiating the armistice and appointing Szálasi as prime minister. Horthy would later say:
"I did not renounce the armistice and did not appoint anyone; I merely exchanged my signature for the life of my son. A signature torn from a man at gunpoint cannot have legal force."
Arrow Cross Party The Nilashists were ideologically close to the NSDAP: a Nazi organization with its own symbols, its own units, and its own anti-Semitic radicalism. It didn't grow out of the Hungarian political system—it came to power on German tanks, just as that system itself was crumbling. This is the hallmark of Szálasi's model: the regime was established with a maximum of ideological energy and a minimum of real state power. Its effective zone of control never extended far beyond Budapest and a few western provinces; the territory shrank with each passing week; the army, police, and bureaucracy partly fled, partly defected to the Soviet side or awaited its arrival. There was almost nothing to govern—but even this half-empty shell was enough to become, in less than three months, one of the bloodiest administrations of the last year of the war.
The scale of violence during these three months is best illustrated by the numbers:
- 440,000–565,000 people - killed by Nilashist militants directly in Budapest: by shootings on the banks of the Danube, pogroms in the ghetto, liquidation of those who were hiding;
- about 38 000 people – died during the regime-organized “death marches” from Budapest to Austria in November–December 1944 and in subsequent deportations;
- about 80 000 people – deported to concentration camps on Austrian territory.
Taking into account the spring-summer deportations of 1944, carried out under Sztojay, the total number of Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust is estimated, according to various sources, at 440,000–565,000 peopleIn terms of the rate of destruction, this is the most intense part of the entire war.
The public execution of Ferenc Szálasi
On December 11, 1944, Szálasi fled Budapest with the Hungarian crown. In late January 1945, Soviet troops occupied Pest; the Arrow Cross government effectively collapsed, although its remnants continued to fight alongside German forces until April. After the war, Szálasi and his three main comrades were tried in Hungary and hanged in March 1946.
Tiso: a regime that has not changed
The fourth model is not similar to any of the first three.
Josef Tiso He was a Catholic priest and President of the Slovak State from October 26, 1939—that is, from the moment of its creation. The Slovak State itself emerged in March 1939 as a clerical-nationalist authoritarian dictatorship, seceding from Czechoslovakia under direct pressure from Berlin and existing from the outset under German patronage. It was not an ally in the strict sense, but a satellite, which, however, had all the outward signs of independence: its own army, its own parliament, its own church as a supporter of the regime, and its own foreign policy—albeit subordinate to Berlin.
Meeting between Hitler and Josef Tiso
When Italy declared an armistice in September 1943, Slovakia remained loyal to Berlin; the Slovak Army participated in anti-partisan operations on its own territory. By the summer of 1944, it was still a semi-dependent satellite, only the degree of semi-dependence was rapidly diminishing.
The Germans didn't replace Slovakia's head of state. They didn't install a new prime minister. They didn't install an ideological ally like the Arrow Cross. They simply sent in troops and took control of the country, leaving the president in place.
On August 27, 1944, German envoy Hans Ludin visited Tiso in Bratislava and announced that German troops would be deployed throughout Slovakia. Two days later, on the evening of August 29, Defense Minister Ferdinand Čatloš issued a radio broadcast on Tiso's orders: the government had invited the Wehrmacht to fight the partisans and the Slovak Army was not to offer resistance. Forty-five minutes later, the military command in Banská Bystrica sent out a counter-order over the telephone network: resist the Germans. Those 45 minutes split the Slovak state in two. It had begun. Slovak National Uprising.
By September 1, 1944, effective power in Slovakia had passed to the German military command. In the east, the operation was led by Army Group North Ukraine (from late September, Army Group A); the suppression of the uprising in the rest of the country was led by the "German General in Slovakia." This position was held by SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger from August 31 to September 19, 1944, after which he was replaced by SS-Obergruppenführer Hermann Höfle, who carried out the bulk of the punitive operation. Tiso formally remained president. The state nominally continued to exist. However, decisions were made not in Bratislava Castle, but at German headquarters.
It is a puppetry through delegation, and not through staging. In Salò, under Stojai, and under Szálasi, Germany created or replaced the power structure. In Slovakia, it left the shell intact and simply reassigned its contents. Outwardly, nothing changed; internally, everything was decided in Berlin.
The suppression of the uprising took two months. Partisans, Roma, Jews, and those who sheltered them were arrested, executed, or deported. Berger and Höfle operated under the pretext of "fighting banditry"—a formally legitimate measure that allowed them to circumvent even the restrictions that still applied to regular combat. The Red Army liberated Slovakia in April 1945. Tiso fled west, was apprehended, extradited to Czechoslovakia, and convicted of treason and war crimes. On April 18, 1947, he was hanged in Bratislava.
Four models on one frame
When these four modes are placed side by side, their differences become clear.
On the axis "setting versus interception" The extremes are Salo and Tiso. Salo was built from scratch by the German administration; Tiso's regime, by contrast, existed for five years before the Germans installed their own general. Between them are the Arrow Cross (built from scratch, but using the existing Radical Party) and Stojaji (a partial replacement within the preserved state framework).
On the "legitimacy versus naked force" axis – the same distribution, but with a different logic. Tiso enjoyed the maximum formal legitimacy: he was an elected president, his government was formed according to constitutional procedure, and his orders were channeled through normal channels. Salo enjoyed the minimum: the state proclaimed by a politician released from prison on German territory lacked clear legal continuity. Stojai and Szálasi fell between the extremes, with Szálasi closer to Salo in legitimacy and closer to Stojai in formality (prime minister, not head of state).
Along the axis of the tempo of terror The pattern is different. The highest peaks occur under regimes with a "fresh" German establishment and in the first weeks and months afterward. Under Stojai, the deportation of 440,000 people took 55 days; the Arrow Cross regime managed to kill tens of thousands in less than three months; in Italy, the proclamation of Salò was followed by the new regime's rapid participation in the roundup of the Rome ghetto on October 16, 1943, and in subsequent deportations. In Slovakia, where the regime had not changed, terror was also intense, but of a different nature – as an "anti-partisan operation" with the extermination of civilians in combat zones.
Common denominator – the lack of an independent army in all four regimes capable of defending them from any decision by Berlin. Salò was held by German divisions. Stojai operated under the direct control of Veesenmayer. The Arrow Cross arrived on German tanks and were held by German troops. After the uprising, Tiso governed the territory effectively commanded by Berger and Höfle. Without a German military presence, any of the four regimes would have crumbled immediately – which is what happened in each case, as soon as that presence disappeared.
Second common denominator – the scale of civilian losses. Each of the four regimes reduced its population by tens or hundreds of thousands of lives. In Hungary, about half a million Jews were killed. In Italy, tens of thousands of Jews and partisans were killed. In Slovakia, thousands were killed during the suppression of the uprising and the repression that accompanied it.
Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci after the execution
Four sentences
The ending for all four modes turned out to be almost symmetrical.
Benito Mussolini He was executed by Italian partisans on April 28, 1945, while attempting to escape to Switzerland. This is the only one of four cases in which the sentence was passed not by a court, but by the war—and the only one in which it was carried out before the war itself ended.
Deme Stoyai After the capitulation, he was in the American zone; in 1945, he was extradited to Hungary. The People's Court in Budapest sentenced him to death. On August 22, 1946, Sztojay was executed.
Ferenc Szálasi A Hungarian court sentenced him and his three main comrades to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out in March 1946.
Jozef Tiso He was extradited to Czechoslovakia. The National Court in Bratislava convicted him of treason, collaboration, and war crimes. On April 18, 1947, Tiso was hanged in Bratislava.
The four structures created or seized by Germany to hold Allied territories in the last year and a half of the war ended with two executions and two hangings. During their eighteen months of existence, these structures were the site of the murder of nearly a million civilians. The historical significance of these regimes is determined not by their status as "facades" or by the extent of their dependence on Berlin. It is determined by the volume of violence these façades managed to endure while they stood.
Information