Salashi, Ferenc

Salashi's father was a professional soldier of the Austro-Hungarian army. A number of historians indicate that his paternal ancestors were probably Armenians ^{[2] [3] [4]} (the name of his grandfather was Salosyan ^[2] ; in modern Hungary, Salashi's Armenian origin is disputed ^[5] ) and the Germans ^[4] , according to maternal line - Hungarians and Slovaks ^[3] .

He served in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War , then in the General Staff of Hungary, rose to the rank of major ( 1933 ), after which he resigned and went into politics. Supporter of territorial and cultural expansionism, the domination of Hungary in Europe. In 1935 he created the National Will Party, which was soon banned by the Horthy government for radicalism. His new party, named, after the NSDAP , the Hungarian National Socialist Party, was also banned in 1937 . After the Anschluss of Austria , Salashi supporters who became popular in society began extremist ^{[ clarify ] the} speeches, and by order of Horthy he was imprisoned ( 1938 ). The extreme right-wingers left free formed the Crossed Arrows coalition party ( Hungarian Nyilaskeresztes párt ), the leader of which was the detained Salashi. In the 1939 parliamentary elections , “Crossed Arrows” won 30 seats, and in 1940 their leader was released by aministy, but this party was soon banned for criticizing Hungary’s insufficient participation in the outbreak of World War II and continued to operate in clandestine conditions.

Salashi came into direct contact with the Nazi government and received his political support. In March 1944, the pro-German government of Döme Stoyai legalized the Crossed Arrows, which became a powerful political force. But when in August-September 1944, Soviet troops approached the borders of Hungary, Horthy , planning to conclude a separate armistice with the USSR , ordered the Stoyai to be removed and Salashi arrested. This could not be tolerated by Hitler, who had already lost by this time all his allies, who had either been occupied by the forces of the anti-Hitler coalition, or had themselves switched sides and declared war on Germany (like Romania and Finland). Hungary was of particular strategic importance due to oil deposits. In October 1944, the Germans carried out a coup d'etat in Budapest, the son of Miklos Horthy was abducted by stormtroopers Otto Skorzeny , and the regent had to give up his powers in favor of Salashi, who became prime minister and head of state (“the leader (Fuhrer) of the Hungarian people”), dubbed the Hungarian Union of Ancient Lands.

After Salasha came to power, on the very first day of his short reign, he issued a decree abolishing the ceasefire with the Soviet Union and “total military mobilization” of all Hungarians from 12 to 70 years, to defend the state. Soon, mass rallies began to destroy hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews and Gypsies and their deportation to Germany; as the Soviet troops approached, the prisoners were taken out of the camps and driven inland towards the German border ( death march ). Massacres in Hungary are considered one of the latest episodes of the Holocaust .

On December 24, 1944, the Soviet-Romanian troops approached Budapest and by February defeated the German-Hungarian troops defending it. Salashi, who had left Budapest with his government on December 9-11 , continued to control areas of Hungary unoccupied by the Soviet army from Szombathely until March 28, 1945 , after which he fled to Austria, where he was arrested by the Americans on May 6, 1945 . On October 3, 1945, he was extradited to the Hungarian government, brought to trial in Budapest on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and in February 1946 was sentenced to death. March 12, 1946 Ferenc Salashi was hanged. Other leaders of the Crossed Arrows, Gabor Vine , Kara Beregfy and Jozsef Gera, were executed along with him.