On June 21, 2017, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the Hungarian nation was able to survive in the 1920s and 1930s due to “some exceptional statesmen like Regent Miklós Horthy.” Never before did the Hungarian Prime Minister identify pro-Hitler Horthy, who served as Hungarian head of state from 1920 to 1944, as an “exceptional statesman.” The attempt to whitewash Horthy is an insult to every American and Canadian, to the memory of both the victims and survivors, and to soldiers who fought against fascism.
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August 22, 1938 was a gorgeous day at the Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel, Germany. Hitler’s ally, Hungary’s Admiral Miklós Horthy and his wife were in splendid mood. They were visiting the shipyard with Nazi leaders. Madame Horthy was smiling, she just received a giant bouquet from the Führer.
The Prinz Eugen with the giant Swastika on the deck.
70-years old Horthy, the elder statesman, wore his anachronistic Navy uniform. His host, 49-year-old Hitler was exceedingly polite to the Admiral of land-locked Hungary. Madame Horthy, 57, admired everything German, she happily exchanged gifts with Hitler.
Hitler asked Mrs. Horthy to inaugurate the new pride of the German navy – the battleship Prinz Eugen. Madame Horthy was beaming as she launched the ship. Her photo appeared on the cover of major German newspapers.
Madame Horthy inaugurates the ship, Hitler is watching far left.
The Prinz Eugen was an enormous warship named after the 18th century Austrian general, Prince Eugene of Savoy. It was 681ft long and carried a crew of 1,382 men. The ship first participated in the blockade of England but its most memorable action was the engagement with the British fleet resulting the sinking of the HMS Hood. In that battle Germany lost its largest warship, the famous Bismarck.
At the end of World War II the Prinz Eugen was considered the “lucky ship.” She was absent from major sea battles and participated in only two major actions due to numerous engine troubles and accidents.
After World War II Admiral Horthy was arrested by the Americans and never stood trial. He was 88 when he died in 1957, in Portugal. Madame Horthy passed away two years later. Hitler committed suicide in 1945, he was 56 years old. But what happened with the Prinz Eugen?
In 1945 the ship surrendered to the British Navy at Copenhagen Harbor and it was turned over to the US Navy. They renamed it USS IX 300 but the Americans didn’t know how to navigate the ship and ordered the 500+ Nazi German crew to sail the ship with its giant swastika to the US. The German officers and enlisted man were “military aliens;” no US soldier would salute them.
The US Navy removed the valuable sonar systems and the giant guns and then decided to tow it to the Pacific via the Panama Canal where it became part of the Navy’s nuclear bomb test fleet at Bikini Atoll.
The Prinz Eugen miraculously survived several nuclear tests. Although it had only minor damage the Navy decided to tow it again to Kwajalein Atoll in the Central Pacific, near the Solomon Islands. By then the ship had a slow leak and it later sunk in the shallow waters. In 1979 one of its propellers was removed and shipped to Germany; it is on display at Laboe Naval Memorial near Kiel.
The cruiser’s stern, including the propeller assemblies, are still visible above the water surface. Today the remains of the Prinz Eugen, the pride of the Nazi fleet, serves as a favorite spot for scuba divers.
Scuba diving at the Prinz Eugen.
Superpower dictators and their little wannabees come and go with the centuries. Hitler’s Horthy is Putin’s Orbán. Wonder if anyone will be left swimming in the Danube after Paks II, the Russian nuclear plant next to the Danube, downstream from Budapest, is launched by Mrs Orbán a couple of years from now ?
Old ships are sunk to give refuge for fish.
It’s too expensive to cut them up.
But Horthy was NOT yet ally of Hitler in 1938 !
Check you facts !
Today, Hungary si NOT ally of Russia, but the NATO that was organized to oppose the Soviet blood-brothers, now possibly Russia.
So actually Hungary and Russia are on the opposite sides today.
Paks was the product of your beloved blood-brothers, in case the above commenter might have forgotten that !
Bende
You are also right that Paks was a product of the Comecon cooperation, i.e. between the communists.
Paks 2 is the same, between quasi fascists.
History repeats itself ( with those hard of learning ).
Who was the jerk who defended Horthy as a Jew saver on this site?
I hope his (Horthy ‘s wife) the canary and his children, grandchildren all get consumed by the devil
Dear Bendeguz79,
Horthy was a „junior partner” to Hitler in 1938, just like Orbán is a „junior partner” to Putin in 2017.
Admiral Horthy was a hero to the Hungarian people. Without the likes of Horthy, incompetent garbage like the communist Bela Kuhn would have destroyed the country and would have caused much terror and misery. Actually Kuhn, actually Moritz Cohen, was so incompetent that his communist brothers shot him in a Gulag in the Soviet Union.
Pretty idiotic Don.
In fact the Horthy people committed atrocities not seen since the 18 century, killing thousands.
Then they handed over 20 k Jews for extermination, introduced the first anti Semitic laws and culminated in sending 500 000 Jews to death and 200 000 Hungarians to very probable death.
Thanks to the likes of you.
Mr Làzàr
Our Bende is right here:
you are describing the events of the 11th hour and Hungary became an ally of the Nazis at midday.
Horthy had to ally himself with either Hitler or Stalin. And he chose correctly. He gave his country 6 more years of Freedom from the eventual Soviet jackboot. You can argue about it as much as you wish, but, Stalin was no choice at all.
BS again.
Many countries remained neutral or were token allies: fascist Spain, Portugal, “aryan” Sweden, Bulgaria (no eastern front, no deportations.
Horthy’s Hun was a very willing Nazi ally though.
And why shouldn’t they have been a very willing Ally of Germany? The other choice wasn’t a choice at all. Stalin’s Soviet Union was a psychopaths paradise. By the time Horthy came to power, the Zionists and Communists of the Soviet Union had murdered about 25 million Russian Christians. You really need to see this time in the proper historical truth. And Germany was not the European boogyman every media and Hollywood movie makes it out to be.
Unfortunately , you are all wrong !
First, Horthy signed a “Cooperation and Friendship Aggreement with Hitler in 1940.
The so called “unshlutz” was in March 1938.
Likely the occupation of Austria in 1938, and of Poland in 1939 scared Horthy to join Germany.
But his greatest mistake was for disregarding neutrality.
He should have gone to Paris in June of 1920, expressing Hungary’s neutrality, and asking the victorious allis to recognize and guarantee it.
But what the hell, every one here is opposed to neutrality even today.
Just what will the future will be as Hungary is now ally of the same German oriented EU and NATO.
Will Hungary ever learn from its miserable 1,000 old past ?
Always has been an ally of some oppressive power.
Just what the hell for ?
I start thinking, because thay are nutts.
Bende
“But what the hell, every one here is opposed to neutrality even today…..”
Finally some wise thoughts.
@ Don Hermiston
Nice try Don but no cigar. (Why not be a proud Hungarian and use your real Hungarian name Don?)
The Czechs didn’t ally themselves to Hitler and came out virtually unscathed from WWII. Not a bomb was dropped on Prague during WWII. Take a walk in that city some day and check for yourself. Hungary, a country of 9 million lost more than a million lives, thanks to Horthy’s “wisdom”.
Hungary was devastated by the Nazis, and then, after the war by the reparations she had to pay to Russia. That double-whammy is the legacy of your hero. Horthy chose to declare war on America, Canada, Britain, France as well as Russia. Smart move, huh ? He chose to abolish any vestige of democratic rule in Hungary after 1920. He began with his “white terror” that resulted in the brutal murder of thousands. Then he abolished the secret ballot in the countryside, and tightened the franchise so only about 30% of the population had the right to vote. Hungary became a country of 3 million beggars thanks to him. He introduced the first anti-Jewish laws of the 20th century in Europe, when Hitler wasn’t even a blip on Hungary’s radar (On June 21, 1920). He deported 460,000 innocent Jews to the gas chambers, and caused the death of another 150,000 by other means. (Read Randolphy Braham’s account.)
Don, you must be one of the fans of the Hungarian PM’s history falsification unit, the Veritas Institute, and of it’s Director, Sándor Szakály. The latter loves to come to Canada, to celebrate the struggle against the Allies with the last surviving Hungarian Nazi commanders, like Gyula Detre.
Great comments Andras Gollner! Bende and the other neo-Nazis should go to Hungary and join their hero O.V. building a dictatorship and enjoying the future outside of the EU.
@ Bendegoose !
“Old ships are sunk to give refuge for fish.”
Old golfers never die, they just lose their balls.
Happy now ?
Orban is correct. Horthy was a Hungarian hero. It would be nice to see people stop having knee jerk reactions to the propaganda which has been meted out by the Globalists for the past 80 years. It would be nice if the politically correct started using their common sense and read some history. If the choice was Hitler or Stalin, a sane man would choose Hitler.