Editing Axis powers (section)

===Hungary===
{{Main|Hungary in World War II|Government of National Unity (Hungary)}}
[[File:Toldi.jpg|thumb|Hungarian [[Toldi (tank)|Toldi I]] tank as used during the 1941 Axis invasion of the Soviet Union]]The [[Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)|Kingdom of Hungary]], ruled by [[Regent]] Admiral [[Miklós Horthy]], was the first country apart from Germany, Italy, and Japan to adhere to the Tripartite Pact, signing the agreement on 20 November 1940.<ref>Seamus Dunn, T.G. Fraser. Europe and Ethnicity: The First World War and Contemporary Ethnic Conflict. Routledge, 1996. p. 97.</ref>

Political instability plagued the country until Miklós Horthy, a Hungarian nobleman and [[Austro-Hungarian Navy|Austro-Hungarian naval]] officer, became regent in 1920. The vast majority of the Hungarians desired to recover former territories of the [[Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen]] lost through the [[Treaty of Trianon]]. During the government of [[Gyula Gömbös]], Hungary drew closer to Germany and Italy largely because of a shared desire to revise the peace settlements made after World War I.{{sfn|Montgomery|2002|p={{page needed|date=March 2012}}}} Many people sympathized with the [[anti-Semitism|anti-Semitic]] policy of the Nazi regime. Hungary refused to participate in Nazi Germany's planned invasion of Czechoslovakia during the Sudenten Crisis, but after the Munich Agreement carried out a diplomatic rapprochement in order to avoid Germany developing too close of an alliance with Hungary's rival Romania.<ref name=":1" /> Due to its supportive stance towards Germany and the new efforts in the international policy, Hungary gained favourable territorial settlements by the [[First Vienna Award]], after the breakup of [[Czechoslovakia]] occupied and annexed the remainder of [[Carpathian Ruthenia]] and in 1940 received [[Northern Transylvania]] from Romania via the [[Second Vienna Award]]. Hungarians permitted German troops to transit through their territory during the [[invasion of Yugoslavia]], and Hungarian forces joined the military operations after the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia. Parts of the former Yugoslavia were annexed to Hungary; the United Kingdom immediately broke off diplomatic relations in response.

[[File:Hungarian soldiers in the Carpathians.jpg|thumb|left|Hungarian soldiers in the [[Carpathian mountains]] in 1944]]
Although Hungary did not initially participate in the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the Soviet Union]], Hungary and the [[Soviet Union]] became belligerents on 27 June 1941. Over 500,000 soldiers served on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]]. All five of Hungary's field armies ultimately participated in the war against the Soviet Union; a significant contribution was made by the [[Hungarian Second Army]].

On 25 November 1941, Hungary was one of thirteen signatories to the renewed Anti-Comintern Pact. Hungarian troops, like their Axis counterparts, were involved in numerous actions against the Soviets. By the end of 1943, the Soviets had gained the upper hand and the Germans were retreating. The Hungarian Second Army was destroyed in fighting on the [[Voronezh Front]], on the banks of the [[Don River (Russia)|Don River]].

Prior to the [[Operation Margarethe|German occupation]] within the area of Hungary around 63,000 Jews perished. Afterwards, in late 1944, 437,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, most of them to their deaths.<ref>''Hungary and the Holocaust Confrontation with the Past'' (2001) (Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies United States Holocaust Memorial Museum); Tim Cole;  ''Hungary, the Holocaust, and Hungarians: Remembering Whose History?''  pp. 3–5; [https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/Publication_OP_2001-01.pdf]</ref> Overall, Hungarian Jews suffered close to 560,000 casualties.<ref>Randolph L. Braham; (2010) ''Hungarian, German, and Jewish calculations and miscalculations in the last chapter of the Holocaust'' pp. 9–10; Washington, D.C. : Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, [https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/Publication_OP_2010-01.pdf]</ref>

[[File:Repülőtér, 1944. április 13. Kass Ferenc őrmester légiharcban megsérült MÁVAG Héja II. vadászrepülőgépe. Fortepan 9233.jpg|thumb|[[MÁVAG Héja]] fighter aircraft, derived from the [[Reggiane Re.2000]], an Italian fighter design]]

Relations between Germany and the regency of [[Miklós Horthy]] collapsed in 1944 when Horthy attempted to negotiate a peace agreement with the Soviets and jump out of the war without German approval. Horthy was forced to abdicate after German commandos, led by Colonel [[Otto Skorzeny]], held his son hostage as part of [[Operation Panzerfaust]]. Hungary was reorganized following Horthy's abdication in December 1944 into a totalitarian regime called the [[Government of National Unity (Hungary)|Government of National Unity]], led by [[Ferenc Szálasi]]. He had been [[Prime Minister of Hungary]] since October 1944 and was leader of the [[Hungarism|Hungarist]] [[Arrow Cross Party]]. Its jurisdiction was effectively limited to an ever-narrowing band of territory in [[central Hungary]], around [[Budapest]] since by the time they took power the [[Red Army]] was already far inside the country. Nonetheless, the Arrow Cross rule, short-lived as it was, was brutal. In fewer than three months, Arrow Cross death squads killed as many as 38,000 [[History of the Jews in Hungary|Hungarian Jews]]. Arrow Cross officers helped [[Adolf Eichmann]] re-activate the deportation proceedings from which the Jews of Budapest had thus far been spared, sending some 80,000 Jews out of the city on slave labour details and many more straight to death camps. Most of them died, including many who were murdered outright after the end of the fighting as they were returning home.<ref name="remeny.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.remeny.org/node/36 |title=Szita Szabolcs: A budapesti csillagos házak (1944–45) &#124; Remény |website=Remeny.org |date=15 February 2006 |access-date=2017-06-17}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.osa.ceu.hu/galeria/sites/siege/section2.html |title=Section2 |access-date=2013-05-18 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202124928/http://www.osa.ceu.hu/galeria/sites/siege/section2.html |archive-date=2009-02-02 }}</ref> Days after the Szálasi government took power, the capital of [[Budapest]] was surrounded by the Soviet [[Red Army]]. German and Hungarian forces tried to hold off the Soviet advance but failed. After fierce fighting, Budapest was taken by the Soviets. A number of pro-German Hungarians retreated to Italy and Germany, where they fought until the end of the war.

In March 1945, Szálasi fled to Germany as the leader of a government in exile, until the surrender of Germany in May 1945.