According to a2zdirectory.org, this annexation contributed to the definitive entry of Hungary into the German war, so much so that the regent Horthy on April 24, 1941 went to visit Hitler to define the position of the country within the Nazi “new order”. However, after the entry into the war against Russia (summer 1941) it was the concern of the Hungarian government to make contact with the Anglo-Americans – through Anton Ullein-Reviczky, one of the leaders of the resistance – to make people understand war in the eyes of the Hungarians., was directed exclusively against the USSR. This did not change the reality of a situation for the better, and the whole country, if it had welcomed with satisfaction the territorial enlargements made with very little expense, felt the unease growing more and more at having placed itself at the mercy of Germany. The Hungarian landowners who, although still the ruling class, had generally seen favorably the pro-German orientation, both as a counterweight to the Slavs, and for the bulk purchases of agricultural products that Germany carried out on the Hungarian market, between the end of 1941 and the beginnings of 1942 began to open their eyes. The expression of this phase of transition, of general unease, of the search for a way out after the sterile results had necessarily revealed the connection with the Anglo-Americans, was the cabinet of Nicola de Kállay who, since he assumed the power on March 21, 1942, tried to prepare the conditions for effectively detaching the country from the side of Germany. He managed to withdraw the Hungarian troops from the Russian front and to repatriate the Hungarian workers stationed in Germany,

This, in seeking an active connection with the Western Allies, between a Beneš (who had taken a pro-Russian orientation behind the Munich experience) and a Sikorski, who instead intended to keep the Russians away from central Europe, preferred to make contact in Lisbon. with the emissaries of the latter. Especially since Sikorski advocated, among other things, a federation of Central and Eastern Europe, in which Hungary would have its place. In connection with the end of support for Mihajlović by the British, who had transferred their aid to Tito, a communist partisan force, the so-called Petőfi brigade, also took hold in Hungary. After the Balkan invasion plans from the west were abandoned in Ṭeherān, while the Soviet troops were now heading towards the Carpathian passes, Horthy on March 19, 1944 was summoned by Hitler, to whom it seems he wanted to propose an honorable break. The Germans, on the other hand, were aware of the contacts of the Kállay government with the Anglo-Americans and shortly afterwards the occupation of Hungary took place: in place of Kállay the Germans installed gen. Sztojay, minister of Hungary in Berlin for years and very attached to Nazi circles. Meanwhile, the resistance movement tightened ranks with the creation of the “National Independence Front”, while the German reaction was aimed in particular against the Jews. The Germans, on the other hand, were aware of the contacts of the Kállay government with the Anglo-Americans and shortly afterwards the occupation of Hungary took place: in place of Kállay the Germans installed gen. Sztojay, minister of Hungary in Berlin for years and very attached to Nazi circles. Meanwhile, the resistance movement tightened ranks with the creation of the “National Independence Front”, while the German reaction was aimed in particular against the Jews. The Germans, on the other hand, were aware of the contacts of the Kállay government with the Anglo-Americans and shortly afterwards the occupation of Hungary took place: in place of Kállay the Germans installed gen. Sztojay, minister of Hungary in Berlin for years and very attached to Nazi circles. Meanwhile, the resistance movement tightened ranks with the creation of the “National Independence Front”, while the German reaction was aimed in particular against the Jews.

When the Russians are now forcing the defense lines of the Carpazî, the regent Horthy on October 15, 1944 has a proclamation read on the radio that he intends to separate Hungary from the fate of Germany. Immediately the regent is taken prisoner and the power entrusted to Major Szálasy, leader of the arrow crosses. At this point, while the external war continues to flare up against the Russians, the internal Hungarian situation now takes on the gloomy colors of the civil war, underlined by the terrorism of the crosses. By now the Russian troops have descended on the Magyar plain (for military operations, see Russia, in this second App., II, p. 764) and on December 24, 1944 they completed the encirclement of Budapest. Germans and arrow crosses defend the capital house by house. Pest falls on January 18, 1945 and, after the destruction of the bridges over the Danube, Buda is entirely conquered on February 20.

In the meantime, the new cabinet of Béla Miklós, which came out of the elections at the provisional assembly of liberated territories, held in Debrecen in December 1944, signed an armistice in Moscow on January 21, 1945 with the Allies which required the return to the borders of the Trianon. Hungary immediately declared war on Germany.