Brailey Butts
Essay Three
Professor A
10/28/14
Hungary’s Borders After World War II Hungary is located in Central Europe and shares borders with the Slovak Republic to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, the east with Romania, the west with Austria and Slovenia, and the south with Croatia and Serbia. For most of 1941 the government of Hungary maintained neutrality with all the turmoil all around Europe but by mid- December of 1941 Budapest had been launched right into the middle of World War II. Hungary had just become a Nazi ally due to their anger toward the Treaty of Trianon which ended World War I. The Treaty of Trianon reduced Hungary’s borders to about a third of the size they once were, the treaty also drew lines and borders through
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It was true especially in the case of moving from the villages to over the border agricultural lands” (Bajmócy 214). Following the interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary came under the influence of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a four-decade long communist dictatorship. The Treaty of Trianon deduced Hungary and split the whole region apart. The borders between Hungary and its neighboring countries were affected by the government actions of Hungary as well. The strictness of Hungary’s borders correlates to Hungary’s history; the border between Hungary and Serbia is stricter than the border between Hungary and Austria. The borders around Hungary were put under stress when Germany occupied the country. Social borders like the Germans coming into the country and treating it as if it were their property. Cultural borders like the Germans removing Hungarian-Jews from the country causing a separation between the Hungarian people and the Jewish population in Hungary. Physically the border of Hungary was crossed by the German troops multiple times without any …show more content…
As a part of the Soviet Union Hungary became a communist country. After the fall of communism Hungary became a member of the European Union in 2004. The mindset of the Hungarian people differentiated frequently over the years, “I repeat, Hungary was painfully affected and involved: every tenth extinguished Jewish life in Europe life was also Hungarian in the greatest national trauma we ever had. Not only is the number of victims traumatizing but also and mainly the fact that Hungarians had turned against their fellow Hungarians” (Martonyi 360). The fall of communism was only about twenty years ago so most of the older generation of Hungary still has a communist way of
One difference between the Hungarians and the Czechs was the effects of nationalism on the uprisings. Rooted in their history from 1848 Revolution against the Habsburg Empire, the Hungarians sought independence with the death of Stalin. Matyas Rakoski, a Stalin protégé, came to power as General Secretary of the Hungarian Worker’s Party in 1949. Using his authority as General Secretary, Rakoski oppressed the people of Hungary including purging political dissidents and killing 2,000 people of the total population. He used the State Protection Agency to carry out the purges bringing in an administration of absolute control and fear to the people of Hungary. But, the Hungarians would not completely abandon their nationalist hop...
I have chosen to write my response paper on our course’s monograph Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy D. Snyder published by Basic Books in 2010. This text is considered revisionist history and has been very well received, even earning the 2013 Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought. Snyder’s was considerably unconstrained in his research. He has a reading knowledge of eleven European languages allowing him utilize a wide range of primary and secondary sources. These widespread sources allowed him compile a book containing many groundbreaking perspectives and conclusions.
Many groups had great power and influence around the world during the Holocaust. How this influence was used or not used helped shape experiences, often horrific, for many European Jews. In Hungary, toward the end of the Holocaust not only did the international institutions become silent bystanders, but their very own neighbors turned their back on their fellow citizens knowing what atrocities awaited their arrival at Auschwitz. The brutality started close to home when fellow Hungarians, in a combined effort with the city government, railroad officials, and law-enforcement agencies coordinated a swift transport of 400,000 Jews to their almost certain death. “In March 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary and in April, they forced the Jews into ghettos.
On March 19, 1944, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Hungary making life for Hungarian Jews more difficult than it was. Before Germany had invaded Hungary, there were already anti-Jewish laws, and other conditions that were applied to Hungary, because Hungary was allied to Germany during part of the war. Although Hungary was allied with the Germans, there were disagreements that occurred between the two allies. One of the disagreements was that Hungary was not willing to send its troops to the Soviet Union for battle (On the German Occupation of Hungary). Hungary was very cautious about sending its troops for German assaults, because a lot of their soldiers had been killed in the fighting, and they didn’t want that to happen (On German Occupation of Hungary). Hungary also started to see that Germany would not win the war, therefore the government started to secretly negotiate surrender between Hungary and the allies (Hungary after the German Occupation). Hitler found out about this, and with all of the disagreements that occurred, the uncovering of the secret negotiations resul...
Wolfsgrüber, Cölestin. “The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 18 December 2011
Various countries from Czechoslovakia and Hungary, which had. been occupied by the Red Army at the end of the war, were brought. under communist control and the leaders were simply murdered. Therefore Leaving Stalin in control, he tried to prevent the Western influence. reaching the East. Also to stop refugees leaving the East for West.
In the fall of 1989, people all around the world were watching unbelievable scenes on their televisions. Thousands of people in eastern Europe were meeting in the streets and squares and demanding the end of the communist rule. For the first time in history, opposition to communism was publicly voiced. Barbed wire border fences in Hungary are being torn down. East Germans fleeing to the West.
However, when confronted with a strict policy of appeasement, by both the French and the English, the stage was set for a second World War. Taylor constructs a powerful and effective argument by expelling certain dogmas that painted Hitler as a madman, and by evaluating historical events as a body of actions and reactions, disagreeing with the common idea that the Axis had a specific program from the start. The book begins with the conclusion of the First World War, by exploring the idea that critical mistakes made then made a second war likely, yet not inevitable. Taylor points out that although Germany was defeated on the Western front, “Russia fell out of Europe and ceased to exist, for the time being, as a Great Power. The constellation of Europe was profoundly changed—and to Germany’s advantage.”
Comparing the events in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Both of these events covered the same basic outline: a revolt, reforms. in the country and the USSR’s reaction to these modifications. However, In both cases, the situation differed with many similarities and difference. The sand is Both events started with the same cause, dissatisfaction with Communism and the restrictions that come with it.
Hungary is in Central Europe, Northwest of Romania. It was “a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until its collapse during World War I” (Factbook). After World War II, the country fell to Stalin’s regime. The announcement of Hungary’s removal in the Warsaw Pact caused a vast riot. The Hungarian Revolution was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-forced policies. It was the first major threat to Soviet control since the USSR's forces drove out the Nazis at the end of World War II. In spite of the failure of the revolution, it was exceedingly significant, and came to play a position in the downfall of the Soviet Union years later.
The last two decades of the twentieth century gave rise to turbulent times for constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, eventually leading them to split apart. There were a number of damaging aspects of past history and of the political and economic circumstances that contributed to the breakup and eventually caused the situation to snowball into a deadly series of inter-ethnic conflicts. Yugoslavia was reunified at the end of the war when the communist forces of Josip Broz Tito liberated the country. Under Tito, Yugoslavia adopted a relatively liberal form of government in comparison to other East European communist states at the time and experienced a period of relative economic and political stability until Tito’s death in 1980. In addition to internal power struggles following the loss of their longtime leader, Yugoslavia faced an unprecedented economic crisis in the 1980’s. As other communist states began to fall in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, some former Communist leaders abandoned communism and founded or supported ethno-national parties, blaming the economic suffering on the flaws of communism and other ethnic groups. The ethnic violence that followed would not have been possible without the willingness of politicians from every side to promote ethno-nationalist symbols and myths through media blitzes, which were especially effective due to low levels of education in the former Yugoslavia. Shadows of the events of World War II gave these politicians, especially the Serbs, an opportunity to encourage the discussion and exaggeration of past atrocities later in the century. The ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia can be traced back to a series of linked damaging factors such as the de...
Also, the Hungarian Government is working diligently to surrender to the Allies, without Hitler knowing about it, but they are unsuccessful and the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross Party assumes power over Hungary by Ferenc Szalasi, and they round up all the hungarian Jews. During this time period, Cohen and Jacobson try to save as many Jewish families as possible and eventually begin to work with the Lutz. Cohen and Jacobson are
Throughout history, negotiation has been a powerful tool used by world leaders to avoid violence and solve conflict. When negotiation succeeds all parties can feel that that have achieved their goals and met their expectations, but when negotiations go awry countries and relationships can be damaged beyond repair. The Munich Agreement of 1938 is a primary example of this type of failure, which was one of the catalysts to the start World War II and Czechoslovakia’s loss of independence. The Czech people were greatly overlooked during this agreement process, which still in some instances affects the country today. The 1930s were a challenging time for Europe and the powers within it due to the aftermath of WWI and the worldwide economic depression. Meanwhile, Fuhrer Hitler and the Nazi party were continuing their domination of Europe and threatening to invade Czechoslovakia, which many felt would most likely incite another World War. To prevent this England, France, Italy and Germany entered into an agreement, which would allow Germany to seize control of Sudetenland and is today known as the ‘Munich Pact’. Sudetenland had a large German population and its borders were in strategically strong areas for the German military. For negotiations to be successful there are many components that one must be aware of such as personalities of all parties, end goals of each person and the history from the country. England led the process with an appeasement policy as an attempt to mollify Hitler and the Nazi party and prevent war, which this pact did not. The Munich Pact is a perfect example of how negotiation can fail when all of the pieces do not fall correctly into place.
The enlargement of the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007 has been termed as the largest single expansion of the EU with a total of 12 new member states – bringing the number of members to 27 – and more than 77 million citizens joining the Commission (Murphy 2006, Neueder 2003, Ross 2011). A majority of the new member states in this enlargement are from the eastern part of the continent and were countries that had just emerged from communist economies (EC 2009, Ross 2011), although overall, the enlargement also saw new member states from very different economic, social and political compared to that of the old member states (EC 2009, Ross 2011). This enlargement was also a historical significance in European history, for it saw the reunification of Europe since the Cold War in a world of increasing globalization (EC 2009, Mulle et al. 2013, Ross 2011). For that, overall, this enlargement is considered by many to have been a great success for the EU and its citizens but it is not without its problems and challenges (EC 2009, Mulle et al. 2013, Ross 2011). This essay will thus examine the impact of the 2004/2007 enlargements from two perspectives: firstly, the impact of the enlargements on the EU as a whole, and thereafter, how the enlargements have affected the new member states that were acceded during the 2004/2007 periods. Included in the essay will be the extent of their integration into the EU and how being a part of the Commission has contributed to their development as nation states. Following that, this essay will then evaluate the overall success of the enlargement process and whether the EU or the new member states have both benefited from the accessions or whether the enlargement has only proven advantageous to one th...
Ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter. "Slovakia." Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction. Vol. 4. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 2358-2359. World History in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.