Operation Panzerfaust

SS soldiers from 22 SS-Freiwilligen-Kavallerie-Division Maria Theresa review captured weapons found in courtyard of Buda Castle, including a Hungarian anti-aircraft self-propelled gun 40M Nimród (back) and a 40mm 40M anti-tank gun.

Date	15–16 October 1944
Location	Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary
Result	Overthrow of Regent Miklós Horthy Pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party came to power

Belligerents

Hungary

Nazi Germany

Arrow Cross Party

Commanders and leaders

Operation Panzerfaust (Unternehmen Panzerfaust), was a military operation to keep the Kingdom of Hungary at Germany's side in the war, conducted in October 1944 by the German Wehrmacht. When German dictator Adolf Hitler received word that Hungary's Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, was secretly negotiating his country's surrender to the advancing Red Army, he sent commando leader Otto Skorzeny of the Waffen-SS and former special forces commander Adrian von Fölkersam to Hungary. Hitler feared that Hungary's surrender would expose his southern flank, where the Kingdom of Romania had just joined with the Soviets and cut off a million German troops still fighting the Soviet advance in the Balkan peninsula. The operation was preceded by Operation Margarethe in March 1944, which was occupation of Hungary by German forces, which Hitler had hoped would secure Hungary's place in the Axis powers.

Having anticipated Horthy's move, Skorzeny had been instructed to remove Horthy from power. Horthy's son Miklós Horthy, Jr. was meeting with Soviet representatives. Miklós Jr. was informed by the German Security Service through intermediaries that envoys of Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia wanted to meet with him. Miklós Jr. had failed to keep a prior meeting when he observed suspicious individuals near the proposed meeting place. A second meeting was set for early 15 October at the offices of Felix Bornemisza, the Director of the Hungarian Danube ports. He hoped that the Yugoslavian representatives might have important news, but upon entering the building, Skorzeny and his troops attacked and beat him into submission. They then kidnapped Miklós at gunpoint, trussed him up in a carpet, immediately drove him to the airport and flew him to Vienna. From there, he was transported to the concentration camp at Mauthausen.

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