Government of National Unity (Hungary)
The Government of National Unity (October 1944 – May 1945) was a Nazi-backed puppet government of Hungary, which ruled the German-occupied Kingdom of Hungary during the Second World War in eastern Europe. After the joint coup d’état with which the Nazis and the Arrow Cross Party overthrew the government of the Regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy (r. 1920–1944), the Arrow Cross Party established the coalition Government of National Unity (Nemzeti Összefogás Kormánya) on 16 October 1944.
Government of National Unity Nemzeti Összefogás Kormánya | |||||||||||
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| 1944–1945 | |||||||||||
Coat of arms
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| Motto: Regnum Mariae Patrona Hungariae ("Kingdom of Mary, the Patroness of Hungary") | |||||||||||
| Anthem: Himnusz ("Hymn") Ébredj Magyar! ("Hungarian Arrow Cross Party Anthem") | |||||||||||
| Seal of Hungary (1945): | |||||||||||
| Status | Puppet government of Nazi Germany | ||||||||||
| Common languages | Hungarian | ||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholic, Calvinism, Lutheranism | ||||||||||
| Government | Hungarist totalitarian government under Nazi administration | ||||||||||
| Leader of the Nation (prime minister of Hungary) | |||||||||||
• 1944–1945 | Ferenc Szálasi | ||||||||||
| Legislature | Diet | ||||||||||
| Historical era | World War II | ||||||||||
• Operation Panzerfaust | 15 October 1944 | ||||||||||
• Government formed | 16 October 1944 | ||||||||||
• Government fled to Germany | 28–29 March 1945 | ||||||||||
• End of German occupation of Hungary | 4 April 1945 | ||||||||||
• Capture of Szálasi | 6 May 1945 | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 7 May 1945 | ||||||||||
| Currency | Hungarian Pengő | ||||||||||
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As the national government, the Arrow Cross Party installed Ferenc Szálasi as the prime minister of the Government of National Unity and as the Leader of the Nation, the head of state of Hungary. As a wartime ally of Nazi Germany, Prime Minister Szálasi's government readily executed and realised the Holocaust in Hungary (1941–1945); thus, in seven months, the Arrow Cross regime killed between 10,000 and 15,000 Hungarian Jews in the country, and deported 80,000 Jewish women, children, and old people for killing at the Auschwitz concentration camp.