Soviet Budapest Offensive and Siege of Budapest: Casualties and losses

Ia of IV. SS-Pz.Korps Fritz Rentrop

Armed Resistance Ceased on February 13 1945

Nearly 35,000 Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS soldiers and 37,000 Hungarian Army soldiers as well as over 900,000 civilians were trapped within the city of Budapest. The Waffen-SS troops involved constituted the backbone of the defensive effort and took the severest losses. 70,000 defenders tied up almost half a million Soviet troops. Less than 1,000 managed to avoid death or captivity. On February 13 1945 all resistance in Budapest ceased. Mass executions were committed by the victorious Red Army and the rapes and rape-murders of women that took place were of staggering proportions. An estimated 150,000 Hungarian women and children were raped by Red Army soldiers in Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary by the end of the war. The Allies took no notice as they regarded Hungary as part of the Soviet sphere of influence and therefore not worthy of attention. A day or so before the siege ended, the conference at Yalta took place, and the fate of post-war Europe was sealed. Hungary was not mentioned. According to German historian Karl-Heinz Frieser, the entire German-Hungarian loss of life in the battle of Budapest were about 48,000 dead and 26,000 wounded. The Hungarian historian Ungváry Krisztián puts the figure of another 38,000 civilians dead in the siege, of which 7,000 were executed and estimates that about 38,000 died in Soviet slave labour camps. One will never know how many German-Hungarian soldiers died in the weeks that followed the surrendering of Budapest but estimates range up to 25,000. Many were murdered upon surrendering while others died during punitive “death marches” or in Soviet labor camps. Soviet casualties in the Budapest offensive are estimated at around 80,000 dead and 240,000 wounded. With the exception of Operation Spring Awakening in March 1945, the Konrad Operations were the last major operations on the southern front for the Axis. Left image: former Das Reich officer SS-Obersturmführer and Generalstabsoffizier of the IV.SS-Panzerkorps Fritz Rentrop fell wounded into the hands of the Red Army on February 2 1945. In the postwar period rumors were spread that he was still alive but after the opening of the files of the USSR at the beginning of the 21st century it became known that Fritz Rentrop was murdered in Hungary by the Soviets the same day he was taken prisoner. The Knight's Cross had been awarded to him in 1941 to recognize his extreme battlefield bravery and military valour. Photo taken by SS-Kriegsberichter Friedrich Zschäckel. Credit: Mike Gepp. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Right image: surrendering German soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Credit: Ghermán Mihály. PD.