Nagybanyai Horthy Miklos (18 June 1868-9 February 1957) was the regent of Hungary from 1920 to 1944, succeeding Karoly Huszar and preceding Ferenc Szalasi. Horthy was an ally of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany during World War II and aided in the war on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union until his deposition by the Germans and his replacement by Szalasi.
Biography[]
Miklos Horthy de Nagybanya was born in Kenderes, Austria-Hungary, on 18 June 1868. He started his military career as a Frigate Lieutenant in 1896 in the Austro-Hungarian Navy and served at the Battle of the Strait of Otranto in 1917 during World War I. He became the commander-in-chief of the navy in the last year of the war, 1918, ending the war as an admiral.
In 1919, Hungary was plagued with problems, with the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Czechoslovakia, the Kingdom of Romania, and Kingdom of Yugoslavia fighting in a series of wars in Transylvania. With the National Army, Horthy took over Budapest and became the regent of Hungary as its dictator. He was the effective ruler, as he had Prime Ministers serve under him while he was the head-of-state, a role that the king would usually play. King Charles I of Austria/IV of Hungary failed to regain his throne and the Pragmatic Sanction was nullified in 1921, dethroning the Habsburgs.
In the late 1930s, Horthy made an alliance with Nazi Germany, ruled by the fascist dictator Adolf Hitler. With the assistance of Hitler, Horthy was able to regain ethnically-Hungarian lands during the invasions of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the first half of 1941, with Hungarian troops helping the Germans. Horthy's refusal to deport the 40% of Hungary's free Jews to concentration camps led to Operation Margarethe in 1944, which saw German troops invade Hungary and replace Admiral Horthy with Ferenc Szalasi, a brutal dictator. He was arrested in Bavaria, and later came under the custody of the US Army. Horthy was an observer at the Nuremberg Trials against Nazi war criminals, and Horthy died on 9 February 1957 in Estoril, Portugal, as a controversial figure in Hungary.