Ferenc Szombathelyi

Vitéz Ferenc Szombathelyi (né Knausz or Knauz; 17 May 1887 - 4 November 1946) was a Hungarian military officer, who served as Chief of Army Staff during the Second World War.

Military career

Knausz joined in 1902 as a cadet in the Austro-Hungarian army and was promoted to lieutenant in 1907 infantry regiment No. 16. From 1911 he studied at the k.u.k. War School in Vienna. After participating in the First World War he joined the newly founded Royal Hungarian Army. From 1926 he taught at the Ludovica Military Academy in Budapest. From 1931 to 1933 he was then Chief of Staff of the 3rd mixed brigade adjutant from 1935 to 1936 of the High Command of the armed forces until 1938 and then commander of the Ludovica Academy. From 1934 he used the surname of his mother instead of his German name.

From 1938 to 1939 he held the post of deputy chief of staff. From 1939 to 1941 he commanded the VIII Corps, before he was appointed commanding general of the "Carpathian group" (Kárpát Csoport), with which he took part in Operation Barbarossa. On 6 September he was appointed by Regent Miklós Horthy, to succeed the pro-German Henrik Werth as Chief of General Staff. Szombathelyi assessed the prospects of war with the Soviet Union, skeptical, and did not know that to leave his German counterpart. Shortly after his appointment, he was present at the meeting between Hitler and Horthy, when he promised to send more troops. He hesitated but beyond this measure successfully, to prevent it was no longer following the setback of the German army in the winter of 1941/42 and the increased commitment of Romanian. In April 1942 he sent the Second Army of Gusztáv Jány on the Eastern Front. Previously, he was in reaction to alleged attacks of communist partisans and Chetniks in the annexed Batschka arranged an intervention by the military under General Ferenc Feketehalmy-Czeydner, which evolved into a criminal action against Serb-inhabited villages and culminated in the massacre of Novi Sad.

In response to the catastrophic defeats of the second Army in the winter of 1942/43 (→ Operation Ostrogoschsk-Rossosh) tried to Hungary more and more to take away from his Axis partner. Szombathelyi of the proposed use and of Hitler greeted by Hungarian divisions to garrison purposes in the Balkans as a substitute for the failure of the second Army was rejected by Prime Minister Miklós Kállay. There have been initiated contacts with the Western powers, which was next to Kállay, Szombathelyi also played a leading role. After the German invasion of Hungary in April 1944 Szombathelyi was removed from office and placed under house arrest. He was arrested in October 1944 after the Arrow Cross Party took power. Szombathelyi was deported to Germany, then taken into custody by the Americans, however they delivered to Hungary shortly. He was convicted by the Hungarian people's court to life imprisonment, then extradited to Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav authorities, because of his involvement in the massacre of Novi Sad, brought him to justice and executed by hanging in November 1946. The Hungarian sentence against Szombathelyi was canceled in 1994.

References

• Magyar Életrajzi Lexikon
• Földi Pál: A Magyar Királyi Honvédség a második világháborúban, Anno Kiadó, 2000, ISBN 978-963-375-221-3
• Földi Pál: Horthy tábornokai, Anno Kiadó, 2007, Debrecen, ISBN 978-963-375-487-0
• Dombrády Lóránd: Szombathelyi Ferenc a népbíróság előtt HM Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum Line Design, 2007.
• Györkei Jenő: Idegen bírák előtt. Szombathelyi Ferenc újvidéki pere és kivégzése. Zrínyi Kiadó, Budapest, 2002.