Arrow Cross Party
화살십자당
A Hungarian far-right ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi. Founded in 1935 as the Party of National Will and reconstituted in 1939 as the Arrow Cross Party, it ruled Hungary as the “Government of National Unity” from 15 October 1944 to 28 March 1945, murdering or deporting tens of thousands of Jews and Roma.
In depth
Outlawed in 1937, the party was reconstituted in 1939 as the Arrow Cross Party and modelled fairly explicitly on the Nazi Party of Germany. After Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944 the Sztójay government legalised it, and when Germany’s Operation Panzerfaust removed Horthy on 15 October, Szálasi became “Leader of the Nation”. Its members marched Jews in Budapest to the Danube and shot them, and sent tens of thousands of Jews to forced labour and on foot to the Austrian border.
Estimates of the civilians murdered under Arrow Cross rule run from 10,000 to 15,000, with some higher. Arrow Cross rule ended on 28 March 1945, and after the war its leaders were tried as war criminals by Hungarian courts; Szálasi and three of his key associates were hanged in March 1946.