Somogy megye a II. világháborúban (Kaposvár, 1993)

Szabó Péter: Somogyi alakulatok a második világháborúban, s az azt megelőző években

MILITARY UNITS OF SOMOGY IN THE SECOND WORD WAR AND IN THE SUBSEQUENT YEARS (1938-1945) PÉTER SZABÓ Résumé The military participation of Hungary in the Second World War was not motivated by fascist, occupationist interests, nor by the theories of antibolshevism or the will of fate, but it simply resulted from the pressure of necessity. The necessity of the small nations, of reclaiming the areas populated by Hungarians and lost through the dictated peace of Trianon, and of the unfavorable geopolitical situation of the country. Her army got swept away in a serious war of the superpowers, though its development and organization, which started in 1938, only enabled it to defend the borders and to possibly fight for the disannexed areas populated by Hungarians which lay outside these borders. This study presents, through the military units of Somogy that fought in World War II, the hectic and, at the same time, tragic events of the Hungarian military history between 1938 and 1945. The author recalls the episodes of the military occupation of the returned areas of Transylvania and the Southland, the apocalypse at the Don, and the events of the home-defending fights of 1944/45 in the Carpathians and Hungary. The chronicle of the 10th infantry brigade of Kaposvár (from 17 February 1942 light division, then infantry division) - made up by the help of period military records and recollections - is the pivot of the events under discussion, because the majority of the soldiers from Somogy county fought the second great world destruction in the units of this corps. More than ten thousands soldiers of Somogy lie at rest in the then fields of war, in the now unmarked graves and mass graves of camps for prisoners of war. It is the duty of succeeding generations that the memories of the victims who died a hero's death in raging battles be kept and cherished not only by the families concerned.