Porhászka László: The Danube Promenade - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)
astonishment as the demonstration which had got from Petőfi tér as far as Vigadó tér was pushed back into Vigadó utca and dispersed by mounted police. The famous insignia of the demonstration, with Petőfi’s portrait looking to the right and the inscription 1848 below, was designed by Pál Pátzay overnight. An enlarged bronze replica can be seen on a plaque on the wall of No. 1 Petőfi tér, unveiled in memory of the demonstration on 15 March 1972. An entirely new situation emerged in the wake of the German occupation of Hungary which took place on 19 March 1944. The secret Anglo-Hungarian agreement of 1943 meant that Hungary was safe from attacks by the allied air forces, but as of late March 1944 aerial bombardment of the country, especially of military targets, commenced. At that time, however, the two sides of the Danube, the Royal Palace and the row of hotels, sustained no serious damage. In autumn 1944, Regent Miklós Horthy attempted the virtually impossible - to lead the country, which now stood in flames, out of the war. Many believe that it was precisely here, on the promenade, that the course of events during the attempted breakaway took a sinister turn. In the early morning hours of 8 October 1944, the Gestapo kidnapped lieutenant general Szilárd Bakay on the promenade as this high ranking officer left army headquarters garrisoned in the Dunapalota to go on his supervisory round. Bakay was not merely the military commander of Budapest, but the designated leader of the breakaway. By capturing him the German secret service deactivated the military coordinator of the entire operation. The failure of the attempt at withdrawal from the war was followed on 16 October by the Arrow Cross take-over, which marked the beginning of the last act in the country’s tragedy. During the Christmas of 1944, Soviet forces completely encircled Budapest. With that a devastating two-month siege of the capital commenced. At the end of 1944, the civilian population sought refuge in basements and air raid shelters. At that point the hotel buildings still stood virtually unscathed on the promenade. The Dunapalota, the former Ritz, even had staying guests until the first days of 1945, right in the midst of the shower of bullets. True, these guests were accommodated in the air raid shelter in the basement. This is how Jenő Thassy, in his memoirs Veszélyes vidék (Dangerous Country), recalls a dinner in early January 1945. 34
