Magyar Baráti Közösség

Történelmünk  :: Peter Gosztonyi: Hungarian Army in WW II.- Excerpt ::

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Megjegyzés: Excerpt from pp. 55 - 56 of the book

In a subchapter “The army in the Ukraine” Erich Kern, German officer writes  about the Hungarian army’s participation in 1941 as follows:

“In recollecting the bravery of the Magyar soldiers, the Germans could form opinion based on the military event that took place in early August of 1941 south of Uman, in the district of Pervomaysk. A German eyewitness wrote about it in his recollections of the war:

‘This morning we were engaged in a tough fight with a desperately fighting enemy, who  dug themselves in and defended a line along a high railroad embankment. We had attacked four times and they repulsed us each time. Our battalion commander was cursing, but the company commanders were unable to force a break-through. Then – instead of the artillery reinforcement we had requested numerous times – a Hungarian cavalry regiment appeared on the scene.  We began to laugh. ‘What the devil do they want to do here? This is going to be too much for their graceful, fancy horses!’

Then we simply froze: these Hungarians had gone absolutely insane! Companies of cavalry, one after another, were riding toward us. The suntanned, lanky riders seemed to have grown to their saddles.  The colonel leading them, wearing golden collar patches, now pulled out his sword. On his signal four-five armored cars cut out to their flanks and the regiment – swords blazing in the shining sun, - galloped across the broad flatland. Perhaps, Seidlitz and his cavalry did attack like this! We forgot about our safety and crawled out of our trenches to see the charge.

 The entire scene was like out of a magnificent cavalry-movie. At first shots were fired, but they cracked less frequently and finally died off. We watched with bulging eyes and could not believe that the Soviet regiment that defended the lines against our attacks with a fanatic determination now turned around and left their trenches in a panic. And swords flashing the victorious Hungarians chasing after them. It seemed that the hussar-sword was too much for the nerves of the Russian muzhik.

For now, the primitive weapon was victorious over the modern equipment.” 

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Footnote by the writer:
“… excerpted from the book: Der Grosse Rausch, by Erich Kern, published in Zürich, 1948, pp 54-55.
Based on our identification this was the First Cavalry Brigade’s 3rd Cavalry Regiment, which was led by commander Paul Pongratz.

Translated by Laszlo G. Fulop