During the Second World War, there were may evil war criminals who took part in the executions
and slaughter of people all over Europe.
Many of these executioner’s lived normal lives before the conflict broke out, but inside
of Hungary there were huge scale deportations of people to concentration camps.
The country was eventually occupied by the Germans, and inside of the land there was
a huge amount of persecution of people and after the war had finished the job came to
punish those who had inflicted such suffering.
Many former politicians who had been collaborating with Mussolini and Hitler were brought to
gallows in cities and in front of large crowds they were executed.
But one man who was a Catholic priest who was also the commander of a group of anti
semitic executioners was Andras Kun.
After the war he was one of those who despite being a priest was taken to the gallows.
But why was he executed and what was his story?
Join us today as we look at the execution of the Killer Priest, and as always to support
our channel please make sure to subscribe.
Andras Kun was born on the 8th November 1911, and as a young man he attended a seminary
in Rome.
He would then train as a priest in a Franciscan Monastery, and it was clear he was a very
devoted and religious young man.
However this Hungarian priest would then in 1943 for some reason be expelled from the
monastery, and he then went back to Hungary and he moved to Budapest.
He had in the past given many different sermons and masses, and he would preach inside of
the churches in Hungary, however he would then become more politically motivated once
he was back in Hungary.
In 1944, Andras became a member of the Pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party.
This was a far right ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szalasi, and they would be involved
in government from October 1944 to March 1945.
During its short time in power, they would slaughter between 10 to 15 thousand civilians
including many Jews and it’s believed that they also deported around 80,000 people from
the country to concentration camps.
The Arrow Cross Party’s beliefs were very similar to the Nazism and the Facists, and
they were very antisemitic.
Before the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944, Kun continued to devote his time to
the Arrow Cross Party, but he would then take part in their seizure of power and he would
be involved in distributing weapons to other members.
He said that, ‘the propaganda drilled into us the belief that the Jews lurk behind the
Bolsheviks.
Amidst the wildest battles I stood with this conviction and as Jews came before me, I beat
them.’
The Germans would help the Arrow Cross Party gain power, as they took Regent Horthy into
‘protective custody,’ and forced him to abdicate.
Szalasi was then made ‘The Leader of the Hungarian Nation and the Prime Minister of
the Government.
The Arrow Cross rule would be brutal with mass slaughter occurring across the nation
despite the fact that the Soviets were already within Hungarian borders and were fighting
the Germans.
Adolf Eichmann worked with the officers of the party to restart deportations of Jews
from Budapest, and most who were sent to camps such as Auschwitz were exterminated as soon
as they got there.
The Arrow Cross Party and the SS would continue to exterminate the Jews of Hungary, and deportations
continued as well as using death squads who would attack in the war zones similarly to
how the Einsatzgruppen would slaughter civilians following military advances.
Andras Kun took command of an Arrow Cross department Death Squad in a district in Budapest,
following Ferenc Szalasi leaving Budapest as he believed the city would then be besieged
by the Soviet Red Army.
Andras’ death squad would then slaughter and massacre Jews or any civilians who were
hiding.
During these attacks, he would often dress in his priests robes and his cassock as well
as wearing his roman collar, showing that he was a priest.
He would then wear his Arrow Cross armband, and his holstered pistol.
He would then order his soldiers, ‘In the name of Christ, Fire,’ claiming that he
was doing God’s bidding slaughtering dozens of innocent people.
He would later say, ‘"I always wanted to reduce human misery and suffering.
This is why I fought against the Jews.
They are the lords of capital.
The Jews were always the ones to walk on the sunny side of the street."
In January 1945 he ordered the arrest of a well known Jewish author and his family, and
Kun and his executioners then tortured his son and wife.
Then they were taken to the Arrow Cross headquarters where they were stripped and tied together
and beaten.
Around midnight they then faced the firing squad, but amazingly their son survived four
bullets and later made it out of Hungary.
On the 12th January 1945, Kun’s death squad broke into the Jewish hospital in Maros Street
and 149 patients and doctors were then shot by him and his men.
He then went to another hospital and shot another 100 dead.
His death squad also entered sheltered housing and abducted 500 jews, who were all lined
up along the banks of the Danube River before Kun gave the order to shoot.
Further attacks took place when the men broke into a sanitorium slaughtering 100 more.
When the Siege of Budapest occurred, he did not flee the city but continued to attack
and massacre.
Many of the bridges were exploded to prevent escape, and Kun helped a lot of war criminals
escape to Buda and he then continued to carry out his brutal actions.
But even the Arrow Cross government officials became fed up with his crimes as he would
attack buildings under the protection of neutral countries, and on the 18th January 1945 a
police patrol was ordered to arrest him.
But Kun then turned the tables on them and he arrested them and beat their commanders
terribly and locked them in a basment.
His headquarters were then surrounded and Kun said that if he did not give himself up
in 10 minutes the authorities would attack the building.
He handed himself over, and for 3 months he had rampaged across Budapest.
Andras Kun had been arrested, and then he was brought to trial.
The National Calling to Account Department charged him with specific crimes.
One said that, ‘On the 18th January 1945 Leftenant Colonel Rezso Mindak was severely
beaten and later arrested and Kun abused a section of police officers in the party house.’
He was then accused of being involved int he murders of around 3000 people, but this
was all going on whilst the Second World War was still waging on.
He would be spared from execution during the war initially by Ferenc Szalasi who commuted
his sentence to 15 years in prison.
But then when the Soviets captured the city, Andras Kun was released from prison by the
inmates as they did not know the monster that he was.
He went missing for some months and it’s believed pretended to be Romanian and he then
left the scene of his crimes to then travel onto Italy possibly to pick up his priesthood
again.
But then on the Hungarian side of the Italian border, he was captured on the 3rd August
1945, and the border guard transported him back to Budapest around 4 weeks later to stand
trial yet again for his crimes.
He was then brought in front of a Hungarian People’s Tribunal and he was then tried
for the murder of 500 people.
The true death toll of Andras Kun and his death squad it’s believed is more, but let’s
not forget that in the years during the war he was also a priest.
He was tried and was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity as well as the
slaughter and massacre of innocent people during the deadliest conflict the world had
ever seen.
He was interviewed on the day of his execution, and he would state when accused of sadism,
‘"This perversion exists, in a dormant state, in every soul."
When asked if it existed in his soul as well, Kun responded: "If it did, then it was dormant.
I was not conscious of it."
He would also admit in interviews that he beat the Jews but eh continued to deny that
he denied killing anyone and he said that he had wrongly been sentenced to death.
He even claimed that he was a victim.
However on the 19th September 1945 he was brought to Budapest for his execution.
He was executed by the pole hanging method, and he was brought to a stake inside of the
city and was led up to a step.
He had a rope passed around his body and his arms and legs were secured before an executioner
who was stood on a ladder secured a noose around his neck.
Minutes later as the crowds looked on through the windows, the drop was released an in minutes
the killer priest of Budapest was executed bringing his reign of terror to an end.
It is not everyday that you write a video on a killer priest who executed and slaughtered
hundreds of people leading a death squad.
Andras Kun was a brutal and barbaric man who was involved in the massacres of many people
as the government supported by Hitler took control in Hungary.
Even when they fell from power Andras would go on the rampage.
He was a man who was sick and twisted and was a terrible war criminal who was taken
to the execution stake for his crimes.
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