When we think of Axis powers, Germany, Japan, and Italy are often the first which come to mind.
Though, these were not the only nations to buddy-up under Hitler and fight the
Allies in the Second World War. Several other European states fell into Germany's gravity
and became Nazi satellite states. And some of these states proved to be *key* allies,
paving Hitler's war path and spilling their own blood alongside the Germans.
For a quick history lesson, expanding empires exploiting satellite states
goes back to *at least* the 19th century and the Napoleonic Wars,
in which Napoleon milked the resources and military power of his satellites,
such as the Duchy of Warsaw, which fought the Australian — woops, *Austrian* — Empire
and supported the Grande Armée in several campaigns, including the invasion of Russia.
Back to World War II, we're now going to discuss three German satellite states and
their contributions to the Thousand-Year Reich which definitely didn't last a thousand years.
With Hitler's thumbs-up, the First Slovak Republic declared its independence from
Czechoslovakia on the 14th of March 1939. Until April 1945, it was governed by the clero-fascist
Slovak People’s Party and its leader, Josef Tiso, in collaboration with the Nazis.
On the 24th of November 1940, the First Slovak Republic signed on as an Axis power.
Between the 1st and 16th of September 1939, more than 50,000 soldiers across three divisions of
the Slovak Field Army Bernolák — reinforced by the German 14th Army — invaded Poland while the
Polish military was busy getting steamrolled by the German war machine. With the Poles distracted,
the Slovaks stole the Polish territory they intended to without much resistance,
taking a little over 150 casualties. Before they were withdrawn later in September,
they took some 1,350 civilians prisoners and gifted them to the Germans and also the Soviets.
When Hitler turned on the USSR, the Slovaks sat back a while before committing 45,000
troops of the Slovak Expeditionary Army Group to the offensive. This expeditionary force, however,
was a hot mess, so the Germans took its best and brightest and attached them to the German 17th
Army; the rest they sent back to cover their rear. The Slovaks fought under the German 17th Army for
about a month, including in the Battle of Uman, which turned out to be disastrous for the Soviets.
Long story short, Axis encirclements ripped the Red Army to shreds,
inflicted more than 200,000 casualties for an Axis blood payment of just 20,800.
Not long after Uman, the entirety of the Slovak Expeditionary Army Group
was divided into two infantry divisions, of which only one was a front-line fighting force.
This division — the Slovak 1st — fought with German Army Group B through the Soviet Union until
it was eaten alive by poor morale and subsequently assigned to construction work, joining the Slovak
*2nd* Division. It's clear that many Slovaks didn't want to fight and die for Hitler, as,
in the 1944 Slovak National Uprising, many fought *against* Tiso and the Germans in the
Slovak Republic, to no avail. Soon after, the Soviets liberated the state from fascist rule.
In the lead-up to the Second World War, the Kingdom of Hungary was suffering the
Great Depression, and the light at the end of the tunnel was no light at all,
but Hitler's grinning face and Mussolini's shining bald head. Dependent on German and Italian trade,
Hungary started to walk and talk like Germany, and on the 20th of November 1940,
Hungarian Prime Minister Pál Teleki took out his pen and signed Hitler's cast, which was
actually the Tripartite Pact. Hungry for land, and now an Axis lad, Hungary mustered its armies.
When Hitler asked Hungary to help him invade Yugoslavia and take a slab of it as a reward,
Prime Minister Pál Teleki shot himself dead, and László Bárdossy took his place. After Germany had
softened Yugoslavia up, Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy sent in some 80,000 Hungarian troops,
who occupied several Yugoslavia territories with relative ease, taking casualties in only
the hundreds. Things got much bloodier for Hungary from there on, and then they *really* hit the fan.
Hitler directed the German war machine into the Soviet Union on the 22nd of June 1941,
and Hungary jumped on the bandwagon just five days later, declaring war on the USSR. Under
Operation Barbarossa, the Hungarians fought alongside the Germans with utmost barbarity,
though Hungary paid the price for its deal with the Devil in the Battle of Stalingrad.
Stalingrad was the turning point of the war in Europe, and of the 868,000 Axis casualties
sustained in this Axis defeat, up to 143,000 of them were Hungarian, amounting to more than 70%
of the troops Hungary committed to the battle. In short, Hungary's best-equipped army was undone.
During the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy kicked László
Bárdossy out and assigned Miklós ***Kállay*** as the next Hungarian Prime Minister. Fearing an
overdependence on German, Kállay started dealing under the table, negotiating with the Western
Allies while still at war with the Soviets. Unfortunately for Hungary, Hitler caught wind of
Kállay's deceit, and in March 1944, the Germans invaded and occupied Hungary and then made the
Hungarians fight for them against the Soviets, until the Soviets *themselves* occupied the
country. In the Siege of Budapest alone, some 38,000 Hungarian soldiers became casualties,
as did a further 38,000 civilians. An armistice was signed in January 1945,
though some diehard Hungarians fought alongside the Germans until the end of the war in Europe.
Under King Carol II — no, not your Aunt Carol — the Kingdom of Romania opted to remain neutral
at the start of the Second World War. Though, with Europe up in the air, and fascists inside
of Romania kicking up a fuss, siding with the Germans was looking better and better. After the
Romanian government willingly gave up pieces of territory to the Soviets throughout 1940,
the Romanian people — especially the fascists — were outraged, so Romanian Marshal Ion Antonescu
seized the opportunity and staged a coup. Once in power, Romania's new dictator (Antonescu)
steered the country towards Axis, which it joined on the 23rd of November 1940.
Antonescu and Hitler were tight, with the Führer stating that Antonescu
was the only foreigner he consulted on military matters.
As such, Antonescu was more than happy to lend his axe to Hitler in Operation Barbarossa.
At the start of the operation, the Romanian Army boasted a strength of over 686,000, and
by August 1944, this figure had almost doubled, making Romania Germany's number one supplier of
manpower in the war, contributing more troops than all of Germany's other buddies combined.
As a reward, the Germans helped the Romanians take some of the territory which they had
ceded to the Soviets *back* from the Soviets. Fighting side by side, the Romanian Third and
Fourth Armies and German Eleventh Army invaded the regions of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina,
and Hertza, and beat the Red Army out of them at a price of over 21,700 casualties,
for Red Army casualties of just under 17,900.
After making good on his promise and gifting these regions to Antonescu,
the Romanian armies went deeper into the USSR, helping them gain victories
in operations such as the Battle of Uman and the Sieges of Odessa and Sevastopol.
Things went *mostly* sour for the Romanians after that, especially in the Battle of Stalingrad,
in which the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies took 158,000 casualties and were largely undone.
While Romanians were dying for Hitler in the USSR, Romania herself was open to attack,
and the Western Allies laid waste to her industry in strategic bombing operations.
This softened Romania up, and after the tide turned in favour of the Soviets on the Eastern
Front, the Romanian Army, bolstered by the German Eight Army, had to fight off a full-blown Soviet
invasion. In said invasion, known as the Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, a further 200,000
Romanians became casualties of war, while the Germans sustained 150,000 casualties.
During this battle, King Michael I of Romania — the former King Carol II's son — staged a
coup of his own, and this ultimately lead to the execution of Antonescu and Romania becoming an
Allied power for the rest of the war. Now, Romania fought *against* Germany with over 1 million men,
of which more than *half* became casualties before the end of the war in Europe.
But what do you think? Did you know there were more than three Axis powers? Did you know just
how much blood the Slovak Republic, Hungary, and Romania paid towards the German war effort?
Would you like to learn more about these states' contributions,
such as how they facilitated the Holocaust? Please share your thoughts in the comments.