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{{Short description|1935–1945 fascist political party in Hungary}}
{{EngvarB|date=July 2019}}
{{Infobox political party
| name             = Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement
| native_name      = Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom
| logo             = [[File:Emblem_of_the_Arrow_Cross_Party.svg|110px]]
| colorcode        = {{party color|Arrow Cross Party}}
| leader           = [[Ferenc Szálasi]]<ref>''[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ferenc-Szalasi Ferenc Szálasi]''. Retrieved from [[Encyclopædia Britannica]].</ref>
| foundation       = {{nowrap|{{start date and age|1939|03|15|df=yes}}}}
| predecessor      = {{nowrap|{{ill|NSZMP – HM|hu|Nemzeti Szocialista Magyar Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom}}<ref>[http://www.huszadikszazad.hu/bulvar/harom-honapja-nem-fizetnek-hazbert-az-andrassy-uti-nyilasok Három hónapja nem fizetnek házbért az Andrássy úti nyilasok], 1938. augusztus, huszadikszazad.hu</ref>}}
| ideology         = {{Tree list}}
* [[Hungarism]]
**[[Fascism]]<ref name="fascism">{{cite web |title=fascism |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=2025-04-20}}</ref>
**[[Agrarianism]]<ref name="F-Szálasi">{{Cite web |url=http://nemzszoc.esmartdesign.com/konyvek/hitvallas2.htm |title=Szálasi Ferenc: Hungarizmus (alapterv és követelések) |access-date=2007-03-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928100229/http://nemzszoc.esmartdesign.com/konyvek/hitvallas2.htm |archive-date=2007-09-28 }}</ref>
** [[Hungarian Turanism]]<ref>PAYNE, Stanley: A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. 1995. p.272.</ref>
** [[Hungarian irredentism]]<ref name="F-Szálasi"/>
** [[Ultranationalism]]<ref name="F-Szálasi"/>
** [[Anti-capitalism]]{{refn|group=n|The Arrow Cross Party held anti-feudal, anti-capitalist and anti-socialist beliefs. They supported [[land reform]] and [[militarism]] and drew most of its support from the ranks of the [[Royal Hungarian Army]].<ref>Weiss, John (1967). ''[https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/73.5.1517 The Fascist Tradition: Radical right-wing extremism in modern Europe].'' New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row. pp. 88-89. {{ISBN|0060469951}}.</ref><ref>Mann, Michael (2004). ''Fascists.'' New York: [[Cambridge University Press]]. pp. 253-255. {{ISBN|0521538556}}.</ref>}}
** [[Anti-socialism]]{{refn|group=n|The Arrow Cross Party held anti-feudal, anti-capitalist and anti-socialist beliefs. They supported [[land reform]] and [[militarism]] and drew most of its support from the ranks of the [[Royal Hungarian Army]].<ref>Weiss, John (1967). ''[https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/73.5.1517 The Fascist Tradition: Radical right-wing extremism in modern Europe].'' New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row. pp. 88-89. {{ISBN|0060469951}}.</ref><ref>Mann, Michael (2004). ''Fascists.'' New York: [[Cambridge University Press]]. pp. 253-255. {{ISBN|0521538556}}.</ref>}}
** Anti-[[feudalism]]{{refn|group=n|The Arrow Cross Party held anti-feudal, anti-capitalist and anti-socialist beliefs. They supported [[land reform]] and [[militarism]] and drew most of its support from the ranks of the [[Royal Hungarian Army]].<ref>Weiss, John (1967). ''[https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/73.5.1517 The Fascist Tradition: Radical right-wing extremism in modern Europe].'' New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row. pp. 88-89. {{ISBN|0060469951}}.</ref><ref>Mann, Michael (2004). ''Fascists.'' New York: [[Cambridge University Press]]. pp. 253-255. {{ISBN|0521538556}}.</ref>}}
** [[Nazism]]<ref name="F-Szálasi"/><ref>{{cite book |last= Herczl |first= Moshe Y. |title= Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0dcugBsWTYEC&q=Arrow-Cross+party+swastika |publisher=NYU Press |year=1993 |isbn=0814773206 |pages=67, 70, 233 |via=Google Books |quote= A considerable portion of the media in Hungary described the swastika as a symbol of the forces defending European Christian culture, struggling bravely against the danger of Red expansion from the east and against the Bolshevik-Jewish ''Weltanschauung''. It served as a source of inspiration for the various cross movements, including the Arrow-Cross party.}}</ref>
{{Tree list/end}}
| headquarters     = [[Andrássy út]] [[House of Terror|60]], [[Budapest]]
| country          = Hungary
| dissolution      = {{end date and age|1945|05|7|df=yes}}
| membership       = {{steady}} 300,000 (1939 {{estimation}})<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.rev.hu/html/hu/tanulmanyok/1945elott/erjedes.htm |title=Ungváry Krisztián: A politikai erjedés – az 1939-es választások Magyarországon |access-date=2007-03-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021130044010/http://www.rev.hu/html/hu/tanulmanyok/1945elott/erjedes.htm |archive-date=2002-11-30 }}</ref>
| position         = [[Far-right politics|Far-right]]<ref name="Herczl">{{cite book |title=Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry |author=Moshe Y. Herczl |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0dcugBsWTYEC&q=Arrow-Cross+party+swastika |publisher=NYU Press |year=1993 |isbn=0814773206 |pages=67, 70, 233 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
| religion         = [[Roman Catholicism]]
| affiliation1_title = [[Political alliance]]
| affiliation1     = [[Hungarian National Socialist Party]] (until 1941)<ref>[[Stanley G. Payne]] (2001). ''A History of Fascism 1914-1945''. London, [[Routledge]]. pp. 273-274, 415-416.</ref>
| colours          = {{color box|#CE2939|border=silver}} [[Red]] {{color box|#FFFFFF|border=silver}} [[White]] {{color box|#477050|border=silver}} [[Green]]
| flag             = [[File:Flag_of_the_Hungarist_Movement.svg|border|180px]]<br />{{collapsible list|title='''Other Flags:'''|[[File:Flag of the Arrow Cross Party 1937 to 1942.svg|border|180px|centre]]<br />[[File:Flag of the Arrow Cross Party 1942 to 1945.svg|border|180px|centre]]}}
| symbol           = 
| seats1_title     = Most MPs in<br />the [[Diet of Hungary|Diet]] ([[1939 Hungarian parliamentary election|1939]])
| seats1           = {{Composition bar|29|260|{{party color|Arrow Cross Party}}}}
| anthem           = "Ébredj Magyar!"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8veM7Yxyw4 |publisher=[[YouTube]] |date=2021-01-10 |access-date=2024-02-03 | title=Ébredj Magyar - Hungarista Induló}}</ref><br />({{lit|Wake up Hungarian!}})<br />{{center|[[File:Ébredj Magyar World War 2.oga]]}}
}}

The '''Arrow Cross Party''' ({{langx|hu|Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom}}, {{literally|Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement}}, abbreviated '''NYKP''') was a [[far-right]] [[Hungarian nationalism|Hungarian ultranationalist]] party led by [[Ferenc Szálasi]], which formed a government in [[Kingdom of Hungary (1920-1946)|Hungary]] they named the [[Government of National Unity (Hungary)|Government of National Unity]]. They were in power from 15 October 1944 to 28 March 1945. During its short rule, ten to fifteen thousand civilians were murdered outright, including many [[Jews]] and [[Romani people|Romani]],<ref name="patai">{{cite book |last= Patai |first= Raphael |title= The Jews of Hungary: History, Culture, Psychology |publisher= [[Wayne State University Press]]|location=590 |year=1996 |page=730 |isbn= 0-8143-2561-0 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=LLuPS1yVDf8C}}</ref><ref>Historical Dictionary of the Holocaust, Jack R. Fischel, Scarecrow Press, 17 Jul 2010, pg106</ref> and 80,000 people were deported from Hungary to concentration camps in Austria.<ref name="polgar-age">{{cite news |url=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/02/15/1139890808344.html|title=War Crime Suspect Admits to his Leading Fascist Role|last=Johnston|first=Chris|date=2006-02-16|publisher=The Age|access-date=2009-04-19| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090517100621/http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/02/15/1139890808344.html| archive-date= 17 May 2009 <!--DASHBot-->|url-status = live}}</ref> After [[World War II|the war]], Szálasi and other Arrow Cross leaders were tried as [[War crime|war criminals]] by Hungarian courts.

==Formation==
{{Nazism sidebar}}

The party was founded by [[Ferenc Szálasi]] in 1935 as the ''Party of National Will''.<ref name="EE-Frucht">{{cite book |last= Frucht |first= Richard C. |title= Eastern Europe: an Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=376|year=2005|page=928|isbn=1-57607-800-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lVBB1a0rC70C&q=number+of+Arrow+Cross+Party+members&pg=RA1-PA376}}</ref> It had its origins in the political philosophy of pro-German extremists such as [[Gyula Gömbös]], who coined the term "national socialism" in the 1920s.<ref>Miklos Molnar, 'A Concise History of Hungary</ref> The party was outlawed in 1937 but was reconstituted in 1939 as the Arrow Cross Party, and was modelled fairly explicitly on the [[Nazi Party]] of [[Germany]], although Szálasi often harshly criticized the Nazi regime of Germany.<ref name="nepszava.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.nepszava.com/index.php?topic=102&page=4147 |title=Amerikai Népszava Online |website=Nepszava.com |date=2015-03-23 |access-date=2017-06-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202103143/http://www.nepszava.com/index.php?topic=102&page=4147 |archive-date=2009-02-02 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Emblem and symbolism==
The party's iconography was clearly inspired by that of the Nazis.

The ''[[Arrow cross|Nyilaskereszt]]'' ("arrow cross") emblem was considered to be a symbol of the [[Hungarian people|Magyar tribes]] who, from the late 9th century, conquered and settled in what became Hungary. In emulating the central role of the [[swastika]] in Nazi ideology, the arrow cross also alluded to the purported racial purity of the Magyars, in the same way that the swastika was intended to allude to the purported racial purity of the Germans.<ref name=Herczl/>

The arrow cross symbol had other ideological implications, including a desire to nullify the [[Treaty of Trianon]], and expand the Hungarian state in all [[cardinal direction]]s, out to the  borders of the former [[Kingdom of Hungary]].<ref name=Herczl/>

==Ideology==
[[File:Flag of Hungary (Sándor Széll's proposal).svg|thumb|The party proposed in the early 1940's to replace the [[Flag of Hungary|Hungarian national flag]] with the historical [[Árpád stripes]], opposed to the liberal influence from the [[French Revolution]] that inspired the red-white-green tricolor from the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1848]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Karsai |first1=László |title=Szálasi Ferenc: Politikai életrajz (Doktori disszertáció) |trans-title=Ferenc Szálasi: A Political Biography (doctoral dissertation) |website=Repository of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences |url=http://real-d.mtak.hu/537/4/dc_314_11_doktori_mu.pdf |access-date=25 October 2021 |page=234 |language=hu |date=2012}}</ref>]]
[[File:Arrow Cross Party.jpg|thumb|Ministers of the [[Government of National Unity (Hungary)|Arrow Cross Party government]]. [[Ferenc Szálasi]] is in the middle of the front row.]]
The party's [[ideology]] was similar to those of [[Nazism]] and [[Fascism]]<ref name="Payne, Stanley 1980">Payne, Stanley. "Fascism." Comparison and Definition, Madison (1980): 7.</ref> and it combined aspects of those ideologies with [[Hungarian Turanism]], forming an ideology which Ferenc Szálasi called "Hungarism". It combined [[Hungarian nationalism|nationalism]], the promotion of agriculture, [[anti-capitalism]], [[anti-communism]] and a special type of [[Antisemitism|anti-Semitism]], called ''a-Semitism''. In a series of four books on Hungarism, Szálasi distinguished a-Semitism, which called for a society which should be completely absent of Jews, from [[Antisemitism|anti-Semitism]], which, he argued, would nominally allow Jews to exist in a particular society with limited rights. He argued that a-Semitism was not opposed to the existence of Jews per se, instead, it regarded their existence as being incompatible with European society. Szálasi extended this argument to [[Arabs]], and he also extended it to the whole "[[semitic race]]".<ref>Szálasi Ferenc, Hungarizmus 1. A Cél - alapvető tanulmányok és beszédek - Ferenc Szálasi, Hungarism 1. The Goal - Basic studies and speeches of the ideology, Budapest 2004., Gede Testvérek Bt., {{ISBN|9639298077}}</ref> The party and its leader originally opposed German geopolitical ambitions, so Hitler was slow to accept Szálasi's ''connationalism'', the support of nationalist movements within their historical territories and spheres of influence on the grounds of historical evidence of cultural dominance. This concept was poorly understood by the Germans because it combined [[nationalism]] and [[Internationalism (politics)|internationalism]], the co-operation of nationalist movements. Consequently, the party judged [[Jews]] in [[Racial antisemitism|racial]] as well as [[Religious antisemitism|religious]] terms. It believed that Jews were incapable of being integrated into any society which was outside the [[History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel|place]] and [[Jewish culture|culture]] of their [[Jewish history|historical origins]]. Although the Arrow Cross Party was certainly far more [[racism|racist]] than the Horthy regime was, it differed from the [[Nazi Party|German Nazi Party]]. It was also more economically radical than other fascist movements were, and advocated some [[workers' rights]] and [[land reform]]s.<ref name=Herczl/>

==Rise to power==
{{more citations needed section|date=October 2017}}<!--many paragraphs have no citations-->
The roots of Arrow Cross influence can be traced to the [[antisemitism]] that followed the [[Communism|Communist]] [[putsch]], the creation of the [[Hungarian Soviet Republic]], and [[Red Terror (Hungary)|Red Terror]] during the spring and summer of 1919. Most Communist leaders were from Jewish families such as [[Tibor Szamuely]]. [[Béla Kun]], the Republic's leader and instigator of the Terror, had a secular Jewish father and a mother who, despite converting to the [[Reformed Church of Hungary]], was still seen as being a Jew. Many antisemitic writers before the Second World War, such as [[Leon de Poncins]] used this fact to propagate the [[Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory]].<ref>de Poncins, Leon (2015). The Secret Powers Behind Revolution: Freemasonry and Judaism. E World Inc. ISBN 978-1617590443.</ref>

The [[Hungarian Soviet Republic]]'s policies were credited by some [[anti-communist]]s as being part of a "[[Jewish Bolshevism|Judeo-Bolshevist conspiracy]]."

After the Soviet Republic was overthrown in August 1919, conservative authoritarians under the leadership of [[Admiral]] [[Miklós Horthy]] seized control. Many Hungarian military officers took part in the counter-reprisals known as the [[White Terror (Hungary)|White Terror]] – parts of which were directed at [[History of the Jews in Hungary|Jews]].<ref name=Herczl/> Although the White Guard was officially suppressed, many of its most prevalent members went underground and formed the core membership of a spreading nationalist antisemitic movement.

During the 1930s, the Arrow Cross began to dominate [[Budapest]]'s [[working class]] neighborhoods, defeating the [[Hungarian Social Democratic Party|Social Democrats]]. The Social Democrats did not contest elections effectively and they were forced into a pact with the conservative Horthy regime in order to prevent their abolition. The Arrow Cross recruited from the poorest members of society, including the chronically unemployed, alcoholics, ex-convicts, prisoners, rapists, and the uneducated.<ref>Nazismens och Fascismens idéer</ref> These members later committed some of the most brutal crimes against Jews, intellectuals, socialists, and other civilians.
[[File:Azertis.jpg|thumb|[[World War II]] propaganda poster for the party – the text reads "Despite it all..!"]]
The Arrow Cross subscribed to the Nazi ideology of "[[master race]]s",<ref name=Herczl/> which, in Szálasi's view, included the Hungarians and Germans, and also supported the concept of an order based on the power of the strongest – what Szálasi called a "brutally realistic [[etatism|étatism]]". But its espousal of territorial claims under the banner of a "[[Greater Hungary (political concept)|Greater Hungary]]" and Hungarian values ("Hungarizmus" or "Hungarianism") clashed with Nazi ambitions, delaying Hitler's endorsement of that party by several years.

The [[German Foreign Office]] instead endorsed the pro-German [[Hungarian National Socialist Party]], which had some supporters among [[Germans of Hungary|ethnic Germans]]. Before [[World War II]], the Arrow Cross were not proponents of the racial antisemitism of the Nazis, but utilised traditional stereotypes and prejudices to gain votes among voters both in [[Budapest]] and the countryside. Nonetheless, the constant bickering among these diverse fascist groups prevented the Arrow Cross Party from gaining more support and power.

The Arrow Cross obtained most of its support from a disparate coalition of military officers, soldiers, nationalists and agricultural workers. It was only one of several similar fascist factions in Hungary but was by far the most prominent, through effective recruiting. In the only election it participated in, in May 1939, the party won 15% of the vote and 29 seats in the [[National Assembly (Hungary)|Hungarian Parliament]] but this was only superficially impressive as most Hungarians were not permitted to vote. It did become one of the most powerful parties in Hungary but the Horthy leadership banned the Arrow Cross on the outbreak of World War II, forcing it to operate clandestinely.

In 1944, the Arrow Cross Party's fortunes abruptly reversed when Hitler lost patience with Horthy's and his moderate prime minister [[Miklós Kállay]]'s reluctance to fully toe the Nazi line. In March 1944, the Germans [[Operation Margarethe|invaded]] and occupied Hungary, which resulted in Kállay fleeing, and a Nazi proxy, [[Döme Sztójay]], replacing him who quickly legalised the Arrow Cross.

During the spring and summer of 1944, more than 400,000 Jews were driven into centralised ghettos and then deported from the Hungarian countryside to death camps by the Nazis, with the enthusiastic assistance of the Hungarian [[Ministry of Interior (Hungary)|Interior Ministry]] and its [[gendarmerie]] (the ''csendőrség''), both of which had members closely linked to the Arrow Cross. Budapest Jews were forced into [[Yellow badge|Yellow Star]] Houses, approximately 2,000 single-building mini-ghettos identified by a yellow Star of David at the entrance.<ref name="patai"/>{{rp|578}} In August 1944, before deportations from Budapest began, Horthy used what remaining influence he had to stop them, and force the radical antisemites out of his government.

As the summer progressed, and with the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] and [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] armies closing in on central Europe, the ability of the Nazis to devote resources to Hungary's "Jewish Solution" waned, but they still carried out many massacres. Jews were often rounded up on the streets by Arrow Cross men, and their standard procedure was to take children away from their parents, then killing or beating any parent or child who protested. The Arrow Cross repeatedly organized mass murders next to the [[Danube]], shooting people in the head, with the bodies falling into the river. To save bullets, their favorite method was to tie the waists of three people together with wire and shoot only the middle person, who would fall forward into the river drowning the other two as the weight of the copse dragged them to the bottom of the Danube.<ref name=Sebestyen>{{cite book |last= Sebestyen |first= Victor |title= Budapest: Between East and West |year= 2022 |location= London |publisher= Weidenfeld & Nicolson |pages= 295, 297, 298 |type= Hardcover |isbn= 9781474609999}}</ref> It has been estimated that during the autumn of 1944 there were no more than 4,000 members of the Arrow Cross in Budapest, yet despite this they were able to terrorize the city's population of a million.<ref name=Sebestyen/> Their methods eventually became too sickening even for the German military whose commander General [[Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch]] ordered his troops not to take part in the killings. On the other hand, the German envoy to Hungary [[Edmund Veesenmayer]] received orders from Berlin to provide as much assistance as he could to the Arrow Cross in killing of Jews.<ref name=Sebestyen/> 
Eventually Szálasi became concerned about the impression that neutral diplomats were forming of his government and ordered that the killings be undertaken with more discretion. The country's national police commissioner Pál Hódosy concurred, "The problem is not that the Jews are being murdered... the trouble is the method. The bodies must be made to disappear, not put out on the streets."<ref name=Sebestyen/> This view was shared by parliamentarian Károlyl Maróthy who said "Something must be done to stop the death rattle going on in the ditches day and night... the population must not be able to see them dying"<ref name=Sebestyen/>

==Arrow Cross rule==
{{see also|Government of National Unity (Hungary)}}
[[File:Holocaust-ArrowCross-DohanySynagogue.jpg|thumb|Jewish victims of Arrow Cross men in the court of the [[Dohány Street Synagogue]]]]

In October 1944, Horthy negotiated a cease-fire with the Soviets and ordered Hungarian troops to lay down their arms. In response, Nazi Germany launched the covert [[Operation Panzerfaust]] which took Horthy into "protective custody" in Germany and forced him to abdicate. Szálasi was made "Leader of the Nation" and prime minister of an Arrow Cross-dominated "[[Government of National Unity (Hungary)|Government of National Unity]]" the same day.

By this time, [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] and [[Romania in World War II#Campaign against the Axis|Romanian]] forces had pushed deep into Hungarian territory. As a result, the Szálasi government's authority was limited to an ever-narrowing band of territory around Budapest. In this context, Arrow Cross rule was short and brutal. In under three months, their death squads killed as many as 38,000 Hungarian Jews. Arrow Cross officers helped [[Adolf Eichmann]] re-start deportations from which the Jews of Budapest had thus far been spared, sending some 80,000 Jews out of the city on slave labour details and many more straight to death camps. Virtually all Jewish males of conscription age were already serving as slave labour for the [[Royal Hungarian Army|Hungarian Army]]'s [[Labour service (Hungary)|Forced Labor Battalions]]. Most died, including many who were murdered as they were returning home after the end of the fighting.<ref name="remeny.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.remeny.org/node/36 |title=Szita Szabolcs: A budapesti csillagos házak (1944-45) &#124; Remény |website=Remeny.org |date=15 February 2006 |access-date=2017-06-17}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.osa.ceu.hu/galeria/sites/siege/section2.html |title=The Arrow Cross - Persecution of the Jews |access-date=2013-05-18 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202124928/http://www.osa.ceu.hu/galeria/sites/siege/section2.html |archive-date=2009-02-02 }}</ref>

Red Army troops reached the outskirts of Budapest in December 1944, and the [[Siege of Budapest|siege of the city]] began. Arrow Cross members and the Germans may have conspired to destroy the [[Budapest ghetto]] but any evidence remains disputed.<ref name="remeny.org" /> Days before fleeing, Arrow Cross Interior Minister [[Gábor Vajna]] ordered that streets and squares named for Jews be renamed.<ref name="patai"/>{{rp|586}}

As control of the city's institutions weakened, the Arrow Cross trained their guns on the most helpless possible targets including patients in the city's two Jewish hospitals on Maros Street and Bethlen Square, remaining women and children, and residents in the Jewish poorhouse on Alma Road. As order collapsed, Arrow Cross members continued their attacks on Jews so that the majority of Budapest's Jews were only saved by the heroic efforts of a handful of Jewish leaders and foreign diplomats, most famously Sweden's special envoy [[Raoul Wallenberg]], the [[Papal Nuncio]] Monsignor [[Angelo Rotta]], Swiss Consul [[Carl Lutz]], Spanish Consul [[Ángel Sanz Briz]] and the Italian cattle trader [[Giorgio Perlasca]].<ref name="patai"/>{{rp|589}}

The Arrow Cross government effectively fell at the end of January 1945, when the Soviet Army took Pest and the Axis forces retreated across the Danube to Buda. Szálasi had escaped from Budapest on December 11, 1944,<ref name="nepszava.com" /> taking with him the [[Holy Crown of Hungary|Hungarian royal crown]], while Arrow Cross members and German forces continued to fight a rear-guard action in the far west of Hungary until the end of the war in April 1945.

==Post-war developments==
[[File:Hungary-0042 - Shoes on the Danube - my thoughts.... (7263567112).jpg|thumb|The "[[Shoes on the Danube Bank]]" memorial in Budapest, conceived by film director [[Can Togay]] with sculptor {{Interlanguage link|Gyula Pauer|hu|Pauer Gyula}} to honor those Jews who were murdered by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II.]]

After the war, many Arrow Cross leaders were captured and tried for [[war crime]]s and no fewer than 6,200 indictments for murder were served against Arrow Cross men in just a few months.<ref name="patai"/>{{rp|587}} Some Arrow Cross officials were executed, including Szálasi.

A memorial which was created by {{Interlanguage link|Gyula Pauer|hu|Pauer Gyula}}, Hungarian sculptor, and [[Can Togay]] in 2005 on the bank of the [[Danube]] River in Budapest honors the Jews who were shot there by Arrow Cross militiamen, between 1944 and 1945. The victims were forced to remove their shoes, all of which were confiscated later,<ref>{{cite web|author=Stephanie Geyer |url=https://visitbudapest.travel/guide/budapest-attractions/shoes-on-the-danube/ |title=Shoes on the Danube, Budapest |website=Visitbudapest.travel |access-date=2017-06-17}}</ref> and then shot so that their bodies would fall into the river.

In 2006, a former high-ranking member, [[Lajos Polgár]], was found in [[Melbourne]], [[Australia]].<ref name = "polgar-age" /> He died of natural causes in July of that year after the war crimes case against him was dropped.<ref>[http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=1094 Lack of political will over Polgar, says Holocaust Centre] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060921043328/http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=1094 |date=September 21, 2006 }}, Australian Jewish News, July 13, 2006</ref>

To some extent, the ideology of the Arrow Cross has resurfaced in recent years, with the [[Neo-fascism|neofascist]] [[Hungarian Welfare Association]] being prominent in reviving Szálasi's "Hungarizmus" through its monthly magazine, ''Magyartudat'' ("''Hungarian Awareness''") but "Hungarism" remains a fringe element in modern Hungarian politics, and the Hungarian Welfare Association has dissolved.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mno.hu/portal/396540 |title=MNO Magyar Nemzet Online |access-date=2009-01-20 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202103547/http://www.mno.hu/portal/396540 |archive-date=2009-02-02 }}</ref>

==Electoral results==

=== [[National Assembly (Hungary)|National Assembly]] ===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; line-height:16px;"
|-
! rowspan="2" style="width:60px;"| Election
! colspan="3"| Votes
! colspan="2"| Seats
! rowspan="2" style="width:30px;"| Rank
! rowspan="2" style="width:145px;"| Government
! rowspan="2"| Leader of the<br/>national list
|-
! style="width:75px;"| #
! style="width:45px;"| %
! style="width:48px;"| ±[[Percentage point|pp]]
! style="width:100px;"| #
! style="width:40px;"| +/−
|-
! [[1939 Hungarian parliamentary election|1939]]
| 530,405 
| 14.4%
| {{increase}}14.4
| {{Composition bar|29|260|hex={{party color|Arrow Cross Party}}}}
| {{increase}} 29
| 3rd
| {{no2|in opposition}}
| [[Ferenc Szálasi]]
|}

==See also==
* [[András Kun]]
* [[Antisemitism in contemporary Hungary]]
* [[Hungarian National Socialist Party]]
* [[The Holocaust in Hungary]]
* [[Hungary during the Second World War]]
* ''[[Music Box (film)|Music Box]]''
* ''[[The Fifth Seal]]''

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=n}}

==Citations==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
*  Braham, R. ''The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary'' (New York: [[Columbia University Press]], 2 vol.; 2nd ed. 1994).
* Cohen, Asher. "Some Socio-Political Aspects of the Arrow Cross Party in Hungary." ''East European Quarterly'' 21.3 (1987): 369+
* Deák, István.  “Hungary”  in Hans Rogger and Egon Weber, eds., ''The European right: A historical profile'' (1963) pp.&nbsp;364–407. 
* Deak, Istvan. "Collaborationism in Europe, 1940–1945: the case of Hungary." ''Austrian History Yearbook'' 15 (1979): 157–164.
* Deák, István. "A fatal compromise? The debate over collaboration and resistance in Hungary." ''East European Politics and Societies'' 9.2 (1995): 209–233.
* Herczl, Moshe Y. ''Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry'' (1993) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg6vj?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=%22%3A+Christianity+and+the+Holocaust+of+Hungarian+Jewry%22&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3D%2522%253A%2BChristianity%2Band%2Bthe%2BHolocaust%2Bof%2BHungarian%2BJewry%2522%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search%2Fcontrol&refreqid=search%3A4c10eb461bf299248303b912e3bb43db online]
* Lackó, M. ''[https://archive.org/details/ArrowCrossMen Arrow-Cross Men: National Socialists 1935–1944]'' (Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó 1969).
*{{cite journal |last= Petö |first= Andrea |title= Arrow Cross Women and Female Informants |journal= Baltic Worlds |volume= 2 |issue=  |pages= 49–52 |publisher= Centre for Baltic and East European Studies |place= Huddinge, Sweden |year= 2009 |url= https://balticworlds.com/arrow-cross-women-and-female-informants/?s=Arrow%20Cross%20Women%20and%20Female%20Informants}}
* {{cite book |last= Pető |first= Andrea |year= 2020 |title= The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War |location= London |publisher= Palgrave Macmillan |type= Hardcover |isbn= 978-3-030-51224-8}}

==External links==
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{{Hungarian fascism}}
{{Fascism}}
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[[Category:Far-right political parties in Hungary]]
[[Category:Defunct political parties in Hungary]]
[[Category:Antiziganism in Hungary]]
[[Category:Antisemitism in Hungary]]
[[Category:Collaboration with Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Fascism in Hungary]]
[[Category:Hungarian collaborators with Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Hungarian Nazis]]
[[Category:Hungarian Turanism]]
[[Category:Nazi parties]]
[[Category:Parties of one-party systems]]
[[Category:Political parties established in 1935]]
[[Category:Political parties disestablished in 1945]]
[[Category:1935 establishments in Hungary]]
[[Category:1945 disestablishments in Hungary]]
[[Category:Banned far-right parties]]
[[Category:Defunct paramilitary organizations]]