For the past 20 years, the neo-Nazi group Blood&Honor has been gathering thousands of neo-Nazis from all over Europe on February 11 for a “Day of Honor” in Hungary. The occasion is the attempt by Hitler’s soldiers, along with their Hungarian allies, to break out of Soviet-encircled Budapest and return to Nazi Germany. Of the 28,000 soldiers of the Wehrmacht, SS and Hungarian allies, only a few hundred broke through. Most were killed or captured by the Red Army.
Now neo-Nazis lead a 60km march every year from Budapest to the breakthrough lines with sad faces and memories of SS veterans who died in WWII.
Viktor Orbán’s far-right Hungarian government doesn’t really interfere with the march, and according to some reports directly assists some far-right groups in rewriting history. The organization officially organizing the march received about 2,700 euros from the Hungarian Ministry of Human Resources, and the organizers themselves produced several documentaries for Hungarian state channels, including one about the glory of Hungarian troops during World War II.
Neo-Nazis at the “Day of Honor” march in Hungary
Hungarian anti-fascists have been calling for international support for several years to fight neo-Nazis, many of whom come to Budapest from Germany and Austria. In 2023, activists from Germany, Italy and many other countries answered the call to confront the fascists. As a result of several fights prior to the march, Hungarian punitive authorities opened criminal cases, including an international organized crime ring against… anti-fascists. Some were detained right on the spot, and some of the anti-fascists were put on an international wanted list. Now two antifascists from Germany and Italy are sitting in a pre-trial detention center in Budapest. More than a dozen people are on the wanted list.
At the request of the Hungarian side, two more anti-fascists were detained in Italy and Germany, awaiting extradition to Hungary, where they face up to 15 years in prison.
It is obvious that the conservative Hungarian government is using international structures to fight against opponents of fascism, which is gaining momentum with the support of the Putin regime. Viktor Orbán’s blocking of a major aid package to Ukraine is just the tip of the iceberg. The fight against anti-fascists for the far-right Hungarian Fidesz is part of the suppression of ideological resistance to everything Orban stands for in the EU with the support of Moscow and other reactionary forces. And today we see that this struggle is no longer confined to Hungary’s borders. Anarchists and anti-authoritarians from Belarus/Ukraine/Russia, even in exile, need to stay alert and not forget that in Europe there are now a huge number of different forces supporting the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions and openly sympathizing with the ideology of fascism.
You can support the detained anti-fascists through the group Budapest Solidarity.
Source: Pramen