Bombing of Kassa

The bombing of Kassa took place on 26 June 1941, when still unidentified aircraft conducted an airstrike on the city of Kassa, then part of Hungary, today Košice in Slovakia. This attack became the pretext for the government of Hungary to declare war on the Soviet Union the next day, 27 June.

Bombing of Kassa
Part of World War II
Bombing of Košice – clearing the rubble
Date 26 June 1941 Location Kassa, Hungary Result Hungary declares war on the Soviet Union
Belligerents
Disputed: Soviet Union Germany	Hungary
Strength
Disputed: 3 Heinkel He 111 aircraft 3 Tupolev TB-3 aircraft	N/A
Casualties and losses
	29 killed

On 26 June 1941, four days after Germany attacked the Soviet Union in violation of the Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression treaty as a part of Operation Barbarossa, three unidentified planes bombed the city, killing and wounding over a dozen people and causing minor material damage. Numerous buildings were hit, including the local post and telegraph office.

Hours after the attack, the Hungarian cabinet "passed a resolution calling for the declaration of the existence of a state of war between Hungary and the USSR." The local military investigators at the time believed that the attackers were Soviet, but the true identity of the attacking nation has never been established. The official explanation preferred by Soviet historians was the idea of a feigned attack by Germany to provoke Hungary into attacking the Soviet Union, employing Soviet planes captured on conquered airfields. Another possibility is that the Soviet bombers mistook Kassa for a nearby city in the First Slovak Republic, which was already at war with the Soviet Union. Captain Ádám Krúdy, the commander of the Kassa military airfield, identified the attackers as German Heinkel He 111 bombers in his official report but was ordered to keep silent about it. Another problem with the German conspiracy theory was the fact that German planes did not have bomb racks capable of holding Soviet bombs. According to Dreisziger, "it seems that the bombs dropped on Kassa were 100 kg bombs while the standard stock of the Luftwaffe were the 50 and 250 kg bombs." During the Nuremberg trials, the USSR brought forth a statement allegedly taken from Hungarian Major General István Újszászy. According to the testimony, "the Kassa 'plot' was hatched by German and Hungarian officers and carried out by 'German planes with Russian markings'." This theory was introduced because he found that, following the Kassa bombings, certain officers behaved suspiciously, not due to concrete evidence. The reliability of his testimony was devalued due to the nature of his interrogation, which may have been under duress.

In his memoirs, Admiral Miklós Horthy, Hungary's head of state in the interwar period, stated that Hungary's entry into World War II had been provoked by the "staged" bombing of Kassa carried out by German pilots. He also accused General Henrik Werth, the Hungarian Chief of Staff, of being a part of the conspiracy.

The most plausible explanation for the bombing was that Kassa was accidentally targeted by Soviet bombers attempting to bomb Prešov following the Slovak declaration of war against the USSR.

Bibliography

• Dreisziger, Nándor F. (1972). "New Twist to an Old Riddle: The Bombing of Kassa (Košice), June 26, 1941". Journal of Modern History. 44 (2): 232–42. doi:10.1086/240751. S2CID 143124708.
• Dreisziger, Nándor F. (1977). "Contradictory Evidence Concerning Hungary's Declaration of War on the USSR in June 1941". Canadian Slavonic Papers. 19 (4): 481–88. doi:10.1080/00085006.1977.11091504.
• Dreisziger, Nándor F. (1983). "The Kassa Bombing: The Riddle of Ádám Krúdy" (PDF). Hungarian Studies Review. 10 (1): 79–97.
• Fenyő, Mario D. (1965). "The Allied Axis Armies and Stalingrad". Military Affairs. 29 (2): 57–72. doi:10.2307/1983962. JSTOR 1983962.
• Macartney, C. A. (1956–57). October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Macartney, C. A. (1961). "Hungary's Declaration of War on the U.S.S.R. in 1941". In Sarkissian, A. O. (ed.). Studies in Diplomatic History and Historiography. London. pp. 153–65.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Iván, Pataki; László, Rozsos; Gyula, Sárhidai (1992). Légi háború Magyarország fölött. Budapest: Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó.
• Sakmyster, Thomas L. (1975). "Army Officers and Foreign Policy in Interwar Hungary, 1918–41". Journal of Contemporary History. 10 (1): 19–40. doi:10.1177/002200947501000102. S2CID 159569870.
• Sakmyster, Thomas L. (1983). "The Search for a Casus Belli and the Origins of the Kassa Bombing" (PDF). Hungarian Studies Review. 10 (1): 53–65.
• Wagner, Francis S. (1983). "Diplomatic Prelude to the Bombing of Kassa: Reflections and Recollections of a Former Diplomat" (PDF). Hungarian Studies Review. 10 (1): 67–78.

External links

• Photos from 26 June 1941 (Damaged houses and post office)