Guiding principles: Do chronicle the past “as it really happened,” Leopold von Ranke stressed long ago. Abiding by his spirit, this volume narrates the Hungarian nation’s quest for defending a sovereign existence while caught in the middle of a German‐Soviet geopolitical struggle decisively influencing life and death. The narrative also considers the diligent Hungarian Jewish community’s attempt of carrying on a normal life despite facing severe domestic and foreign impediments, eventually leading to the enormous Holocaust tragedy.

Historical observations: *Despite attending to Hungary’s destabilizing irredentism, Hitler sought no Hungarian invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, and demanded large Honvéd forces only after his defeat at Moscow *The Holocaust’s intrusion into Hungary was triggered by a German military occupation, while local collusion and collaboration assisted it *Horthy was a calculating politician but not an anti‐Semite, resulting in his uneven, positive and negative treatment of the Jewish Magyars.