THE LAST DAYS OF BUDAPEST

Budapest September 1944 The Hungarian capital lies in the eye of the storm Three months after D Day the Allies are making significant strides through Europe For Stalin Budapest is Moscow s gateway to the West For Hitler the city is a crucial bastion where the Russian s advance must be stopped Squeezed between the two sides with the Red Army advancing Budapest and its inhabitants will soon pay a terrible price Large parts of the city s Jewish population has already been deported to Auschwitz by the chillingly efficient Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann This is the climax of Adam LeBor s epic history of Budapest during the war the story of an authoritarian regime allied with Hitler that also tried to keep in for as long as possible with the Allies It is a tale full of spies like the British agent Basil Davidson of brave Hungarian aristocrats smuggling people and information out of Nazi occupied Poland of bureaucrats having it both ways and getting sucked into the disaster of the German invasion of Russia From then until the apocalyptic end game Budapest became a more and more dangerous place for Jews anti fascists and ordinary people The events culminate in the Siege of Budapest the 50 day battle in which 38 000 civilians and 100 000 Soviet troops were