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Hungary Soviet Southern Group of Forces in Hungary
Soviet troops have been stationed in Hungary since
April
1945, when they pushed the German army completely out of
the
country. After Hungary signed a peace treaty with the
Allies in
1947, Soviet forces remained in order to secure lines of
communication with Soviet troops occupying Austria. Soviet
forces
withdrew from Austria in May 1955 but remained in Hungary
at the
request of the High Command of the Warsaw Treaty
Organization,
which was formed one day before the Austrian treaty was
signed.
In May 1957, the Soviet-installed government under
Kadar
signed an agreement with the Soviet Union to legally
recognize
the Soviet forces that had occupied the country in 1956
(see Revolution of 1956
, ch. 1). Called the Decree Having the
Force of
Law No. 54 of 1957, it justified the Soviet presence as a
defense
against NATO "aggression" and West German rearmament. The
agreement mentioned no specifics, such as the number of
Soviet
troops, their deployment within Hungary, and the
facilities made
available to them, although such items may have been
written down
in a secret protocol. The version of the agreement made
public
mentioned only that the Soviet troops were to be stationed
"indefinitely" and that the compact could be changed only
by
mutual consent.
Officially called the Southern Group of Forces (SGF),
Soviet
troops in Hungary numbered 65,000, according to NATO
estimates
made in November 1988. At that time, the troops were under
the
command of Lieutenant General Aleksei A. Demidov. The
Soviet
forces in Hungary corresponded strategically to the Group
of
Soviet Forces stationed in East Germany, the Northern
Group of
Forces in Poland, and the Central Group of Forces in
Czechoslovakia.
The SGF, headquartered in Budapest, commanded the 13th
Guards
Tank Division in Veszprem, the 2d Tank Division in
Esztergom, the
253d Motor Rifle Division in Szekesfehervar, and the 93d
Guards
Motor Rifle Division in Kecskemet. These forces were
supported by
an air assault brigade, five fighter regiments, two
fighterground attack regiments, several combat helicopter units,
and
reconnaissance aircraft. In a war against NATO, the SGF
and the
Hungarian troops would be used as part of the Southwestern
Theater of Military Operations (teatr voennykh
deistvii--
TVD).
In December 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev
announced that the Soviet Union would unilaterally remove
some of
its forces from Eastern Europe. This force reduction,
which began
in April 1989, was to be carried out over a two-year
period. It
would include the tank division deployed at Veszprem and
the
surrounding area, an armored training regiment, a
paratroop
battalion and interceptor squadron based at Tokol airport
in Pest
County, a chemical defense battalion, and the SGF training
school
for NCOs in Szolnok. This partial withdrawal would remove
450
tanks; 200 guns, trench mortars, and mine throwers; 3,000
vehicles; and 10,400 of the 65,000 Soviet troops in
Hungary. In
April 1989, Hungarian foreign minister Gyula Horn said
that all
Soviet soldiers might be removed from the country in the
first
half of the 1990s.
The Soviet troops were generally isolated from
Hungarian
life. They did not interfere in Hungarian affairs and
appeared in
public usually in small groups and only in certain
restricted
areas. The Hungarians generally did not like the Soviet
soldiers
and did not fraternize with them.
Data as of September 1989
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