This year’s “Day of Honor” in Budapest also attracted increased attention outside anti-fascist circles in the FRG. The reason for this, however, was not the paramilitary march of European neo-Nazis with SS symbols. Rather, a video circulated on the net showing how several people attacked a person in camouflage clothing and brought him to the ground caused a stir. After several arrests in Budapest, a media hunt ensued, triggered by the Bild newspaper, which published the names of those arrested, who were accused of being involved in a total of eight attacks on participants of the Day of Honor. A lot has happened since then: There have been several arrests across countries, identification, public searches, raids in Berlin, Leipzig, Jena, and initially four people in pre-trial detention, two of whom are still serving time in Hungary. There, the repression is accompanied by an agitation against anti-fascism per se. The country’s largest pro-government newspaper, Magyar Nemzet, described anti-fascism as terrorism “driven by extreme, anti-life ideologies.” It went on to say that it was “a moral duty to oppose anti-fascism.” These statements are indicative of the media landscape, which is almost exclusively controlled by Orban and his entourage.
The “Day of Honor”- A Fascist Networking Meeting since 1997
In order to understand why the “Day of Honor” is a legitimate target in the enemy determination of active antifas, it is necessary to familiarize oneself with the history of this Nazi event. The so-called “Day of Honor” has existed since 1997 and is an important event for the neo-Nazis of Blood & Honour, Hammerskins and their Sympathisant:innenkreis. The weekend around February 11 is dedicated to the memory of two divisions of the Waffen-SS and an SS-Gebirgsjäger unit that entrenched themselves in Budapest in December 1944 before the advancing Red Army and made a miserably failed attempt to break out of the Budapest encirclement. Over 100,000 soldiers died on the side of the Wehrmacht and its Hungarian collaborators in the Battle of Budapest. The Nazi commemoration of the failed breakout from the “Budapest Cauldron” is just one event this weekend. In addition to right-wing rock concerts, the weekend’s program includes a 60-kilometer night march that traces the Nazi escape route. More than 3,000 Nazi nostalgics:inside took part in the “hike” this year, which is popular with neo-Nazis because they can display their Nazi insignia there largely undisturbed despite an official ban on SS symbolism and swastikas. The Hungarian tourist association “Hazajáró Honismereti és Turista Egylet” promotes and supports the hike “Kitörès” under the slogan “Commemorating the heroic defenders of our country and Europe”. Appropriately, the subsequent report on the hike is illustrated with pictures full of Nazi symbolism including a checkpoint with a swastika flag and a portrait of Hitler.
Since 1997, there have been marginal protests against the Day of Honor by a handful of committed Budapest antifascists. Local anti-fascists have repeatedly pointed out in recent years that the Western narrative of Victor Orban as a personified problem falls short and that criticism should not be reduced to his person. A local activist who helped organize the protests this year points out that liberal democracy in Eastern Europe in the “capitalist hemisphere” is only a “temporary phenomenon. Conditions in Hungary are solidly authoritarian. In the last 150 years, Hungary has rarely succeeded in democratically replacing the ruling parties. The Orban government, he said, is the “natural characteristic of this semi-peripheral capitalism.” In fact, the regime in Hungary is very much shaped by and linked to the hegemonic capitalist system. The Orban government strives to manage this capitalism as quietly as possible. This also means that social movements such as the LGBTIQ movement or the small Antifa scene are to be kept as small as possible. The capitalist system in Hungary, as in most post-socialist states in Eastern Europe, is managed in a nationalist and authoritarian manner.
Orban also deceives people in terms of historical policy by trying to equate real socialism with fascism. This reinterpretation of history is an attempt to distract from his ailing system. By spreading right-wing narratives, Hungary is one of the driving forces of historical revisionism in Europe. This is also expressed in urban planning terms in Budapest. In recent years, for example, Orban had nationalist monuments of the Horthy regime, such as the National Martyrs Monument, faithfully rebuilt. There is a reason why neo-Nazis feel so comfortable in Hungary and do not have to reckon with any headwind. The motive of the neo-Nazi scene, which makes an annual pilgrimage to the Day of Glory, is very similar to that of the Hungarian government. For they are interested in reinterpreting the breakout from the Budapest cauldron as an act of defense of Europe against the advance of the communists.
The Day of Honor 2023
This year, anti-fascist space-grabbing with two counter-rallies at the castle succeeded in banishing the Nazi commemoration of Blood&Honour and Legio Hungaria from Budapest. The action of the Hungarian authorities is in the context of the successful antifascist mobilization of recent years. It is no longer possible for the Nazis to hold their ritualized commemoration in downtown Budapest, so the official Nazi commemoration had to move to a forest outside Budapest. Thus, for the first time, a fascist commemoration was prevented in the city center, which is considered a very great success locally. This success was also only possible due to the tireless efforts of some local activists, who in recent years have managed to involve an international network of mobile anti-fascist groups.
Repression
The purpose of state repression is to criminalize and ultimately dismantle organized antagonistic structures. Taking the example of the Day of Honor in Budapest, it is therefore logical that both the Hungarian authorities and, by way of administrative assistance, the German police pursue and criminalize the resistance against the Day of Honor with great investigative zeal. In Hungary, this is because the counter-protest challenges national historical myths such as subjugation under “two dictatorships.” Moreover, it is in the nature of any state to prosecute organization outside the framework set by the state, regardless of how militant the details are. Against this background, we reject a division into “good” and “bad” antifas. We stand in solidarity with all those who organize and become active against this historical revisionist commemoration of the Waffen-SS. The repression should not lead to fewer people participating in the protests against the Day of Honor. Rather, we should use the increased interest to highlight the fascist danger posed by this international fascist:ing gathering.
The campaign “Stop Nazi glorification!” will not be intimidated by increasing repression, because this is always an accompaniment to anti-fascist work. We will continue to push the need to build international antifascist networks and to stand united.
We are collecting donations for those affected by repression.
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