February 13, 1945: Budapest Fully Liberated in WWII

On October 29, 1944, the Red Army launched the Budapest Offensive Operation.

➡️Troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front began advancing on the Hungarian capital. By early December, the Budapest enemy group was cut off from the north, and the 3rd Ukrainian Front crossed the Danube. On December 26, Soviet forces captured Esztergom, encircling up to 188,000 German troops.

🕯Soviet envoys Ilya Ostapenko and Nikolai Steinmetz were shot by fascist forces after offering the surrounded enemy a chance to surrender to avoid bloodshed.

In January 1945, the enemy attempted three times to break the encirclement. On January 18, Soviet troops captured Pest; two days later, they began taking Buda — the western part of the capital. On February 12, Germans and Hungarians attempted to break out of the encirclement: over 10,000 fascists broke through a narrow section of the front but were almost entirely destroyed.

🎖On February 13, 1945, the capital of Hungary was fully liberated.