Bombing of Kassa

The bombing of Kassa took place on 26 June 1941, when still unidentified aircraft conducted an airstrike on the city of Kassa, then part of Hungary, today Košice in Slovakia.^[1] This attack became the pretext for the government of Hungary to declare war on the Soviet Union the next day, 27 June.

Bombing of Kassa
Part of World War II
Bombing of Košice – clearing the rubble
Date 26 June 1941 Location Kassa, Hungary Result Hungary declares war on the Soviet Union
Belligerents
Disputed: Soviet Union Germany	Hungary
Strength
Disputed: 3 Heinkel He 111 aircraft 3 Tupolev TB-3 aircraft	N/A
Casualties and losses
	29 killed

On 26 June 1941, four days after Germany attacked the Soviet Union in violation of the Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression treaty as a part of Operation Barbarossa, three unidentified planes bombed the city, killing and wounding over a dozen people and causing minor material damage. Numerous buildings were hit, including the local post and telegraph office.^[1]

Hours after the attack, the Hungarian cabinet "passed a resolution calling for the declaration of the existence of a state of war between Hungary and the USSR."^[1] The local military investigators at the time believed that the attackers were Soviet, but the true identity of the attacking nation has never been established.^[1] The official explanation preferred by Soviet historians was the idea of a false flag attack by Germany to provoke Hungary into attacking the Soviet Union, employing Soviet planes captured on conquered airfields. Another possibility is that the Soviet bombers mistook Kassa for a nearby city in the First Slovak Republic, which was already at war with the Soviet Union. Captain Ádám Krúdy, the commander of the Kassa military airfield, identified the attackers as German Heinkel He 111 bombers in his official report but was ordered to keep silent about it. It must be noted, however, that to date, Krúdy's written report has not been found. Another problem with the German conspiracy theory was the fact that German planes did not have bomb racks capable of holding Soviet bombs. According to Dreisziger, "it seems that the bombs dropped on Kassa were 100 kg bombs while the standard stock of the Luftwaffe were the 50 and 250 kg bombs."^[2] The fact that the attacking aircraft could not be identified by most witnesses (including trained pilots and anti-aircraft gunners) also rules out the use of German types as these personnel and even the local civilian population were familiar to their sound and silhouette. Some speculated that the attack was carried out by the Germans with an early and rare single-tail version of the PZL.37 Łoś bombers captured in the 1939 Polish campaign – but their weak engines probably prevented them from carrying the amount of bomb load that experts believe was necessary based on surveys of the damage. During the Nuremberg trials, the USSR brought forth a statement allegedly taken from Hungarian Major General István Újszászy. According to the testimony, "the Kassa 'plot' was hatched by German and Hungarian officers and carried out by 'German planes with Russian markings'." This theory was introduced because he found that, following the Kassa bombings, certain officers behaved suspiciously, not due to concrete evidence. The reliability of his testimony was devalued due to the nature of his interrogation, which may have been under duress.^[1][3]

In his memoirs, Admiral Miklós Horthy, Hungary's head of state in the interwar period, stated that Hungary's entry into World War II had been provoked by the "staged" bombing of Kassa carried out by German pilots. He also accused General Henrik Werth, the Hungarian Chief of Staff, of being a part of the conspiracy.^[3] The major flaw in the German false flag theory is the weakness of the motive. On the fourth or fifth day of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans had no need for Hungarian support, as their own mechanised troops were pushing inland towards the Soviet Union at a high pace with minimal resistance. In addition, the Germans could have quickly used political pressure to persuade the divided Hungarian leadership to join the campaign. Furthermore, Hitler and his generals had only expected Finnish and Romanian troops (because they were on the flanks) from the very beginning of the planning of the operation, and did not count on Hungarian troops, because of their shortage of equipment and because Hitler distrusted the Hungarian leadership. (Also, he feared it might make further territorial claims to regain further territories lost in the Treaty of Trianon.)

The theory of a Romanian attack emerged in the 1980s, when relations with the Ceaușescu regime deteriorated. Hungarian historians who supported this theory cited Bucharest's fear of a Hungarian attack as a motive, as Romanian troops, fighting on the German side, were involved in the attack on the Soviet Union from day one, as their aim was to retake Bessarabia. The absence of Romanian troops raised the possibility that Hungary, not then involved in the campaign against the Soviet Union, would go beyond the Second Vienna Award and occupy Southern Transylvania by military force. This could be prevented by a military provocation that would force Hungary to enter the war against the Soviet Union. This theory was based on the fact that the Romanian Air Force possessed a rare twin-engine, glass-nosed bomber version of the Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero, of which only 12 were produced. This plane's appearance supposedly matched the eyewitness accounts, and the yellow markings or fuselage stripes mentioned by witnesses correspond to the Romanian Air Force's insignia of the time, which was a yellow cross. (It is worth noting, however, that none of the witnesses saw the attacking planes from closer than a kilometre away). However, this theory is contradicted by the fact that Romania had no interest in Hungarian military participation in the campaign against the Soviet Union, which initially promised rapid success, since if only Romania had sent troops, it could have been used as an argument for the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania when the borders of Europe were "redrawn" after the supposed German victory.

The most plausible explanation for the bombing was that Kassa was accidentally targeted by Soviet bombers attempting to bomb Prešov following the Slovak declaration of war against the USSR.^[4]