The Siege of Budapest or Battle of Budapest, was a major battle fought between Soviet and Romanian forces and Hungarian and German forces for the Hungarian capital of Budapest, near the end of World War II. The Budapest Offensive began on October 29 1944, while the siege lasted from December 26 1944 to February 13, 1945. The Soviets began advancing into the suburbs of Pest in November and encircled Budapest on December 26. The besieged defenders resisted the Soviets for approximately fifty days, although they had already exhausted most of their supplies in the first days of the fighting. The civilian population, numbering 800,000, was not evacuated, and consequently many civilians fell victim to the fighting, the intensity of which contemporary observers compared to that of the Battle of Stalingrad. During the siege, about 38,000 civilians died through starvation, military action, and mass executions of Jews in the Budapest Ghetto by the far-right Hungarian nationalist Arrow Cross Party. The city unconditionally surrendered on February 13, 1945. It was a major strategic victory for the Allies in their push towards Berlin.