People of the Revolution and the USSR

Hungary state institutions Fascists and Nazis 1886–1936 ○ Cancer

Right-radical officer who organised the Szeged National Army and as prime minister in 1932–1936 steered Hungary towards Italy and Germany

Born in Murga, Tolna County, the son of the village schoolmaster, he served as an Austro-Hungarian officer in the First World War. In Szeged in 1919 he founded the paramilitary MOVE and played a leading role in organising Horthy’s National Army, and in 1921 he led the armed opposition to King Charles’s return. He became defence minister in Bethlen’s government in 1929 and prime minister in 1932. He aligned with Mussolini, signing the Rome Protocols in 1934, and as the first foreign head of government to visit Hitler concluded a trade agreement with Germany. He died of illness in Munich in 1936.

Hungary state institutions Fascists and Nazis 1891–1946 ✕ Executed

Prime minister who swung Hungary towards Germany and drafted the Second Jewish Law, then fell over his own Jewish ancestry

Born to a Catholic family in Budapest, he was an economist in the finance ministry who became Gömbös’s finance minister in 1932 and president of the National Bank in 1935. Prime minister from May 1938, he turned foreign policy towards Germany and Italy from that autumn, and under him the First Vienna Award returned southern Slovakia to Hungary. He pressed for a dictatorial reorganisation and the Second Jewish Law, but resigned in February 1939 when opponents exposed his Jewish ancestry. In 1940 he founded the pro-fascist Party of Hungarian Renewal, and after the German occupation of 1944 he served in Sztójay’s cabinet. Sentenced to death by a People’s Tribunal, he was shot in 1946.

Hungary state institutions Fascists and Nazis 1895–1946 ✕ Executed by hanging

Interior Ministry state secretary who in 1944 ran the ghettoisation and deportation of Hungary’s Jews with László Baky

Born into a wealthy Abony family, he served as a hussar officer in the First World War and after the fall of the Soviet Republic joined counter-revolutionary groups such as MOVE, noted for his extreme cruelty. Chief magistrate of Gödöllő from 1923 and deputy lord-lieutenant of Pest county from 1938, he called the anti-Jewish laws too mild and imposed his own restrictions, such as banning Jews from beaches. After the German occupation in 1944 he became state secretary under Interior Minister Andor Jaross with far-reaching powers to ghettoise and deport the Jews, and with László Baky helped Eichmann deport over 400,000 Hungarian Jews between May and July. Removed in September, he returned under the Arrow Cross as commissioner for civil administration in the operational areas. Captured by US forces after fleeing in 1945, he was handed back, sentenced to death and hanged in 1946.

Hungary state institutions Fascists and Nazis 1896–1946 ✕ Executed by firing squad

Hungarian minority leader in Czechoslovakia who, as interior minister in Sztójay’s cabinet in 1944, organised the deportation of Jews

Born in Komáromcsehi, Komárom County (now Čechy, Slovakia), he entered the politics of the Hungarian minority in Upper Hungary, cut off by Trianon, in the early 1920s. He became chairman of the Hungarian National Party in 1933 and a deputy in Prague in 1935, and was general secretary of the United Hungarian Party. From 1938 to 1940 he was Hungary’s minister without portfolio for Upper Hungary, and in 1940 he co-founded the far-right Party of Hungarian Renewal with Béla Imrédy. As interior minister in Sztójay’s cabinet after the German occupation of 1944, he organised the deportation of the Jews with his state secretaries László Baky and László Endre. He resigned under Horthy’s pressure on 17 August. After the war he fled west, was captured by the Americans, handed over to Hungary, sentenced to death by the People’s Tribunal and shot in 1946.

Hungary state institutions Fascists and Nazis 1897–1946 ✕ Executed

Arrow Cross leader installed by Germany as 'Leader of the Nation' in 1944

Born a soldier's son in Kassa (now Košice), he served as an officer in the First World War and joined the General Staff in 1925. In the early 1930s he turned to politics as a prophet of 'Hungarism' and the restoration of pre-Trianon borders, left the army in 1935 and founded the Hungarian National Socialist Party in 1937. While imprisoned in 1938 he was proclaimed leader of the Arrow Cross Party, which won 30 seats in the 1939 election. When Germany removed Horthy in October 1944 he became head of state, restarted the deportation of Jews that Horthy had halted, and his militias massacred Jews in Budapest. Captured by American troops in Austria in May 1945, he was sentenced to death by the People's Tribunal and hanged in March 1946.

Hungary state institutions Fascists and Nazis 1898–1946 ✕ Executed by hanging

Gendarmerie officer turned National Socialist who as state secretary for the interior in 1944 ran the deportation of Jews with László Endre

Born in Budapest, a military academy graduate and First World War officer, he made his name in Szeged in 1919 with violent counter-revolutionary work and rose to be one of the Gendarmerie’s leading figures. Retiring in 1938 as a major-general, he joined the Hungarian National Socialist Party, entered parliament in 1939 and edited the German-funded Magyarság. After the German occupation in 1944 he became political state secretary for the interior and, with László Endre, took charge of deporting the Jews; on 4 April he chaired a meeting with Eichmann’s officers that agreed to seize Jews’ possessions and move them into urban ghettos before deportation to Germany. Removed in the summer and arrested for plotting a coup against Horthy, he headed the National Security Office under the Arrow Cross. Arrested in Austria in 1945 and returned, he was hanged in 1946.