Conservative ally of Bethlen who as interior minister twice used the police to hold down radical movements of left and right
A lawyer born into a Catholic professional family of Pécs, he was prefect of Baranya County from 1921 and of Somogy County from 1925. A close friend and ally of István Bethlen, he was interior minister in 1931–1935 and 1938–1944, directing the police against radical movements of both left and right, and in 1939 he banned the Hungarist movement. In 1941 he was the only minister to vote against declaring war on the Soviet Union, and he served briefly as acting prime minister after Teleki’s suicide and after Bárdossy’s resignation. Arrested by the Gestapo when Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, he was taken to Mauthausen, and he died of lung cancer in Vienna in 1948.
Activities and affiliations
- 1931–1944 Government and administration · Hungary
- 1921–1931 Government and administration · Hungary
Career Timeline
- 1907Opens a law office in Pécs
- 1921–1931Prefect of Baranya and Somogy counties
- 1931–1935Interior minister
- 1938–1944Interior minister
- 1941 · 1942Acting prime minister
- 1944–1945Arrested by the Gestapo; concentration camps
Related historical events
- 1919–1938The Horthy regime: from the White Terror to the turn to the rightInterior ministerA Bethlen ally placed in the Gömbös cabinet to check the prime minister.
- 1944.03–1945.02Hungary under German occupation: from Operation Margarethe to the siege of BudapestInterior ministerDeclared that Hungary was no longer independent and was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Dachau.