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.
Career timeline
- 1907Opens a law office in Pécs
- 1921–1931Prefect of Baranya and Somogy counties
- 1931–1935Interior minister
- 1938–1944Interior minister
- 1941Acting prime minister
- 1942Acting prime minister
- 1944–1945Arrested by the Gestapo; concentration camps
Wartime prime minister who refused German deportation demands and sought a secret armistice with the Western Allies
From an old gentry family of Szabolcs County, he was a county lord-lieutenant and minister of agriculture from 1932 to 1935, a conservative of the Bethlen school. In 1941 he voted in the upper house against the Third Jewish Law. Made prime minister at Horthy’s request in March 1942, he kept up the war against the Soviet Union while refusing German demands to deport Hungary’s Jews and negotiating an armistice with the Western Allies. A secret preliminary armistice was signed off Istanbul in September 1943, but when Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944 he was ousted and hid in the Turkish legation. Captured in October 1944, he was held in Dachau and Mauthausen until freed in 1945; he went into exile in 1946 and died in New York.
Career timeline
- 1921–1929Lord-lieutenant of Szabolcs County
- 1929–1931Deputy under-secretary, Ministry of Trade
- 1932–1935Minister of agriculture
- 1942–1944Prime minister; secret armistice talks with the Allies
- 1944–1945Refuge in the Turkish legation; Dachau and Mauthausen
- 1946–1967Exile; settled in the United States
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.
Career timeline
- 1928–1932Director, Hungarian National Bank
- 1932–1935Finance minister under Gömbös
- 1935–1938President, Hungarian National Bank
- 1938–1939Prime minister; introduced the Second Jewish Law
- 1940–1944Founder and leader, Party of Hungarian Renewal
- 1944Minister of economic coordination under Sztójay
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.
Career timeline
- 1915–1918Hussar officer
- 1919–1921Active in counter-revolutionary groups
- 1923–1938Chief magistrate of Gödöllő
- 1938–1944Deputy lord-lieutenant of Pest county
- 1944Administrative state secretary, Interior Ministry
- 1944–1945Commissioner for civil administration in the operational areas
- 1946Sentenced by the People’s Tribunal and executed
