Geographer of the “Red map” who was twice prime minister and killed himself in 1941 as German troops crossed Hungary
Born in Budapest to an aristocratic family from Transylvania, he was a geographer, university professor, member of the Academy of Sciences and chief scout of the Hungarian Scout Association. In 1918–19 he compiled the “Red map” of ethnic distribution based on the 1910 census. As foreign minister he attended the signing of the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, became prime minister in July and led the government of the numerus clausus period until April 1921. Prime minister again from 1939, he wrote the preamble to the Second Anti-Jewish Law and prepared the Third. He killed himself on 3 April 1941 when German troops were about to cross Hungary to invade Yugoslavia.
Career timeline
- 1918–1919Compiles the “Red map”
- 1920Foreign minister at the signing of Trianon
- 1920–1921Prime minister
- 1938Minister of education
- 1939–1941Prime minister
- 1941Suicide
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
