Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi | |
---|---|
Leader of the Nation (Prime Minister) | |
In office 16 October 1944 – 7 May 1945 | |
Monarch | Vacant |
Preceded by | Miklós Horthy (as Regent of Hungary) Géza Lakatos (as Prime Minister of Hungary) |
Succeeded by | High National Council (as collective head of state) Béla Miklós (as Prime Minister of Hungary) |
Personal details | |
Born | Execution by hanging | 6 January 1897
Political party | Arrow Cross Party |
Spouse | Gizella Lutz |
Profession | Soldier, Politician |
Awards | 3rd Class, Order of the Iron Crown |
Military service | |
Allegiance | Austria-Hungary (1915–1918) Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1935) |
Branch/service | Austro-Hungarian Army Royal Hungarian Army |
Years of service | 1915–1935 |
Rank | Major |
Commands | 1st Honvéd Mixed-Brigade |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Ferenc Szálasi (Hungarian pronunciation:
Szálasi served with distinction during World War I as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army. In 1925, he became a staff officer of the restored Kingdom of Hungary under Regent Miklós Horthy. Initially apolitical, Szálasi embraced right-wing ultranationalism in the early 1930s and became a passionate advocate of the irredentist Hungarism. In 1937, he founded the Hungarian National Socialist Party, having retired from the military and fully devoted himself to politics. He attracted considerable support through his virulently nationalist and antisemitic program, while his followers became increasingly radical, leading to his imprisonment in 1938. While in prison, he was proclaimed leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party, which quickly became one of the most powerful political forces in the country. Szálasi was granted amnesty in 1940, but had to operate his party clandestinely after Horthy outlawed it on the outbreak of World War II.
Following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944 and Horthy's ousting in October, Szálasi was made head of government and head of state. His pro-Nazi puppet government, known as the Government of National Unity, was dominated by members of the Arrow Cross Party. The regime imposed martial law, participated in Germany's war efforts and recommenced the Holocaust in Hungary, which had been halted by Horthy. His militias were singularly responsible for the murder of 10,000–15,000 Hungarian Jews.[1]
Szálasi's collaborationist government, with its authority limited to the city of
Early life
Ancestry
Born the son of a soldier in Kassa,
Szálasi's mother was the
Military career
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2019) |
Szálasi followed in his father's footsteps and joined the army at a young age. He finished elementary studies in his birthplace, then attended the military academy in Kőszeg, Marosvásárhely (now Târgu Mureș in Romania) and continued studies in Kismarton. Finally, he finished his military education in the Theresian Military Academy of Wiener Neustadt, where he was promoted to Lieutenant in 1915.
He eventually became an officer and served in the
Upon the dissolution and break-up of
In 1920–21, Szálasi finished non-commissioned officer training school in
Political career
First steps in politics
Around this time, when
On 1 March 1935, Szálasi left the army in order to devote his full attention to politics, after which time he established the Party of National Will, a nationalistic group. It was eventually outlawed by the conservative government for being too radical. Unperturbed, Szálasi established the Hungarian National Socialist Party in 1937, which was also banned. However, Szálasi was able to attract considerable support to his cause from factory workers and Hungary's lower classes by pandering to their aggrieved sense of nationalism and their virulent antisemitism.[citation needed]
After Germany's "Union" (Anschluss) with Austria in 1938, Szálasi's followers became more radical in their political activities, and Szálasi was arrested and imprisoned by the Hungarian Police. However, even while in prison Szálasi managed to remain a powerful political figure, and was proclaimed leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party (a coalition of several right-wing groups) when it was expanded in 1938. The party attracted a large number of followers, and in the 1939 elections, it gained 30 seats in the Hungarian Parliament, thus becoming one of the more powerful parties in Hungary. Freed due to a general amnesty resulting from the Second Vienna Award in 1940, Szálasi returned to politics. When World War II began, the Arrow Cross Party was officially banned by Prime Minister Pál Teleki, thus forcing Szálasi to operate in secret. During this period, Szálasi gained the support and backing of the Germans, who had previously been opposed to Szálasi because his Hungarist nationalism placed Hungarian territorial claims above those of Germany.[citation needed]
Way to power
Following the
When the Germans learned of the Regent's plan to come to a separate peace with the Soviets and exit the Axis alliance, they kidnapped Horthy's son,
National leader
Szálasi's Government of National Unity turned the Kingdom of Hungary into a puppet state of Nazi Germany formed on 16 October 1944 after Regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy was removed from power during Operation Panzerfaust (Unternehmen Eisenfaust) [1].
The Hungarian parliament approved the formation of a Council of Regency (Kormányzótanács) of three. On 4 November, Szálasi was sworn as Leader of the Nation (nemzetvezető).[7] He formed a government of sixteen ministers, half of which were members of the Arrow Cross Party. While the Horthy regency had come to an end, the Hungarian monarchy was not abolished by the Szálasi regime, as government newspapers kept referring to the country as the Kingdom of Hungary (Magyar Királyság, also abbreviated as m.kir.), although Magyarország (Hungary) was frequently used as an alternative.[8][9]
Szálasi and his "Quisling government" had little other intention or ability but to execute the party's ideology and to maintain control in Nazi-occupied portions of Hungary as the Soviet Union invaded. He did this in order to reduce the threat to Germany. Szálasi's aim was to create a one-party state based on Hungarism.
Under his rule as a close ally of Germany, the Germans, with the assistance of the Szálasi government, recommenced the deportation of the Jews, which had been suspended by Horthy. He organised the so-called
Szálasi's rule only lasted 163 days, partly because by the time he took power, the Red Army was already deep inside Hungary. For all intents and purposes, his authority was limited to a narrowing band in the centre of the country, including Budapest. On 19 November 1944, Szálasi was in the Hungarian capital when
Trial and execution
The Arrow Cross Party's cabinet, which had fled Hungary, was dissolved on 7 May 1945, a day before Germany's surrender.[12] Szálasi was captured by American troops in Mattsee on 6 May[12] and returned to Hungary on 3 October. He was tried by the People's Tribunal in Budapest in open sessions begun in February 1946, and sentenced to death for war crimes and high treason.
Szálasi was hanged on 12 March 1946 in Budapest, along with two of his former ministers, Gábor Vajna and Károly Beregfy, and the party ideologist József Gera. The hanging was conducted in the Austrian pole method. A large post had a rope attached to a hook at the top. Szálasi was marched up steps, placed with his back to the post, his legs and arms were tied, the noose placed around his neck, the rope tightened, and the steps were removed. With the post only leaving a couple feet between Szálasi and the ground it is likely that he died slowly due to strangulation rather than being instantaneously rendered unconscious and dying shortly after as would happen when utilizing the standard drop. This would also explain why his arms and legs were bound as to prevent struggle during the process.[13] Before being executed, Szálasi received the last sacraments by a Catholic priest.[14]
Thirty-two photos of the hanging were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[13] Other photographs of the execution are on display in the Holocaust Room of the Budapest Jewish Museum.
On 13 March 1946, the day after Szálasi's death, the National Council of People's Tribunals discussed the convicted politicians' plea for mercy and recommended its refusal to Justice Minister István Ries, when Szálasi and his ministers were already executed. Ries forwarded the decision to President Zoltán Tildy, who subsequently approved the death sentence and execution on 15 March 1946.[15]
Szálasi was buried in Rákoskeresztúr New Public Cemetery in the Budapest Capital District, Budapest, Hungary, plot 298. In 2008, historian Tamás Kovács claimed the Political Department of the Hungarian State Police (PRO; predecessor of the feared secret police State Protection Authority) falsified his name and birth certificate, and buried him as "Ferenc Lukács" in section 298 of the New Public Cemetery.[16] Other historians, however, rejected this claim, since no written source could be found.
See also
- Cluj Ghetto
- Hungarian Turanism
References
- ISBN 0-8143-2561-0.
- ISBN 0-521-56354-2. p. 140:"Szalasi was descended from an eighteenth-century Armenian immigrant named Salossian"
- ^ Ferenc Szalasi Archived 9 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 0-582-89414-X. p. 456 "Major Ferenc Szalasi, whose father was Armenian and whose mother was of Slovak-Magyar origin..."
- ^ Sipos Péter: Nemzetvesztő nemzetvezető Archived 29 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine – Historia.hu.
- ISBN 0-9665734-3-9.
- ^ Hungary: Notes - archontology.org
- ^ Budapesti Közlöny, 17 October 1944
- ^ Hivatalos Közlöny, 27 January 1945
- ^ "Prim Online". Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 7 June 2008.
- ^ Thomas, The Royal Hungarian Army in World war II, p. 24
- ^ ISBN 963-07-5386-3.
- ^ a b Ruane, Michael E. (9 February 2018). "Thirty-two frightening snapshots of a hanging. And no one knew who the victims were – until now". Washington Post. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
- ^ "Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Szalasi is given the last rites before being hanged as a collaborator, 1946". Rare Historical Photos. 27 May 2014.
- ISBN 963-02-5942-7
- ^ Nemzeti emlékhelyen nyugszik Szálasi? – FigyelőNet, 2008-02-08.
Sources and further reading
- Cohen, Asher. “Continuity in the Change: Hungary, 19 March 1944.” Jewish Social Studies 46, no. 2 (1984): 131–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4467252.
- Cohen, Asher. "Some Socio-Political Aspects of the Arrow Cross Party in Hungary." East European Quarterly 21.3 (1987): 369+
- Deak, Istvan. "Collaborationism in Europe, 1940–1945: The Case of Hungary." Austrian History Yearbook 15 (1979): 157–164.
- Deák, István. "A fatal compromise? The debate over collaboration and resistance in Hungary." East European Politics and Societies 9.2 (1995): 209–233.
- Deák, István. “Hungary” in Hans Rogger and Egon Weber, eds., The European Right: A Historical Profile (1963) pp. 364–407.
- Herczl, Moshe Y. Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry (1993) pp 79–170. online
- Lackó, M. Arrow-Cross Men: National Socialists 1935–1944 (Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó 1969).
- Fiala-Marschalkó: Vádló bitófák. London: Süli, 1958
- Rozsnyói, Á. “October Fifteenth, 1944: (History of Szálasi’s Putsch).” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 8, no. 1/2 (1961): 57–105. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42554680.
- ISBN 978-1-84603-324-7.)
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