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Period: to
Interwar period
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Period: to
The Horthy Era
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Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon is one of the Paris peace treaties that ended the First World War. It was concluded between Hungary and the Allied and Associated Powers on 4 June 1920 in the Grand Trianon Palace situated in the Versailles Palace park. It sanctioned the dismemberment of the Hungarian state. -
The Numerus Clausus
The Numerus Clausus , stipulated that the number of students from various “races” and nationalities admitted to universities in Hungary could not exceed the proportion of the given race or nationality within the country’s total population. Though this law did not cite any specific race or nationality, it was manifestly intended to reduce the number of Jewish students studying at universities. -
Charles IV Attempts to Regain Throne
Charles IV made two unsuccessful attempts in 1921 to reclaim the throne of the Kingdom of Hungary in what are known in Hungarian as the first and second “royal putsch” (királypuccs). -
Formation of the “Self-Sustaining” Authoritarian State: the Gömbös Era
During his four years as a prime minister Gömbös initiated the process of building a “self-sustaining”
authoritarian state upon the semi-democratic Christian-nationalist political foundations established under Prime Minister István Bethlen in the 1920s. As head of government, Gömbös attempted to strengthen Hungary’s relations with Nazi Germany, though regarded the fascist system that Benito Mussolini had introduced in Italy to be his primary political model. -
Rise of the Arrow Cross and other National Socialist Parties
Retired military officer Ferenc Szálasi established the Party of National Will to serve as a political vehicle for his radical authoritarian nationalist ideology of Hungarism—the Hungarian adaptation of Hitler’s National Socialism Szálasi and his followers were among the Turanists who furthermore believed that Jesus was a proto-Hungarian “Parthian prince.” -
Regaining Lost Territory I: Czechoslovakia
Following Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria Prime Minister Darányi and his successor, Béla Imrédy, attempted to achieve the revisionist objective of reincorporating the predominantly Hungarian-inhabited regions of southern Slovakia back into Hungary with the support of Chancellor Hitler, who after the Anschluss turned his attention toward further expansion of the Third Reich’s borders through occupation of the German-inhabited Sudetenland along the western perimeter of Bohemia. -
Hungary Refuses to Support the Invasion of Poland
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, thus marking the beginning of the Second World War. Prime Minister Teleki refused a German request on September 9 to permit the Wehrmacht to enter southern Poland via Hungary’s newly reoccupied territory of Subcarpathia. The Teleki government subsequently permitted 130,000 to 140,000 Polish soldiers and civilians to take refuge in Hungary, which since the invasion of Subcarpathia had a 200-kilometer common border with traditional ally Poland. -
Military Labor Battalions
In 1939, the House of Representatives adopted legislation introducing labor service for conscripts deemed unfit for standard military service. The Hungarian Royal Army almost immediately began assigning Jews, suspected or proven communists, members of minority nationalities, those belonging to minor religious sects and all others regarded as politically unreliable to serve in labor battalions rather than regular military units. -
The End of Neutrality: Joining the Axis Alliance
After joining the Kingdom of Hungary relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to pull itself out of the Great Depression. Hungarian politics and foreign policy had become more stridently nationalistic by 1938, and Hungary adopted an irredentist policy similar to Germany's, attempting to incorporate ethnic Hungarian areas in neighboring countries into Hungary. Hungary benefited territorially from its relationship with the Axis. -
Deportation of Jews to Auschwitz
Approximately 725,000 Jews lived in Hungary in 1944, including 325,000 in territories that the country had regained from Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia from 1938 to 1941. The Second Jewish Law of 1939 furthermore classified 100,000 Christians who had either one Jewish parent or two Jewish grandparents as Jews .
