Miklós Kállay

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

The Kállay family was old and influential among the local gentry of their region, and Miklós served as lord-lieutenant (ispán) of his county from 1921 to 1929. The British historian C.A Macartney who knew Kállay well described him as "a Kállay of Szabolcs County and that itself to any Hungarian was a characterisation. Szabloces County, on the left bank of the middle Tiza, had always been the one of the most Hungarian parts of all Hungary. If Szabolcs might be called the quintessence of Hungary and the Kállays of Szabloces, Miklós Kállay was the quintessence of the Kállays".^[3]

Kállay then moved on to national government and served first as deputy under secretary of state for the Ministry of Trade (1929–1931) and later as minister of agriculture (1932–1935). He resigned in 1935 in protest over the right-wing policies of Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös. He kept out of politics for most of the next decade before Hungarian Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy asked him to form a government to reverse the pro-Nazi policies of László Bárdossy in March 1942.^[2] In August 1941 as a member of the Upper House, Kállay voted against the Third Anti-Jewish law that had been by the Bárdossy government that had banned marriage and sex between Hungarian Gentiles and Jews.^[4]

In January 1942 during a shooting party outside of Budapest during the visit of the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Kállay had impressed Horthy by arguing with Ribbentrop.^[3] Horthy praised Kállay, saying "that is the way to talk to the Germans".^[3] In early March 1942, Horthy summoned Kállay to a meeting at the Royal Castle in Budapest, saying he was disappointed with Bárdossy, whom he complained tended to present him with one fait accompli after another, and wanted a prime minister who would more be respectful of his position as regent.^[5] Horthy also complained that Bárdossy was trying to fire the conservative Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer as Interior Minister in order to replace him with a radical, which Horthy was opposed to as the Interior Ministry controlled both the State Police and the Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie.^[6]

Kállay described himself as a follower of the former Prime Minister Pál Teleki, which led him at first to decline the offer, saying "if Teleki had found no way except suicide of remaining true to his principles, how culd one follow this policy now, with Bárdossy's four wars on one's back?"^[6] To entice him to serve, Horthy promised Kállay that as prime minister, he would have complete freedom to appoint his own cabinet except for the Defense Minister Károly Bartha whom Horthy wanted to see continue on, and that Kállay would be allowed to serve as prime minister for the long term.^[6] As Supreme Commander-in-chief and as a former admiral in the Imperial Austrian Navy, Horthy had insisted upon having exclusive control over military affairs, telling Kállay as a prime minister he would have control over everything except for the military.^[6] Horthy also committed himself to dissolving Parliament for new elections in the event of any difficulties within the ruling MEP (Magyar Élet Pártja-Party of Hungarian Life).^[6] Not such the time of István Bethlen who had served as prime minister between 1921-1931 had Horthy allowed a prime minister such latitude to make policy as he offered to Kállay.^[6]

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

The German minister in Budapest, Dietrich von Jagow reported to Berlin: "Kállay is basically an apolitical person and has not been active in the last few years either in internal or foreign affairs. National Socialism is an "alien" concept to him and he bears no inner sympathy with it. Nevertheless he will no doubt continue the same relations with Germany as his successor".^[7] Jagow reported to Berlin that Kállay in his first speech as prime minister on 19 March 1942 described the war against the Soviet Union as "our war" and ordered a police crackdown on the Hungarian Social Democrats, sending hundreds of Jewish Social Democrats to the dreaded Labor Service of the Royal Hungarian Army where conditions were extremely harsh.^[7] Jagow described Kállay in his reports to Ribbentrop as a proponent of what was known in Hungary as "civilized antisemitism" who favored social exclusion and discrimination as the solution to the "Jewish Question", but who deeply deplored violence.^[8] Dr. Josef Goebbels, the German Propaganda Minister by contrast complained in his diary that Kállay was a noted Anglophile and his government "fitted into the Axis like a fist into the eye".^[4]

In foreign affairs, Kállay supported the German war effort against the Soviet Union. However, he made numerous peaceful overtures to the Western Allies and even went as far as to promise to surrender to them unconditionally once they reached Hungary's borders. In 1942, Horthy believed that neither side in the war could win, and that the war would end in a stalemate and a negotiated peace.^[4] The belief on the part of the Regent that a compromise peace was the most likely outcome of the war hindered Kállay's ability to sign an armistice with the Allies in 1942 as Horthy wanted to wait until the war ended in order to achieve the most favorable outcome for Hungary.^[4] In particular, Horthy wanted to keep all of the terrorirty that Hungary had gained since 1938 at the expense of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, which also imposed problems in signing an armistice.

In his speeches, Kállay told the usual anti-Semitic and anti-Communist line that Hungarian politicians always took during the Horthy era.^[9] However, in private, Kállay told several leaders of the Hungarian Jewish community to not pay any attention to his speeches, which stated were merely "sop" to appease the Germans and did not reflect his true feelings.^[9] Kállay did pass two major anti-Semitic laws. One was purely symbolic, namely the repeal of a 1895 law that had recognized Judaism as one of the official religions of the Kingdom of Hungary, which had been largely moot since the passage of the First Anti-Jewish Law of 1938.^[9] The other law was a law reform measure to confiscate the estates owned by wealthy Jews and give the land to their Christian tenants, which was opposed by the Magyar nobility who feared it would create a precedent for land reform on their estates.^[9] Kállay stated to Hungarian Jewish community leaders that his land reform law was only intended to be temporary and he would give back the land once the war ended.^[9]

The cabinet minister whom Kállay trusted the most was the Interior minister Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer, who was one of the leaders of the conservative faction, who advised him to pull Hungary out of the war before it was too late.^[9] In the summer of 1942, in an attempt to fire his pro-Nazi defense minister, Károly Bartha, Kállay ordered an investigation into the reports of the mistreatment of the men serving in the labour service battalions.^[10] The report presented to Parliament in September 1942 confirmed the stories about the labour service and stated "brutality, violence and corruption were permanent manifestations in all the front lines".^[10] On 24 September 1942, Kállay fired Bartha and replaced him as defense minister with Vilmos Nagy de Nagybaczon who was ordered to improve the conditions in the labour service.^[10]

On 14 October 1942, Jagow met with the Hungarian Foreign Minister Jenő Ghyczy to tell him that his government was extremely unhappy about the unwillingness of Kállay to deport the Hungarian Jews to the death camps.^[11] To buy time, Ghyczy told Jagow that Kállay would give a major speech on the "Jewish Question" very soon.^[11] When Kállay did give his speech on 22 October 1942, Jagow was very disappointed as he noted Kállay called the "Jewish Question" just one of the major problems facing his government and labelled those who wanted a "radical" solution "degraded men".^[11] On 27 October 1942, Jagow went to see Kállay at the prime minister's office where the meeting was extremely difficult as Jagow behaved like a bully towards Kállay.^[11] Kállay told Jagow that his government would have to move slowly on the "Jewish Question" as most of the Hungarian middle class were Jewish and that to deport these people would cause the Hungarian economy to collapse, answers that enraged Jagow.^[12] Jagow informed Kállay that his view the "Jewish Question" was an "international problem" that required a global solution, and told Kállay that his concerns about the economic problems that would result from the destruction of the Hungarian Jews could be easily resolved by a joint commission of Hungarian and German experts.^[12]

In November 1942 Jagow once again met with Kállay, who now provided another reason for delay.^[12] Kállay stated to Jagow that the Hungarian peasants were not especially anti-Semitic, and if the Jews were deported, demands would be raised for Hungary to solve the problem imposed by its volksdeutsche minority.^[12] In what appeared to be an attempt at blackmail, Kállay told Jagow if he deported the Jews, he would have to close the German language schools for the Hungarian volksdeutsche and stop the Waffen-SS recruitment of Hungarian volksdeutsche.^[12] Jagow was engaged by Kállay equating the Hungarian Jews with the Hungarian volksdeutsche, saying that there was no comparison between the two minorities and warned the prime minister not to close the German language schools, which he called essential to allow the Hungarian volksdeutsche to retain their deutschtum (Germanness). A sign of worsening relations with Germany occurred in early 1943 when Kállay presented Jagow with an official protest that during the retreat to the river Don following the Battle of Stalingrad that the SS had massacred several battalions of Hungarian Jews serving in the Labor service battalions of the Hungarian Army.^[13] Jagow also complained that the new defense minister, Vilmos Nagy de Nagybaczon, had issued orders to improve conditions in the Labor service.^[13]

On 9 September 1943, on abroad a yacht in the Sea of Marmara, just outside of Istanbul, the British ambassador to Turkey, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen secretly signed an armistice with the Hungarian diplomat László Veress under which Hungarian forces would surrender to British and American forces the moment they arrived in Hungary; significantly, the secret armistice was vague about whatever it also applied to Soviet forces.^[14] Through Kállay rejected the armistice when he learned that it included the Allied demand for unconditional surrender, on 10 September the Hungarian consul in Istanbul, Dezső Újvary, told Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell, the British ambassador in Lisbon who was visiting Turkey that his government would abide by the terms of the secret armistice.^[15]

Inconveniently for Kállay, starting in November 1943, Elyesa Bazna, the Albanian valet to Knatchbull-Hugessen, was able to obtain access to his master's safe, photographed secret British diplomatic documents, and sold them to the Germans. The Germans paid Bazna with counterfeit British pounds, which thereby ruined his dreams of getting rich from his treachery. One of the documents Bazna sold to the Germans was the secret armistice Knatchbull-Hugessen had signed with Veress, which was received with great interest in Berlin. The Germans finally had enough of his policies and occupied Hungary in March 1944, which forced Horthy to oust Kállay and replace him with the more pliable Döme Sztójay.

Kállay evaded the Nazis at first, but he was eventually captured and sent first to the Dachau and later to Mauthausen. In late April 1945, he was transferred to Tyrol, together with other prominent concentration camp inmates, where the SS left the prisoners behind. He was liberated by the Fifth US Army on 5 May 1945.^[16]

In 1946 he went into exile and finally settled in the United States in 1951. In 1954, he published his memoirs, Hungarian Premier: A Personal Account of a Nation's Struggle in the Second World War (Columbia University Press).^[17]

• Diplomatic history of World War II
• Hungary in World War II