László Bárdossy

Early life and diplomatic career

Born at Szombathely on 10 December 1890 to Jenő Bárdossy de Bárdos and Gizella Zarka de Felsőőr, Bárdossy completed his secondary education at Eperjes (in present-day Slovakia) and in Budapest. His family were lesser nobility (i.e considered to be noble, but held no titles, a class that corresponded to the gentry). He trained as a lawyer in Budapest, Berlin and Paris, and learned German, French and English. He began his career in 1913 as an assistant clerk in the Hungarian government's Ministry of Culture and Education, by 1918 was an assistant secretary. Three years later he reached the rank of ministerial secretary, having been commissioner of education for Pest County. In February 1922, he transferred to the newly established Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as deputy chief then chief of the press department. As chief of the press department, Bárdossy reported to György Barcza, the chief of the political department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time. Barcza came from a more prominent and wealthier aristocratic family than Bárdossy and had a "grand seigneur" attitude towards his social inferiors, which led to embittered relations between the two men. In World War Two, the relationship between Barcza and Bárdossy was to be reversed with Barcza serving as the Hungarian minister-plenipotentiary in London and Bárdossy serving as foreign minister and prime minister.

Intelligent and ambitious, but highly irascible, Bárdossy quickly rose up the ranks of Hungarian diplomacy. In March 1930 he was appointed as a counsellor to the Hungarian legation in London, latterly as chargé d'affaires. His wife was the sister-in-law of the prime minister Gyula Gömbös, which greatly aided his career. Bárdossy's wife was a divorcée, which under the British customs at the time, meant she could not be presented at court before King George V and Queen Mary, a snub that greatly embittered Bárdossy and made him into something of an Anglophobe. From October 1934, Bárdossy was the Hungarian envoy to Romania.

The aristocracy held over-sized importance within the Kingdom of Hungary as the open ballot along with laws that disfranchised poorer men from voting or holding office (Hungarian women regardless of income level were not allowed to vote or hold office until 1946) allowed the greater aristocracy and the lesser aristocracy to dominate politics. Owning to the disfranchisement of most of the population and the fact that upper-class men were the only ones allowed to vote, the political left was not a factor in Hungarian politics and the main divisions in politics were between a right-wing faction known as the conservatives vs. an even more right-wing faction known as the radicals. The American political scientist Ibrahim Zabad wrote the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Miklós Horthy, managed to "keep a foot in both camps of the right", but he tended to more adopt the rhetoric of the radicals while governing more like the conservatives. Both the conservatives and the radicals favored anti-Semitic policies, but the conservatives tempered their antisemitism by arguing that Hungary needed its Jewish middle class to maintain the economy while the radicals did not. Until his death from testicular cancer in 1936, Gömbös was the leader of the radical faction and Bárdossy was associated with the radicals. Broadly speaking, the office of prime minister tended to alternate between the conservatives such as István Bethlen, Pál Teleki and Miklós Kállay vs. radicals such as Gyula Gömbös, Béla Imrédy and Bárdossy. The British historian C.A. Macartney argued that the way that the prime ministership alternated from 1932 to 1944 between the conservatives and the radicals was clear evidence that Admiral Horthy was the man in ultimate control of Hungary and that Horthy had played a balancing act between the conservatives and the radicals.

Foreign minister

Hungary did not abandon the idea of reuniting the "Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen" after the Treaty of Trianon. Based on this doctrine, Hungary sought the revision of the treaty, claiming territories from Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, including regions with no significant ethnic Hungarian population, such as Croatia. Between 1938 and 1940, following German–Italian mediation in the First and Second Vienna Awards, and the Hungarian invasion of Carpatho-Ukraine, Hungary enlarged its territory. It absorbed parts of southern Czechoslovakia, Carpathian Ruthenia and the northern part of Transylvania, which the Kingdom of Romania ceded. One of the ethno-cultural areas that changed hands between Romania and Hungary at this time was the Székely Land. The support that Hungary received from Germany for these border revisions meant that the relationship between the two countries became even closer. On 20 November 1940, Hungary formally joined the Axis Tripartite Pact.

To simplify the planned invasion of Greece, Germany and Italy wanted to neutralize Yugoslavia. For this purpose, Germany was ready to guarantee the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. News of the German offer annoyed Hungary which had already started negotiations with Yugoslavia. At the initiative of Prime Minister Pál Teleki, Hungary and Yugoslavia signed a treaty of eternal friendship and non-aggression on 12 December 1940. The treaty referred to the possibility of the revision of the frontier in favor of Hungary after bilateral negotiations, but Hungary explicitly abandoned her claim to Croatia. Through the treaty, Hungary wanted to offset German pressure and to improve her relationship with the United Kingdom.

When István Csáky died in January 1941, Bárdossy was appointed to replace him as Minister of Foreign Affairs in Teleki's cabinet. From the beginning, Bárdossy agreed with Teleki's approach to foreign affairs, which placed high priorities on Hungarian independence and staying out of World War II. However, unlike Teleki, Bárdossy believed that the war would end in German victory or a negotiated settlement. In February, György Barcza the Hungarian ambassador to Great Britain, advised Bárdossy that the British had broken off diplomatic relations with Romania due to the presence of German troops on its soil, and expressed disquiet over the fact that Hungary had allowed them to transit through Hungary on their way to Romania. Bárdossy replied that Hungary had allowed the transit of German troops at the request of the Romanian government. The British Foreign Office response was that Bárdossy's explanation was just a pretext, as Hungary's actions had enabled Britain's enemy to establish itself in Romania, thus creating a base for further German operations. They further explained that while they understood that Hungary and other smaller nations were in extremis, Britain was trying to extend a level of "understanding and patience" with them beyond usual diplomatic practice. Bárdossy also remonstrated with the Germans regarding the guarantees they had offered the Yugoslavs, emphasising that Hungary had not given up its territorial claims. Consistent with their practice of making conflicting promises to different countries, the Germans replied that Germany recognised Hungary's revisionist claims, and that the assurances offered to the Yugoslavs would not interfere with them.

Prime minister

Invasion of Yugoslavia

When Teleki committed suicide, Horthy first offered the prime ministership to Keresztes-Fischer, but when he refused it, Bárdossy was appointed. As prime minister, Bárdossy (who also retained the portfolio of foreign minister) pursued a strong pro-German foreign policy, reasoning that an alliance with the Nazis would allow Hungary to retrieve land that had been taken from it as a result of the Treaty of Trianon. On 6 April, Germany invaded Yugoslavia. Bárdossy and Horthy had agreed to allow the Germans to launch part of their invasion from Hungarian territory.

On 7 April, Yugoslav bombers of British-design launched raids on Hungarian airfields and railway stations. One of the targets was an airfield near Szeged, but when the Yugoslav aircraft found it empty, they dropped their bombs on the railway network. Another formation attacked airfields used by the Hungarian Air Force around Pécs. Both bomber formations were almost completely destroyed by German fighter aircraft and Hungarian anti-aircraft fire. A rumour spread that British aircraft had been involved in these raids, but this was a false report, probably generated by those in the Hungarian military who wanted Hungary to join in the German campaign. Bárdossy lodged a strong protest with the British regarding the supposed British attack.

The Axis puppet Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed on 10 April. Later that day, Horthy issued a directive to the Hungarian Army ordering it to intervene in Yugoslavia to safeguard the Hungarian minority. The Hungarian government used the pretext that Yugoslavia had ceased to exist, and therefore make the claim that Hungary was not invading it — and on that basis the Hungarian Army crossed the frontier on 11 April. On 13 April, the 1st and 2nd Hungarian Motorized Brigades occupied Novi Sad, then pushed south across the Danube into Syrmia capturing the Croatian towns of Vinkovci and Vukovar on 18 April. These brigades then drove southeast to capture the Serbian town of Valjevo a day later. Other Hungarian forces occupied the regions of Prekmurje and Međimurje. The British considered that Bárdossy's claim was a ludicrous attempt to justify the Hungarian invasion of Yugoslavia, with Eden stating that it would remain an "everlasting shame upon the reputation of Hungary" that she had attacked Yugoslavia a few months after concluding a pact of friendship with her. Even so, Churchill did not declare war on Hungary for some months, despite Eden and Stalin urging him to do so. The Hungarian attack on Yugoslavia has been described by the Hungarian historians Miklós Incze and György Ránki as "the most shameful act of wartime Hungarian policy".

War with the Soviet Union

On 22 June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Four days later, the Hungarian city of Kassa (present-day Košice in Slovakia) was bombed by three unidentified aircraft. One bomb failed to explode and was found to be of Soviet origin. The Hungarian military concluded that the Soviet Union was responsible (this was denied, and the question of responsibility has never been satisfactorily resolved). When Bartha and Werth became aware of the bombing, they went to Horthy who ordered retaliatory measures without consulting Bárdossy. However, Bárdossy believed that Horthy wanted war with the Soviet Union, so he hurriedly assembled the Council of Ministers. In summing up the meeting, Bárdossy said that it was agreed that reprisals were necessary, and, with the exception of Keresztes-Fischer, that they agreed that Hungary was now at war with the Soviet Union. The following day, Bárdossy stood up in Parliament and declared the attack had been made by the Soviet Union, and that the government had decided that a state of war existed between Hungary and the Soviet Union. Horthy subsequently claimed that Bárdossy had presented him with a fait accompli.

In so doing, he violated Hungary's constitution, which required the prime minister to receive the consent of Parliament before declaring war. Herbert Pell, the American minister-plenipotentiary in Budapest described Bárdossy as "very cultivated man with a great deal of diplomatic experience but extremely weak", adding he was a vain, ambitious man whose insecurities made him into a braggart. One Hungarian diplomat described Bárdossy, saying he "was an ultra-anti-Bolshevik anti-Semite and believed that harmonious cooperation with Germany was a historical necessity". The Chief of the General Staff, the extreme pro-Nazi General Henrik Werth, saw Operation Barbarossa as a chance to rid Hungary of all its minorities. Werth bombarded the cabinet with memos calling for all of the Jews, Romanians and Slovaks living under Hungarian rule to be expelled into the Galicia region of the Ukraine. In early July 1941, Werth appeared before the cabinet requesting that all of the Jews of "Polish and Russian citizenship" living under Hungarian rule be expelled as illegal immigrants into Galicia, a request that Bárdossy approved. However, Bárdossy refused Werth's request to expel all of the Jews under Hungarian rule, saying that those Jews who could not prove that they were Hungarian citizens would be expelled.

During the summer of 1941, Bárdossy received numerous complaints from Pell that the Jews who were being expelled as illegal immigrants from Hungary into the Galicia were being massacred. Pell told Bárdossy that his claims to be expelling illegal immigrants was wrong as many of the Galician Jews who had settled in the Ruthenia region were refugees and that his policies were "a violation of the right of asylum which is generally granted by sovereign countries to refugees". About 18, 000 Jews, some of whom were indeed Galicians, but others who were Hungarian citizens wrongly identified as illegal immigrants went by freight train to Galicia. All 18, 000 men, women and children were shot down by the SS in a massacre at Kamnets-Podolsk between 27–28 August 1941. Bárdossy constantly lied to Pell, claiming that there were no massacres and that the people being expelled into Galicia were being well treated. Besides for Pell, Bárdossy also received complaints from Hungarian officials about the massacre with one writing to him: "The fact that lawful Hungarian citizens are being expelled by the thousands from the country will undermine the internal and international confidence in the Hungarian legal system...It is not a Jewish interest, but a Hungarian national interest that the Hungarian officials who are responsible for these resettlements, about which hundreds of letters and telegrams provide testimony describing the dreadful horrors resembling Dante’s inferno, put an end to it. If for no other reason, the Hungarian nation’s thousand-year-old Christian reputation should not be tarnished by it." In October 1941, Bárdossy in a speech to the Diet stated: "Following the capture of Ukrainian territory, we have transferred a significant number of Jews, originally from Galicia. We wanted to evacuate even larger number, but our German friends warned us not to continue for the time being. Naturally, we had to yield to this request."

War with Great Britain and the United States

In late November 1941, Britain delivered an ultimatum to Hungary, stating that if it did not withdraw its forces from the Soviet Union by 5 December, Britain would declare war. Bárdossy took no action to comply, so a state of war came into effect at midnight on 6 December. The following day, the Japanese launched their attack on Pearl Harbor. Four days later, Germany declared war on the United States. Bárdossy was reluctant to follow suit, despite German expectations that Hungary would do so as a member of the Tripartite Pact. In an attempt to avoid a declaration of war, the Council of Ministers proposed breaking off diplomatic relations and expressing solidarity with the Axis powers. György Barcza wrote in his diary: "Pell said yesterday evening he had been with Bárdossy, who visibly agitated, had informed him Hungary was breaking off relations with America. Pell, who is a good friend of ours, told me that he had tried to feed Bárdossy, as an explanation for the communiquė, the suggestion being that under foreign pressure, the Hungarian government had no option, but Bárdossy had interrupted him and replied in a raised voice there was no question of foreign pressure. The government was breaking off diplomatic relations with the United States independently of the others, of its own free will. Pell tried again to make an impression on Bárdossy, as he would have liked to contrive that when he presented himself to report, he could tell Roosevelt something in favor of Hungary along the lines that having been placed under terrible German pressure and duress, we were compelled to break relatiosn with the USA. But Bárdossy did not want to take Pell's well intentioned hint and stuck by his assertion that there was no question of foreign influence on us; the step had been decided by the government and that was all there was to it.".

Breaking off diplomatic relations not satisfy the Germans or Italians, who made their expectations clear. Finally, realising that he would be unable to get approval from Parliament or Horthy for a declaration of war, Bárdossy announced a state of war with the United States at a parliamentary foreign affairs committee on 15 December.

Domestic policies

On matters of domestic policy, Bárdossy proved to be an advocate of radical right-wing politics. In the part of the Banat region annexed to Hungary, Bárdossy issued a degree ordering that all Romany (Gypsies) living there who could not prove that they were citizens of Austria-Hungary as of 31 October 1918 to be expelled. The same degree stated that Romany born after 31 October 1918 were to be expelled as well. An anti-Semite, Bárdossy enacted the Third Jewish Law in August 1941, which severely limited Jewish economic and employment opportunities and prohibited Jews from marrying or having sexual intercourse with non-Jews. Bárdossy also approved the policy of deporting non-Hungarians from the territory seized from Yugoslavia, and authorized the slaughter of thousands of Jews in Újvidék (modern Novi Sad, Serbia). The parts of Yugoslavia that had been annexed to Hungary were placed under military rule and as such the Honved generals had control over the local police forces along with the units of the Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie stationed in Yugoslavia instead of the Interior Ministry under Keresztes-Fischer as normally would had been the case. Werth as chief of the general staff had an oversized role in ruling that annexed regions which were governed under martial law rather regular civilian law. Werth as a "Swabian" (the name for the volksdeutsche of the Banat) took a special interest in the Banat, the region where he had been born in and grew up. Werth presented plans that called for as the first step expelling all 150, 000 Serbs living into the Banat into Serbia. Ultimately, Werth favored expelling not only all the Serbs, but also all of the Jews, Romany and Romanians living in the Banat as well with only the Magyars and the volksdeutsche being allowed to remain. Bárdossy told Horthy that Werth's plans for the Banat were "fantastical" as Werth envisioned uprooting millions of people to achieve his vision of ethnically pure greater Hungary. However, Bárdossy approved of Werth's plans to bring in ethnic Magyars from the Bukovina region of Romania as settlers to help "Magyarise" the region.

By a degree issued by Bárdossy on 12 July 1941 all Jews living in Hungary who could not prove their Hungarian citizenship were expelled into the German-occupied Ukraine. He had long claimed that Hungary was being overwhelmed with illegal Jewish immigrants from other Eastern European nations, especially from the Galicia region (modern western Ukraine and southeaster Poland) and the Hungarian police and gendarmes were ordered to expel all Jews who could not prove they were born Hungarian citizens under the grounds that they must be illegal immigrants. Many of the Jews expelled were not illegal immigrants, but merely Hungarian citizens who unable to prove to the satisfaction of the police and gendarmes that they were not illegal immigrants. In a two day orgy of killing between 27–28 August 1941 in Kamianets-Podilskyi, all of the expelled Jews were shot by the SS, Ukrainian collaborators and the sappers of the Honvéd (Royal Hungarian Army) that saw between 14, 000-16, 000 people killed.

Later life and execution

On 7 March 1942, Horthy forced Bárdossy's resignation in favour of the more moderate Miklós Kállay. Exactly why Horthy decided to remove Bárdossy is unclear, but some possible reasons include Bárdossy's unwillingness to stand up to Germany, his compliancy to Hungary's far-right and growing increasing Hungarian troop levels and casualties in the Soviet Union. Perhaps the primary reason that Horthy dismissed Bárdossy, however, was that Bárdossy successfully opposed a plan by Horthy that would have elevated his son, Miklós Jr, to the regency after Miklós Horthy's death. After resigning as prime minister, Bárdossy became chairman of the Fascist United Christian National League in 1943. After the German occupation of Hungary in 1944, Bárdossy and his followers collaborated with Prime Minister Döme Sztójay. Later on, they collaborated with Ferenc Szálasi's Arrow Cross Party. He fled from Szombathely due to Soviet advance in Hungary and moved initially to Bavaria, then to Innsbruck. He obtained entry visa to Switzerland on 24 April 1945 and lived briefly in a refugee camp. However, the Swiss government deported him back to Germany on 4 May 1945. He was immediately arrested by the Americans.

After World War II ended, Bárdossy was extradited to Hungary on 3 October 1945. He was tried by an extrajudicial People's Court between 19 October 1945 and 3 November 1945. The Hungarian historian Peter Kenez wrote of all the Hungarian leaders brought to trial for war crimes, Bárdossy "...was the most able to present a coherent and sympathetic defense. He conducted himself with dignity. He was a well educated man who spoke several languages. He assumed responsibility for his actions without considering himself guilty. He sparred with the prosecutors with intelligence and a better knowledge of recent history than his prosecutors. He defended his actions based on the need to repair the damage done by the Trianon treaty". Kenez argued that Bárdossy made a favorable impression on the stand as he defended his actions as prime minister, but "he deserved his punishment was not in question". Of the other Hungarian leaders brought to trial for war crimes, the former prime minister Béla Imrédy, the former prime minister Döme Sztójay, the former interior minister Andor Jaross along with his two undersecretaries László Baky and László Endre, and the former prime minister Ferenc Szálasi all made considerably worse impressions in their trials than did Bárdossy. The leader who made the very worst impression was Szálasi, whom Kenez described as being quite "mad" on the stand as he made strange and bizarre statements in his defense that made sense only to himself.

Appraisal

Bárdossy took over his roles as foreign minister and prime minister at a critical moment in Hungary's history. Despite the importance of Britain, he did not really understand the British, and was "rather contemptuous, dismissive and at times condescending" towards them. His poor relationship with Barcza, the Hungarian ambassador to London probably contributed to this. He maintained Teleki's foreign policy priorities without fully identifying with them. His appointment as prime minister was much more acceptable to the Germans than Keresztes-Fischer. Bárdossy was a contradictory character who did not always comprehend the geo-political situation Hungary found herself in, especially vis-à-vis Britain. His accusation that the British had bombed Hungary on 7 April 1941 was one of several significant political blunders, as was the announcement of a state of war with the Soviet Union in June 1941, and with the United States in December 1941.