jewpedia source The Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian: Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom, literally "Arrow Cross Party-Hungarist Movement", abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary known as the Government of National Unity. They were in power from 15 October 1944 to 28 March 1945. During its short rule, ten to fifteen thousand civilians (many of whom were Jews and Romani) were murdered outright,[2][3] and 80,000 people were deported from Hungary to various concentration camps in Austria.[4] After the war, Szálasi and other Arrow Cross leaders were tried as war criminals by Hungarian courts. Contents 1 Formation 2 Ideology 3 Rise to power 4 Arrow Cross rule 5 Post-war developments 6 Electoral results 6.1 National Assembly 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links The party was founded by Ferenc Szálasi in 1935 as the Party of National Will.[5] It had its origins in the political philosophy of pro-German extremists such as Gyula Gömbös, who famously coined the term "national socialism" in the 1920s.[6] The party was outlawed in 1937 but was reconstituted in 1939 as the Arrow Cross Party, and was said to be modelled fairly explicitly on the Nazi Party of Germany, although Szálasi often and harshly criticised the Nazi regime of Germany.[7] The iconography of the party was clearly inspired by that of the Nazis; the Arrow Cross emblem was an ancient symbol of the Magyar tribes who settled Hungary, thereby suggesting the racial purity of the Hungarians in much the same way that the Nazi swastika was intended to allude to the racial purity of the Aryans.[8] The Arrow Cross symbol also referred to the desire to nullify the Treaty of Trianon, and expand the Hungarian state in all cardinal directions towards the former borders of the Kingdom of Hungary.[8] Ideology Ministers of the Arrow Cross Party government. Ferenc Szálasi is in the middle of the front row. The party's ideology was similar to that of Nazism or Fascism[9] and Hungarian Turanism combined, which was called Hungarism by Ferenc Szálasi – nationalism, the promotion of agriculture, anti-capitalism, anti-communism and a special type of anti-Semitism, called a-Semitism. In a series of four books on Hungarism, Szálasi distinguished between a-Semitism, which called for a society completely absent of Jews, and anti-Semitism, which, he argued, would nominally allow Jews to exist in a particular society with limited rights. He argued that a-Semitism was not opposed to the existence of Jews per se; it was opposed to their existence in as being incompatible with European society. Szálasi extended this argument to Arabs as well, as a matter of fact to the whole Semitic Race.[10] The party and its leader were originally against the German geopolitical plans, so it was a long and very difficult process for Hitler to compromise with Szálasi and his party (they introduced the doctrine of connationalism, meaning the support of nationalist movements on their historical territories and influence spheres on the ground of the historical heritage and proven availability of cultural dominance; something that the Germans hardly understood, a kind of combination of nationalism and internationalism, the co-operation of the nations and their nationalist movements). Consequently, the party conceived Jews in racial as well as religious terms as incapable to be integrated into the society outside the place and culture of their historical origin. Although the Arrow Cross Party was certainly far more racist than the Horthy regime, it was still different in some ways from the German Nazi Party. It was also more economically radical than other fascist movements, advocating workers' rights and land reforms.[8] Rise to power This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Arrow Cross Party" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The roots of Arrow Cross influence can be traced to the outburst of anti-Semitism that followed the Communist putsch, the creation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and Red Terror during the spring and summer of 1919. Some Communist leaders, like Tibor Szamuely, came from Jewish families. Béla Kun, the Republic's leader and mastermind of the Terror, had a secular Jewish father and a mother who had converted to the Reformed Church of Hungary, and was considered to be a Jew. The policies of the Hungarian Soviet Republic came to be credited in the minds of some anti-communists to a "Judeo-Bolshevist conspiracy." After the Soviet Republic was overthrown in August 1919, conservative authoritarians under the leadership of Admiral Miklós Horthy took control of the nation. Many Hungarian military officers took part in the counter-reprisals known as the White Terror – parts of that violence was directed at Jews, as they were broadly blamed for the events in connection with the Soviet Republic.[8] Although the White Guard was officially suppressed, many of its most prevalent members went underground and formed the core membership of a spreading nationalist and anti-Semitic movement. During the 1930s, the Arrow Cross gradually began to dominate Budapest's working class neighborhoods defeating the Social Democrats. The Social Democrats did not really contest elections effectively; they had to make a pact with the conservative Horthy regime in order to prevent the abolition of their party. The Arrow Cross party recruited as well from the poorest and anti-social parts of society, the social classes which at that time in Hungary were often called "scum" or "trash", i.e unemployed, alcoholics, ex-convicts, prisoners, rapists, and the uneducated.[11] Many of these anti-social members later committed some of the most brutal crimes against Jews, intellectuals, socialists, and other civilians. A World War II propaganda poster for the party – the text reads "Despite it all..!" The Arrow Cross subscribed to the Nazi ideology of "master races",[8] which, in Szálasi's view, included the Hungarians and Germans, and also supported the concept of an order based on the power of the strongest – what Szálasi called a "brutally realistic étatism". But its espousal of territorial claims under the banner of a "Greater Hungary" and Hungarian values (which Szálasi labelled "Hungarizmus" or "Hungarianism") clashed with Nazi ambitions in central Europe, delaying by several years Hitler's endorsement of that party. The German Foreign Office instead endorsed the pro-German Hungarian National Socialist Party, which had some supporters among ethnic Germans. Before World War II, the Arrow Cross were not proponents of the racial antisemitism of the Nazis, but utilised traditional stereotypes and prejudices to gain votes among voters both in Budapest and the countryside. Nonetheless the constant bickering among these diverse fascist groups prevented the Arrow Cross Party from gaining even more support and power. The Arrow Cross obtained most of its support from a disparate coalition of military officers, soldiers, nationalists and agricultural workers. It was only one of a number of similar openly fascist factions in Hungary but was by far the most prominent, having developed an effective system of recruitment. When it contested the May 1939 elections – the only ones in which it participated – the party won 15% of the vote and 29 seats in the Hungarian Parliament. This was only a superficially impressive result; the majority of Hungarians were not permitted to vote. It did, however, become one of the most powerful parties in Hungary. But the Horthy leadership banned the Arrow Cross on the outbreak of World War II, forcing it to operate underground. In 1944, the Arrow Cross Party's fortunes were abruptly reversed after Hitler lost patience with the reluctance of Horthy and his moderate prime minister, Miklós Kállay, to toe the Nazi line fully. In March 1944, the Germans invaded and officially occupied Hungary; Kállay fled and was replaced by the Nazi proxy, Döme Sztójay. One of Sztójay's first acts was to legalise the Arrow Cross. During the spring and summer of 1944, more than 400,000 Jews were herded into centralised ghettos and then deported from the Hungarian countryside to death camps by the Nazis, with the willing help of the Hungarian Interior Ministry and its gendarmerie (the csendőrség), both of whose members had close links to the Arrow Cross. The Jews of Budapest were concentrated into so-called Yellow Star Houses, approximately 2,000 single-building mini-ghettos identified by a yellow Star of David over the entrance.[2]:578 In August 1944, before deportations from Budapest began, Horthy used what influence he had to stop them, and force the radical antisemites out of his government. As the summer progressed, and the Allied and Soviet armies closed in on central Europe, the ability of the Nazis to devote themselves to Hungary's "Jewish Solution" waned, but the Arrow Cross with the help of the Germans in Hungary, still used their resources for carrying out many acts of massacres. Jews were often rounded up on streets by the Arrow Cross men, and the babies and children often brutally separated from their parents and driven away, while the adults were taken to the riverside, alleys or ditches and shot, cut or beaten to death. Ferenc Szálasi (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈfɛrɛnt͡s ˈsaːlɒʃi]; 6 January 1897 – 12 March 1946) was the leader of the Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, the "Leader of the Nation" (Nemzetvezető), being both Head of State and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary's "Government of National Unity" (Nemzeti Összefogás Kormánya) for the final six months of Hungary's participation in World War II, after Germany occupied Hungary and removed Miklós Horthy by force. During his brief rule, Szálasi's men murdered 10,000–15,000 Jews.[1] After the war, he was tried and executed by the Hungarian court for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during World War II. Contents 1 Early life 1.1 Ancestry 1.2 Military career 2 Political career 2.1 First steps in politics 2.2 Way to power 2.3 National leader 3 Trial and execution 4 See also 5 References 6 Sources and further reading 7 External links Early life Ancestry Born the son of a soldier in Kassa, Abaúj-Torna County, Kingdom of Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia) of mixed Armenian (the surname of his great-grandfather was Salossian),[2][3][4] German, Hungarian (one grandparent), Slovak and Rusyn ancestry. His Armenian ancestors settled down in Ebesfalva, Transylvania during the reign of Prince Michael I Apafi. Szálasi's grandfather, who participated as a honvéd in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, married a German woman from Vienna, and their son, Ferenc Szálasi, Sr. (born 1866) attended a military cadet school in Kassa and later became an official in the Honvédség. Szálasi's brothers, Béla, Károly and Rezső also served in the army. Szálasi's mother was the Greek Catholic Erzsébet Szakmár (born 1875), who had Slovak and Rusyn roots. She provided religious education to her sons. Szálasi once said "I received the power of belief and faith in God through breast milk. My mother made to drink faith through and through me". Ferenc Szálasi lived with his mother until 1944.[5] Military career This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ferenc Szálasi" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) 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 Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. He served on the frontline for 36 months. At the end of the war, he was promoted to First Lieutenant and was involved in the 2nd regiment of k.u.k. Tyrolean Rifle Regiments, widely known as Kaiserjäger. He stationed near Merano and Lake Garda in the Italian Front. Later the regiments were ordered to the north to Verdun at the last days of the war. For his service, he was honored with Third Class of the Order of the Iron Crown. Returning to Hungary, Szálasi performed courier service for the newly formed Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the Aster Revolution in November 1918. Upon the dissolution and break-up of Austria-Hungary after the war, the Hungarian Democratic Republic and then the Hungarian Soviet Republic were briefly proclaimed in 1918 and 1919 respectively. The short-lived communist government of Béla Kun launched what was known as the "Red Terror" and ultimately involved Hungary in an ill-fated war with Romania. In 1920, the country went into a period of civil conflict with Hungarian anti-communists and monarchists violently purging the nation of communists, leftist intellectuals, and others they felt threatened by, especially Jews. This period was known as the "White Terror" and, in 1920, after the pullout of the last of the Romanian occupation forces, it led to the restoration of the Kingdom of Hungary (Magyar Királyság) under Regent Miklós Horthy. During that time, Szálasi was still an apolitical person, and he did not involve himself in events beyond the general interest. In 1920–21, Szálasi finished non-commissioned officer training school in Hajmáskér; following that, he served in the 13th Infantry Regiment in Miskolc. In 1923, he enrolled to the General Staff officers' training course at the Ludovica Military Academy. For his outstanding achievements, he was promoted with priority to Captain in 1924. In 1925, Szálasi entered the General Staff of the restored Kingdom. He fulfilled his mandatory field-grade task in 1929 at the 11th Infantry Regiment in Debrecen as a company commander. According to some memoirs by former subordinates, Szálasi was a popular and beloved superior among the infantry. His fellow officers acknowledged his military skills and literacy, but some others thought Szálasi was pedantic and autonomous. According to his future Minister of Defence, Károly Beregfy, "Szálasi's name among the General Staff was a concept of excellent hunting and tactics, but also a concept with the regards of honesty, truthfulness and Puritanism." By 1933, Szálasi had attained the rank of Major and became Chief of the 1st Honvéd Mixed-Brigade's General Staff in Budapest. Political career First steps in politics Around this time, when Gyula Gömbös came to power, Szálasi became fascinated with politics and often lectured on Hungary's political affairs. By this time, the hitherto apolitical Szálasi was a fanatical right-wing nationalist and a strong proponent of "Hungarism" and advocating the expansion of Hungary's territory back to the borders of Greater Hungary as it was prior to the Treaty of Trianon, which in 1920 codified the reduction in the country's area by 72%. In 1933, to summarize his views, he published his 46-page pamphlet with the title A magyar állam felépítésének terve ("Plan for the Building of the Hungarian State") and sent his work to several politicians. Soldiers and military officers were banned from politicizing, thus Szálasi was sentenced to twenty-day detention and expelled from the General Staff by a military court. After his release, Szálasi was ordered to the 14th Infantry Regiment in Eger, where served as staff officer then first adjutant. Szálasi gradually became disillusioned with the army and requested resignation from that in October 1934. 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 Nazi occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the pro-German Döme Sztójay was installed as Prime Minister of Hungary. The Arrow Cross Party was then legalized by the government, allowing Szálasi to expand the party. When Sztójay was deposed in August, Szálasi once again became an enemy of the Hungarian government and Regent Miklós Horthy ordered his arrest. By this time, Horthy realized that Hungary's position was untenable, and began putting out feelers to the Allies. The Germans were concerned that Horthy would succeed in extricating Hungary from the war. They had, however, waiting in the wings, a perfect ally in Szálasi. 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, Miklós, Jr. and threatened to kill him unless Horthy abdicated in favor of Szálasi. Under duress, Horthy signed a document announcing his own abdication and naming Szálasi prime minister–effectively giving "legal sanction" to an Arrow Cross coup. In his memoirs, Horthy contended the appointment of Szálasi was invalid, saying, "A signature wrung from a man at machine-gun point can have little legality."[6] The Germans then pressured Parliament to install Szálasi as Prime Minister and Head of State. National leader Ferenc Szálasi in Budapest, October 1944. 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 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] The Government of National Unity headed by Ferenc Szálasi (sitting in the center). 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 International Ghetto. During that time some diplomats like Raoul Wallenberg gave protective passports to some Jews, which protected them from deportation. Germans argued they weren't valid according to international law, but Szálasi's government accepted them nevertheless.[10] His government promoted martial law and courts-martial, and executed those who were considered dangerous for the state and the continuation of the war. During Szálasi's rule, Hungarian tangible assets (cattle, machinery, wagons, industrial raw material etc.) were sent to Germany. He conscripted young and old into the remaining Hungarian Army and sent them into hopeless battles against the Red Army. Szálasi's rule only lasted 163 days, partly because by the time he took power, the Red Army was already deep inside Hungary. On 19 November 1944, Szálasi was in the Hungarian capital when Soviet and Romanian forces began encircling it. By the time the city was encircled and the 102-day Siege of Budapest began, he was gone. The "Leader of the Nation" (Nemzetvezető) fled to Szombathely on 9 December. By March 1945, Szálasi was in Vienna just prior to the Vienna Offensive. Later, he fled to Munich.[11] 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] 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.[14] 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.[15] Other historians, however, rejected this claim, since no written source could be found.