Chronology - Hungary
On this page I provide an example of “chronology” as applied to my family’s history.
The main source is Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, Condensed Edition. Abridged 2 Revised Ed. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000, from page 1679 on. It provides the “skeleton” for more granular details.
The majority of additional information is italicized and referenced.
All errors are mine. Referenced clarifications are welcome.
Overview
A gradual process of assimilation among sections of Hungarian Jewry was discernible as early as the 1840s. The Jews benefited from the numerous opportunities now open to them in commerce, industry, and finance—occupations that the aristocracy and the gentry considered beneath their dignity. In response to Jewish ability and enterprise, the Hungarian economy began to experience accelerated capitalist development during the second half of the 19th century. Rather than evoking resentment, Jewish prominence in industry and finance was initially viewed favorably. To a large extent, it was the Jewish role in the Hungarian economy that contributed to the country's modernization and its economic independence from Austria.
Technologically, Austria-Hungary became the world's third-largest manufacturer and exporter of electric home appliances, electric industrial appliances, and power generation apparatus for power plants, after the United States and the German Empire, and it constructed Europe's second-largest railway network after the German Empire. [1]
Chronology
1867
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Dual Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe[d] between 1867 and 1918. Austria-Hungary was a military and diplomatic alliance of two sovereign states, with a single monarch who was titled both Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. …
… Following the 1867 reforms, the Austrian and Hungarian states were co-equal in power. The two countries conducted unified diplomatic and defence policies. For these purposes, "common" ministries of foreign affairs and defence were maintained under the monarch's direct authority, …
… Hungary had the right to full internal independence, under the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, foreign affairs and defense were "common" to both Austria and Hungary. [My highlight] …
With the exception of the territory of the Bosnian Condominium, the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary were separate sovereign countries in international law. Thus, separate representatives from Austria and Hungary signed peace treaties agreeing to territorial changes, for example, the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon. Citizenship and passports were also separate.
The two countries conducted unified diplomatic and defence policies. For these purposes, "common" ministries of foreign affairs and defence were maintained under the monarch's direct authority, as was a third finance ministry responsible only for financing the two "common" portfolios. [1]
December 22
Hungarian Jewry acquires equality of rights under Emancipation Law no. XVII:1867
1968, December — 1869 February
Congress of Hungarian Jewry, which fails to reconcile the differences between the Neolog (assimilationist) and Orthodox factions.
1870s
The emergence of political anti-Semitism in Hungary during the 1870s interrupted the gradual evolution of Hungarian Jewish relations. … Hungarian anti-Semitism took on a conservative character. It rejected the existing political and social system while glorifying the past, its institutions, and moral values.
1880s
From the early 1880s, anti-Semitism gradually gained ground, especially among students, country intellectuals, and sections of the middle classes. Many anti-Semites were also recruited from the German bourgeoisie.[2]
1884
May 4
Beginning of the infamous Tiszaeszlár blood libel suit, which fans the flames of anti-Semitism.
TISZAESZLAR (Hung. Tiszaeszlár) is a town in northeastern Hungary, near the provincial capital, Nyíregyháza. The town gained notoriety in Jewish history due to a *blood libel there that sparked public outrage across Europe at the time and led to years of turbulent agitation in Hungary. Its damaging effects were evident during the White Terror period (1919–21) and continued during the anti-Semitic activities that culminated in Hungary with the [German occupation]. When the blood libel occurred, approximately 25 Jewish families lived in Tiszaeszlár, which had a total population of about 2,700. By 1944, … there were 61 Jews in the village. [3]
1895
October
The Jewish religion is recognized as one of the "received" religions under Law no. XLII:1895.
20th CENTURY
1914
June 28
The Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, are shot dead by a Bosnian Serb. [4]
July 28
Austria-Hungary [I.e. The Emperor declares war on Serbia, beginning World War I. As noted above, foreign affairs and defense were "common" to both Austria and Hungary, Hungary is automatically involved in the war.
August 2-7
Germany invades Luxembourg and Belgium. France invades Alsace. British forces arrive in France. Nations allied against Germany were eventually to include Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia, Romania, Greece, France, Belgium, United States, Canada, Serbia, India, Portugal, Montenegro, and Poland. [5]
August 10
Austria-Hungary invades Russia.
1917
February 3
The United States severs diplomatic relations with Germany.
April 6
The United States declares war on Germany.
December 15
Russia signs an armistice with Germany.
1918
March 3
Russia signs armistice with Germany.
Late October - early November
During the Aster Revolution in late October-early November, 1918, when the state and the local administrations lost all authority, local disturbances, killings, and lynchings took place all over the country. Bitter soldiers returning from the front, or the local population, exhausted and outraged by the hardships and grievances of the war years, took revenge on the representatives of the social elite and the local administration, and on tradesmen and entrepreneurs (many of them Jewish), whom they considered responsible for their sufferings. [6]
October 31
Following the end of World War I, a new Hungarian government is formed under Count Mihály Károlyi.
The Budapest government declared independence of Hungary from Austria and begins peace talks with the Allies.
Despite the end of hostilities, Hungary's neighbours, Czechoslovakia (which declared its independence on 28 October 1918), Romania, and Yugoslavia, put Hungary under an economic blockade. They prevented Hungary from importing food, fuel (including coal and petrol), and other essential goods.
November 11
Germany signs the Armistice at Compiègne, ending World War I.
1919
March 21
Communist rule on Béla Kún, who proclaims Hungary a Soviet Republic on June 25.
Thirty of the forty-eight People’s Commissars in the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic were Jewish, including Béla Kun, the de facto leader, and Tibor Szamuely, the militant ideologue and orchestrator of the Red Terror.
There were multiple sanctioned and rogue terror groups during this period. “A peculiar form of political terror was hostage-taking. The regime tried to use this to prevent potential anti-regime conspiracies by the former ruling classes. From the end of March, approximately five hundred representatives of former leaders, capitalists, industrial entrepreneurs, and tradesmen—many of them of Jewish origin—were detained and kept in custody in various cities. In Budapest, the hostages were held in the Parliament building. … By the end of May, most of the hostages had been released unharmed; however, some of them, including captives of Jewish origin, were executed. At the end of May, when the Red Army recaptured the city of Szolnok, an anti-Jewish pogrom broke out with numerous casualties, including some of the previous hostages. [7]
June 28
Allied and German representatives sign treaty of Versailles. The United States signs treaty of guaranty, pledging to defend France in case of an unprovoked attack by Germany.
August
Officers of Rear Admiral Miklós Horthy’s National Army unleashed a wave of “White Terror.” Often assisted by local residents, the death squads murdered hundreds of people identified as Communists, targeting Jews in particular.
November
Establishment of a counterrevolutionary regime under Admiral Miklós Horthy in the midst of a “White Terror.”
“Hell unleashed on Earth has never been appeased by fanning it with angels’ wings,” wrote Miklós Horthy in his memoirs. The remark shows that the governor saw nothing odd in the detachments of his National Army teaching a lesson to the presumed supporters of the Hungarian Soviet regime. Pál Prónay, one of the leaders of these commandos, who was notorious for his cruelty, wrote in his own memoirs that General Soós, the commander-in-chief of the National Army, gave him the following instruction in Szeged, when the units were dispatched to retake the occupied areas of the country: “Do not kill too many Jews. . . . it may cause additional problems.” The retributions had an anti-Semitic component from the very beginning, namely the suppression and intimidation of the so-called “Judeo-Bolshevik” elements, although the Hungarian Soviet Republic had never identified itself with any particularly “Jewish” cause. On the contrary, it always denied the insinuation that Communism was a sort of ‘Jewish’ enterprise, frequently demonstrating as much during the Red Terror by persecuting or killing people of Jewish origin as class enemies. [9]
1920
January 10
Treaty of Versailles takes effect.
March 1
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya, a Hungarian admiral and statesman is the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar period and most of World War II, from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. [10]
June 4
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. It sanctioned the dismemberment of the Hungarian state.
The treaty is famous primarily due to the territorial changes imposed on Hungary and recognition of its new international borders after the First World War.
This map shows territories lost to Hungary (Magyarország) at the Treaty of Trianon.
I would like you to focus on the small area to the left (West), that was awarded to Austria and became the province of Burgenland. Most of this area was part of Vas County, where my ancestors settled.
The post-1920 Hungary became a landlocked state that included 93,073 square kilometres (35,936 sq mi), 28% of the 325,411 square kilometres (125,642 sq mi) that had constituted the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary (the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy). The kingdom had a population of 7.6 million, which was 36% of the pre-war kingdom's population of 20.9 million. The areas allocated to neighbouring countries had 3.3 million Hungarians living there, representing 31% of the Hungarian population, and they became minorities in the new jurisdictions. [8]
September
Adoption of Law no. XXV:1920, the so-called Numerus Clausus Act (the first anti-Jewish law in post-World War I Europe), limiting the admission of Jews to institutions of higher learning.
The numerus clauses law was promoted by university leaders, who discouraged left-wing and Jewish applicants, and also dissuaded women from applying to universities.
Overnight, university enrollment of Jews dropped from the previous 20-30% to around 6%. Because of the law, many Jewish students were forced to either drop their plans, or to study elsewhere. Between 1920 and 1938, 10,000 students traveled abroad – to countries like Austria Italy, France, and anywhere else that would welcome them. While the law changed in 1928 to end the official cap of students, this was simply a modification “in its letter but not its practice,” according to Szapor, and university enrollments for Jews and women continued to be limited by university administrators, until the late 1930’s. [9]
1921
April 14
Appointment of Count István Bethlen as Prime Minister and the beginning of the “Consolidation Era” (1921-1932)
August 24-29
The United States signs separate peace treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary.
1928
Revision of the Numerus Clausus Act under the provisions of Law no. XIV:1928
1932
October 1
Gyula Gömbös, a leader of the Right and of the defunct “Race Defense Party,” becomes Prime Minister.
1938
May 28
The first major anti-Jewish law (No. XV: 1938) is adopted.
The law began to adopt restrictions on its Jewish population similar to the Nuremberg Laws adopted in Germany in September 1935. In Hungary, the first law established quotas on the number of Jews who could be employed in various commercial and professional fields. [11]
November 2
Signing of the First Vienna Award under which Hungary aquires the Upper Province (Felvidék) from Czechoslovakia.
1939
March 11
Law no. II:1939, which provides the legal basis for the introduction of the labour service system (Article 230), is promulgated.
March 14-18
Hungary conquers Carpatho-Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia.
May 23
British House of Commons adopts "White Paper" limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine to 75,000 in five years.
May 5
The Second Major Anti-Jewish Law (no. IV:1939) goes into effect.
It reduced the role of Jews in Hungarian economic life even more, setting the limit to 6%. The law defined as Jewish those who were openly Jewish or had one parent or two grandparents who were members of the Jewish community at the time. [12]
May 28-29
General elections are held in Hungary in which the ultra-rightist parties, which had won only two seats in 1935, now have 49.
1940
August 30
Signing of the Second Vienna Award under which Hungary acquires Northern Transylvania from Romania.
1941
April 11
Hungary joins the Third Reich in the war against Yugoslavia and acquires the Délvidék area.
June 27
Hungary joins the Third Reich in declaring war against the Soviet Union.
On June 27, 1941, citing the bombing of Kosice (Kassa) and Mukachevo (Munkács) that they blamed on the Soviet Air Force, the Hungarians first sent troops over the border into the Soviet Union, joining the Nazi German invasion, which had begun a week earlier. Eventually numbering 90,000, the force served primarily in Ukraine and part of present-day Bélarus. Owing to relatively heavy losses, obsolete equipment and lack of enthusiasm, both the Hungarians and the Germans agreed to withdraw most of the Hungarian soldiers in the late fall of 1941. [12]
August 8
The Nuremberg-type racial Law XV of 1941 goes into effect.
In 1941, after their territorial gains, according to a census, there were 725,000 Jews by religion in Greater Hungary. By the time the Third Jewish Law was in force, defining as Jews those with three or four Jewish grandparents regardless of the religion they practiced, the Hungarian authorities considered 786,555 people as Jews. According to Tamás Stark, who carried out the most thorough research to date on Jewish population figures in Hungary, there might have been as many as 820,000 people affected by this racial definition of Jews on the eve of Hungary’s entry into the war against the Soviet Union, in the summer of 1941. [13]
August 27-28
Most of the 16,000 to 18,000 "alien" Jews deported from Hungary in the summer of that year are slaughtered near Kamenets-Podolsk, the Ukraine.
1942
Early in 1942, acceding to Hitler’s request for more troops, the Hungarian Second Army was sent into the fray 13. Over the course of the year, the number of Hungarian military personnel in the war zone reached over 200,000, including between 32,000 and 39,000 Jewish forced laborers. [14]
January
Hungarian military and gendarmerie units massacre over 3,500 people in and around Újvidék, including close to 1000 Jews.
January 5-7
A number of top German officers are informed that Hungary is interested in the transfer of 12,000 "alien" Jews to Russia.
January 20
The Wannsee Conference is held on the Final Solution of the Jewish question in Europe.
April 11
Beginning of the deployment of approximately 50,000 Jewish labour servicemen in the Ukraine, with the Second Hungarian Army.
October 6
The Third Reich formally requests the Hungarian government to solve the Jewish question along the lines pursued in Nazi occupied Europe.
December 2
The Hungarian government rejects the German demand for the Final Solution.
December 17
Allies issue joint declaration, condemning the Nazis’ drive against the Jews.
1943
January 12
The Second Hungarian Army. Is destroyed in battle near Voronezh with most of the Jewish labour servicemen killed or captured.
April 17-18
Horthy and Hitler meet at Schloss Klessheim.
April 30
Edmund Veesenmayer, serving as a special emissary of the German Foreign Office, submits his first comprehensive report on conditions in Hungary. Hundreds of Jewish labour servicemen are massacred at Doroshich (Dorosics), Ukraine.
July 2
A German-Hungarian agreement is signed, permitting the transfer of Jewish labor, service companies for deployment, and the copper mines of Bor, Serbia.
July 31
Representatives of the opposition parties submit a memorandum to the government, urging that it change its course with respect to the alliance with Germany and participation in the war.
September 30
German General Staff completes its plans for the possible occupation of Hungary.
December 10
Edmund Veesenmayer, submits his second comprehensive report on conditions in Hungary.
1944
January 22
President Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9417, establishing the War Refugee Board.
January 24
The Chief of the Hungarian General Staff meets Hitler and a Field Marshall concerning the possible withdrawal of the Hungarian forces from the Soviet front.
February 12
Horthy writes to Hitler asking permission to withdraw the Hungarian forces from the Eastern front “to use them for the unaided defense of the Carpathians.”
February 14
Göring asks Himmler for concentration camp labour to build underground aircraft factories.
March 9
Himmler assures Göring of 100,000 concentration camp inmates for use in the construction of underground aircraft factories.
March 12
Hitler issues, his order for the implementation of "Operation Margarethe" concerning the occupation of Hungary. OK, let's go.
March 19, 1944 - February 13, 1945
The occupation of Budapest (and Hungary) by German Nazi forces. My family’s experiences during this period are re-created (read on the Home page or starting here).
1945
March 17
The Provisional National Government [of Hungary] adopts a decree repealing all anti-Jewish laws and decrees.
April 4
Hungary is freed of all Nazi-Nyilas troops.
Notes
I respect and use Wikipedia. It provides overviews that can be easily followed up with the provided references and other supporting documents.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary#Territorial_legacy
[2]
[3] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/tiszaeszlar#google_vignette
[4] For additional details see https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I
[6] https://fromharvesttoharvest.archivum.org/chapters/08?lang=en
[7] ibid
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon
[9] https://fromharvesttoharvest.archivum.org/chapters/11?lang=en
[9] https://continentalmagazine.com/2023/03/21/the-hungarian-law-that-blocked-womens-education/#:~:text=graduated%20with%20distinction.-,***,to%20do%20other%20things%20instead.”
”Szapor” references Dr. Judith Szapor, ………..
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miklós_Horthy
Adapted from Rozett, Robert, Conscripted Slaves, Hungarian Jewish Forced Laborers on the Eastern Front during the Second World War, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2013
[13] ibid
[14] ibid