HITLERISM

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 60, 12 March 1934, Page 7

HITLERISM

SIMILAR MOVEMENT

HUNGARY'S EXPERIMENT

ANTI-SEMITIC POLICY

The Hungarian Third Reich began in the late summer of 1919, after the deathof the short-lived Bolshevist regime of Bela Kun. While the Communists were in flight, the White Terror gripped the land and gave Hungary a foretaste of what Hitlerism would do to Germany. It may he therefore of some use to compare the German and Hungarian scenes, as similar premises may produce similar consequences, writes Emil Lengyel in the "Literary Digest." In the first days of August, 1919, Stephen Friedrich, an obscure manufacturer, seized the Government by appointing himself >rime Minister and ' nominating Archduke Joseph Governor of Hungary. His followers worked up. an anti-Semitic sentiment and tried to plunge the country into a racial warfare by. making the Jews responsible for the late Bolshevist rule. On a hot afternoon, when nerves wero on edge, they made an attempt at street pogroms in Budapest. At the universities, liberal-minded professors were ejected and students were beaten up. The "Awakening Hungarians," whoso slogans anticipated the Hitlerite motto, "Germany, Awake!" went into action. Hungarian Socialists and pacifists were put in internment camps. Political murders were committed, but the Hungarian Government refused responsibility for them, attributing them to "irresponsible elements," Foreign investigators reported organised atrocities. Pessimists placed the number of victims of the White Terror at 5000, while friends of the Government were willing to admit only one-tenth, of that figure. The bulk of the murders took place between the Danube and Tisza rivers, and the largest number of mutilated bodies was found in the forest of' Orgovany, hear the city of Kecskemet. Hungary crashed the gates of world publicity, and the Socialist Second International adopted measures of bo}--cott against her. They were, how- - ever, of little use and the Nationalistic Government of Budapest, in harmony with the "Awakening Hungarians," enacted several decrees to which the '• legislative work of the Hitler Cabinet shows a striking resemblance. -' Public offices and the corps of army officers'were purged of Jews, and their : number at the universities was restricted to their proportion in the population. Jewish students left the eoun- ' try by the thousand, seeking admission to . foreign universities. Government monopolies and special trade licences : Were -withdrawn from Jews. Nearly all I , the measures of the previous republican • administration were 'repealed,' and Hungary was proclaimed a kingdom, i although she had no king, The Gov- : eminent went into battle under the i hanner of Christian Nationalism. The : leaders promised happiness and pros- • ..perity.to all, except the Jew, tho Radi- ' cal, and the Pacifist. They held out the < hope that Hungary, cut into pieces at the Peace Conference, would regain her i lost territories and would stretch from '. the Carpathian Mountains to the Ad- : riatic Sea. 'Choirs was the Hungarian . Third Beich,' a Land of Promise, in- 1 habited by' the descendants of Arpad tKe Conqueror. NATIONAL AWAKENING. , The Government made haste to an- i nounce its programme of social and na- ! tional awakening. The wicked gaiety' of -Budapest was to be replaced by the ! austerity of nationalistic Puritans. ' New. churches were being built all ' ove* the land. The landless peasants ■ were to receive a piece of property. - The army regained its pre-armisticc ■ standing, and the clicking of heels : drowned out the gipsy music. Youth ; was to. show the way to the country of ] a virile and: defiant race; the young ' people of .Hungary were organised in ■ "levente" groups, a semi-military ! formation. Anti-Semitism was to be ] the. guiding thought of the national ' awakening, and the song of the Jew- , eaters, "Erger, Berger, Schossbcrger," ', became the unofficial march of the National Army. '.',-. The similarity betjveen Hungary fi.f- , teen years ago and Germany today is j even more striking in their attitude , towards the rest of the world. In Hun- , ,gary public opinion was so aroused , against, the Treaty of Trianon that it . became an obsession, and Irredentism i was the principal spiritual product of , the land. School children were" taught the pre-armistice boundaries of Hun- ] gary,. and the national prayer chal- j lenged the enemy to break the national ( defiance- . i The Hungarian Third Beich, however, showed also some dissimilarities from the German Third Beich. Hungarian anti-Semitism has never been so much a racial as a religious issue, and converted Jews were treated with more 'consideration.. The. anti-Semitic programme of Budapest was less thorough ' /than that of Berlin. Jews have not ', been deprived of their civic rights, and • a.s a conciliatory gesture To foreign opinion a Jewish Minister was included : in one of the first Hungarian nationalistic governments. < < HEAD OF THE GOVERNMENT. ' - What has become of Hungary's national awakening after a trial period of-nearly fifteen years? Has the new regime succeeded in leading the Magyars to the Land of Promise 1 These , questions are particularly pertinent at i the present time, in view of the fact t that the head of the Hungarian Government was at one time an ally of Adolf . Hitler. . ' _ General. Julius Gombos, Prime Mm- j ister of Huhgary, is only forty-six i years of age. When he began his t political career shortly after, the Ar- ] mistice he was in his earliest thirties , a tempestuous youth'with an uncom- i promising temperament, incensed at t wh^t seemed to him the unjustifiably < slow action of the Government in trans- ' forming Hungary into a haven of Aryan c heroes. Ten years ago he was sus- f pected- of pulling the strings of an , tdtra-reaetionary revolution, such as t Adolf Hitler was just then plotting in , Bavaria. The strong-arm men of I Julius Gombos were seen to be conspir- - yig with Hitler's lieutenants, and the ' result of their work was a "Preliminary agreement between the Bavarian and Hungarian States towards a United 1 Political and Military Action." Hitler 1 staged his coup . which was drowned i in universal laughter, and came to be < lpown- as the ludicrous bcer-hnll putsch. < Both Hitler and Gombos disappeared ' for some time from the political bull- 1 ring, and today both arc the respon- < sible leaders of their countries. Is ' General Gombos still sold to the idea ] of National Socialism? j It is strange to say that just the con- ] trary seems to be the case. Not long l ago General Gombos's Cabinet issued an ' order for the suppression of the Hun- t garian National Socialist Party. To- ' day the Nazis are outlawed in the land i of the Magyars. From this the conelu- 1 sion- is justified that Hungary's ex- 1 periment with National Socialism was i so unsuccessful that its very name is i distasteful. This conclusion is con- ] firmed by the outward' appearance of ; the capitals of the two countries, Ber- j lin and Budapest. The religious nus- 1 terityof the Hungarian metropolis has i given place to its congenital gaiety, i Once; more the Jewish population of i the city occupies the place it had be- J fore the nationalistic regime. Tha ifipst flagrant manifestations of intol- i 9i^_vc-' ih-ve >-.en banished, but the new ]