STEPHEN D. KERTESZ - Between Russia and the West

Wartime Endeavors

Preparations of defeated countries for a peace settlement are never easy. They were particularly difficult for countries occupied successively by the German and the Soviet armies. For people living in a free country it is difficult to appreciate the nature and intricacies of problems for which such countries had to find expedient solutions. Preparations for peace in Washington and London took a normal course and have been discussed in memoirs and scholarly works. Government documents are available and the national archives in Washington and London are accessible. In countries living in the shadow of the Swastika and the Red Star peace preparations were more complicated, of a different nature, and sometimes risky. Stamina was as important as vision and knowledge. Backdoor diplomacy often was a murky business, and some participants in this endeavor did not survive. In view of Hungary's peculiar position during the Second World War, policies often could not be discussed openly or spelled out in writing. In the Foreign Ministry a large number of confidential documents had been destroyed on the eve of the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944. During this period, beginning with the Moscow and Teheran Conferences in 1943, political and strategic inter-Allied decisions settled the fate of East Central Europe. From this time on, the area became the "dark side of the moon" for the Western Allies.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Miklós Kállay (March 1942-March 1944) sought to extricate Hungary from German domination, and although he received practically carte blanche from Regent Horthyfor a reorientation of foreign policy, he found that extremely cautious steps were necessary; Hungary was in the middle of the German power sphere, and Hitlers hostile feelings toward Hungary were well known. The general political situation was muddled. The Hungarian

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army could not have cooperated with the Allied forces as long as it was not within negotiable distance, even if the leading generals were pro-Western. If Kállay in 1942 had attempted to disassociate Hungary from Germany, he would have brought a prompt occupation of the country, the avoidance of which was the major purpose of Hungarian foreign policy. To create a more reliable administration he had to make changes in key positions slowly. In the early period of his office Kállay emphasized Hungary's common cause with Germany, and this dissimulation encouraged the pro-Axis sympathies of many Hungarians, especially army officers. Kállay's political predicament thus produced a vicious circle in domestic affairs.

While the Hungarian government formally maintained unchanged relations with the Axis, contacts with American and British diplomatic representatives had begun in Stockholm, Istanbul, Lisbon, and Switzerland in 1942-43. This was the beginning of backdoor diplomacy. Exponents of Hungary's pro-Allied foreign policy had to be watchful; the cabinet and the civil service had pro-Nazi members. In his effort to reach an understanding with the Allies, Kállay placed absolute faith in only two members of his government, his minister of the interior, Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer, and his deputy in the foreign Ministry, Jenö Ghyczy. To Ghyczy he had turned over the portfolio of that ministry in July 1943.

The Ghyczy administration of the Foreign Ministry was inaugurated by the reshuffling of staff and of diplomatic representatives abroad, replacing pro-German officials with reliable ones. The most influential new high officials were Andor Szentmiklóssy and Aladár Szegedy-Maszák the former took Ghyczy's place as deputy foreign minister, while Szegedy-Maszákbecame head of the political division.

Kállay's policy of moving cautiously toward the Allies was made easier by the turn of international events. General Montgomery's victory at El Alamein and an Anglo-American landing in North Africa in November 1942 were hopeful signs of an assertive Western strategy in the Mediterranean. The demoralized retreat of the Germans in the second winter of the Russian venture foreshadowed Germany's defeat, and the Voronezh disaster suffered by the Hungarian army (January 1943) caused widespread discontent; here was a calamitous defeat that reduced Hungarian military assistance to Germany to a badly equipped token force. Anti-Nazi politicians became more vocal, and Kállay had no reluctance in stating at a meeting of the foreign affairs committee of parliament that Hungary's interest in the war did not go beyond the Russian campaign. Still, much caution was

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needed. In a statement before parliament about the future peace negotiations, he named his minister of public instruction, Bálint Hóman, a staunch pro-German, head of a prospective peace delegation. In the meantime the real preparations for peace were made secretly under the leadership of the political division of the Foreign Ministry. I was in charge of peace preparatory work in this division. Szegedy-Maszákoutlined in a memorandum the task of peace preparations in November 1942, followed by a more detailed document a few weeks later. Kállay appointed a small group of elder statesmen who approved the proposals. In the course of peace preparations I negotiated with government agencies, research institutions, and selected experts and publicists who received assignments without being informed of the scope and ultimate purpose of their endeavors.

By the end of 1943, Szentmiklóssy expressed to me his satisfaction with the progress of the peace preparatory work and told me Hungary might be occupied first by the Germans, then by the Russians, and it was uncertain who in our group would survive. He instructed me to send a copy of all peace preparatory documents to our legation in Switzerland, and these papers were promptly deposited in Bern. As soon as the Germans occupied Budapest the Gestapo arrested Szentmiklóssy, and a few months later he died in the concentration camp of Dachau.

Our peace preparations assumed that at the close of hostilities a major conference would settle the affairs of Europe under leadership of the United States, the only great power not affected by wartime destruction and immensely strengthened during the hostilities. In view of the failure of the small-state system that replaced the Habsburg Empire, we envisaged a cooperative democratic state system in Danubian Europe, if possible, a union or federation. Besides my official functions I discussed pertinent questions with a group of specialists and politicians with whom I met in coffee houses or residences. Plans were made for a democratic reorganization of Hungary's domestic political life, and it was taken for granted that in the last stage of the war the Danubian region would be occupied by British and American forces. The assumption that British and American troops would reach Hungary's frontiers was not contradicted by Western negotiators, although some of them advised the Hungarians to approach Moscow also. In Budapest nobody was aware of the inter-Allied decisions at the Moscow and Teheran conferences that decisively influ- enced the fate of East Central Europe.

Hungary's wartime endeavors for an armistice -- and the related

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complex domestic and international problems -- are outside the scope of this writing, but a glance at our first contact with an American emissary at Geneva will perhaps characterize the atmosphere of these encounters and illustrate Hungary's poor alternatives. As a diplomatic courier I took instructions to Geneva to Baron György Bakách Bessenyey who at that time was Hungarian envoy to the Vichy government and designated envoy to Switzerland to conduct negotiations primarily with an American emissary. My trip reflected conditions of the times. I left Budapest on the best available train and arrived in the evening at Vienna. Representatives of the Hungarian general consulate were waiting at the station and took my tri-lingual (Hungarian, French, German) courier passport to the station military commander's office, where an overworked sergeant saw the German version and apparently thought I was a German Courier and assigned a special compartment for me and my companion, a young girl who traveled with me to join relatives at our legation in Bern. This was a lucky break because the train was full -- people were packed in the corridors like sardines. The windows were used as doors for people could not move in or out. Our privileged position changed when the commander of the train asked politely that three German army officers returning from Balkan duties be permitted to have seats in the compartment; of course I gave permission, but after formal introductions I did not want to talk too much. While simulating sleep during most of the night, I overheard their complaints about the desperate situation in the Balkans and Germany's deteriorating military position. During a stopover in Munich I noticed the empty shops and the subdued mood of the population. No one was singing the song so popular after the fall of France in 1940, Wir fahren nach England (We are traveling to England). The contrast between conditions in Germany and peaceful, clean, and prosperous Switzerland was almost unbelievable .

By this time the Allied powers had pressed the Hungarian government to withdraw its troops from Russia, and at the same time Hitlerwas urging Hungary to participate in occupation of the Balkan peninsula. The instruction I took contained Regent Horthys idea for acceptance of the demands of both Hitlerand the Western powers. Hungarian troops would be withdrawn from Russia and take part in occupation of certain Croatian territories, possibly reaching out to the sea, a move that could have resulted in contact with Allied forces. Like most Hungarian statesmen and some generals, Horthysupposed that an Allied landing in the Balkans was imminent. On August 28, 1943, Bessenyeyexplained Horthys idea to the American negotiator,

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Royal Tyler, who had spent several years in Hungary in the 1920s as a commissioner of the League of Nations reconstruction loan. Tyler emphatically opposed the proposal. His advice was that Hungary should withdraw all troops from Russia, not take part in occupation of the Balkans, and turn against the Germans as soon as Italy's surrender was announced. Otherwise the Hungarians would share the terrible punishment to be imposed on the German people. He suggested that for Hungary the last moment for jumping out without harm would come with the Italian armistice.1

During my stay in Geneva, I met several people in touch with the Western Allies and the exile governments in London and discussed the world situation with them, including the expected fate of Hungary. One of the best-informed persons I had known for years, Maurice Bourquin, a Belgian professor at the Graduate Institute of International Relations in Geneva, who told me that Stalin was no maniac like Hitler that he was too shrewd a Georgian peasant to be misled into an expansionist policy fraught with danger. The almost certain Russian occupation of Hungary would be temporary. Hungary would be allowed to work out an independent political existence after the conclusion of peace. That did not mean that Soviet Russia would tolerate an anti-Bolshevist regime in Hungary of the Horthytype. No doubt it would be necessary to reform Hungary's antiquated social and political system and carry out a radical land reform in cooperation with such progressive parties as the Smallholders, the Democratic party, and the Social Democrats, supported in a coalition by the Communist party.

Since Bourquin had regular contacts with the Belgian government in London, I was impressed by his explanations and relayed them to Bessenyey I also mentioned the possibly dubious value of our parley with the Americans in case of a Russian occupation of Hungary. In stead of arguing, Bessenyeysimply referred me to the map of Europe in our Geneva consulate general. He pointed to the Danube valley with the remark that the Western powers could not afford Russian domination of this geographically important area, the gateway to Western Europe, because it would be more dangeros to their safety than German influence in the area. With these words he expressed the conviction of leading Hungarian officials. I had the same experience in Budapest when I reported this information predicting a Russian occupation of Hungary; the reaction was exactly like that of Bessenyey Bessenyeys report about the Geneva parleys would have badly compromised both the Kállay government and Regent Horthyif it had fallen into the hands of the Germans. Since the Nazis were

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not discriminating in their choice of means, I put several small bottles of benzine and some inflammable material into my pouch containing the reports to facilitate their quick destruction should the Nazis try to acquire them during my two days transit through Germany. At night I slept with the pouch under my head, and a cigarette lighter was always at hand.

When news came of the Italian armistice of September 8, 1943, the political division of the Foreign Ministry set about drafting an announcement that the Tripartite Pact had ceased to be valid after the collapse of Italy and that Hungary had regained independence. But Kállay and Ghyczy thought it premature to expose the country to such a test in absence of the most elementary military and technical means necessary for a change of front. To proclaim the end of the Tripartite Pact would have provoked immediate German occupation, followed by extermination of all anti-Nazi elements, installation of a puppet government, and mobilization of all Hungarian resources and manpower.

Ghyczy reviewed Hungary's foreign political situation in the Council of Ministers on September 14, and the council decided to ask Germany for repatriation of Hungarian troops from Russia while op posing Hungary's participation in the occupation of the Balkans, recurring themes in Hungarian-German relations. Hitlerdid not permit repatriation of Hungarian troops, mainly for political reasons, but did not insist on Hungarian participation in occupation of the Balkan peninsula.

Contacts with British representatives were established mainly in Stockholm, Lisbon, and Istanbul. By the end of February 1944, the Hungarian government proposed to negotiate with Moscow directly or with British mediation about capitulation of Hungarian divisions on the Soviet front. Although Eden suggested to Moscow Soviet Hungarian negotiations in the presence of a British representative, the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, made impossible the realization of this plan.2

Negotiations with American representatives continued mainly in Switzerland and Lisbon and eventually three American soldiers, called Mission Sparrow, were parachuted into Hungary on March 15, 1944.3 The mission had no follow-up because the German army occupied Hungary four days later. In view of the Allied strategy determined at Teheran, Anglo American forces never reached Hungary, and the Horthyregime's only chance for an armistice came in September-October 1944. Horthys representatives signed the preliminary armistice agreement in

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Moscow on October 11, and his armistice proclamation was read on the Budapest radio on October 15. This poorly prepared attempt failed. German armored divisions were in readiness and promptly occupied the capital, the pro-Horthymilitary commanders were arrested, and Horthys armistice proclamation countermanded within hours. Horthywas deported to Germany, and the Germans put in power an Arrow Cross government under Ferenc Szálasi.

A New Beginning

While Szálasi's government introduced a regime of terror and continued to fight a lost war under German command, in Debrecen the Soviet-sponsored provisional national government began to function. Foreign politics had to start from scratch, and the Foreign Ministry was organized anew. Foreign Minister János Gyöngyösi an old member of the Smallholder party, signed the armistice agreement in Moscow on January 20, 1945. He was convinced that postwar Hungary had to win the confidence of the Soviet Union and its Western Allies, and then things might turn for the better. He hoped that the Soviet Union would become a huge market for Hungarian products, making possible the much needed expansion of Hungarian industry and broadening opportunities for the surplus agrarian population.

At the outset Gyöngyösishowed little interest in diplomacy in general or in preparation for the peace conference in particular. He believed that he could take care of such problems with the assistance of a few secretaries. But he changed his views within a short time. When the Foreign Ministry moved to Budapest in April 1945, he realized the impossibility of initiating any serious activity in foreign affairs without knowledgeable advisers and specialists. The newly appointed officials of the Foreign Ministry belonged to political parties of the National Independence Front, and few of them had experience in foreign affairs. The foreign minister had to rely increasingly on officials of the Horthyregime. His initial suspicion was reduced because most of these officials were active anti-Nazis and went through the political screening procedure with flying colors.

At the end of May 1945 the foreign minister asked me to organize and supervise a new division of the ministry, the function of which would be to prepare the Hungarian case for the peace conference. I undertook the work of preparation for peace in a devasated and occupied country under the most difficult political and technical circumstances. The Foreign Ministry began its work in one of the stripped

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apartment houses of Budapest in which the peace treaty division occupied three rooms. The former building of the ministry and most of its contents had been destroyed during the siege so it was necessary to begin without files and documents. For a while office equipment was not available, and even desks and chairs presented a problem, not to mention such items as typewriters. There was no transportation, and undernourished officials had to walk several miles from their homes. As late as autumn 1945, officials on their way home in the evening were occasionally robbed by Soviet soldiers. Fuel was scarce. During the winter of 1945-46 many civil servants worked in offices without window panes and without heat. To add to their hardship, their insufficient salaries made it necessary to fight inflation for their own physical survival. Jewels and other personal belongings were sold or bartered for food.

However serious the technical and personal difficulties, they appeared insubstantial in view of the general conditions resulting from the Soviet occupation, the armistice agreement, and domination of politics by the Communist party. Postwar Hungary was not a sovereign state; foreign affairs were under the control of the Russian dominated ACC. Civil administration was gradually reorganized by the political parties, and this not only opened the way to many in competent appointees but allowed Communists key positions. The Foreign Ministry was headed by a Smallholder, and the Communists secured important positions under the system of the coalition government. In every important division of the Foreign Ministry there was a Communist who reported to the party. The chief of cabinet of the minister, as well as the deputy head and later the head of the political division, were Communists. Through these key men the Communist party knew everything that happened in foreign affairs, and Soviet authorities were consulted about all issues of importance. They could intervene at an appropriate time and exert decisive influence. The system of controls was even further developed, for the NKVD and later the Hungarian political police summoned some non-Communist officials of the Foreign Ministry and forced them to report regularly on affairs and personnel. As soon as Hungary renewed diplomatic relations with foreign countries, many officials who had served under the Horthyregime were sent abroad; this development as well opened new fields of opportunity for the Communists and decreased the number of competent officials in Budapest.

When I began the peace preparative work anew, my first question to the foreign minister was, "What are the peace aims of the government?" I asked this question repeatedly in the following months, but

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never received an explicit answer. Gyöngyösionly explained those political difficulties of the coalition regime that hindered an agreement on our peace aims. Under such circumstances I concentrated on searching for and collecting materials and data and prepared a variety of alternative proposals. On the one hand, the wartime era of cautious double-talk ceased -- at least to the extent that we were able to obtain technical cooperation from all government agencies, with out false excuses. On the other hand, we had to face new difficulties of greater magnitude.

In June 1945, I organized the peace treaty division in the Foreign Ministry and established an interdepartmental committee which held weekly meetings in the Hungarian National Bank building. The meetings were under my chairmanship until April 1946, with participation of the National Bank, the ministries, certain scholarly in situations, and experts in various fields. For important problems sub committees were appointed, and they reported to the general committee. The object of this work was a detailed investigation that em braced the economic, cultural, and financial development of Hungary from 1919 until the end of the Second World War. We examined the existing conditions and drew conclusions concerning the needs of Hungary. Committee members included the country's fore most experts in many fields. Eventually over a hundred officials and scholars participated in the peace preparatory work. I openly stated that I needed specialists and would not want to have political appointees on the committee, and for a time it was possible to maintain this policy. I did not object to party membership but found it impossible to do constructive work with delegates whose only merit was membership in a party. Despite the nonpolitical character of this committee, some experts were timid and reluctant to express frankly their opinions. Some participants also had little understanding for political reality. At the first plenary meeting I gave general instructions concerning the nature of our work and schedules and suggested they ask questions. The first question was utterly unrealistic. I was asked about the size of the territorial aggrandizement Hungary might expect at the peace table because the ministries should plan projections for the future on this basis. Such people did not realize that we had to prepare for peace after a disastrously lost war and were still living under foreign occupation and control. During the armistice period the independence of Hungary was a fiction.

Besides the interdepartmental committee, several specialized committees and agencies participated in peace preparations. The Pal TelekiInstitute for Political Science under the leadership of Count

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István Révay prepared the material for territorial and nationality questions. An ad hoc committee supervised the financial and economic findings of the interdepartmental committee. This latter group consisted of the foremost economic experts in Hungary.4 Besides its supervisory work it considered plans for the establishment of a Danubian federation. I invited this committee to hold weekly meetings over a period of about three months, and appreciated the lively de bates therein. Some members favored a federation with Austria and Czechoslovakia, others with Rumania and Yugoslavia, and we pondered the advantages and disadvantages of larger units. We discussed about eleven variations. Our economic experts considered the possible effect of various federations or confederations on the Hungarian industry, agriculture, and trade. Then we examined the political con sequences of particular unions, but we were never in a position to use the valuable material collected on this subject. The final committee report proposed that the government reveal Hungary's economic plight at the peace conference and ask for substantial reduction of reparation payments and inclusion of properties confiscated and re moved by the Soviet army in any such payments. The foreign minister considered some of these proposals so unrealistic under the political conditions of the country that he did not even attempt to present them to the council of ministers.

Eventually the personnel associated with peace preparations consisted of several hundred officials and experts, and therefore their ef forts required a high degree of coordination. After nearly a year of work and consultation, each ministry summed up its findings in a final report based on preparatory memoranda discussed at the weekly meetings. But in early 1946 the Communist party discovered the implications of this work and delayed its conclusion in certain minis tries. Thereafter Communist delegates appeared in the general committee and sabotaged its work.

The disagreement among the coalition parties concerning peace aims remained the most difficult domestic problem throughout the peace preparatory period. Extreme differences made it impossible to find principles acceptable to all parties. Although the government avoided a stand in the matter, I had to look for some expedient in order to proceed in the muddled political situation. As soon as I began my work I attempted to get around the lack of governmental aims by asking for an advisory delegate for political problems from each coalition party. The delegates were appointed, and we pledged our mutual good will and readiness for cooperation. I stated that I would always be glad to give any information to the coalition parties

Notes

STEPHEN D. KERTESZ - Between Russia and the West