Baják László Ihász István: The Hungarian National Museum History Exhibition Guide 4 - The short century of survival (1900-1990) (Budapest, 2008)
Room 19. From the Successes of Revision to German and Russian Occupation (1938-1945). István Ihász
The law-making organ of the parliamentary democracy had for decades been directed by a governing party that could not be voted out, but in the course of the first secret elections of 1939 the Arrow-Cross Party became the second most powerful party in the parliament - this despite their earlier imprisonment and internment - to the detriment of the most important middle-class (the Smallholders) and the legal left-wing Opposition (the Social Democrats). This composition continued to operate in Hungary until 1945 in an increasingly fragmentary parliament under German Occupation and following an Arrow-Cross putsch. At the outbreak of the Second World War the foreign policy of the Teleki government could still assert itself: we did not join Nazi Germany; indeed, besides the preservation of military neutrality, until the spring of 1944 Hungary became a kind of sanctuary for refugees fleeing the occupied countries. This state-organised rescue of refugees, brought to life by Prime Minister Pál Teleki, was carried out despite increasing external and internal political pressure. Protection, forged documents and a chance to escape to the West was extended to all those seeking sanctuary in Hungary: individuals designated as Jews fleeing Romania and Austria, the onrush of soldiers following the collapse of Poland, civilians compromised by resistance and French, Russian and British prisoners-of-war who had escaped German captivity. German military successes resulted in a further swing to the right: the Volksbund became active and Szálasi, the leader of the National Socialists, was set free. Desperate experiments by clearer-sighted politicians to maintain a distance could bring no results. On April 11, 1941, units of the Hungarian Royal Army crossed the collapsed Yugoslavian border as an ally of Nazi Germany and retook the Southlands. In his suicide note written to Miklós Horthy, Teleki condemned the policy that had brought the country to war and through his suicide signalled that the country's political scope for action had shrunk to a minimum now that it was surrounded in all directions by dictatorships and German puppet states. Originally the Hungarian state and military leadership kept its modest economic and military strength in reserve against th« neighbouring states as a factor that would exert pressure in the event of further border correction subsequent to the war between the dictatorships of fascism and bolshevism. At the same time, in consequence of the diplomatic manoeuvres of the German Reich and thanks to the competition with Slovakia and Romania, in the summer of 1941 Hungary joined the Second World War after all. On June 26th a provocative bomb attack on Hungarian cities from aeroplanes of unknown origin was executed following the declaration that the country "considered itself in a state of war with the Soviet Union". The other countries competing for revision - Slovakia and Romania - had already taken a position against the Soviet Union, and this influenced to a great degree the unconsidered decision by Prime Minister Bárdossy (1941 -1942). The better part of the military elite - and after all, Europe at this time lay sprawled at Germany's feet - reckoned upon a seamless Hungarian participation in the form of
