Új Magyar Út, 1954 (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1954-05-01 / 5-6. szám
ÚJ MAGYAR ÚT German military victories, and following the ruthless actions and imperialistic attempts of Hitlerism, he predicted with a prophetic clairvoyance the inevitable failure of the German war. He became one of those Hungarian newspapermen and politicians who kept constantly warning the government to take a firmer stand against the German pressure which tried to force the country into war. In the postwar political era of Hungary Iván Lajos has also attained a higher position and had the opportunity to look into the files of the Hungarian ministry of foreign affairs. Mr. Lajos became chiefly interested in the files of the period that followed the end of the first World War. In the light of these documents he felt his duty to fight the communist-inspired propaganda which tried to increase with all means the “war responsibility” of the Hungarians. His address on “Hungary’s Responsibility in the War’’, published in this issue, was delivered on March 20, 1946, in Budapest, before the members of the foreign affairs committee of the Smallholder Party. The following highlights of the address caused a great deal of consternation at that time, and they probably contributed, along with the courageous outspokenness of the speaker, to his tragic fate. (The author was later arrested by the Russians and nobody knows whether he is still alive.) 1. Hungary’s participation on the German side in the second World War was not the responsibility of the recent Hungarian governments. These (with the exception of the governments during the German occupation after March 19, 1944) delayed by all available means Hungary’s entry into the war. Later, when this became inevitable, these governments did their best to guide the country out of the war. According to the author, the wrong decision was taken immediately after the first World War, in the 1920’s. That time the German friendship became dominant in Hungarian politics, instead of a French-British orientation. And this was felt later on, in weakening the contradictory politics of the various Hungarian governments. 2. The Hungarian public opinion was strongly influenced by a bitterly actual fact. There was a socalled “revision movement” after the first World War aiming at the revision of the Paris peace treaties which have detached several million Hungarians to Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. However, despite of the encouraging and approving statements of Western statesmen (among them Churchill, Eden, Henderson, etc.), the revision failed to show positive results. After Munich, Germany opposed the fulfillment of Hungarian interests and the return of the Hungarians living on the other side of the border. Only the firm stand of the Italians forced Hitler, who was mad at the Hungarians, to yield. And this resulted in the first accomplishment of the nearly twenty years old revision movement: the return of the Hungarians from Czechoslovakia. The next step to be taken by the Hungarian revision was the reoccupation of Hungarian and Ruthenian inhabited Ruthenia, in March 1939. This step created a common border between Hungary and Poland, that in turn became a vital element of the British-French politics in their attempts for the prevention of German expansion. 248 —
