(By Our Budapest Correspondent)
Curiously enough the latest analysis of the origin and motives of the counterfeit plot of the Hungarian anti-Semites-Fascists involves the name of Jeremiah Smith, the American, who is the League of Nations’ General Commissioner in Hungary. It was Jeremiah Smith’s effort to straighten out Hungary’s financial affairs which threatened the existence of the anti-Semitic forces and inspired them with the infernal idea of the counterfeit plot.
The entire counterfeiting scandal can best be understood when the relation between the Hungarian government and the anti-Semitic Fascist organizations in Hungary is ascertained. For while the investigations made to date have definitely proven that many of the highest government officials, including Hungary’s Chief of Police, Nadossy and the Prime Minister Bethlen himself, are implicated in the plot, the anamolous situation nevertheless prevails that the government as such has been able so far to evade the charge of hatching and promoting the scheme. This is due to the fact that in Hungary, unlike in other countries, the State apparatue is not necessarily and exclusively at the disposal of the official government and while various departments and bureaus of the State have been utilized for the purpose of the counterfeit plot, the official government remains immune, the government leaders and officials having manipulated the machinery of the State through other sources. This unique situation is but another indication of the state of affairs in Hungary.
In the background of the entire counterfeit affair looms large the Fascist organization known as the “Doppelkreuz” with which are affiliated a number of organizations throughout the country, the entire system being known as the “Rassen-schuetzler, ” “protectors” of the Hungarian race against the Jews. To this organization belong many of the government leaders and officials and the president of the “Doppelkreuz” is Chief of Police Nadossy. This organization thus has access to all State bureaus and by virtue of its connections in high government spheres it has been receiving the cooperation of the government and actual financial assistance from the well supplied Dispositionsfond (a fund placed at the disposal of the government in Hungary to be used outside the regular budget for any purposes it may see fit). This relation between the Hungarian government and the “Doppelkreuz” furnishes the key to a situation which if it had arisen in any other country would have in all probability caused the resignation of the cabinet.
Jeremiah Smith, however, could not understand the “Rassenschuetz” idea and the need of subsidising an anti-Semitic Fascist organization, especially at a time when the country was financially bankrupt. As soon as he took matters in hand be therefore stopped this practice. The result was that the “Doppelkreuz” remained helpless and began to devise ways and means of maintaining its existence. The counterfeit plot was one of the outcomes of this situation.
The counterfeit plot was not, however, a local Hungarian affair, for though it was inspired, at least in part, through the shutting off of the government funds by Jeremiah Smith, it became part of an international conspiracy by virtue of the connections of the “Doppelkreuz” with anti-Semites and Fascists of Roumania and Bavaria who were planning ###
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
