Hungarian Nazi Groups Split Despite Berlin’s Efforts to Unite Them

Hungary’s flourishing Fascist and anti-Semitic organizations have been given new strength by the Nazi conquest of Austria but still remain torn by dissensions and factional disputes despite efforts from Berlin to unite them.

One of the extreme Right-wing groups – the so-called “Reform Generation” – is even in the Government and has a representative in the Daranyi Cabinet, the Minister of industry, Geza von Bornemissza. While Bornemissza is not by any means an extremist, prominent members of his party are, though they nominally accept legality as the basis of the party’s policy.

Several months ago the so-called Scythe-Cross party of Andrew Boeszoermenyi was the strongest Nazi formation in the country. The party emblem was a cross formed of four scythes in a form which closely resembled the prohibited swastika. Boeszoermenyi, however, attempted an armed rising in the lowlands; his plans were discovered, his armed peasant brigades suppressed, and his Scythe-Cross movement almost completely destroyed.

The most powerful National Socialist movements in Hungary at present are the Arrow-Cross movement of Count Alexander Festetics, the National Will movement of Major Ferenc Szalasi, and the National Front of Francis Rajniss. To these must be added the Turul Association of radical students and ex-students.

The Arrow-Cross movement takes its name from its emblem, four half-arrows placed in swastika form. It is a copy of the German National Socialist movement, and so close is the cooperation between the two that Festetic’s Vienna office is in the Vienna Brown House. His youth associations are formed on the German model and wear green shirts. His movement is especially strong in the German villages of Transdanubia. The Count himself is an uninspiring personality, and his agitation for land reform is not helped by the fact that he himself is owner of more than 100,000 acres of arable land.

Much more important and suggestive is Major Szalasi’s National Will movement. Szalasi’s chief of staff is Francis Fiala, a young man who passed through the school for Nazi agitators in Germany. Szalasi’s movement, while similar to German National Socialism, is by no means an imitation of it; it incorporates traditional Magyar elements. The chief demands of the movement are land reform and the solution of economic problems, including the Jewish problem. The movement is very active and uses all kinds of modern propaganda, especially masses of abusive leaflets.

The Nemzeti Front (National Front) movement of Francis Rajniss used to have close connections with Germany. One of its chief demands is an independent racial preservation policy. It also demands land reform; it is strongly opposed to Jewish influence in industry and commerce, and it demands a radical solution of the Jewish question.