László Endre

László Endre (January 1, 1895-March 29, 1946) was a Hungarian right-wing politician and collaborator with the Nazis during the Second World War.

Born into a wealthy Abony family, Endre obtained a degree in political science after service in the First World War and became a leading local government officer in Pest county. He became involved in the right wing nationalist society Magyar Országos Véderő Egyesület (MOVE) during which he became noted for his extreme cruelty, which may have been a result of syphilis. He also became a member of various incarnations of the Hungarian National Socialist Party and even led his own minor movements on occasion.

In 1938 he joined the governing party of Béla Imrédy and became noted for his anti-Semitism. Endre argued that the Hungarian government's anti-Jewish laws were not harsh enough, and on his own initiative he imposed further restrictions on Jewish life, such as banning Jews from beaches and spas, and excluding Jewish vendors from fairs - strictures which were later reversed by the Interior Ministry. [Kádár Gábor and Vági Zoltán: Hullarablás. A magyar zsidók gazdasági megsemmisítése. ("Robbing the Dead. The Economic Annihilation of the Hungarian Jews") Budapest, Jaffa-HAE, 2005, pp. 64-73]

Endre did not rise to national prominence until 1944, when Hitler, impatient with Hungary's reluctance to commit fully to German war effort, ordered the invasion and occupation of Hungary. The Nazis dissolved the tolerant government of prime minister Miklos Kallay, and forced the Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy to replace Kállay with the Nazi sympathizer Döme Sztójay.

A top priority for the Nazi occupiers was the annihilation of Hungary's Jewish population, which despite repression and economic hardships had survived the first years of the war largely intact. Endre, who in anti-Semitic circles was considered a "Jewish expert," was appointed state secretary in the Ministry of the Interior in the Nazi-controlled government under Andor Jaross. He was given far reaching powers of ghettoization and deportation over the country's Jewish population. Along with László Baky, Endre and Jaross eagerly helped Adolf Eichmann amass and deport more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews between May and July 1944. [Braham, Randolph, "The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary", Wayne State University Press, p. 257.] Most of them were taken directly to Auschwitz concentration camp, where they were quickly murdered in the gas chambers, and cremated.

("csendorség" in Hungarian), the national police agency. The "csendorség", according to victims' accounts, demonstrated an affinity for viciousness and greed in their concentration and deportation efforts. Tales of the robbery and torture of deportees are common. The speed and efficiency with which these 20,000 government officers managed the slaughter of two-thirds of Hungary's Jews startled even the Germans. [First person accounts available at the website of the National Committee for Attending Deportees, available online at www.degob.org]

Endre's excesses attracted the attention of regent Miklos Horthy, who as early as June called for his removal from the Interior Ministry; in July, Horthy finally succeeded in bringing the deportations to a halt.

Endre was removed from power in September of the same year; but he returned to government the following month, when the Nazis deposed and arrested Horthy, and placed Ferenc Szálasi's ultra-fascist Arrow Cross Party in power; Endre served as Commissioner of Civil Administration. In March 1945, after Budapest fell to the Red Army, he fled to Austria, but was captured and returned to his homeland.

In December 1945 Endre, Baky and Jaross (now known as "the deportation trio") were tried in Budapest and found guilty of the murder of Jews, and of acting against the national interests of Hungary. All three were executed (as were no fewer than four of Hungary's wartime prime ministers, including Béla Imrédy and Ferenc Szálasi).

Endre was hanged on March 29, 1946. [Braham, p. 257.]

References

ources

* Philip Rees, "Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890"