Foreign Ministry Classified Records of the Political Department, 1918-1944

Collection description

Collection

Country:: Hungary

Holding institution:: National Archives of Hungary, National Archives

Holding institution (official language):: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára

Postal address:: Budapest, Bécsi Kapu tér 2-4., 1014

Phone number:: +36 1 225 2843

Web address:: http://mnl.gov.hu/

Email:: info@mnl.gov.hu

Reference number:: K 64

Title:: Foreign Ministry Classified Records of the Political Department, 1918-1944

Title (official language):: Külügyminisztérium, Politikai Osztály reservált iratai, 1918-1944

Creator/accumulator:: Foreign Ministry

Date(s):: 1918/1944

Extent:: 101 fascicles, 11 volumes, 15.05 linear metres

Scope and content:: The collection holds the confidential records of the Political Department of the Foreign Ministry, which are among the key sources for the understanding of wartime and pre-war Hungarian foreign policy, including the evolution of Hungary’s relations with Nazi Germany and other satellite states, and the altering attitudes concerning the “Jewish question”. The collection contains selected records relating to Hungarian foreign relations and policies, many of which are relevant for the study of the history of the Holocaust. The material is organised thematically by countries, therefore the study of Jewish question and Holocaust requires file-level research. However, some thematic units require special attention, such as territorial revision and Romanian-Hungarian relations (thematic unit no. 27), minority matters (thematic unit no. 47), German-Hungarian relations (thematic unit no. 21), Hungarian-Slovak relations (thematic unit no. 65), Subcarpathia (thematic unit no. 33), Church matters (thematic unit no. 34), military issues (thematic unit no. 35), and Jewish matters (thematic unit no. 43.). These documents include reports submitted by Hungarian diplomatic missions in the cities of Arad, Bucharest and Brasov in Romania to the Foreign Ministry in Budapest about incidents concerning Jews in 1944, the speech Catholic priest Áron Márton held at St. Michael's Church in May 1944 in which he explicitly condemned the deportation of Jewry in preparation. There are also relevant Hungarian German press articles and clippings in the collection.

Archival history:: The fragments of the surviving records of the departments of the Foreign Ministry were handed over to the Hungarian National Archives in 1947. The material was legally under the auspices of the Ministry until 1950. The material was rearranged at the end of the 1950s as well as in the 1960s to 1970s. The first finding aids were published in 1959 and 1964, followed by a revised second edition in 2003.

Administrative/biographical history:: Established by Decree no. 13.095/1921 of the Foreign Ministry, the Political Department was responsible for all cases that had foreign policy relevance, including various military, police and political issues. The department received political reports from the Hungarian embassies and other diplomatic corps and transmitted political instructions to these bodies.

Access points: locations:: Germany; Hungary; Romania; Slovakia

Access points: persons/families:: Márton, Áron

Subject terms:: Holocaust; Holocaust--Collaboration; World War II

System of arrangement:: The material is organised by the names of the countries or regions by unit numbers (e.g. 7-Czechoslovakia) and in chronological order. Some units contain thematic sub-units.

Finding aids:: Ferenc Nagy, ed. Külügyminisztérium levéltára. Vols 2. Budapest: MOL, 2003.

Yerusha Network member:: Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives

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