Records of the Economic Superintendent of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County, the capital city of Budapest and the city of municipal rights Kecskemét, 1922-1944

Collection

Holding institution (official language):: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Pest Megyei Levéltára

Title:: Records of the Economic Superintendent of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County, the capital city of Budapest and the city of municipal rights Kecskemét, 1922-1944

Title (official language):: Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun vármegye, Budapest Székesfőváros és Kecskemét törvényhatósági jogú város gazdasági felügyelőjének iratai, 1922-1944

Scope and content:: The collection holds the records of the Economic Superintendent responsible for the entire territory of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County, including the capital city of Budapest and the city of municipal rights Kecskemét. The material contains plenty of information on agricultural matters in the interwar years, particularly the implementation of agrarian reforms and other measures to alleviate agrarian poverty. These acts of agrarian policy were increasingly financed by discriminatory policies against certain social groups, most of all the Jews. From as early as 1920, land reforms and settlement projects were developed primarily on land requisitioned from Jewish owners. The possibility of requisitioning Jewish-owned property was first made explicit in the Second Jewish Law (Act IV of 1939), which also restricted the rights of Jews to obtain landed property. The process of “Aryanisation” in the agricultural sector was finalised by Act XV of 1942 on Jewish-owned agricultural land and forests, also known as the Fourth Jewish Law. The most relevant part of the collection are the presidential classified records from the years 1941-1944, which exclusively concerns the utilisation of Jewish landholdings (Boxes 1-2, 0.2 linear metres)

Archival history:: After the dissolution of the economic superintendent’s offices in 1945, the surviving records were held in the county archives. They were handed over to the Pest County Archives in the early 1950s. Later on, the records of the economic superintendent of the Monor district were also attached to the collection. The collection reached its present form in 1980.

Administrative/biographical history:: Established by Act XLII of 1921, the economic superintendents (gazdasági felügyelők) were state officials under the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture. Economic superintendents were agricultural experts whose task was to provide the ministry with information about the state of agriculture in a particular region and to facilitate the implementation of agrarian reforms and other state initiatives.

Subject terms:: Agriculture; Antisemitism; Antisemitism--Antisemitic legislation; Land; Land registries; Plunder; Plunder--Aryanisation; Real estate

System of arrangement:: The collection of the Economic Superintendent’s Office is arranged into two provenance groups: Presidential classified records, 1922-1944, and General Records, 1926-1944 (VI. 201 a-b). The records are arranged by basic numbers and by certain thematic subgroups. Numbers are re-started each year. There are plenty of files without basic numbers.

Finding aids:: Fragmented finding aids (indexes) are available for the general records. However, presidential classified files require file-level investigation.

Ernő Lakatos, ed. A Magyar Állami Levéltárak fondjegyzéke, Vol. III. A Területi Levéltárak fondjegyzékei Part 13. A Pest Megyei Levéltár fondjainak jegyzéke. Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 1975.

Author of the description:: László Csősz; Hungarian National Archives; 29-11-2015 (In cooperation with the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure)