Metadata: Ministry of Finance, Circular Decrees, 1867-1942
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 266
- Title:
- Ministry of Finance, Circular Decrees, 1867-1942
- Title (official language):
- Pénzügyminisztérium Körrendeletek, 1867-1942
- Creator/accumulator:
- Ministry of Finance
- Date(s):
- 1867/1942
- Extent:
- 17 fascicles, 3 volumes, 2.6 linear metres
- Scope and content:
- This collection includes circular decrees (körrendeletek) of the Ministry of Finance for the years 1867 to 1942. The last four to five years covered by the collection, that is, the late 1930s and early 1940s, is relevant for the study of antisemitic policies in Hungary. Anti-Jewish policies of the interwar and wartime years were not merely initiated by numerous major antisemitic laws adopted in Parliament but were also implemented through hundreds of decrees, with circulars from ministries with the Ministry of Finance playing a notable role. Circular decrees from those years may have had explicit antisemitic intentions or may have been implicitly antisemitic (i.e. could be and often were used for antisemitic purposes). The collection includes copies of the original circulars. They cover four major thematic units: 1. organisational matters; 2. budget and credit issues; 3. taxes and tolls; and 4. miscellaneous decrees.
- Archival history:
- The papers of the Ministry of Finances from 1944 were transported to Sopron (Western Hungary) at the end of 1944. The bulk of the collection disappeared after the end of the Second World War. The surviving records were taken to the National Archives in 1950 and 1958.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Ministry of Finances played a crucial role in the state-directed and state-controlled campaign systematically to seize the assets of Hungarian Jews between 1938 and 1944. During this period the Ministry was headed by Lajos Reményi-Schneller (1892-1946), who was appointed Minister in March 1938 and kept his post (uniquely in Hungarian political life) in all successive governments until the end of the war, including that of Darányi, Imrédy, Teleki (his second term), Bárdossy, Kállay, Sztójay, Lakatos and Szálasi. Reményi-Schneller even held the position of economic superminister (gazdasági csúcsminiszter) in the governments of Teleki, Bárdossy and Kállay. His policies were strongly in favour of Nazi Germany during the war years. In 1946, he was sentenced to death and executed as war criminal.
- System of arrangement:
- The documents are arranged by year and within that in rising order of the decrees. The finding aids include reference books (segédkönyv) which are arranged by subject. Each subject is arranged chronologically.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives