Andy Nagypal (Penn State University) helyreigazító levele a New York Timeshoz, miután a lap Teller Ede nekrológjában Horthy Miklóst “brutális fasisztaként” jellemezte. Részlet a Magyar Lobbi 2003. szeptember 19-i akció körleveléből.

To the Editor

“In your Thursday Sept. 11th issue you did a full feature on the life and death of Edward Teller. Great story. But when describing his background and life experience, it mentioned how he lived through the brief communist regime of Bela Kun in Hungary 1919, followed by the ‘brutal fascism of Nicholas Horthy’. This latter point is absurdly inaccurate.

Horthy was a conservative, royalist, restorationist protestant who served as a decorated admiral under Austria’s dual monarchy in WWI, and sought to re-establish Hungary as an independent kingdom. Everything in interwar Hungary under Horthy was known as the ‘Royal’ Hungarian Air-force, Army, etc., just as in Britain. He sought an alliance with Britain, and reluctantly sided with Germany in war only after 1941. Horthy’s Hungary was probably one of the safest places in East-Central Europe as it provided refuge for escaped Polish POWs and officers, and many displaced persons fleeing from the Germans, including many Jews. Horthy’s regime at worst was mildly authoritarian, not ‘brutal fascist.’

After he attempted an armistice with the allies, Horthy was blackmailed into stepping down by the Nazis as Otto Skorzeny kidnapped his son. It wasn’t until October 1944 that the Hungarian national socialists of Ferenc Szálasi (Green Shirts) were put in power by the Germans after German occupation. Szálasi’s regime can be called fascist, but it was short-lived and followed by Soviet invasion. However the eastern front and horror of the war that moved through Hungary between 1944-1945 was what was truly ‘brutal’ at this time. It was the Stalinist and Muscovite communist Mátyás Rákosi — Hungary’s leader in the early 1950s who ran a completely brutal terror state — who revisionistically derided Horthy as a fascist.

It’s disappointing that NYT writers are so historically misinformed, and that they made this same exact mistake in the past. But perhaps anything right of center with the NYT is ‘brutal fascist’.”

Andy Nagypal
BA European History, Political Science
Penn State University

Forrás: A Magyar Lobbi Akció Körlevele, 2003. szeptember 19.