Hungarian National Socialist Party - Early National Socialist Groups

Early National Socialist Groups

From its early origins up to the eventual fall of the Third Reich Nazism had a profound impact on Hungarian politics and as a consequence several "clone movements" were established in the country during the interbellum period. The initial HNSP was organised in the 1920s, but did not gain any influence. Nevertheless this incarnation of the party carried on into the 1930s.

A second group, the National Socialist Party of Work, was founded by Zoltán Böszörmény in 1931. The movement soon became known as the Scythe Cross due to its party emblem. The Scythe Cross was fairly small, but it was the first fascist movement in Hungary to directly call for land and social reform for peasants. Many fascist movements afterward, including the Arrow Cross Party, followed this example and gained rural support.

The Hungarian National Socialist Agricultural Labourers’ and Workers’ Party (HNSALWP) was formed in 1933 as a splinter group from the Smallholders Party under Zoltán Meskó. This party appealed specifically to landless peasants. Before long it subsumed the original HNSP and its followers became known as the Greenshirts for their distinctive uniforms. They also adopted the Arrow Cross as their symbol.

Around the same time Sándor Graf Festetics, who had briefly served as Minister of Defence during the government of Mihály Károlyi, set up his own Hungarian National Socialist People’s Party (HNSPP). A rival group, going by the name of HNSP, also emerged under the leadership of Count Fidél Pálffy (who was later viewed by the SS as a candidate to lead the country). This group adopted the swastika as its emblem and the National Socialist Program as its policy document and even attempted to organise their own SA and SS, albeit on a much smaller scale than in Germany. Both of these groups looked directly to Nazi Germany for their inspiration and copied the Nazi Party as much as they could. Both were also banned soon after their formation by the government, although they continued underground.