Count János Eszterházy (; rarely ; March 14, 1901 – March 8, 1957) was a prominent politician of Hungarian ethnicity in inter-war Czechoslovakia and later in the First Slovak Republic. He was a member of the Czechoslovak Parliament and of the Slovak Assembly. After the Second World War, he was illegally deported to the Soviet Union, sentenced on trumped-up charges at a show trial, and imprisoned. In the meantime, he was sentenced, in absentia, to death by the National Court in Bratislava on the charges of High Treason to the State, collaboration with the enemy, the breaking-up of Czechoslovakia and his participation in an anti-democratic regime as a deputy of the Slovak Assembly. The sentence was not executed as a consequence of a Presidential pardon, following his return to Czechoslovakia from the Soviet Union. He died in prison in 1957.
The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities has described him as a hero for saving Jews during World War II. On the other hand, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Slovakia has publicly criticised János Esterházy and rejected efforts to present him as "democratic, antifascist fighter and fearless savior of Jews".
Family
Son of Antal Mihály Esterházy, he was born into one of Hungary's most distinguished aristocratic families, the House of Esterházy, in the Galánta branch originated from Transylvania. His mother, Countess Elżbieta Tarnowska, daughter of Professor Stanisław Tarnowski, was Polish and came from Tarnowski family, one of the oldest Polish aristocratic families, which had held the highest positions continuously since the 14th century. He was four when his father died. He went to secondary school in Budapest and after studying commerce he returned to his estate in a former area of Hungary which the Treaty of Trianon had ceded to Czechoslovakia after World War I. On October 15, 1924, he married Countess Lívia Serényi. They had two children, János and Alice.
Political career
Czechoslovak republic
Domestic policy
The political policy of János Esterházy was first based upon Christian-Nationalist ideas, which later became influenced by his relations with those who held more developed liberal positions. In the 1920s, he became a member of Provincial Christian-Socialist Party (Országos Keresztényiszocialista Párt; OKszP). In 1931, he became the leader of the Hungarian League of Nations League in the Czechoslovak Republic, an organization which operated within the League of Nations. On 11 December 1932, he became the chairman of OKszP. He won a parliament mandate in Košice at the elections in 1935 and was a deputy for that constituency in the Czechoslovak Parliament until 1938. In his first speech in parliament, he said: "As we have been attached to Czechoslovakia against our will, we demand that the Czechoslovak government fully respect our minority, language, cultural and economic rights." The policy of both Hungarian opposition parties (Provincial Christian-Socialist Party and Hungarian National Party) was politically influenced and directed from Budapest. Esterházy's political ideas were influenced by contemporary irredentism and aspirations to restore Hungary to her pre Treaty of Trianon borders.
Esterházy maintained close contact with the Hungarian government with visits to Budapest, through diplomatic channels via the Hungarian Embassy in Prague, and through the Hungarian Consulate in Bratislava. This contact included written reports for the Hungarian government for which he used pseudonyms such as "Tamás", "Matyás" and number 221. These reports covered not only issues of ethnic minority policy, but also information about the internal political situations, concepts and strategies for weakening Czechoslovakia, and the politics of other countries against Czechoslovakia. From 1933, Hungary coordinated actions against Czechoslovakia with Nazi Germany. In June 1933, the Hungarian prime minister Gyula Gömbös visited Germany and together with Adolf Hitler concluded that Czechoslovakia was the main obstacle for the "rearrangement" of central Europe; that the Czechoslovak Republic should be internally dismantled, isolated internationally, and then eliminated by military power. Hungary requested not only the only alteration of borders, but "justice on historical principle." In August 1936, Miklós Horthy negotiated with Adolf Hitler and formed this idea of a common attack against Czechoslovakia to "remove (the) cancer tumor from the heart of Europe."
Hungary supported the idea of a Slovak autonomist movement which was seen as a tool for weakening the State and facilitating the potential disintegration of Czechoslovakia. Successive Hungarian governments tried to influence the autonomists and to win them over to a pro-Hungarian re-orientation, but they were not successful in the long term. Esterházy also supported the idea of Slovak autonomy and played the role of a mediator between the Hungarian government and Slovak People's Party (HSĽS). Before the elections of 1935, he tried to form an autonomist block with HSĽS. The Hungarian government intended to provide him 100,000 crowns for this purpose, but failed to do so at the last moment. Later, as an executive chairman of United Hungarian Party he asked for financial support to offer inducements to leading politicians of HSĽS. After negotiations with HSĽS in the spring of 1938 he described his goals, in a report to the Hungarian government, as an "overriding obligation of Hungarians to break (the) republic with the help of others."
In 1935, the Hungarian MPs supported the successful bid of Edvard Beneš for the office of President of the Czechoslovak Republic. Edvard Beneš promised concessions to the Hungarian minority.Similarly, this election was supported also by the Slovak Peoples' Party. The votes of these parties proved unnecessary as, in the end, Bohumil Němec withdrew his candidacy before the election. He accepted funding from the Office of the President to support Hungarian students and "against Hungarian irredentism." The office of President Beneš paid this in four instalments; the total amount was 144,000 crowns. This was an attempt to gain the favour of a younger generation within OKszP. In 1936, Beneš proposed political governmental cooperation to Esterházy and offered him a position as a government Minister-without-Portfolio, but Esterházy did not accept the offer.
After urging on the part of the Hungarian government, the Hungarian opposition parties united and founded the United Hungarian Party (Egyesült Magyar Párt; EMP) at their congress held in Nové Zámky on 21 June 1936. This new party was headed by Andor Jaross (executed later in Hungary as a war criminal) and Esterházy. The unification of the parties was not perceived positively, however, by all members and Esterházy asked the Hungarian government for a donation of 15,000 crowns to "disarm the infringers of the order." During police questioning in 1945, he quantified the yearly support received from the Hungarian government as having amounted to 2,500,000 crowns annually. The allocation of such funding was decided by himself.
The programme of the new party emphasized the autonomy of Slovakia. In 1936, representatives of the United Hungarian Party considered fusion with Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei, SdP). as negotiated by the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Kálmán Kánya with German government circles in Berlin. On 15 April 1937, cooperation between both parties was agreed. On 30 November 1937, Esterházy and Jaros were delegated to negotiate with SdP about issues of German minority in Slovakia.
In the summer of 1937, Esterházy disclosed intelligence relating to the Czechoslovak Army and informed the Hungarian government about the building of military fortresses and the related budget. In the autumn of the same year he wrote a report on defense projects near Lučenec and the Ipeľ.
1938 saw the new party receive a majority of the votes cast by ethnic Hungarians. At this time, the party made their declaration to join ethnic Hungarian territories together into The Kingdom of Hungary.
Critical year: 1938 In 1938, Esterházy participated in several negotiations in the capitals of the states primarily determined upon the weakening and ultimate elimination of the state of Czechoslovakia (Berlin, Budapest, Warsaw, Rome), where he acted as a semi-official mediator for the Hungarian government. During Hitler's visit to Italy in May 1938, he was notably invited to an intimate lunch with the Führer. In May 1938, he informed the Hungarian government of Nazi plans with regards to Czechoslovakia, which he had obtained from the leader of the Sudeten German Party, Konrad Henlein. According to his report, Czech lands would be occupied by Germany and Slovakia would be rejoined with Hungary. On the other hand, he (as a member of parliament who had taken the parliamentary oath) did not inform the Czechoslovak authorities.
In June 1938, he negotiated with some Polish representatives and asked them to use their influence with Slovak politicians from autonomist movement to adopt the Hungarian solution to the Slovak question (annexation of Slovakia by Hungary). Esterházy was aware that this idea was extremely unpopular in Slovakia because of previous Hungarian policy. Poland as a Slavic and Catholic state might play the helpful role of referee during the communications with the pro-Polish wing of HSĽS. Slovakia was to receive a similar status as Croatia had enjoyed in Austria-Hungary. This proposal presented more of his own ideas than the official attitude of the Hungarian government. Poland, which also had an interest in the breakup of Czechoslovakia, was willing to provide guarantees but the Hungarian government decided to maintain a waiting position and did not initiate the first steps expected by Poland. Moreover, such an idea was strictly rejected by the leader of Slovak pro-Polish wing of HSĽS Karol Sidor who declared: "We do not trust Hungarians and there cannot be a single word about a return to them." This statement was published in both the Polish and Slovak press. According to Esterházy's concept Slovakia was to receive autonomy within Hungary following its territorial division. After the occupation of Carpathian Ruthenia the eastern border would be adjusted to the west, to as great a degree as possible, and the southern part separated.
He was informed about a plan of the Sudeten Germans to sabotage negotiations with the Czechoslovak government. He discussed this situation with the Hungarian government and received instructions to work on such a program, which could not be fulfilled. Contrary to Sudeten Germans, he refused excessive radicalization to prevent an unnecessary bloodbath. In 1938 he met with the head of the British mission, Lord Runciman several times, and to whom he prepared a memorandum on the position of the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia.