Tibor Eckhardt: His American Years 1941-1972. EEM, 709 by Katalin Kádár Lynn (review)

Abstract

572 SEER, 88, 3, JULY 20IO 'Czechoslovak' Germans about themerits of the Protectorate, many felt like 'second-class Germans' (p. 49), not least because of the disadvantages that it brought them: it introduced draft,work duty and ruined parts of the economy. Conversely, some Czechs favoured the Protectorate, since it solved the problem of unemployment, and although most Czechs lost control of their businesses they continued to play leading roles. A related observation is that what was perceived as Germanification was in fact nazjfication:Bryant attempts to free the events from theProtectorate from the straitjacket ofCzech history writing that reduces all events to components of the Czech-German struggle. Bryant does not entirely succeed in showing themutual influence between the two chaotic, violent and ad hoc attempts at nation building. The Czech inclination to obey Nazi rule remains somewhat one-dimensional. Pragmatic attitudes are correcdy presented, but the roots can arguably be found much deeper, perhaps even in nineteenth-century Czech nation-building or in the ambivalences of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Moreover, the domestic move towards rightwing positions during the so-called Second Republic and particularly the propaganda activities in the Protectorate would have provided additional insight. In this respect journalists-politicians such as Emanuel Moravec and Emanuel Vaj tauer are remarkably absent. The Czechs and resistance movements are discussed as rathermonolithical groups, with the exception of theLondon exile community. Itwould have been interesting to determine if there were crucial differences between conservative and Communist resistance with regard to the national issue. Even with these com ments inmind, Prague inBlack isa highly appreciated contribution to thefield. It successfully undermines fixed conceptions about the era, reinterprets the events in national terms and provides enlightening revelations from archival sources. Department of European Studies Universityof Amsterdam Carlos W. C. Reijnen Lynn, Katalin K?d?r. Tibor Eckhardt:His Amer?can Tears 1941-1972. EEM, 709. East European Monographs, Boulder, CO, 2007. ii + 253 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. $40.00. Tibor Eckhardt was one of the second tier of politicians in inter-war Hungarian politics. A member of the gentry class that served as the true backbone of theHungarian political system,he was born in 1888, received a first-class education and entered the bureaucracy in 1908 where he rapidly earned promotion into the senior ranks of the Ministry ofHomeland Defence, thereby avoiding active service in World War One. In the chaos thatmarked the firstpost-war months, Eckhardt joined the various counter-revolutionary groups opposed to the revolutionary governments of Mih?ly K?rolyi and B?la Kun, ultimately ending up as press secretary in theNational Army led by Mikl?s Horthy that 'liberated' Budapest from theCommunists in the autumn of 1919. REVIEWS 573 From 1920 he served as head of the Prime Minister's Press Office in the governments of P?l Teleki (1920-21) and Istv?n Bethlen (1921-22) but in 1922 he gave up his administrative responsibilities in order to run for parliament and as a new MP immediately marked himself out as one of a small group of right-radicalMPs noted for their antisemitism, pro-Italian/German orienta tion, and their demands for social reform. In 1923, this group, led by Gyula G?mb?s, broke with the government and established the Race-Defending Party which was prompdy relegated to the fringes of parliamentary politics and was electorally obliterated in the 1926 elections. Eckhardt lost his parlia mentary mandate, while his erstwhile leader, G?mb?s, rejoined Bethlen's Government Party, began to rise through theministerial ranks, and in 1932 was appointed Prime Minister. Eckhardt, in contrast, remained steadfastiy in opposition to the Govern ment Party for the remainder of the inter-war period, and even launched a new opposition party dedicated to the defence of agricultural interests.At the same time, however, Eckhardt worked hard to jettison his right-radical baggage. He severed his linkswith the various quasi-fascist organizations in Hungary and the National Socialists in Germany, cultivated excellent relations with theAmerican ambassador to Budapest, embarked on various uninspiring lecture tours that asserted his foreign policy credentials, assumed themantle of leader ofHungary's campaign for the revision of thepost-World War One borders, and...