Hungary's Numerus Clausus, the Jewish Minority, and the League of Nations
Hungary's Numerus Clausus, the Jewish Minority, and the League of Nations

Summary/Abstract: The First World War left in East-Central Europe a shattered world. Hungary, first by defections of her subject peoples, then by virtue of the Treaty of Trianon (4 June 1920), was reduced considerably in territory as well as population. Between 1918 and 1919, Hungary also had to endure several wars with the so-called Successor States (Czechoslovakia, Roumania, and Yugoslavia), a short-lived Soviet Republic, and finally a Roumanian military occupation. By November 1919, when Admiral NICHOLAS HORTHY assumed the reigns of a conservative government in Hungary, the nation's remaining people were destitute. In search of a scapegoat, the Magyars found a religious minority, the Jews, who comprised nearly 6 °/o of the population of about eight million people. The Magyars tried to justify their prejudice saying that the Jewish intelligentsia had participated in the late Communist regime in disproportionate numbers. It is not surprising, therefore, that shortly after assuming power, the HORTHY government reacted to Jewish influence in Hungary by introducing a law, the so-called numerus clausus, that would limit the number of Jewish university en-rollees in proportion to the rest of the population. The ramifications of this statute were to extend far beyond the frontiers of Hungary and assume international implications involving the League of Nations. It is the purpose of this study to examine the nature of the numerus clausus, and to show how the League of Nations appears to have missed a golden opportunity for establishing its authority in Central Europe by failing to compel Hungary to withdraw the law and therewith adhere to the minority protection clauses of the Trianon Peace Treaty.

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