István Horthy
Hungarian politician and fighter pilot (1904–1942)
title: "István Horthy" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1904-births", "1942-deaths", "military-personnel-from-pula", "politicians-from-pula", "hungarian-politicians", "aviators-killed-in-aviation-accidents-or-incidents", "hungarian-world-war-ii-pilots", "hungarian-military-personnel-killed-in-world-war-ii", "horthy-family", "victims-of-aviation-accidents-or-incidents-in-1942", "victims-of-aviation-accidents-or-incidents-in-the-soviet-union", "hungarian-national-conservatives", "children-of-heads-of-state"] description: "Hungarian politician and fighter pilot (1904–1942)" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/István_Horthy" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Hungarian politician and fighter pilot (1904–1942) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| honorific-prefix | Vitéz |
| name | István Horthy |
| honorific-suffix | de Nagybánya |
| image | Horthy István portré.jpg |
| caption | Horthy in 1942 |
| office | Vice-Regent of Hungary |
| term_start1 | 19 February 1942 |
| term_end1 | 20 August 1942 |
| monarch1 | Vacant |
| 1blankname1 | Regent |
| 1namedata1 | Miklós Horthy |
| predecessor1 | Office established |
| successor1 | Office abolished |
| birth_name | István Horthy de Nagybánya |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Pola, Austria-Hungary (now Croatia) |
| death_date | |
| death_place | Alexeyevsky District, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| party | Independent |
| spouse | |
| children | Sharif Horthy |
| :: |
| honorific-prefix = Vitéz | name = István Horthy | honorific-suffix = de Nagybánya | image = Horthy István portré.jpg | alt = | caption = Horthy in 1942 | office = Vice-Regent of Hungary | term_start1 = 19 February 1942 | term_end1 = 20 August 1942 | monarch1 = Vacant | 1blankname1 = Regent | 1namedata1 = Miklós Horthy | predecessor1 = Office established | successor1 = Office abolished | birth_name = István Horthy de Nagybánya | birth_date = | birth_place = Pola, Austria-Hungary (now Croatia) | death_date = | death_place = Alexeyevsky District, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | other_names = | known_for = | occupation = | party = Independent | spouse = | children = Sharif Horthy
István Horthy de Nagybánya (9 December 1904 – 20 August 1942) was a Hungarian politician and fighter pilot during World War II. He was briefly Vice-Regent of Hungary in 1942, and was the eldest son of Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy.
Early life
In his youth, István Horthy and his younger brother Miklós Jr. were active members of a Catholic Scout troop of the Magyar Cserkészszövetség (Hungarian Scout Association), even though he was a Protestant. Horthy graduated as a mechanical engineer in 1928. He went to the United States for one year and worked in the Ford factory in Detroit, Michigan.
Career
Returning to the Kingdom of Hungary, he worked in MÁVAG's locomotive factory as a mechanical engineer. On the forefront of the designer team, he took part in the development of many great projects, such as the Class 424. Between 1934 and 1938, Horthy was director of the company and after 1938 he became its general manager. In 1940, he married Countess Ilona Edelsheim-Gyulai.
István was pro-Western, and he strenuously confronted Nazism, often making his criticism public, despite Hungary being a part of the Axis. In January 1942, he had been elected Deputy Regent, and for some time, the "small regent" enjoyed massive popularity in Hungary. Shortly thereafter, István was sent to the Eastern Front. His humanity, and his disagreement in the "Jewish question" appears even here, too – a quote from one of his letters, which he sent to his father from Kiev, Soviet Ukraine: "[...] Yet another sad topic: the Jewish companies, as I hear, -there 20 or 30,000 [men]-, are at the mercy of the sadist's passions, in every regard; the stomach of man gets ache [looking at this]; it is abhorrent, that in the 20th century, it happens at us, too... [...] I fear, we will pay for this very dearly once. (Is it possible to take them home to work there?) Otherwise, in spring, only a few will be alive. [...]"
Death
István Horthy died in a much-publicized flying accident in Russia on 20 August 1942 (18 August, according to other authors), He was then serving in the Royal Hungarian Air Force (Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő), MKHL, with the rank of 1/Lt, as a fighter pilot. His unit, 1/3 Fighter Squadron, was supporting the Hungarian Second Army against Soviet forces. He was flying his MÁVAG Héja I ("Hawk I"), V.421, a Hungarian fighter based on the Italian Reggiane Re.2000 Falco I. During his 25th operational sortie, soon after takeoff from an airfield near Ilovskoye, the other pilot flying with him asked Horthy to increase his altitude. István pulled up rapidly. His aircraft (which had become much more prone to stalls after a steel plate was added behind the cockpit of all Héja Is to protect pilots, but shifting the plane's center of gravity) stalled and crashed. According to other sources, his aircraft entered a flat spin after he made a turn at low speed to fly in close formation with a He 46 reconnaissance aircraft. Some were convinced that the Germans had sabotaged his aircraft.
Horthy's remains were repatriated to Hungary, with his funeral being held at the Hungarian Parliament Building on 27 August. He was then interred in the Horthy family crypt at Kenderes.
His only son, Sharif István Horthy, is a physicist and architect.
Honors
István Horthy was awarded the Order of Vitéz. Hungary honoured him by issuing a commemorative postage-stamp on 15 October 1942. [colnect.com/en/stamps/stamp/179998-István_Horthy_son_of_Miklós_Horthy-People-Hungary Stamp: István Horthy, son of Miklós Horthy]
References
Notes Bibliography
- Neulen, Hans Werner. In the skies of Europe: Air Forces Allied to the Luftwaffe 1939–1945. Ramsbury, Marlborough, UK: The Crowood Press, 2000.
- Punka, George. Hungarian Aces of World War 2. Osprey Publishing, Oxford, England, 2002. .
References
- John S. Wilson: Scouting Round the World, first edition, London, Blandford Press, 1959, 81.
- Ilona Edelsheim-Gyulai: Becsület és kötelesség, part I. Budapest, Európa press, 2001.
- Punka 2002, p. 9.
- ''Time Magazine'', Monday, 31 August 1941, [https://web.archive.org/web/20071117063053/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,850013,00.html Milestones]
- Neulen 2000, p. 127.
- Stenge, Csaba. (15 September 2012). "Horthy István halála, 1942. augusztus 20. Hír TV Ősök Tere, 2012".
- "MÁVAG Héjja". Elfnet.
- Lebor, Adam. "The Last Days of Budapest: The Destruction of Europe's Most Cosmopolitan Capital in World War II". Public Affairs.
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