The extension of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in the first half of the twentieth century, which hit most European states, required political interferences within the highest legislative and executive authorities of states as well as in local administrations and bodies of self-government. Legislative interventions resulted in the formation of new local political elites whose representatives, mostly recruited by the criterion of political reliability, held the defining positions and played the significant role in implementing anti-Jewish policy during the Holocaust era. The main aim of this contribution is the analysis of the mechanisms of legislative interventions into the creation of new local political elites in selected examples of Nazi-occupied countries (General Government, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) and allied regimes (Slovak State and Hungary).
The paper analyses the social status of the Jewish members of the interwar municipal political elite during the Holocaust in the example of the town of Prešov. They lost their democratically elected mandate due to the dissolution of Jewish parties and opposition parties in Slovakia after Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party came to power in October 1938. The main attention is focused on the (declining) vertical social mobility of members of the former elite in order to find out whether their previous political engagement and possible social ties associated with it influenced their social status at the time of the systematic implementation of anti-Jewish policy or helped them to survive during the Holocaust. The paper intends to capture a common model of behaviour, as well as individual actions and apply the acquired knowledge to the whole group of Jewish municipal political elites in the period under review.
The subject of the analysis is the process of the exchange of municipal political elite in 1938 – 1944 on the example of Prešov. The municipal political elite are understood by the authors as the part of society that has power, and which determines the direction of further development of society. In the years 1938 – 1944 in Slovakia, there were several interventions in the municipal government in connection with important socio-political events (Post-Munich crisis, declaration of the Slovak state, etc.). These interventions were of a different nature and were regularly linked to staff exchanges. One of the consequences of exchanges in municipal political elites was the penetration of the elements of authoritarianism at the local level. These processes are analysed by the authors on the example of Prešov. In this city, the followers of the incoming Hlinka Slovak People's Party had to fight for the seizure of power, which required the use of all available means. However, they did not avoid intra-party competition. Similar in-depth analyses based on detailed primary research can be seen as a prerequisite for understanding and knowledge of the process of exchange of municipal political elites, including decisive socio-political determinants, as well as the nature of the authoritarian regime established in Slovakia during the Post-Munich crisis in the autumn of 1938.
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