Ferenc Veress (1832-1916)
n.d.
Bowl with a portrait of Baron Gábor Kemény

Photoceramic, with watermark
23 cm
 
Hungarian National Museum
Collection: Glass and Ceramics Collection I, Inventory number: 1961.1806
 
Place of origin/creation: Cluj-Napoca
 
Baron Gábor Kemény (1910–1946) was a Hungarian politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs during the final months of World War II.
 
Political Career and Trial
 
An aristocrat from Transylvania, Kemény was a fervent supporter of fascism and a prominent member of the far-right Arrow Cross Party. After the German-backed coup d'état in October 1944 that overthrew Regent Miklós Horthy, Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi established the "Government of National Unity." Kemény was appointed as its foreign minister.
 
His tenure was brief and chaotic, lasting from October 1944 until the government disintegrated in late March 1945 as Soviet and Romanian forces pushed the Germans and their Hungarian allies out of the country. Kemény fled Hungary along with other members of the Szálasi regime.
 
After the war, he was captured by American forces, handed over to the new Hungarian government, and tried in Budapest by a People's Tribunal as a war criminal. Found guilty of treason and crimes against humanity, Baron Gábor Kemény was executed by firing squad in 1946.
 
LL/131086