Contrary to expectations the title might raise, this is not so much a book on the origins of anti-Semitism. Rather, it seeks to explain how the Hungarian churches took part in shaping the anti-Semitic discourse and why they remained silent in the face of the mass deportation of Jews in 1944, even though the destination was well known. The conclusions might not come as a surprise to historians who are somewhat acquainted with twentieth-century Hungarian history; yet they are nevertheless disturbing.

The rhetoric of Christian nationalism, Paul Hanebrink contends, should not be dismissed as merely an anti-Semitic phrase. In following up the debate on the moral foundations of the Hungarian nation and their Christian nature since the 1890s, he unfolds a fascinating panorama of political thought in Hungary. In the wake of the “culture war” and the introduction of civil marriage, a new conservatism began to emerge. Now, the familiar debates on historic state right and the relations with Vienna gave way to the conflict between the forces of stability and progress, between Socialism and Christian morality, which only now came to be redefined as the cultural core of the national idea. Within both the Catholic and the Calvinist clergy, this shift sparked a debate on Jewish assimilation, on the “Jewish question,” as it was perceived.

Against this background, Hanebrink shows how an anti-Semitic right formed already in response to the democratic revolution led by Mihály Karolyi and its vision of progress. Hungarian anti-Semitism was not triggered by Béla Kun's Soviet republic of 1919, and it definitely cannot be explained by the Jewish origins of some of its leading figures. To the emerging radical right, the Bolshevik experiment was only the “final indignity to be suffered by a prostrate nation” (76). From now on, Christian nationalism was clad in the language of atonement, redemption, and moral renewal. The Catholic, as well as the Protestant, clergy felt this discourse to be ambivalent in more than one respect. Within the Catholic Church, radical ideas of an “ecclesia militans” met with the concern for social stability and pastoral renewal and were soon marginalized. Understandably, the Calvinist church contested the proclaimed identification of the Hungarian state with Catholicism. Calvinist intellectuals instead developed their own version of Christian nationalism centered on the ideas of ethnic purity and political populism.

Christian nationalism, as Hanebrink argues, could not be reduced to a pliable tool in the hands of secular conservatives. It sparked a vivid debate on Hungarian identity that was embodied in conflicting confessional visions. In this debate, both churches shared in the break with the liberal past and in the language of exclusion. As a result, they forfeited any chance to withstand the Fascist challenge of the 1930s. Although they tried to keep their distance from the Arrow Cross Party, the churches supported the government in its “policy of appeasement” (160). Church representatives approved the First and Second Jewish laws of 1938 and 1939 with their severe restrictions on the ratio of Jews in the professions. Because these laws were very much in line with the position the churches had taken so far in the “Jewish question,” that approval came without major reservations. Against the racist ideology that underlay the following anti-Semitic legislation, the churches could only voice their concern for Jewish converts. When the deportations began in 1944, they even shied from meek protests and fell silent until it was too late.

Hanebrink tells a story of moral guilt and utter failure. His detailed reconstruction of the rhetoric of the “Christian nation” shows that Cardinal József Mindszenty and Bishop László Ravasz, who are revered up to the present day by their respective churches as martyrs in the struggle against Communism, had been deeply involved in anti-Semitic discourse. It is therefore easy to predict that Hanebrink's conclusions will meet with irritation and protest among the Hungarian public. In this respect, it is a disputable decision that Hanebrink deliberately omits the Lutheran church from closer scrutiny. What might be justified considering the minor role of Lutherans in the debates on Christian nationalism proves less valid in terms of the public debate the book is likely to spark. Yet, Hanebrink has written an important book that is based on deep insights into the political culture of interwar Hungary and will help our understanding of Hungarian society within its larger Central European context.