The Dutch police arrested three men in the Hague on December 21, 1925 after one of them attempted to exchange a 1000 French franc note. The bank manager, seeing that the bill was counterfeit, had the man followed and, in turn, confronted and his room searched. The leader and two accomplices were arrested including a certain G Mankovich. The name was variously reported but a historical article [3] reports that he was “…György de Mankovich, a nephew of former Minister of the Interior Baron Zsigmond Perényi, head of the irredentist organization Nemzeti Szövetsé (National Federation).” This young man and his accomplices were found with double soled shoes containing French notes and a false-bottomed trunk stuffed with 1000 franc notes.
It seems that G Mankovits was a minor player in a much larger attempted putsch known as the Frank ügy (Franc affair) that sought to reinstate the Austro-Hungarian Empire while taking revenge on the Allies (especially the French) who had so crippled the former Hungarian empire in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. The plot printed a total of 30 billion in French francs to topple the French while funding the putsch. By the time the full detail of the fascist plot unraveled, over 40 persons were arrested or detained including the mayor of Budapest and a Hapsburg prince – a descendant of one of the Holy Roman Emperors. This affair used German note paper and is seen by scholars as the first clear contact between the Hungarian and German fascists – foreshadowing the deep Nazi affiliations within Hungary.
Although his name was misspelled in various accounts ranging from the New York Times, to London Times, to Time Magazine, it has been confirmed by various bits of family evidence and the Slavic Review article [3] that György was in the plot. He was one of those arrested and likely released some 3 months later as a Hungarian Holiday gesture. Ironically, the holiday was probably the March 15 commemoration of the failed 1848 Hungarian attempt to free Hungary from Austrian rule. It was a critical battle in this revolution that György’s great-grandfather, Antal was captured and beaten by Russians allied with Austrian Hapsburgs. We look forward to a future visit to Budapest where we might uncover more credible information in police files.
One of our favorite lead sentences in a magazine article [1] can be found in Time: Super-scareheads frightened many citizens of Budapest: “CHIEF OF POLICE NADOSSY AND PRINCE WINDISCH-GRAETZ TEARFULLY CONFESS TO COUNTERFEITING 30,000,000,000 FRENCH FRANCS!
G Mankovits was the grandson of Rev. Kornel Mankovits of Sambron, Austria Hungary.
[1] Hungary: the counterfeiters . Time Magazine, Monday, January 18, 1926.
[2] Magyar arrests create sensation. New York Times. December 23, 1925.
[3] Klay, Andor. 1974. Hungarian Counterfeit Francs: A Case of Post-World War I Political Sabotage, Slavic Review, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Mar., 1974), pp. 107-113. The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2495329
