Obituary of Dr. Elemér Hantos, Those Who Leave, Professor Elemér Hantos in the Journal de Genève, 20 August 1942, by L. Ledermann
Elemér Hantos, a professor at the University of Budapest, has died in Budapest at the age of 61. Many Genevans will remember this wise, noble figure, who was also a great European. A member of the Hungarian parliament at a very young age, Hantos served as secretary of state in his country's government before becoming president of the Hungarian Postal Savings Bank. In 1918, Hantos abandoned his public duties and became president of a private bank, then devoted himself exclusively to his studies.
Hantos was a convinced advocate of regional agreements in Europe. A free-trade liberal, he realized that Europe, during the years 1919-20 which were adversely affected by peace treaties bringing defective economic and political adjustments, (resulting from the changes to the political entities and the consecutive creation of new economic and political units), would infallibly come to ruin if the countries, linked to each other by geographical and economic ties, did not come together in an agreement to resolve their economic difficulties. For this reason, Hantos considered that the example set by the British Empire in Ottawa (Canada) should be followed at the European level. In addition, Hantos saw the regional agreements of the Nordic states, economic cooperation in the Baltic states, the states of the Little Entente, the states of the Pact of Rome and those that were linked to each other in the Ouchy Convention as “cornerstones of the reconstruction of the European economy”.
But it was the Central European region that interested him most. Hantos' idea, which he became an eloquent propagator of, was the cooperation of the agrarian countries of Central Europe, which implied cooperation in the organization of trade, transport and commercial policy. As for the economic problems of the region, volumes were written, forming a small library of books published since 1925.
His works on the agrarian problems of Central Europe, trade policy, the monetary question, the rail and river problems of this region, its postal system, etc. enjoy prestige in the field. We owe this to his initiative to organize numerous conferences on the economic problems of Central Europe, in addition to founding institutes and study centers in Geneva, Vienna, Brno and Budapest dedicated to these issues. The Center for Central European Studies, founded in 1930 at the University of Geneva, had Professor Ch. -A. Burky as its director.
Hantos was often in Geneva, where he had numerous interviews with statesmen interested in his in-depth knowledge of economic problems. We remember very well the brilliant lectures he gave in 1930 at the University’s Institute for Advanced International Studies and the lecture he gave in the large auditorium of our university to a large, attentive audience.
Unfortunately, political events went beyond Hantos. His warnings against the primacy of politics in the economic life of nations have gone ignored. The future will show whether his predictions were well-founded. But the memory of this great European will live on in his work and will remain etched in the memory of all those who had the privilege of knowing him.
L. Lederman, Privatdozent