Peyer, Károly (1888–1956)
Social Democratic politician. Peyer became a member of the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SZDP) in 1917 and first secretary of the Trade Union Council in 1918. He held a ministerial portfolio for a short while after the collapse of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, but emigrated to Vienna in 1920 because of the White Terror. He returned in 1921 and was the leading figure in the SZDP until 1944. In December 1921, he made the Bethlen-Peyer pact with the prime minister, giving his party limited scope to operate and to run in the 1922 elections. Peyer became a member of Parliament in that year and leader of the social democratic group in Parliament in 1931. Among the first to be arrested by the Gestapo in 1944, he was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, from where he returned in May 1945. He was an SZDP member of Parliament until 1947, when he was returned for the › Hungarian Radical Party. He left the country later that year. He was convicted in his absence of conspiracy and spying and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. He became prominent in the Hungarian social democratic movement in exile.
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