In an October 1940 letter to prime minister Pál Teleki, Horthy plainly demonstrated that he shared a widespread [Hungarian] national sentiment: that Jews enjoyed too much success in commerce, the professions, and industry - success which needed to be curtailed:
"As regards the Jewish problem, I have been an anti-Semite throughout my life. I have never had contact with Jews. I have considered it intolerable that here in Hungary everything, every factory, bank, large fortune, business, theater, press, commerce, etc. should be in Jewish hands, and that the Jew should be the image reflected of Hungary, especially abroad. Since, however, one of the most important tasks of the government is to raise the standard of living, i.e., we have to acquire wealth, it is impossible, in a year or two, to eliminate the Jews, who have everything in their hands, and to replace them with incompetent, unworthy, mostly big-mouthed elements, for we should become bankrupt. This requires a generation at least."
Raphael Patai, "The Jews of Hungary", Wayne State University Press, p. 546