text: Horthy was never crowned king, and therefore could not grant nobility, but he established a new order of merit, the Order of Gallantry. Its members received the hereditary title of  ("brave"). They were also granted parcels of land, which renewed the "medieval link between land tenure and service to the crown" (Bryan Cartledge). Two Transylvanian aristocrats, Counts Pál Teleki (d. 1941) and István Bethlen (d. 1946), were the most influential politicians in the interwar period. The events of 1918–19 convinced them that only a "conservative democracy", dominated by the landed nobility, could secure stability. Most ministers and the majority of the members of the parliament were nobles. A conservative agrarian reformlimited to 8.5 percent of all arable landswas introduced, but almost one third of the lands remained in the possession of about 400 magnate families. The two-chamber parliament was restored in 1926, with an Upper House dominated by the aristocrats, prelates and high-ranking officials.
  Antisemitism was a leading ideology in the 1920s and 1930s. A  law limited the admission of Jewish students in the universities. Count Fidél Pálffy (d. 1946) was one of the leading figures of the national socialist movements, but most aristocrats disdained the radicalism of "petty officers and housekeepers". Hungary participated in the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and joined the war against the Soviet Union after the bombing of Kassa in late June. Fearing the defection of Hungary from the war, Nazi Germany occupied the country in Operation Margarethe on 19 March 1944. Hundreds of thousands of Jews and tens of thousands of Romani were transferred to Nazi concentration camps with the local authorities' assistance. The wealthiest business magnates of Jewish origin were forced to renounce their companies and banks to redeem their own and their relatives' lives.
  The fall of the Hungarian nobility