Born in Budapest to a Catholic family, Imrédy studied law as a young man before he started working for the Hungarian Ministry of Finance.

Imrédy's attempts to improve Hungary's diplomatic relations with Britain initially made him very unpopular with Germany and Italy.

Imrédy realized that he could not afford to alienate the two fascist powers on a long term basis, however, and from the autumn of 1938 onward his foreign policy became increasingly pro-German and pro-Italian.

As Imrédy drifted further to the right, he proposed that the government be reorganized along totalitarian lines and enacted legislation that restricted the freedom of the press and caused many Jews to suffer economically.

Found guilty of war crimes and collaboration with the Nazis, he was sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad in the courtyard of the jail in Markó street, Budapest, in 1946.