István Horthy de Nagybánya (9 December 1904 – 20 August 1942) was a Hungarian politician and fighter pilot during World War II.

István was pro-Western, and he strenuously confronted Nazism, often making his criticism public, despite Hungary being a part of the Axis.

His humanity, and his disagreement in the "Jewish question" appears even here, too – a quote from one of his letters, which he sent to his father from Kyiv, Soviet Ukraine: "[...] Yet another sad topic: the Jewish companies, as I hear, -there 20 or 30,000 [men]-, are at the mercy of the sadist's passions, in every regard; the stomach of man gets ache [looking at this]; it is abhorrent, that in the 20th century, it happens at us, too... [...] I fear, we will pay for this very dearly once.

He was flying his MÁVAG Héja I ("Hawk I"), V.421, a Hungarian fighter based on the Italian Reggiane Re.2000 Falco I.

During his 25th operational sortie, soon after takeoff from an airfield near Ilovskoye, the other pilot flying with him asked Horthy to increase his altitude.