The general and contested witness of 1956
“I was skin and bones coming out of five years of imprisonment.”
Béla Király was a Hungarian officer whose career crossed the Second World War, the construction of postwar socialism, and the 1956 Revolution. Sentenced to death by the postwar regime and later commuted and released, he became the highest-ranking military commander of the Hungarian armed forces that resisted the Soviet intervention. In exile he became a historian and teacher in the United States, while his memoirs and writings on the Tito–Stalin split argued that Stalin had prepared to invade Yugoslavia. Archive-based scholarship later disputed or qualified that claim, making Király both an important witness to 1956 and a contested author of Cold War memory.
Career timeline
- 1935Graduated from Ludovika Military Academy, commissioned second lieutenant
- 1942–1945Hungarian Army staff officer, Eastern Front service
- 1949–1951Commander of infantry in the Hungarian People's Army, major general
- 1951–1956Imprisoned in a political trial, sentence commuted from death to life
- 1956Commander-in-chief of the National Guard, military commander of Budapest
- 1957–1966Exile in the United States, earned a history PhD at Columbia University
- 1964–1982Professor of military history at Brooklyn College
- 1990Member of the Hungarian National Assembly
A soldier caught between negotiation and armed resistance
“I have to go there, even if it costs me my life, because the country expects my assistance.”
Pál Maléter was a Hungarian officer who became a prisoner of war in the Second World War, joined the anti-German struggle, and entered the Communist Party after 1945. During the 1956 Revolution, he was sent to the Kilián Barracks, agreed to a ceasefire with insurgents, and joined their defense while helping negotiate between soldiers and civilian armed groups. As defense minister in Imre Nagy's government, he went to negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet forces, was arrested, and was executed with Nagy in 1958. Rehabilitated in 1989, he was reburied as one of the revolution's martyrs.
Career timeline
- 1939Entered military service
- 1940Cadet at the Ludovika Military Academy
- 1944–1945Soviet prisoner of war, then anti-German partisan
- 1945Commander of a guard battalion for the provisional government; joined the Hungarian Communist Party
- 1956.10Colonel; commanded the defense of the Kilián Barracks
- 1956.11Defense minister in Imre Nagy's government; promoted to major general
- 1956.11.3Negotiating delegate on troop withdrawal; arrested at Tököl
- 1958Executed
- 1989Rehabilitated, posthumously promoted and reburied
- 1956.10.23Commanded the armored unit sent to the Radio building
- 1956.10.25Led tanks sent to relieve the Kilián Barracks
- 1956.10.29–31Ceasefire and negotiations with armed groups; took part in organizing the National Guard
