Hungarian communist who backed Soviet intervention with Kádár in 1956 and became prime minister after the revolution was crushed
Born into a German Catholic family in Seregélyes, he studied law and was taken prisoner on the Eastern Front in 1915 and sent to Tomsk. There he joined the Bolsheviks and commanded an international POW unit; back in Hungary in 1918 he helped found the Hungarian Communist Party and was war commissar of the Slovak Soviet Republic. He lived in the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1936 and, under the name Otto Flatter, commanded the XI International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. After the war he was Budapest’s chief of police and then a diplomat. In the 1956 revolution he was interior minister under Imre Nagy, but in November he went to Moscow with János Kádár and openly backed Soviet armed intervention. As minister of the armed forces and public security in Kádár’s government he helped organise the security regiments and the Workers’ Militia, and he was prime minister from 1958 to 1961.
Activities and affiliations
- 1956–1961 Government and administration · Hungary
- 1918–1919 Political and party leadership · Party of Communists in Hungary (KMP)
- Military command · Spain state institutions
- 1946–1949 Security, intelligence and policing · Hungary
- 1949–1956 Diplomacy and international organization · Hungary
- 1956–1967 Political and party leadership · Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSzMP)
Career Timeline
- 1915Captured by the Russians; held in Tomsk
- 1918Co-founder of the Hungarian Communist Party
- 1919War commissar of the Slovak Soviet Republic
- 1936–1939Commander of the XI International Brigade in Spain
- 1946–1949Budapest chief of police
- 1956Interior minister under Nagy; minister of the armed forces and public security under Kádár
- 1958–1961Prime minister of Hungary
Related historical events
- 1953–1956Eastern Europe after Stalin: the crises of 1953–1956Hungarian communist leaderAt Brioni, Tito urged the Soviet leaders to install Kádár rather than Münnich as head of the new government.
- 1956The Hungarian RevolutionMinister of the armed forces and public security under KádárInterior minister under Nagy, he backed Soviet armed intervention in Moscow with Kádár in November and from 4 November helped organise the security regiments and the Workers’ Militia in Kádár’s government.