State Protection Authority (ÁVH)

Name and pronunciation

ÁVH is the initialism of the Hungarian Államvédelmi Hatóság (State Protection Authority) and is read by its letter names, ávéhá. Its first letter Á is the long vowel [aː]. Its officers and collaborators were called by the adjective form ÁVH-s (ávéhás).

Origins and Organisation

The ÁVH originated in February 1945 as the Budapest Political Police Department (PRO), was reorganised as the State Defence Department (ÁVO) in 1946, and became the State Protection Authority (ÁVH) in 1948. Its first chief was Gábor Péter; Interior Minister László Rajk played the central role in designing the apparatus. In 1950 the ÁVH became an independent authority removed from the Ministry of Interior and absorbed the Border Guard. Modelled on the Soviet KGB, it operated through 19 county-level departments.

The Terror Apparatus

Torture was the ÁVH's core instrument under Rákosi. Detainees suffered beatings, sleep deprivation, fingernail extraction, and immersion in hydrochloric acid over interrogation periods lasting three to eighteen months. Extracted confessions were presented at public show trials; recantation in court meant further torture during recess. Notable victims included the ÁVH's own architect László Rajk (tried for Titoism and executed in 1949), Cardinal József Mindszenty (arrested 1948, sentenced to life), and Jewish community leaders arrested in 1953 for a Stalin-ordered show trial that blamed Zionists for Raoul Wallenberg's disappearance, a case halted after Stalin's death.

Internment Camps

The ÁVH operated a network of camps at Kistarcsa, Recsk, Tiszalök, Kazincbarcika, and other sites. Before 1953, some camps were designed to cause death through overwork and maltreatment. These camps were wound up in the autumn of 1953 under the New Course (see below).

1953: the chief's arrest and the New Course

At the end of February 1953 Rákosi, echoing Stalin's last "anti-Zionist" purge, announced to the party Central Leadership the arrest of ÁVH chief Gábor Péter and several ÁVH officers. At the Kremlin talks in June, Beria cited the 1,500,000 proceedings instituted in a country of 9,500,000 as proof that the interior and justice authorities and the ÁVH had "been working very badly," and demanded that the Interior Ministry and the ÁVH be merged. He denounced Rákosi for personally directing state security, intervening in specific investigations and even ordering physical violence. Imre Nagy proposed placing the security and interior organs under the control of the party's Administrative Department.

The Central Leadership resolution of 27–28 June 1953 stated that it had been wrong for Rákosi to give the ÁVH direct orders on how to investigate and whom to arrest, and to order the physical mistreatment of detainees, which the law forbids. Under the New Course the ÁVH camp system more or less ceased to exist in the autumn of 1953: of more than 5,000 people held at Recsk, Kistarcsa, Kazincbarcika and Tiszalök, 3,234 were freed by the end of October and 659 were charged; the Hortobágy deportation camps were closed and 7,281 deportees regained their freedom. Yet many thousands of political prisoners remained behind bars, and some of those released were put under secret-police surveillance.

The 1956 Revolution

The ÁVH became the visible target of popular fury in October 1956. Crowds attacked the Budapest Party headquarters on Republic Square and the ÁVH building at 60 Andrássy Avenue. Captured officers were lynched, hung from lampposts with money stuffed in their mouths. József Dudás' militia stormed the ÁVH headquarters and massacred the officers inside, an event documented by both Western and Eastern-bloc press. On 29 October, the Nagy government officially dissolved the agency. After the Soviet intervention crushed the revolution, János Kádár, himself tortured by the ÁVH in the 1950s, did not revive the name, though he accepted the services of many former ÁVH officers. The successor Ministry of Internal Affairs III (1956–1990) operated with considerably narrower powers.

Legacy

The ÁVH headquarters at 60 Andrássy Avenue, Budapest, is now the House of Terror (Terror Háza) museum, commemorating victims of both the Arrow Cross and communist regimes. ÁVH records are held by the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (ÁBTL).