Ernö Gerö
| Ernő Gerő | |
|---|---|
Ernő Gerő in 1962
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| General Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party | |
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In office 18 July 1956 – 25 October 1956 |
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| Preceded by | Mátyás Rákosi |
| Succeeded by | János Kádár |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
8 July 1898 Terbegec, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 12 March 1980 (aged 81) Budapest, Hungary |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Political party |
Hungarian Communist Party, Hungarian Working People's Party |
Ernő Gerő [ˈɛrnøː ˈɡɛrøː] (born Ernő Singer; 8 July 1898 – 12 March 1980) was a Hungarian Communist Party leader in the period after World War II and briefly in 1956 the most powerful man in Hungary as first secretary of its ruling communist party.
Gerő was born in Terbegec, Hungary (now Trebušovce, Slovakia) to Jewish parents, though he later totally repudiated religion. An early Hungarian communist, Gerő fled Hungary for the Soviet Union after Béla Kun's brief communist government was overthrown in August 1919. During his two decades living in the USSR, Gerő was an active KGB agent. Through that association, Gerő was involved in the Comintern—the international organization of communists—in France, and also fought in the Spanish Civil War. There he performed purges against Trotskyist groups in the International Brigades; as a result he was called the "Butcher of Barcelona".
The outbreak of the Second World War found him in Moscow again, and he remained for the duration of the war. After the dissolution of the Communist International in 1943, he was in charge of propaganda directed at enemy forces and prisoners of war. Gerő was among the very first communist functionaries to return to Hungary in early November 1944. Ernő Gerő was a member of Hungary's High National Council (provisional government) between 26 January and 11 May 1945.
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Wikipedia