State Protection Authority
| Államvédelmi Hatóság | |
 |
|
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 10 September 1948 |
| Preceding agencies |
|
| Dissolved | 7 November 1956 |
| Type | Secret police |
| Jurisdiction | Hungary |
| Headquarters | Andrássy út 60., Budapest |
| Employees | 30,000 (1953) |
| Agency executives |
|
| Parent agency |
Budapest Police Ministry of the Interior |
The State Protection Authority (Hungarian: Államvédelmi Hatóság or ÁVH) was the secret police of Hungary from 1945 until 1956. It was conceived as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's secret police forces and gained an indigenous reputation for brutality during a series of purges beginning in 1948, intensifying in 1949 and ending in 1953. In 1953 Joseph Stalin died, and Imre Nagy (a moderate reformer) was appointed Prime Minister of Hungary. Under Nagy's first government from 1953 to 1955, the ÁVH was gradually reined in.
This is a summary of the organisations acting as political police between 1945 and 1956.
The subsequent government of János Kádár didn't want to resurrect the ÁVH under this name after 1956 (Kádár was tortured by the ÁVH in the 1950s), yet it flourished in the system of the Ministry of the Interior (Hungarian BM). This should be considered in the light of the use of the Soviet security apparatus directly in Hungary after the 1956 revolution, and in preparation for the trial of Nagy and "his accomplices". Between 1956 and 1963 Kádár, a natural opportunist, fought an inner party battle against hardline Stalinists, although he accepted the services of many cruel former AVH torturers. Kádár's victory was signalled in 1963 by a general amnesty for the 1956 revolutionaries, an indication of the absence of a political police. Hungary would go on to be the only Warsaw Pact country without a formal intelligence service, since all intelligence and espionage functions were vested in the AVH, and later the Ministry of Interior.
Between 1945 and 1952, Peter Gabor (Benjamin Eisenberger) was the absolute leader of the State Protection Authority (Államvédelmi Hatóság), responsible for much cruelty, brutality and many political purges.
While the security apparatus was operating, it supported the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) directly, with little reference made to Government norms. This support was primarily through the secret gathering of intelligence, largely through a vast network of informants, like the system used by the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) in the German Democratic Republic.
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Wikipedia