Police Officers at a Crossroads: Life-Stories of Hungarian Police Officers after the German Occupation of Hungary

Abstract

The focus of the paper is on the fate of a special police unit and its members. Before World War II, the civilian response work in the present sense took place within the framework of the police in Hungary. Within the framework of the Budapest Metropolitan Police Commissariat, the task of the Political Police Department was to carry out the prevention work. By the end of the 1930s, it was clear that Germany, an ally on paper, was active in Hungary. Thus, when the Wehrmacht occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944, one of the first steps the invading SS and SD units have taken was to arrest the police officers working against the Germans. At the same time, many police officers have anticipated the continuation of their careers, moreover, a progress in it after the German occupation. The State Security Police, established at that time, served the occupiers and participated in the Holocaust. Typically, they continued to work in 1945 to wrap up an anti-state conspiracy. The mentioned German-arrested police officers were detained for weeks and then deported. In 1945, they were liberated by US troops and then entered the CIC to find the Hungarian war criminals. Finally, the study dealt with the post-war fate and career of the policemen featured in the article. © 2024 Institut za savremenu istoriju. All rights reserved.