Árpád Bella

Árpád Bella 2014

Árpád Bella (* 1946 in Sopron ) was the chief border officer near the Hungarian city ​​of Sopron, who enabled over 600 GDR citizens to escape to Austria at the Pan-European Picnic in 1989 .

Live and act

Árpád Bella graduated from military school in 1965. In 1979 he became deputy commander of the border guard of the Sopron region.

On August 19, 1989, he served as a lieutenant colonel on the border with Austria . A delegation to the Pan-European Picnic was announced for this day, which should cross the border in its area. Instead, he and his colleagues saw a crowd approaching the border that was clearly not the delegation announced. Since, according to an internal service instruction, firearms should only be used in the event of danger to their own life, Bella ordered his colleagues to let the people pass the border through a broken gate. Over the course of the afternoon, more than 600 GDR citizens were able to cross the border into Austria.

Bella initially received a serious reprimand for his instruction, and investigative proceedings were initiated. From then on, many officer colleagues regarded him as a traitor. After the democratization of Hungary, which took place a little later, he received various honors for his actions in the following years.

Bella was retired in 1998. In 1999 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary . On February 22, 2011, Bella was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Árpád Bella is widowed and has two daughters.

Reception in the media

• Gyula Kurucz (ed.): The gateway to German unity. Sopron border breakthrough August 19, 1989 . edition q in Quintessenz-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86124-529-9 . With a contribution by Árpád Bella.
• Sylvia Nagel: Documentation from the series When the Eastern Bloc became history . ARTE from May 19, 2009. Trailer

Web links

• Nicholas Brautlecht: Picnic for Freedom , article on the Goethe-Institut website
• Walter Mayr: And suddenly there was a hole in the fence , one day , Zeitgeschichten on Spiegel online, May 27, 2009

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Claude Kovacs: Arpad Bella, 53 ans, garde-frontière hongrois, a créé malgré lui la première faille dans le rideau de fer, en août 1989. Sur la brèche , liberation.fr, 11 August 1999 (French)
2. ↑ Torsten Hampel: The breakthrough. In: Der Tagesspiegel . 19th August 2014.
3. ↑ Merit Cross on Ribbon for Mr. Árpád Bella ( Memento of the original from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Official website of the German Embassy Budapest; Retrieved July 18, 2011