László Rajk

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
László Rajk (1947)

László Rajk [ 'laːsloː' rɒjk ] (born March 8, 1909 in Székelyudvarhely , today Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania ; † October 15, 1949 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian communist politician and a victim of a show trial during the Stalinist purges .

Life to arrest

László Rajk came from the large family of a German-born shoemaker in Szeklerland, Transylvania . While his ten-year older brother Endre Rajk turned to the political right and made it to the position of State Secretary in the Arrow Cross government of Ferenc Szálasi , László joined the then illegal Communist Party in 1930 during his training as a teacher at the University of Budapest . After his relegation from his studies he worked as a construction worker and became head of the communist faction of the construction workers' union . When the Spanish Civil War broke out , he went to Madrid and became political commissar of the Hungarian Rákosi battalion of the International Brigades . In this role he took part in the civil war between 1937 and 1939. After the end of the civil war, he was initially interned in French camps, but was able to escape and return to Hungary in 1941. During the Second World War he was one of the leaders of the communist resistance, he was secretary of the Central Committee (ZK) of the illegal CP. In December 1944 he was arrested by the Arrow Cross and handed over to the Gestapo . His brother Endre may have saved his life back then. After the collapse of the Third Reich , László Rajk was able to return to Hungary. He became a member of the Central Committee and the Politburo . Now he saved the life of his brother Endre, who had fled to Germany: Hungary did not demand the extradition of the leading Arrow Cross member. László Rajk was Hungarian Minister of the Interior from 1946 to 1948 , then Minister of Foreign Affairs until his arrest on May 30, 1949.

He was a staunch communist and supporter of Stalin. Rajk was instrumental in smashing the bourgeois Hungarian parties and arresting their leaders as interior minister. In July 1946 he caused the dissolution of over a thousand organizations. He himself began with the "exposure" of "conspiracies" and the first show trials against political opponents in Hungary.

He was convicted and executed as an "imperialist agent" and " Titoist " in a show trial . In 1956, after the start of de-Stalinization, Rajk was rehabilitated under the head of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev .

History of the process

Rajk belonged to two groups of people within the communist parties who were particularly affected by the Stalinist purges: He was a former participant in the Spanish civil war and was one of the communists who did not emigrate to the Soviet Union, but stayed in their homeland and organized the resistance there had.

Rajk was considered a staunch, fanatical communist and supporter of Stalin. Nevertheless, it is said to have been popular within the communist party, especially among the youth, but also outside with intellectuals and the democratic left.

Direction from Beria

In May / early June 1948, Mátyás Rákosi was ordered to Moscow, where Beria ordered him to expose a “Titoist” conspiracy at the head of the Hungarian Communist Party and to eliminate the potential Titoists. Rákosi and Beria agreed on Rajk as the main conspirator. It should Tibor Szőnyi as a contact man for American intelligence services, in particular Noel Field , and Lazar Brankov be provided as a link to Tito aside. Lists of alleged conspirators were drawn up, initially listing friends and colleagues of Rajk in the Ministry of the Interior and in the police. In addition, there were former combatants of Rajk from the international brigades of the civil war. In addition, former left-wing Social Democrats and former officers of the Hungarian army in World War II were added to these lists .

Noel Field

The American Noel Field was invited to Czechoslovakia, arrested there and taken to Budapest, where he was held in a secret prison of the Hungarian secret police ÁVH until 1954 . Field had worked for the Unitarian Service Committee during the war and stood up for people persecuted by National Socialism. He developed an ever greater sympathy for the Soviet Union. At the same time he had made the acquaintance of Allen Welsh Dulles , the head of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a forerunner of the CIA , during the war. He is said to have cooperated with this insofar as both were against National Socialism. Through this American connection - also with Hungarian communists - the accusation of supporting Western secret services should be proven.

Reassurance of Rajks

While these preparations were proceeding, Rajk was appointed general secretary of the National Popular Front. However, at a meeting of the Politburo he was accused of having dissolved the party organization in the Interior Ministry and had a special police group set up. He had to practice self-criticism and was replaced at the head of the Interior Ministry and appointed Foreign Minister. On May 29, 1949, he was personally invited to dinner with Rákosi before he was arrested the next day.

Rajk initially denied all allegations, but his comrades János Kádár , interior minister at the time, and Mihály Farkas , who interrogated him, convinced him that the aim of the trial was only to intimidate the common imperialist enemies and that no death penalty would be imposed. Rajk then admitted all the allegations, as his comrades had demanded. His confession was recorded by the Hungarian State Security (ÁVH) and broadcast shortly afterwards on Hungarian radio. As an encrypted signal to his family, Rajk had given an incorrect date of birth.

The process

Trial report from the perspective of the SED (1949)

The two-week trial of Rajk and seven other defendants began on September 16. The charges were " Titoism " and cooperation with Western intelligence services. In the course of these show trials , the accused delivered extensive “confessions” they had memorized. Rajk and three other defendants were sentenced to death for the remaining life and high prison sentences . As a result, there were extensive arrests of "Rajkists".

Besides Rajk were charged:

  • György Pálffy (former officer in the Hungarian army , converted to the communists in 1940, organized the military resistance, appointed head of the military policy department of the Ministry of Defense in 1945)
  • Tibor Szőnyi (previously head of the KP cadre department, main representative of the communists returning from the West)
  • András Szalai (former Hungarian underground fighter, arrested in late 1943)
  • Béla Korondy (former officer, participated in armed resistance during the war, joined the Communist Party in 1945, high post - police colonel - in the Ministry of Defense and later in the Ministry of the Interior)
  • Pál Justus (originally the extreme left wing of the Social Democrats, arrested in 1932, emigrated to France, returned to Hungary in 1936, where he was an important initiator of the united front)
  • Lazar Brankov (Yugoslav, participant in the Yugoslav partisan struggle)
  • Milan Ognjenović

Relationship to show trials in other Eastern Bloc countries

The Hungarian show trials against communists took place after the corresponding proceedings in Albania , but exceeded them considerably in terms of scope and external impact. Other communist parties were able to evade the Stalinist purges for a longer period of time, but even there there were trials that were comparable to those against Rajk. B. the Slansky trial in Czechoslovakia and the trial against Paul Merker in the GDR .

The Hungarian show trials as the first pure show trials served as a model. In particular, the relationship with Noel Field was often reconstructed in the later show trials. Ultimately, the show trials ended only with Stalin's death.

Rehabilitation

Julia Rajk and son László Rajk at the state funeral in 1956
Grave on the Kerepesi temető

On March 27, 1956, Rákosi publicly stated for the first time that the Supreme Court of the People's Republic of Hungary had rehabilitated Rajk and others.

It was then ordered that the bodies of those executed, who had been buried in a forest near Budapest, be exhumed and buried in a dignified manner. On October 6, 1956, Rajk and others were buried in the Budapest Central Cemetery in the presence of a large crowd. Among them was Imre Nagy , who had advocated investigating the show trials during his year and a half reign from 1953 until his dismissal in 1955. The funeral was the first major event after his retirement where the former politician appeared again in public.

literature

Web links

Commons : László Rajk  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd-Rainer Barth , Werner Schweizer (ed.): The case of Noel Field: Asyl in Hungary 1954-1957 , p. 292 . Basic print 2006, ISBN 978-3861631323
  2. ^ German history in documents and pictures
  3. ↑ The time 29/1958: Now also Rajk's widow? Kadar's cleanup is in full swing
  4. ↑ Sarah Günther: The Spirit of 1989 - In conversation with Katalin Jánosi, the granddaughter of the revolutionary martyr Imre Nagy. Budapester Zeitung, June 16, 2019, accessed on July 17, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Rajk, László
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Székelyudvarhely
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1949
Place of death Budapest