Paul Hódosy-Strobl

Paul Hodosy-Strobl , actually Paul Strobl , ungarisiert Hodosy Pál (* 27. July 1895 in Lajoskomárom ( Hungary ); † 13. November 1976 in Oakland ( USA )) was a Hungarian police - General and later intelligence agent of the US Counter Intelligence Corps and the organization Gehlen .

Life

Paul Strobl was the son of German-born Pál Strobl and his wife Erzsébet, née Hofbauer. After attending grammar school, he entered the Ludovika Military Academy in Budapest in 1914 . From August 1915 to June 1921 Strobl was an active officer in the Royal Hungarian Landwehr , with which he took part in the First World War . During the Hungarian Soviet Republic , which existed in 1919 , he was assigned to a combat group of the Hungarian police.

In 1921 Paul Strobl switched to the Hungarian gendarmerie . His career as an officer was sluggish at first. Since August 1915 a lieutenant ( Hungarian Hadnagy), he only became first lieutenant (Főhadnagy) after the end of the war in 1920 , captain (Százados) in 1925 and finally major (Őrnagy) in November 1936 as head of the gendarmerie investigation center . As early as 1919, Strobl began studying law at the University of Budapest in addition to his officer work, which lasted 9 years. Although he completed the course in full, he finished it in 1928 with the so-called Absolutorium . Furthermore, Strobl operated as a large landowner since 1932 commercial fruit growing.

In 1936 Strobl had his name Hungarianized and then called himself Hódosy. In May 1940 he became lieutenant colonel (Alezredes), in November 1942 colonel (Ezredes). At the beginning of 1944 he resigned from the gendarmerie service. The reasons are not passed down. For the next few months he took care of his farm. After the occupation of Hungary by the German Wehrmacht in March 1944, Hódosy, who was close to the fascist Arrow Cross members , was tasked with reorganizing the Hungarian state police. After the Arrow Cross Putsch initiated by German SS units in October 1944, he was appointed Major General (Vezérőrnagy) inspector of the State Police under the Szálasi government . In this capacity he was involved in the massacre of Hungarian Jews by Arrow Cross members and the Hungarian police , which Hódosy advocated: “The problem is not that Jews are being murdered. The only problem is the method. You have to make the bodies disappear and not put them on the streets. "

Pál Hódosy fled Hungary with the retreating German troops and was taken prisoner by the Americans in Bavaria in early May 1945. In 1947 he was recruited as an agent in a prison camp by the American Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). From January 1948, Paul Hódosy-Strobl, as he now called himself, was a secret service employee of the Gehlen Organization (OG), which was initially under the CIC. In the OG general agency L , he managed an espionage network against Hungary as a special connection for Csárdás . Due to a lack of results, the collaboration was ended in 1951.

Paul Hódosy-Strobl tried to immigrate to the USA as early as 1950. James H. Critchfield , CIA liaison to the Gehlen organization, rated Hódosy-Strobl's past as "questionable and somehow hideous". The US authorities therefore came to the conclusion that immigration was out of the question. Instead, Hódosy-Strobl immigrated to Brazil with his wife and one of his daughters , where he also received Brazilian citizenship. From his new home in São Paulo , Hódosy-Strobl continued his immigration to the USA, which was finally approved in 1963. He settled in California , where he worked as a gardener and domestic servant until the age of 74. In November 1969, Hódosy-Strobl retired, and in 1970 he finally received American citizenship .

literature

• Sándor Szakály: A magyar katonai felső vezetés 1938–1945. Lexicon és adattár (= The highest military leadership in Hungary 1938–1945. Lexicon and data directory). Budapest: Ister Kiadó, 2001 (Hungarian) ISBN 963-9243-37-X
• Tibor Szy (ed.): Hungarians in America. A Biographical Directory of Professionals of Hungarian Origin in the Americas. 1st Ed. New York: Hungarian University Association, 1963; 2nd Ed. New York: Kossuth Foundation, 1966

Web links

• Emigration of GV 'L'-Hungariens. CIA report v. August 3, 1950 with attachments ( PDF , 1.3 MB); CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room, Special Collection NWCDA 6/135, Hodosy-Strobl, Paul 0018 (released documents from the CIA holdings; accessed September 27, 2014)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sándor Szakály: A magyar katonai felső vezetés 1938–1945. Lexicon és adattár. Budapest 2001, p. 138 (Hungarian).
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Tibor Szy (ed.): Hungarians in America. A Biographical Directory of Professionals of Hungarian Origin in the Americas. 1st Ed. New York 1963, p. 169.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Sándor Szakály: A magyar katonai felső vezetés 1938–1945. Lexicon és adattár. Budapest 2001, p. 138 (Hungarian); detailed professional career in: Biographical Data of Hodosy-Strobl, Pal (Paul). CIA report v. August 3, 1950, Annex No. 1. In: CIA FOIA ERR, Special Coll. NWCDA 6/135, Hodosy-Strobl, Paul 0018 (see web links).
4. ↑ Melitta Mérey: Melitta's Memoirs. (= Peter Béla Mérey (ed.): Mérey Family History ; 1) Toronto 2007, p. 43 note 45.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Timothy Naftali: Reinhard Gehlen and the United States. In: Richard Breitman et al .: US Intelligence and the Nazis. Cambridge MA 2005, pp. 375-418, here: pp. 389f.
6. ↑ cit. n. Alex Kershaw : The Envoy. The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe. Cambridge MA 2010, p. 89 (English).
7. ^ Emigration of GV 'L'-Hungariens. CIA report v. August 3, 1950 with attachments; CIA FOIA ERR, Special Coll. NWCDA 6/135, Hodosy-Strobl, Paul 0018 (see web links); ODEUM introduction: Study of Organization 114 v. February 17, 1950 (released document from the holdings of the CIA), NWCDA 1/1, Albert, Ludwig, 0011 ( PDF 1.3 MB, accessed on September 2, 2014).
8. ↑ Timothy Naftali: Reinhard Gehlen and the United States. In: Richard Breitman et al .: US Intelligence and the Nazis. Cambridge MA 2005, pp. 375-418, here: pp. 390, 412 note 81; United States Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service: Biografical Information Hodosy-Strobl, Pal v. May 7, 1970 ( PDF , 170 kB); CIA FOIA ERR, Special Coll. NWCDA 6/135, Hodosy-Strobl, Paul 0035 (released documents from the holdings of the CIA; accessed on September 27, 2014).