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Ákos Fóris                    Ádám Gellért

 

 

Our research investigates the activities of Hungarian Royal Army as occupying force in the territory of the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1944. 

We strive to ascertain the structure and perimeters of the Hungarian occupational policy of occupation in the East based on German and Hungarian orders, guidelines and hundreds of post-war investigative material.

What was the division of labor between the Hungarian and German military authorities and their relation with the civilian authorities on the ground, moreover how did they interact with the civilian population? We also seek to identify Hungarian economic policies and anti-partisan warfare. In conjunction with portraying events in the occupied territories we ask how much and what sort of information reached Budapest and the Ministry of Defence. 

By building on (regional) case studies, we investigate the everyday life during the occupation and the effects of the brutalization of war on the Hungarian officer core. We believe that providing these case studies we will be able to better ascertain the amount and quality of information that had reached Hungary about the atrocities in the East.

We are interested in establishing the disparities between German and Hungarian occupation policies but also identifying the common elements in relation to the extermination of the Jews and the handling of prisoners of war. Our research is  comparative in the sense that it seeks to establish the differences between other Axis countries, namely the distinguishing features of Italian, Romanian, Slovak and Finnish occupational policies in the East. 

Another component of our research agenda is to analyze the various German, Hungarian and Soviet post-war investigations and trials, as well as to examine the post-war image of partisans and the historiography of the war in the East.  

the history of the hungarian occupation of the soviet union 
(1941–1944)
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