Arrest and Conviction of Cardinal József Mindszenty 1948–1949. Part 1. “He wants to be a martyr, but I would not do him this favour”

Abstract

As a result of the intense political struggle after the Second World War, the Catholic Church, led by Cardinal József Mindszenty, Archbishop of Esztergom, remained the only independent institution in Hungary. This study deals with the political process against Mindszenty and his show-trial. On 26 December 1948, Cardinal Mindszenty was taken into police custody, having been accused of treachery, espionage, foreign currency manipulation, and conspiring to overthrow the republic. All of these charges were stereotypical accusations made by totalitarian regimes. There were seven defendants in the Mindszenty case, comprising three groups: “legitimist conspirators”, “traitorous spies”, and the “foreign currency speculators”, who were the alleged fi nanciers of the conspiracy. The world was shocked to hear of the arrest of the Hungarian primate, Cardinal Mindszenty. The Holy See imposed the gravest discipline on Catholics. Mind- szenty was interrogated immediately after his arrest. He initially stood fi rm. The subse- quent interrogation records clearly refl ect, however, the methods of the State Protection Authority: a series of self-accusatory and factitious sentences are to be found in the manipulated texts. This article is based on documents held by the Hungarian National Archives, the Historical Archives of the State Security Services, the Esztergom Primate Archives, the Archives of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the National Archi- ves and Records Administration (USA), and others.