Hungary’s Secret Police Archives Chief Offers To Resign Amid Political Scandal (Worthy News Investigation)

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief reporting from Budapest, Hungary

BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – The head of Hungary’s communist-era secret police archives said Friday he would offer his resignation after acknowledging that 164 people had been wrongly identified as collaborators, triggering demands for Prime Minister Péter Magyar and several senior officials to step down.

Gergő Bendegúz Cseh, director-general of the Historical Archives of the State Security Services, said the errors had been corrected but acknowledged that the institution’s leadership must accept responsibility for publishing inaccurate information. “The person at the top must take responsibility for the error,” he stressed.

He said he would offer his resignation to the institution’s supervisory authority, leaving parliament to decide whether he should remain in office.

The controversy erupted after a searchable database containing about 60,000 names from communist-era state security records was launched Wednesday, November 4, as part of efforts to expose the activities of Hungary’s former secret police.

Among those wrongly identified was Sándor Lezsák, a former deputy speaker of Hungary’s parliament and co-founder of the anti-communist Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), a movement that became a political party. He was monitored by the communist secret police rather than recruited as an informant.

ARCHIVE ERRORS EXPOSED

“I was not an agent. I was the one under surveillance,” Lezsák declared in a statement rejecting the classification. His daughter, Fidesz parliamentarian Anna Molnárné Lezsák, subsequently announced that he would pursue legal action.

Prime Minister Magyar apologized publicly to Lezsák on Thursday, while the archive director said he had also apologized to all 164 people affected.

Cseh explained that the error occurred when computer specialists processed old magnetic-tape records containing information about secret police informants and people connected to them, including individuals under surveillance.

The system incorrectly classified some of those contacts as informants. Cseh said the archive had corrected the entries and was continuing to review the database for further errors.

The controversy prompted Fidesz and its Christian Democratic ally, KDNP, to demand the shutdown of the entire website, while opposition politicians called for the resignation of Magyar, several ministers and the archive director.

PARLIAMENTARY HEARING

Hungary’s parliamentary National Security Committee has scheduled a public hearing for Monday, November 9, to examine the publication of the files and the errors discovered afterward.

The hearing was called by committee chairman István Apáti, a senior politician of the far-right nationalist Our Homeland Movement (Mi Hazánk Mozgalom), who said the archive’s leadership must attend.

However, Magyar announced Friday that his governing Tisza Party would boycott the hearing.

“The Tisza Party will not participate in the national security circus convened for Monday by Fidesz’s subcontractors,” the prime minister wrote on Facebook.

Magyar accused Our Homeland of focusing on political disputes rather than genuine national security concerns, suggesting that more pressing issues would soon emerge.

FAMILY SECRETS EMERGE

The publication has also prompted emotional discoveries among ordinary Hungarians examining the newly accessible records.

Emma Czimbula, who visited the archives, said she was surprised to discover the names of relatives, including her former father-in-law, who died about 40 years ago, and the husband of one of her uncles, who died roughly 20 years ago.

“I could never have suspected that,” she said, describing the unexpected discoveries in her family history.

Another visitor, József Mészáros, said he had searched numerous names and was particularly surprised to encounter his former school principal.

“I didn’t know he had been recruited. He never told us,” Mészáros recalled, adding that he had also discovered the name of a relative whose existence he had not previously known.

PUBLIC INTEREST SURGES

The archives said the newly launched website attracted about 1.1 million visitors on November 4, reflecting widespread public interest in the identities of people linked to the former secret police.

More than 5,000 requests for additional information about family members arrived in a single day, compared with the 3,500 to 4,000 requests the institution normally handles annually.

Cseh said the extraordinary demand had placed additional pressure on staff already working under tight deadlines to make the records publicly accessible.

The files concern Hungary’s communist-era security apparatus, which monitored political opponents, Christians, members of other religious communities and ordinary citizens before the country’s transition to democracy in 1989.

However, historians have cautioned that inclusion in the surviving records does not necessarily establish that someone actively informed on others, underscoring the importance of distinguishing documented collaboration from surveillance or other forms of contact.

The controversy comes as Hungary continues confronting the legacy of communist rule more than three decades after the collapse of the one-party state, with the newly released files raising questions about historical accountability and the reliability of official records.