Béla Király
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Dr. Béla Király (born April 14, 1912) is a Hungarian resistance fighter, military historian, author, and politician. He was born in Kaposvár, Hungary. Commissioned as a second lieutenant of the Hungarian Army in 1935, he fought actively in World War II. Following the war, he joined the Hungarian Communist party, and rose to the rank of major general in the Hungarian army. In 1951, he was arrested on what many felt to be false charges and sentenced to death. On appeal, the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. In September of 1956, however, he was released from prison. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the military guard and military commander of Budapest. After the revolution, he fled to Austria and later the United States, where he attended Columbia University. He received his doctorate in history in 1962 and taught Military History at Brooklyn College, where he now holds the title of Professor Emeritus. During his tenor at Brooklyn College he also served as director of the Society In Change Program on East Central Europe, supervised Brooklyn College Press (the College's Publishing House, and served as the advisor to the Brooklyn College Military History Club. After the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, he eventually returned to Hungary, and from 1990 to 1994, became an independent member of the Hungarian Parliament. Since then, he has assumed the role of government adviser. In 2004, he was made an associate member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
