State Protection Authority

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State Protection Authority

Államvédelmi Hatóság
Agency overview
Formed	10 September 1948 (1948-09-10)
Preceding agencies	Main Command Political Department (PRO) (2 February 1945 – October 1946) State Protection Department (ÁVO) (October 1946 – September 1948)
Dissolved	28 October 1956 (1956-10-28) (declared) 7 November 1956 (1956-11-07) (confirmed)
Superseding agency	Ministry of Internal Affairs III
Type	Secret police
Jurisdiction	Hungary
Headquarters	Andrássy út 60., Budapest
Employees	30,000 (1953)
Agency executives	Gábor Péter (1945–1953) László Piros (1953–1956)
Parent agency	Budapest Police Ministry of Interior

The State Protection Authority^[a] (Hungarian: Államvédelmi Hatóság, ÁVH) was the secret police of the People's Republic of Hungary from 1945 to 1956. The ÁVH was conceived as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's KGB in Hungary responsible for supporting the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party and persecuting political criminals. The ÁVH gained a reputation for brutality during a series of purges but was gradually reined in under the government of Imre Nagy, a moderate reformer, after he was appointed Prime Minister of Hungary in 1953. The ÁVH was dissolved by Nagy's revolutionary government during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and succeeded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs III.

Archived data related to the ÁVH and the Ministry of Internal Affairs III are made available through the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security [hu].^[1]

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