In progress
Project manager:: Ferenc Eiler
Research period:: 2009-2012

 

Objective research on the history of the German and Hungarian minorities in the interwar period and on the minority and support policies of the Hungarian and German governments was far from being a favourite research topic during the initial decades after World War II. There were two basic reasons for this: first, the paralysing effect on public opinion and academic life of the question of war responsibility; second, the practice derived from the fundamental tenets of communist ideology which limited attempts to research this slice of the past in an objective manner. The primary aim of the project is to determine the truth value of one of the evident “truths” of Hungarian political public opinion, namely that the German minorities that were ceded to the neighbouring states would necessarily favour territorial revision and thus would be willing, at the time of need, to cooperate even in an active sense with the Hungarian minorities to ensure that Hungary’s former territories be returned to Hungarian sovereignty.