Béla Kohánszky

Béla Kohányszky was born on 15 October 1919, his father was a retired director-general of Lawszák. After graduating from the Ludovika Academy, he was promoted to lieutenant in the field artillery in 1942. In 1944, he was retrained as an assault gunner, and as an assistant officer of the 7/2nd Battalion, and later as a battery commander, he took part in the unit's battles in the lowlands, where he was wounded twice in October. For his bravery he was awarded the Sword Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit and the Bronze Governor's Commendation. After his recovery he fought in the outskirts of Budapest from November. However, after mid-January, his unit became increasingly withdrawn from the fighting, with soldiers practically in hiding. On 8 February 1945, it joined the Hungarian volunteer company attacking at 5/a Szüret Street. In his biography, he explained this by the fact that he had previously had several run-ins with the Germans and had been arrested for disobeying an order. As a half-squadron commander in the 481st Soviet Infantry Regiment, he took part in the liquidation of breakout in the Buda Hills. He was then taken to the prisoner of war camp in Jászberény, where he was released after three weeks. He immediately enlisted in the new army and was posted to Austria as an artillery battery commander, but was never deployed. It was at this time that he learned that his father had been shot dead by the gendarmes in 1945 (the reason for this is uncertain, in a characterisation that was negatively biased against Kohánszky, the incident was described as a 'coincidence', and Kohánszky did not mention this in his autobiography).

In 1947 Oszkár Variházy described him as an excellent, hard-working officer, after which he applied to the Military Academy, but was rejected because, according to a description made at the 3-month party school in Pécs in 1948, he was "an old Horthy officer. Soft, very nervous, impatient. He treats people like a bourgeois gentleman. The Comrades could hardly get close to him." In 1947, he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Hungarian Order of Freedom.

He was retired in 1949. In 1956 he organised the National Guard in Sümeg and supplied arms to the revolutionaries, for which he was arrested.