Iván Pagony

Iván Pagony was born on 28 March 1916 in Budapest, in a family of employees (his father was a tax official).In 1934 he graduated from the Military High School in Sopron, then he was admitted to the Ludovika Academy, and in 1938 he was promoted to the rank of infantry lieutenant. His name was probably Hungarianized from Pohl at this time. In his autobiography of 1950, he wrote of his career choice that he had been forced to make it 'by the hopeless employment conditions of the time'. However, there is no other evidence of this compulsion in his personal file. After graduating from the Várpalota Rifle School (assault course), he joined the occupying forces in October 1942 as a company commander of the 252nd Infantry Regiment. In August 1944 he was transferred to the 46th Infantry Regiment. From the end of September he was a battalion commander, his unit was subordinated to the 10th Infantry Regiment and thus took part in the defence of the Attila Line, mainly in the battles around Tápióság-Pécel. On 14 November 1944, Colonel General Günther Pape, Commander of the Feldherrnhalle Armoured Grenade Division, thanked the battalion for its exemplary endurance. His Hungarian commanding officer, Colonel Ferenc Lakatos, was extremely pleased with his commanding performance and on 5 February 1945 he requested the award of the German Iron Cross II Class from the German Liaison Officer assigned to the 12th Reserve Division. In November 1944 he was wounded, and after his recovery he was assigned to the ammunition column of the VI Corps in besieged Budapest. On 8 February 1945 he transferred to the Soviet troops, and as commander of a volunteer company he took part in the fighting of the last days of the siege and the liquidation of breakout . Subsequently, as a company commander of the 1st Division, he also performed railway security duties in Transdanubia and Austria.

In 1946 he joined the Social Democratic Party, and after the party merger he was accepted into the Hungarian Workers' Party, but in 1957 he did not apply for membership of the MSZMP.In 1947 he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Order of Freedom, but interestingly he was not awarded the Budapest Medal of Honour, while he was awarded the Soviet Liberation Medal.

In 1946, he graduated from the Military Commissariat Academy, after which he was promoted to the rank of major and assigned to the Border Guard. He was demobilised in December 1952 - the reason for this he gave in his autobiography as being that the Border Guard had ceased to have an independent military commission, whereas his demobilisation was apparently due to the fact that almost all Ludovico officers in the Border Guard, which had been part of the ÁVH since 1950, had been dismissed on principle. He then worked in the Finance Department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, all the time as head of department. In social work, he worked as a people's auditor. As a rare exception, he was not stripped of his rank after 156 years, although the related internal evaluation described him as having a 'cautious' attitude to domestic policy issues.

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