József Kővágó, 1913–1996
After completing the Military Engineering Academy in Budapest, József Kővágó obtained a degree in mechanical engineering at the Budapest Technical University. In 1939, he joined the staff of the Institute of Military Technology, later seeing active service for a short time. Kővágó began to work in the military opposition movement after [?& the Arrow-Cross coup on] October 15, 1944. He belonged to the group led by Staff Colonel Jenő Nagy and worked on the Liberation Committee of the Hungarian National Uprising as an aide to Lieutenant General János Kiss. Kővágó was arrested on November 22, 1944. His case was transferred on December 8 from the summary martial court to the military court. He was freed and sent to the front again, where he deserted in March 1945. In November 1944, he had joined the Independent Smallholders’ Party, on whose proposal he was appointed deputy mayor of Budapest. He became mayor of Budapest after the elections in October and won a parliamentary seat in the national elections on November 4. Kővágó played an instrumental part in organizing the reconstruction of Budapest and a return to normality. In 1947, he resigned from his positions for political reasons and retired from public life. In 1950, he was arrested on fabricated charges and sentenced to life imprisonment, being released only in September 1956. During the revolution, Kővágó took part in resurrecting the Independent Smallholders’ Party, of which he was elected general secretary on November 3, having become mayor of Budapest again on November 1. After the defeat of the revolution, he fled abroad on November 30, 1956 and settled in the United States. He defended the cause of the Hungarian revolution at a UN public session in January 1957. The Hungarian Revolutionary Council, Strasbourg elected him vice-chairman, a position he held until 1960. Kővágó remained active in exile in preserving the memory of the revolution and initiating Western protests against the continued Soviet occupation of Hungary. From 1961 to 1978, he worked as a research engineer and from 1978 to 1983 as a university professor. He was awarded a high Hungarian decoration in 1991 and honorary citizenship of Budapest in 1992. He died in 1996 and was buried in Budapest in the following January.
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