I am currently a few chapters into Victor Sebestyen's 'Twelve Days: Revolution 1956' - a history book about the Hungarian attempt to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, which was met with Soviet tanks and the execution of the Hungarian communist leadership.
My motivation for delving into East European modern history comes from a few directions. I'm concentrating pretty heavily on German language and history at the moment so it is nice to take a break and look at some closely related but slightly different history. Reading about the Berlin Wall and Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi) has also got me interested in the history of the Warsaw Pact countries. Finally and more tangentially, while watching 'The Hour' (a BBC programme which I eventually got disillusioned with but doggedly followed to the end) I was interested in the portrayal of the Hungarian uprising that they put in between their more plot-central focus on Suez.
Anyway, Sebestyen makes the interesting point that there was quite a large influx of former fascist Arrow Cross members into the post-war AVO security/secret police organisation. This superficially makes a lot of sense as apart from the showy trials at Nuremburg and initial purges in Soviet territory the removal of fascists from key positions always took second place to pragmatic consideration of restoring order and manoeuvering for Cold War advantage. The Headquarters of the two organisations was even the same (and is now a museum to the victims of Communism and Fascism named 'The House of Terror' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Terror)).
However, apart from the shared HQ I can't find any collaboration of this claim. If anybody knows anything about the issue or can point me towards any good books it would be much appreciated!
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