Antal Pálinkás (Pallavicini) ( 1922-1957)
Born into an aristocratic family in Budapest, he worked for a short time, after leaving school, at the Manfréd Weiss Engineering Factory in Csepel. He volunteered for the army in December 1940 and entered the Ludovika Academy in the following year. He was commissioned as a armoured-corps lieutenant in 1943. However, he joined the anti-fascist resistance during the German occupation of Hungary and took part in establishing the Hungarian Front. He served as a liaison with the military wing of the resistance movement led by Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky. When the leaders of the resistance movement were taken at the end of 1944, Pallavicini crossed the front line and was taken a Soviet prisoner of war in Timişoara, Romania. He commanded a battalion in the division of soldiers who had changed sides voluntarily, then as a brigade leader at Camp 126 in Nikolayev, and later as a unit commander of the lager hospital. He returned to Hungary early in 1946 and was detailed to join the equipment section. In 1947, he was adjutant to Major General István Beleznay, head of supplies. He joined the Hungarian Communist Party in 1947 and was decorated for his war service in 1948. In 1950, he became brigade commander of the Piliscsaba tank regiment. In the following year he was staff commander in Aszód and changed his name to Pálinkás. In 1954, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, but he was charged with abuse of his position, demoted to command a brigade of the Eger mechanized artillery, and had his candidate membership of the HWP withdrawn. From there, he was transferred in July 1955 to the staff of the Armoured NCO Training Regiment at Rétság as a junior officer. In 1956, the revolutionary military council <revolutionary councils and committees> of the regiment elected him its chairman. He made contact with the local revolutionary organizations and supplied the national guard with arms and ammunition. On October 31, he received orders to organize the escort of Cardinal József Mindszenty to Budapest and provide a security guard for him at the archbishop's palace in Úri utca. He then returned to the Rétság barracks. On November 4, he called an alert on the orders of his regimental commander and his unit captured a defence sector. He called on ex-servicemen in the district to report for duty and handed out to them large quantities of weapons and ammunition. Finally, he reported by telephone to Major General Gyula Váradi, and on his orders, surrendered without a fight to the Soviets. Pálinkás was arrested on December 25, 1956. After his release, he was demobilized at his own request on January 4, 1957, but in February, he was arrested again. The court of first instance sentenced him to life imprisonment on September 16, 1957, but the Special Council of the Military College of the Supreme Court, on November 11, 1957, altered this to a death sentence. This was carried out on the morning of December 10, 1957 at the National Prison in Budapest.
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