Materials in the Library of Congress Collections about Hungarians Serving in the U.S. Military

Materials presented in this guide are arranged by type, such as books or periodicals, videos, etc. On this page, however, we chose to bring together many types of materials available in various collections, related to one topic. One of the many topics that repeatedly come up when reviewing materials is the participation of Hungarian Americans in the military history of the United States. Hungarians distinguished themselves starting with the Revolutionary War, served important roles in the Union Army during the Civil War, and served in great numbers and in many roles during the 20th century as well.

After the unsuccessful fight for establishing an independent republic in 1848, about one thousand of the Hungarian military officers who had to leave their home country choose to settle down and start a new life in the United States, which seemed to embody many of the ideals that they fought for at home. When the Civil War broke out, almost all of them volunteered to fight on the side of the Union, even those who originally settled in the South. A number of them chose to fight together with black soldiers.

Serving in the U.S. military sometimes set up Hungarian soldiers against Hungary. At one point during WWI, Hungarian soldiers serving in the U.S. military came face to face with Hungarians serving in the Austro-Hungarian military, on a frontline in Italy. Another example of Hungarians in the American military being considered enemies by the Hungarian government was during the Cold War. The Hungarian People's Republic viewed the military service of those Hungarians who emigrated to the United States after the 1956 revolution with great suspicion. One of the books in the list below was published in Hungary at the time, and accuses the U.S. of training them to be spies. The Library of Congress also has interviews with Hungarian Americans who were selected to work for the OSS (the U.S. military intelligence office during WWII), because they knew Hungarian.

LC has many types of materials in its collections that can help researchers explore the military participation of Hungarian Americans. There are of course books in Hungarian and in English about the military careers of individuals, as well as books about their collective participation in major military events. Among the books there is also a collection of letters written by Hungarian-American soldiers during WWII, and an English-Hungarian aid for writing letters home from military service. It is worth noting that the collections of the Library of Congress also include drawings, photographs, digitized newspapers with articles from various times, and scholarly articles published in journals, plus unpublished theses and dissertations. The Library has relevant materials in its Manuscript Division as well. Moreover, the Library of Congress has been collecting interviews with military personnel as part of its Veterans History Project (VHP). In addition to unedited audio- and video-recorded oral history interviews, VHP accepts memoirs and collections of original photographs, letters, and diaries as well. A number of these interviews are listed in this guide on the page called Music, Audio and Video section of this guide.

Below is a curated list of materials that is by no means comprehensive, it is meant to showcase the variety of sources available for researchers. One can search for similar materials by clicking on the author, subject heading, or the call number in the catalog record of an item.

The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional digitized versions are included when available. This list is organized in alphabetical order by title.