Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 7
Biological Weapons in Non-Soviet
Warsaw Pact Countries
LAJOS RÓZSA
KATHRYN NIXDORFF
In 1944 Allied bombers destroyed Hungary's advanced bio-
warfare institute in Budapest. However, the staff survived and after the
war expressed a willingness to serve the new Hungarian Communist re-
gime. Yet it appears that the new regime declined. Why did a cruel Com-
munist dictatorship pass up this opportunity to augment its power? Were
the other non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries also free of biological weap-
ons (BW)? Or did they participate in the Soviet BW program? This chap-
ter aims to answer these questions.
Traditionally, Central Europe contained an array of nations exhibiting a
diversity of ethnic origins, languages, and religious denominations. Eth-
nic tensions, traditional in this part of the world, easily develop into inter-
national military conflicts here, and, indeed, both world wars originated
from this region.
At the close of World War II Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Roma-
nia, Bulgaria, and the eastern part of Germany were occupied by the So-
viet Army. The Soviets manipulated political life to ensure that Commu-
nist regimes assumed the power. Communists took power in Yugoslavia
and Albania as well. In 1955 Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania,
Bulgaria, Albania, and, in 1956, the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
signed the Warsaw Pact Treaty (WP), and thus formally became allies of
the USSR. Attempts to leave this alliance provoked brutal reprisals by the
Soviet Union, as in Budapest in 1956 and in Prague in 1968. Thus, these
diverse nation states found themselves in a quite uniform historical situa-
tion. Their religious and cultural differences, including their ethnic ten-
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