Hungary’s defence ministry moving to ‘historical’ location

The defence ministry will move “organisational units of its leadership” to the former building of the Military History Museum in the Castle District, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The statement noted that the first independent defence ministry, set up in 1867, had been placed in the Castle, “an iconic site of Hungarian history, culture, and politics”.

An independent ministry was established to lead the Hungarian Defence Forces, which was born with the Compromise of 1867, and was housed in the Buda Castle. The Buda Castle Quarter is an iconic place of Hungarian history, culture and state life. In the past decades, not only the Hungarian Defence Forces, but also the structure of the Ministry of Defence, both structurally and physically, has been stuck in a state that did not allow for the creation of an environment that was adequate to the challenges and tasks of the present.

However, the fifth Orbán government and the defence and armed forces reform initiated earlier in the year have devoted more attention and importance than ever to the development of a force capable of protecting Hungary and the Hungarian people with adequate strength and performing the tasks arising from allied obligations to a high standard. Alongside the Defence Staff, which is responsible for the military command of the armed forces, the Ministry of Defence is responsible for civilian management, defence-related tasks and the state management tasks arising from the alliance systems, which are given a high profile both at home and abroad.

The ministry gradually relocates some of the Ministry’s management units to the former Military History Institute and Museum in Kapisztrán Square.

The collections of the Military History Museum will be moved to the Bálna building on the Pest side as well as to Székesfehérvár, in central-western Hungary, while the military history archives will stay in the same building with the ministry, the statement said.