In an interview for German daily Bild, Hungary's premier Viktor Orbán underlined that the reburial of martyred Prime Minister Imre Nagy 25 years ago was a “revolution of the hearts”.
The Prime Minister said in an interview to Germany's best-selling newspaper that the fight against Communists had lasted the longest in Hungary and only ended with the adoption of the new Constitution in 2011.
The two-part interview published on Monday and Tuesday presents Viktor Orbán as a former opposition politician “who knocked the first brick out of the Berlin Wall”.
Commenting on 2014 also being the 25th anniversary of the end of the Cold War, the Prime Minister said 1989 was “the year of change, freedom and revolution” when people understood that they could speak and act without fear.
He said the reburial of Nagy and other martyrs on 16 June 1989 signified that “after decades of dictatorship, normal life had returned to Hungary”.
In this respect the reburial was "not only the revolution of the spirit but also the revolution of the hearts," he stressed.
He recalled that at the coffin of Imre Nagy, Hungary’s martyred Prime Minister who was murdered by the Communists, he demanded without fear that Soviet troops should leave Hungary.
It is often heard that the Germans are grateful to the Hungarians for playing a leading role in tearing down the Berlin Wall. However, Hungary is also thankful since the fate of the region very much depended on Germany’s reunification and this made the irreversible transformation in Hungary and other Central European countries possible, the Prime Minister explains in the interview.
The opening of the Hungarian-Austrian border in June of 1989 still serves as the foundation of good political, economic and human relations with Germany, the Prime Minister concluded.