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Béla Heinrich Bánáthy | |
|---|---|
 Banathy in 1998 | |
| Born | (1919-12-01)December 1, 1919 Gyula, Hungary |
| Died | 4 September 2003(2003-09-04) (aged 83) Chico, California, US |
| Citizenship | American |
| Occupation(s) | Educator, systems scientist, professor, author |
| Known for | President ofIFSR, 1994–1998 |
| Spouse | Eva Balazs |
| Children | 4, includingBéla |
Béla Heinrich Bánáthy (Hungarian:Bánáthy Béla; December 1, 1919 – September 4, 2003) was a Hungarian-Americanlinguist, and Professor atSan Jose State University andUC Berkeley. He is known as founder of the White Stag Leadership Development Program,[citation needed] established the International Systems Institute in 1982,[1] and was co-founder of the General Evolutionary Research Group in 1984.[2][3][4]
He grew up in largely rural Hungary and served in the Hungarian military during World War II. When Russia invaded Hungary in April 1945, he and his family fled toAllied-occupied Austria and lived in a displaced persons camp for six years. In 1951, they emigrated to Chicago, sponsored by the Presbyterian church. Within the year his former commanding officer suggested to the U.S. government that they hire Bánáthy as a Hungarian instructor at theArmy Language School inMonterey, California. While living in Monterey, he founded the White Stag Leadership Development Program.
His program gained national attention, and theBoy Scouts of America conducted research into incorporating leadership training into its programs. The Boy Scouts of America'sWood Badge andjunior leader training programs had until then focused primarily onScoutcraft skills, not leadership.William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt among others resisted the change.
After 20 years, Bánáthy left the renamedDefense Language Institute and went to work for theFar West Laboratory for Research and Development in Berkeley and later San Francisco. He retired from Far West in 1989 but maintained an active interest in social systems and science, including attending many conferences and advising students and others in those fields. In 1992, he helped restart the Hungarian Scout Association within his native country. In 2003, Bánáthy and Eva moved to live with their son Tibor in Chico, California. After a brief and unexpected illness, Bánáthy died on September 4, 2003.[4]
Béla Bánáthy was born in 1919 inGyula, Hungary, as the oldest of four sons. His father Peter was a minister of theReformed Church in Hungary and his mother Hildegard Pallmann was a teacher.[5] Peter Bánáthy had earned the honorary titleVitéz for his service duringWorld War I, and Béla, as his oldest son, inherited the title.[6]
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In 1937, Bánáthy entered thehu:Ludovika Akadémia as was the custom for young men aspiring to military careers.[5] In 1940, at age 21, he was commissioned as aSecond Lieutenant in thearmored infantry. Later that year he met his future wife Eva Balazs.[7] The peacetime Hungarian Army received very little training.[8] Bánáthy served two tours on theRussian front inWorld War II as an armored infantry officer. The Hungarian Army expanded rapidly from an initial force of 80,000, but when fighting started, the rank-and-file of the army had undergone only eight weeks of training.[8]
In 1941, Bánáthy's unit advanced as part of GermanArmy Group South to within 140 kilometres (87 mi) of Moscow, during a severe November ice storm. In 1942, as a soldier in the 109,000 strongSecond Hungarian Army (Second Magyar Honved), Bánáthy returned to the Russian front. They fought in theBattle of Voronezh at the Don River bend, supporting the German attack. They were charged with protecting the8th Italian Army's's northern flank between theNovaya Pokrovka on theDon River toRossosh,[9] part of the larger force defending the drive by theGerman 6th Army against Soviet GeneralVasily Chuikov's62nd Army, which was defendingStalingrad. Bánáthy was seriously wounded during the action, and he returned from the front to Budapest where he spent seven months recuperating. He married his fiancé, Eva Balazs, with his arm in a sling on December 5, 1942 in Budapest.[5][10]
Bánáthy was promoted as ajunior officer of theRoyal Hungarian Army and served on the faculty of the Ludovika Akademia under his mentor,Commandant Colonel-General Kisbarnaki General Farkas. Farkas sought a volunteer to teach junior leader training at the academy and Bánáthy volunteered. Farkas also asked Bánáthy to organize a Scout Troop for young men, 19 years and older, which was a common practice within theHungarian Scout Association at the time.[11]: 133–134 Bánáthy became committed to training the young men in officer's leadership skills; he served as the voluntary national director for youth leadership development and a member of the National Council of the Hungarian Scout Association.[12]
In July 1944 Farkas was Commander of the Hungarian VI Army Corps, which had beengarrisoned atDebrecen. He replaced General Beregfy, who was loyal to the fascistArrow Cross Party. During that month, Farkas' VI Army Corps was instrumental in repelling aRed Army attack across theCarpathian Mountains.[13] On 15 October 1944, Farkas was named commander of thePest bridgehead and Government Commissioner for Evacuation.[13][14] In early November 1944, the first Russian units appeared on the southeastern edge of Budapest.[15] As an associate of Farkas, Bánáthy likely had advance notice of the Russian advance. He also knew he would likely be executed if captured. Bánáthy was able to get his wife Eva, one-year-old sonBéla and two-week-old son László out of Budapest. Bánáthy's family, along with other officers and their families, found shelter at first in farmhouses, and later in bunkers, caves, and trenches.
When the Hungarian Second Army was disbanded on 1 December 1944 due to a lack of equipment and personnel, the remaining units of the Second Army, including Bánáthy's, were transferred to theThird Army. Thesiege of Budapest began when the city was encircled on 29 December 1944 by theRed Army. Bánáthy fought with the remainder of his unit against the Russians until after Budapest fell on 13 February 1945. The Axis was striving to protect the last oil fields they controlled in western Hungary aroundLake Balaton. By late March 1945, most of what was left of the Hungarian Third Army was surrounded and destroyed about 40 kilometres (25 mi) to the west of Budapest in an advance by the Soviet 46th Army towards Vienna.[16] The remaining shattered units fought on as they retreated progressively westward through theTransdanubian Mountains towards Austria.
Bánáthy's family and others of the remainder of his and other military units made their way west, along with tens of thousands of other refugees, about 250 kilometres (160 mi) into Austria, trying to stay ahead of advancing Russian troops. Temperatures through the time of their flight remained near 0 °C (32 °F).
Bánáthy reunited with his family in Austria. As the war ended andAustria was occupied in April 1945 by the French, British, Soviet and US military forces, the family was placed in an Allieddisplaced persons camp. They were housed in a single 6 by 10 feet (1.8 by 3.0 m) room in a wooden barrack; it served as their bedroom, kitchen, living room and firewood storage area. Food was extremely scarce and at times they subsisted on around 600 calories per person per day.[17] They were among 1.4 million displaced persons in Austria at the time[18] during a worldwide food shortage as a result of the war. Food was also severely restricted by punitive U.S. policies includingdirective JCS 1067. In 1947 German citizens were surviving on 1040 calories a day, but the Allies were also suffering from food shortages.[19]
Bánáthy later traded for milk to give two-year-old Béla and one-year-old László enough protein. As extremely little food was available in the camps, in early 1947 his wife's twin sister came from Hungary to take their older two sons back to live with the older sister. The Pallendal family, Bánáthy's in-laws, was well-educated and relatively wealthy, so they had access to more food than what was available in the camps. They intended to return the Banathy boys to their parents within a year. Beginning in early 1948, when theCold War ensued, it became virtually impossible for refugees or displaced persons to cross from the border of one country into another, or even from oneOccupation Zone to another.[20][21] The Pallendal family could not return the two boys from behind theIron Curtain.[5]
In 1948, shortly after their third son Tibor was born, the Banathy family was moved to another camp, near aMarshall Plan warehouse. Bánáthy was assigned to unload sacks of wheat from railroad cars. He contacted theWorld Scouting Movement for assistance and began to organizescouting in the DP camps. During 1947, Bánáthy was named the Hungarian Scout Commissioner for Austria; he led training for Hungarian Scout leaders along with his former commanding officer Farkas.[22] He was ordained by theWorld Council of Churches and became minister for youth among Hungarian refugees. Banathy served as director of religious education of the Protestant Refugee Service of Austria, was editor of a religious youth service and of a Scout publication.[5]
In 1948 Bánáthy's fourth son Robert was born. Bánáthy soon found work as atechnical draftsman in the statistical office of a U.S. Army warehouse.[5][23][12] In 1949, with help from aSwiss foundation, Bánáthy assisted in establishing and was selected as the President of the Collegium Hungaricum, a boarding school forrefugees, atZell am See nearSaalfelden, Austria.[4] In the same year, theCommunist government in Hungary seized the businesses belonging to the Pallendal family. Because they were members of the social elite, the Communist government considered them to be a political threat.[24]
In 1951, in what was a common practice during this time,[25] the Hungarian Police arrived at dawn to seize the Pallendal family home and arrest anddeport the family from Budapest. Seven-year-old Béla and six-year-old László Banathy, along with their Pallendal grandmother and two aunts, were put aboard a freight train and sent toward Russia. The train stopped occasionally and a few hundred people were forced off at rural towns. The Pallendal family was ejected in eastern Hungary. There an uncle located them and hid them from authorities in a small village.[citation needed]
In January, 1951, the student body of the PresbyterianMcCormick Theological Seminary inChicago sponsored Béla, Eva, Tibor and Robert Banathy asrefugees to the United States.[23] Bánáthy lived with his family at theSeminary, where he worked nights 60 hours a week shoveling coal to fire the Seminary furnace. At the same time, he was studying English from a book. He occasionally preached at nearby Hungarian churches. His wife found work as a machine operator and Tibor, their third son, enteredAmerican public school.[10]
Bánáthy moved to Monterey in June 1951, a pivotal change in his life. At the Army Language School, he met Joseph Szentkiralyi (Americanized as St. Clair), the founder of the Hungarian Department. They soon figured out they had met at the4th World Scout Jamboree in 1933. The wives of the two men also realized they had been girlhood friends in grammar school in Budapest.[23] Using her experience managing the Pallendal family restaurant in Budapest before World War II, Eva took work as a waitress in a restaurant on the Monterey Peninsula. Bánáthy served as President of his localParent-Teacher Association and on the board of the localRed Cross.[5]
On February 28, 1956, Bánáthy was naturalized as a United States citizen. After nine years of separation, and repeated failures to get his sonsrepatriated from behind theIron Curtain, Bánáthy obtained help from Dr.Eugene Blake, President of theNational Council of Churches; RepresentativeCharles M. Teague; Ernest Nagy, Vice Consul in the U.S. Legation in Budapest; Hulda Neiburh of the McCormick Theological Seminary; andHoward Pyle, deputy assistant to PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower.[26] He was finally able to arrange for 13-year-oldBéla and 11-year-old László to emigrate to the United States[5] A photograph of the two boys greeting their mother was featured inLife Magazine.
Carrying pictures of their parents, two Hungarian brothers arrived at New York International Airport, Idlewild, Queens, yesterday... The pictures are necessary because the boys... have not seen their mother and father for nine years.[27]
The boys were greeted by their parents at San Francisco International Airport at 1:10 a.m. The boys' release marked the first time since the Cold War that anyone under 65 years old had been allowed to leave Hungary to be reunited with family.[26]
Bánáthy was an educator, a systems and design scientist, and an author. At theArmy Language School, he taught in the Hungarian language department, later becoming its chairman.
In 1957 Bánáthy began enlarging a concept for a leadership development program. As Council Training Chairman in theMonterey Bay Area Council of theBoy Scouts of America, he received strong support from the Council Executive and Council Executive Board for his proposal to train boys in leadership skills. He was assisted by fellow Hungarians Joe Szentkiralyi (aka St. Clair, Chair of the Hungarian Language Department at the Army Language school) and Paul Sujan (Hungarian Language Instructor at the Army Language school); Fran Peterson (a member of the National Council and a Scoutmaster from Chular, California); and Maury Tripp (a Scouter from Saratoga, California, a member of the National Council, and a research scientist).[22][independent source needed] "Lord Baden-Powell was my personal idol and I long felt a commitment to give back to Scouting what I had received", Bánáthy said.[23]
As part of hismaster's degree program in counseling psychology atSan José State University, he wrote a thesis titled "A Design for Leadership Development in Scouting".[28] This book described the founding principles of the White Stag program, which was later adapted by the National Council of theBoy Scouts of America.[29] Prior to Bánáthy's work, the adultWood Badge and thejunior leader training programs had focused on teachingScoutcraft skills and some aspects of thePatrol Method. His research and findings on teaching principles and competencies of leadership had a huge impact on these two programs, shifting their focus to leadership skills.[30][31]
Some individuals on the national staff and many volunteers across the nation resisted the idea of changing the focus of Wood Badge from training leaders in Scoutcraft to leadership skills. Among them wasWilliam "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt, who had been the first United States Wood Badge Course Director in 1948.[32] Although officially retired, he had many loyal followers. He was adamant that Wood Badge should continue to teach Scoutcraft skills and tried to persuade the national council to stick to that tradition, but his objections were ignored.[22]
The leadership competencies Banathy articulated became thede facto method for Scout adult and junior leader training.[33] (In 2008, the White Stag program celebrated its 50th anniversary.) In 1960, the Monterey Bay Area Council recognized Béla for his exceptional service to youth and awarded him theSilver Beaver.[34]
In the 1970s, due to the success of the White Stag program, Bánáthy was appointed to theInteramerican Scout Committee and participated in three interamerican "Train the Trainer" events inMexico,Costa Rica, andVenezuela.[5]
In the 1960s Bánáthy began teaching courses inapplied linguistics andsystems science atSan José State University. In 1962 he was named Dean and Chairman of the East Europe and Middle East Division at the Army Language School, overseeing ten language departments. In 1963 he completed his master's degree inpsychology at San Jose State University, and in 1966 he received adoctorate ineducation for atransdisciplinary program in education, systems theory, and linguistics from theUniversity of California in Berkeley. During the mid-1960s Bánáthy was named Chair of Western Division of theSociety for General Systems Research. He published his first book,Instructional Systems, in 1968.[4][5]
During the 1960s and 1970s, Bánáthy was a visiting professor at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, and as he continued teaching at San Jose State University. In 1969, he left the renamed Defense Language Institute and became a Program Director, and later Senior Research Director and Associate Laboratory Director, at theFar West Laboratory for Research and Development (nowWestEd) in Berkeley (later moved to San Francisco). He "directed over fifty research and development programs, designed many curriculum projects and several large scalecomplex systems, including the design and implementation of a Ph.D. program in educational research and development forUC Berkeley".[7][5][4]
In the 1970s and 1980s, he focused his research on the application of systems and design theories and methodologies in social, social service, educational, and human development systems. In the 1980s he developed and guided a Ph.D. curriculum in humanistic systems inquiry and social systems design for theSaybrook Graduate School.[7][5][4]
In 1984, Bánáthy was co-founder with general evolution theoristErvin László and others of the initially secret General Evolutionary Research Group, or General Evolutionary Research Group.[2] A member of theSociety of General Systems Research since the 1960s, he was Managing Director of the Society in the early 1980s, and in 1985 he became its president.[1] He then served on its Board of Trustees. During the 1980s, he served on the Executive Committee of theInternational Federation of Systems Research.[2] In 1989, he retired from Far West Labs and returned to live on the Monterey Peninsula. He continued to serve as Professor Emeritus for the Saybrook Graduate School, counseling Ph.D. students. He also continued his work with the annual ISI international systems design conversations, and authored a number of articles and books about systems, design, and evolutionary research. He served two terms as president of the International Federation of Systems Research during 1994-98.[5]
He coordinated over twenty international systems research conferences held in eight countries, including the 1994 Conversation on Systems Design held at Fuschl Am See, Austria, sponsored by the International Federation of Systems Research.[7][35] He was also honorary editor of three international systems journals:Systems Research and Behavioral Science, the Journal of Applied Systems Studies,[36] andSystems. He was on the Board of Editors of World Futures,[37] and served as a contributing editor ofEducational Technology.[7]
In the summer of 2003 Bánáthy and his wife moved to live with their son Tibor inChico, California. After a brief and unexpected illness, Bánáthy died on September 4, 2003. He and Eva had been married 64 years at the time of his death.[4]
Bánáthy wrote and published several books and hundreds of articles. A selection:
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