Péter Buchmüller is a PhD candidate in History at Central European University. The tentative title of his dissertation is Jews in the Bar Association – Inclusion and Exclusion from the Legal Profession in Budapest (1867-1945). Buchmüller received an M.A. in Sociology from Eötvös Loránd University, and an M.A. in History with a Jewish Studies specialization from Central European University. As an Open Society University Network Global Teaching Fellow in the 2023-2024 academic year, Buchmüller taught two courses on the history of Jews in Central Europe at Eötvös Loránd University.
Buchmüller’s dissertation examines the history of Jewish lawyers in Hungary, the presence of antisemitism within the profession, and its development from the 1867 emancipation to the Holocaust. His project delves into the radicalization of lawyers in Budapest during the interwar period from the late 1920s until the end of World War II. Buchmüller aims to provide a more detailed understanding of everyday antisemitism – particularly in interwar Hungary – within a milieu where support for equal rights should have been a fundamental value. His project sheds light on the antisemitism of the elites in Hungary and the direct and indirect role of far-right lawyers in the fate of their Jewish colleagues in the Holocaust. In particular, he discusses far-right lawyers and their association, Magyar Ügyvédek Nemzeti Egyesülete (MÜNE), which was established in 1927 in Budapest and initiated the exclusion of Jewish colleagues from the profession and every field of society. MÜNE had a key role in the arrest, ghettoization, and deportation of their Jewish colleagues in Budapest.