The appreciation of the year 1945 began almost immediately after the war, and lasts until today, while generating strong tensions in both public life and historiography in Hungary. Debates concerning the politics of memory were crystalized especially about the question if 1945 represented a liberation (of the German yoke) or an occupation (by the Soviets). Recent research, of which this contribution summarizes the results, has considerably enriched the literature with new points of view on the intermediate period of 1944 – 1945.