Partly as a result of their faithful work to protect all lawful Hungarian citizens regardless of their ethnicity or religion, Hungary was the safest place for Mid-European Jews until Hungary's German occupation in March 1944. As local and state agencies were also authorized to utilize the services of the gendarmes, they had a mixed role of both protecting Jews and Jewish interests, as well as taking part in their deportations and the securing of Jewish properties for the government. Later, following the Soviet occupation of Hungary at the end of the war, communist propaganda seized upon the latter activity to destroy the gendarmerie's good name while totally ignoring the corps’ service to the country, even to the Jews, prior to the German invasion.