Maléter was born to Hungarian parents in Eperjes, a city in Sáros County, in the northern part of Kingdom of Hungary, today Prešov, Slovakia.

In 1956 he was a Colonel and served with the General Staff in Budapest when during the Hungarian Uprising he was sent to relieve a unit at the Kilian barracks with some tanks and a company of officer cadets.

As the chief military presence on the insurgents' side, he came into contact with the new government and on 29 October, he was appointed Minister of Defense, and was promoted to Major General on 2 November.

He was executed, along with Imre Nagy and others, in a Budapest prison on 16 June 1958 on charges of attempting to overthrow the Hungarian People's Republic.

His only son, Pál Maléter II (1946 – January 4, 2017),[1] was trained at the Hotchkiss School and Columbia University before becoming an architect in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.