hunyadi

About a year ago I got a Prinzengrosse EK that looks similar to yours - can you post some close ups for comparison?

No one knows??? Any guesses???

Rick - the tone of the musuem remains to be on the conservative / anti communist (1945-1989) ideals. The text in many of the plaques were 'look what the commies did to our military' variety. There is a whole room on the 1956 Revolution (with a nice display of an AT gun and....an alarm that goes off every time someone got near it!!! UGH!) that is clearly biased towards the revolutionaries - but that was the deal - after 1956 they were 'rebels' and 'anti-revoutionaries' (!!) today they are 'heros' 'mayrters' etc... 50 years - 180 Deg....

As far as I know its still available from Amazon (at times) or from Axis Europa Books www.axiseuropa.com

I will say it is a very complete book, but it was written as a disertaion for a doctorate and the text is very very dry - not one to read at bedtime

Here is a test for all -

What makes this a rare variant?

And - once again the hunt reveals something that I never thought I could find...

Excelent Worker of the CoOperative (??)

When does it become too much?

I would love to have one of these...

Political Officer Badges....

M1951 Gymnastica style Paratroopers Tunic

Party militia - or the Workers Militia as it was known...first pattern tunic and arm band

The M1957 tunic once the new designs went into poduction - this lasted until 1963

M1957 General - this is just after the 1956 Revolution - the demand for a more Hungarian tunic becomes a compromise. But as the ability to change all of the tunics over - this one is a M1951 Officers tunic converted with the addtion of the red piping, new buttons and sew in boards

M1951 General - color of the tunic has changed and its a two pocket design, much like the Soviet counterpart...

Attention Please.... the Generals!

First up M1949 - this is a rare period tunic of 1949 that still retains the 'Tildy' cap and badge - by 1950 these were being phased out as the one party system took over.

I remember back in 2001 when they had a mich more 'broad' spectrum of items. I miss the Dress Daggers of the World display that was up for several years. I also miss the WW2 display that they had - it covered as best that it could all the nations involved in the conflict, but focused on the Axis. Now the WW2 is just the Hungarian perspective (but that is nice becasue wehre there were only a handful of uniforms, medals, photos, equipment, etc... Now there is a whole wing of some very rare stuff. I think what happened is the musuem got a new dirrector and the whole thing went Hungarian.

Chris - do you have the book 'The Royal Hungarian Army 1920-1945"? Its a very dry history, but about the most complete out there to this day on Hungarian units (in English). Plese post away on the photos - love to see them!

Well - the meeting with Dr Godo was not very sucessful. As a hisotrian she informed me (basically) that my scope of reasearch was foolishness. She also forgot to bring the list of partisans...the other bad news is that becasue of scheduling I wont be able to meet with her before September...so - till then we see what the national archives can produce...still waiting for an answer from them...

IF you look at #29 of the Large Golden Bravery Medal you can see that a man in the Artillery won this coveted award near the cemetary

http://www.akm.externet.hu/rendjel/adatok/vitez.htm

But he was with the IIIrd Corps of the General HQ Artillery. Not with the 13th IB. But its a reference.

First Photo -

"The Soviet School that we stayed at"

Second Photo -

"The 37th IR, III Brigade heros resting (stop) place at Boldervieka"

Hi Chris - the 37th IR was part of the 13th Infantry Brigade (considered a Division at times) of the Vth Corps from June 1941 to April of 1942. The 13th did take part in the April 9th, 1941 Yugoslavian Campaign and constituted part of the right flank of the Hungarian offensive in Bacska. Thier launching point was Szeged and they were commanded by General Graf Stomm. They were alongside the German XXXXI Motorized Corps on the day. From what I can gather they were mostly in a reserve positions. Their sister brigade, the 14th took part in the sucessful attack on Szabadka. In May of 1942 the 13th IB was transefed into the IV Corps and departed from Hungary on May, 30th 1942 for the 1942 German offensive. As the Germans pushed everything into the region, the long line of Hungarian trains became bottlenecked and they had to detrain at Gomel and march 1000 Km to the Don River front. From there they took part in the 1st Battle of Karotyak (with the disaterious lack of anti-aircraft weapons!) on August 7th, 1942. Then from Aug 12th to Sept 3rd, 1942 they took part in a much better supported Second Battle of Karotyak. Then - in order secure victory (as the Germans thought) the German XXIV Panzer Corps was brought in to bolster the Hungarian 13th IB (and the 7th, 12th & 20th) for the 3rd Battle of Uryv that was launched on Sept 9th and lasted until Spet 13th, 1942. These actions had finally stabilized the Don River Front until the Soviet Winter Don offensive of Dec 1942 to January 1943 dislodged the bridgehead. According to a map that I have the 13th IB (by 1942 it is listed as a 'light division') during November 1942 was situated around Polyana and Karotyak. When the Sovet Offensive was over by the end of January the IV Corps was completely destroyed, with its elements killed, wounded, prisoners or scattered.

At a militaria show in the NW region of the USA, I found in a pile of EK's one with this type of eyelet, but it was a 1914 version. Stupidity reigned and I had run out of money by that time, so I missed out on it...

Ok - looking at my reference material - the way it is written it is the 37th Infantry Regiment, III Battalion, (Battlaion = zaszloalj - zlj?) So its with the Second Hungarian Army of the Vth Corps out of Szeged.

Do you need help translating the backs?

I would also concur that its a modern copy - perhaps $30?