Hungary A new badge

[Ulsterman]

Here's a little piece Rick and I picked up today amidst the grey mist, amidst an almost empty Hall today. As yet untranslated...it's stamped metal, but the enamel on the star is very nice.

[Guest Rick Research]

It's a lovely "silver" white metal badge, hollow stamped with those funny up-and-down slide on bars the Hungarians liked for attaching badges.

[hunyadi]

Ah - yesssss.... the badge of little men who woke you up in the middle of the night to scare you with stories of evil capitalist empires....the political officers badge...

Actualy this is the badge of a political officer / instructor from the education system. The badge superceeded the polit officers badge that was worn on the arm in the early 1950's. These come in silver and gold - but I have yet to translate the exact awarding criteria. Stay tuned...

As for the badge - I am going to say that its a 1960's version, but I cant say for certain till I see a shot of the back - the early version had wider / flatter prongs on the back

[hunyadi]

As luck would have it - I did get the regualiton for these translated...not exactly what I had been led to believe about the badges...

Published as:

56 / Kat. Tanint. Csf - 1950

"Soldiers and Political Training Excelenc Badge" (for officers)

'According to the closing exams of each branch of service, the officer candidates who recieve an excelent exam score in every subject and those who are then recomended and whose behavior is exemplary, the title and badge is bestowed uppon them.

The title and the badge is only available to offcier candidates in their final year. The badge and the title is bestowed exclusivly by the Military Educational Institution (H.M. Kat. Tanint. Csf. Seg.)

Badges are bestowed at the commissioning celebration (Aug 20th) and the name of the awardee published and recorded. A special award certificate is bestowed.

Badge is to be worn in the center of the right upper pocket. If the officer candidate has the Freedom Fighters Association badge, this badge must be worn above the Freedom Fighters badge.

Badge and the title can be taken away at any time for any infraction, if this occurs then the badge and the certificate must be returned.'

The regulations go on to describe a gold colored badge. Therefore it may be safe to assume that at a latter date they added a silver class for the NCO school, though none of my documentation has such a regulation up to 1957.

[Ulsterman]

Thanks Hunyadi!!!

[buellmeister]

Nice Badge Jeff! Wish I could have attended the Show....

[Gordon Craig]

Charles,

Thanks for translating the regs. Very interesting change as to how we thought this was awarded. Really interesting about where the Political Officers badge is to be worn in relation to the Freedon Fighters badge.

Here is a picture of the gold officers badge in wear on a uniform. Charles and I beleive these are later issue badges and that the earlier ones, of the type which would have been worn on this artillery officers tunic, were of a heavier type of construction. Note that the regs call for the badge to be worn in the centre of the pocket. Since there were no external pockets on these early uniforms IE when the regs were written, it left the tailor/seamstress a considerable amount of latitude for the placement of the badge loops!

Regards,

Gordon

Edited October 9, 2007 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

A closer view of where the badge was worn on the tunic.

[Gordon Craig]

A closeup of the gold badge.

[Ulsterman]

nice tunic and great badge.

[hunyadi]

The regulations were written in 1950 - so the predominant type still in use at the time was the M49 four pocket tunic. But what is an interesting co-incidence with this badge and the arm badge is that about the time the arm badge was discontinued - this little gem shows up in the regulations...?? One of the main reasons that I believed this to be a polit officers badge from the education system is that when I was talking with a Colonel who ran the Honved Signals Musuem, he showed me a photo album from the 1950's. In it was a photo of his instructor (when he was a student at the academy in 1953) in an M1951 tunic, clearly wearing this badge. The guy was old - a WW2 veteran accoerding to the Col., and he was not a student but an instructor. Its possible that the instructor re-took the exams (??) and achieved such a high score and therefore qualified for the badge - but in WW2 he was already an officer? Hence my confused assumptions...

Aside but related - photos of these in wear are almost non-existant (if anyone has one - please post!) The only one I saw was the one in the photo album, and I did not get a photo of it... These are not uber rare - but they do come up every-once-in-a-while...

[Gordon Craig]

Charles,

I wasn't going to post these pictures because they are blurry. Both pictures were on display at the museum and I am going to try and go there today with my tripod and get some better pictures. Probably after I see you. While blurry, these pictures may show the political badge in wear. Once I get better pictures I'll confirm that. The first one is of officers on parade at the Petofi Political Academy.

Edited October 10, 2007 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

Here is another "blurry" shot of what may be the NCOs political badge in wear. It is in the correct place but not a clear picture.

Cheers,

Gordon

[Gordon Craig]

Earlier Charles mentioned that this badge superceded the cloth Political Officers Arm Badge. Here is a picture of one of those in wear. I am sure this one is corrcet as Charles and I were lucky enough to see one of these badges on the arm of a tunic in the uniform store room of the military museum.

[Gordon Craig]

Here is a closer view of the badge. Sorry for the poor resolution. The museum is kept dark and it is difficult to take digital photos in the ambient light. Particularly with a hand held digital camera.

Regards,

Gordon

[hunyadi]

Not so convinced that those badges are the 1950 Kat. Pol. Badge - just from scale, I would think that those are the Excelent Student of the Political Officers Badge from the Petofi Academy which is a little bigger in size. (I dont have a regulation for this one - its probably locked up in the archives...)

Edited October 10, 2007 by hunyadi

[hunyadi]

Here is the uber rare political officers arm badge

[hunyadi]

Getting back to Ulstermann's badge - here is one of my early onese - notice the think prongs on the back.

[Gordon Craig]

It is a good thing that I hedged my bets by choosing my words carefully for my last posts. Charles is correct and the breast badge is the badge of the Petofi Political Akademy that he posted a picture of. I went back to the military museum today and took a close up of the picture I had posted before. Here is that close up.

Regards,

Gordon

[Ulsterman]

It could be the photo-but the academy badge seems more 'oval" in shape than CD's shown example.

A beautiful piece nethertheless and something to look for on Farkas' site!

[Gordon Craig]

Charles,

Thanks for the helmet info. Very useful. I looked at the one on display in the museum yesterday and in the available light it is almost impossible to tell what colour it is.

On another note. I looked for a shoulderboard similar to the one on your uniform we discussed yesterday while I was at the museum. Nothing even remotely close except for a picture in a carrying type document which had the same lower stripe (the wider one) but no separate stripe or line down the centre.

Cheers,

Gordon

[Gordon Craig]

The regulations were written in 1950 - so the predominant type still in use at the time was the M49 four pocket tunic. But what is an interesting co-incidence with this badge and the arm badge is that about the time the arm badge was discontinued - this little gem shows up in the regulations...?? One of the main reasons that I believed this to be a polit officers badge from the education system is that when I was talking with a Colonel who ran the Honved Signals Musuem, he showed me a photo album from the 1950's. In it was a photo of his instructor (when he was a student at the academy in 1953) in an M1951 tunic, clearly wearing this badge. The guy was old - a WW2 veteran accoerding to the Col., and he was not a student but an instructor. Its possible that the instructor re-took the exams (??) and achieved such a high score and therefore qualified for the badge - but in WW2 he was already an officer? Hence my confused assumptions...

Aside but related - photos of these in wear are almost non-existant (if anyone has one - please post!) The only one I saw was the one in the photo album, and I did not get a photo of it... These are not uber rare - but they do come up every-once-in-a-while...

Back to the Political Officers badges. I had hoped that my trip to the mueum yesterday would shed some more light on the wear of these bdages. In some respects it has and in others it has muddied the waters. According to a display at the museum, and I'll post pictures of the display after my text, from 1948 the "political cadre" of the army was trained at the "Honv?d Pet?fi Educational Officers Academy". Graduates were given the rank of Master Sageant and sent to different units as political officers where they acted as "co-commanders with nearly unlimited powers over and above the low rank members of the commanding officers staff until 1953". Here is the display board that gives this info.

[Gordon Craig]

The above info seems straight forward and shouldn't give us any problems. However, the museum didn't stop there and this is where the confusion and apparent over-lapping of some badges occurs. The next picture I post will shows the regulations for both the cloth armbadge and the metal breast badge in both silver and gold. The caption for the cloth armbadges reads; Politikai tiszt ?s politikai vezető karjelv?nye (1949-1952) (Political officer and leading political officer armbadge (1949-1952). Once gain, this helps explain why there are two different types of cloth armbadges and is very useful info. The next part is where it gets to be a bit muddy. The next caption seems to refer to the silver and gold breast badges above the cloth armbadges and reads; ?Kataoni ?s politikai kik?pz?sben tiszt? (1950-től) ?s ?Katonai ?s politikai kik?pz?sben kival? tiszthelyettes? (1963-t?l) jev?lny ("Excellent officer in military and political instruction" (from 1950) and ("Excellent non-commisiioned officer in military and political instruction" (from 1963) badges.

This seems to indicate that the arm badge and the breast badge were in wear at the same time or at least overlapped to a certain extent. It also seems to indicate that the original badge issued was the silver one (without actually specifying silver or gold) IE from 1950 and that the gold one came into use from 1963. That, of course, contradicts what I think the regulations say that Charles translated. We will have to ask the museum for some clarification on these points!

Regards,

Gordon

[hunyadi]

Here is the copy that I have of the regulations - in the second to last line it says: "the badge is to be made of tombac and gold [colored] on the rays and the star points"

At this point I can only go off the regulations

[Ed_Haynes]

Interesting. I guess.

But could we -- please -- split the helments off from the badge discussion?

?????