Hungary Police Uniforms in the HUPR

[hunyadi]

Looking at the drawing of the Osprey Elite series "The Hungarian Revolution 1956?, it looks to me more like the uniform of the AVH. The secret state police worked in different forms and used conscripts as well for some guard duties amongst other. This was the case in 1956 when the fight over the Hungarian communist party headquarters stood. The photographer John Sadovy from LIFE magazine was present at the time and he captured this famous series of pictures.

The uniform is clearly the one pictured on Gordon?s picture of his tunic.

Photographer John Sadovys photos was later used for the death sentence of the 23 year old Galg?czi Zolt?n.

More of that can be read at http://www.eorsilaszlo.hu/el/galgoczi.html (Hungarian)

Szia Peter -

the attack on the Hungarian Communist Party HQ happened after the AVH made the decision to put all of its conscripts, NCOs and offciers into police uniforms. Too many were being lynched for wearing the military style uniform - there were even accounts of AirForce men beign attacked as they wore blue piping on their uniforms - blue and green were bad colors to wear during those days. According to "From Kun to Kadar the Communisit Party in Hungary" the men who guarded the HQ were regular AVH who had only switched to the police uniform the day before the attack, but the locals and revolutionaries had seen the ruse and when the meat truck pulled up to the HQ instead fo the local butcher where the civilains were waiting in line - the civilains had enough and stormed the HQ.

By contrast a huge majority of the Budapest police under the command of the Budpaest Police Chief immediately sided with the revolution as early as October 24/25

Edited June 28, 2008 by hunyadi

[Gordon Craig]

Peter,

Thanks for your input and pictures. My picture is deffinitely, as Hunyadi says, of the police. In books and articles written by the 56 revolutionairies they make many comments about the fact that in the AVH buildings they occupied the floors were strewn with AVH uniforms. They couldn't take them off fast enough. Interestingly enough, as your post illustrates, most of the men shot in thies pictures survived.

Regards,

Gordon

[Gordon Craig]

Looks like I abandoned this thread without finishing it. I thought that I had. I spent some time this afternoon putting a police uniform on my new mannequin to see how things went together before buying any more. There are some glitches with the arms which I'll have to work out but it looks like a good deal for the money. Especially as the feet are a separate part. Most mannequins don't have removable feet and that gives collectors a lot of trouble with boots etc.

I logged on simply to post pictures to see how my new mannequin looked and was surprised to see this thread had stopped so soon. Now I can kill two birds with one stone.

The next uniform adopted was a major change. The police adopted a uniform versimilar to the one the army did shortly before this except it had a bluish grey tunic and dark blue pants with a light blue stripe down the outside of the leg. No hat on the mannequine as I was sure I had a peaked police hat but couldn't find one so that is my priority at the Militaria Show tomorrow!

Enough said, here is the police uniform on the mannequin. The uniform dates from the mid 80s.

Regards,

Gordon

[Greg Collins]

While I don't have the service cap to add to this thread, I do have a police cap badge in pretty nice condition. I understand that if the badge did not have the firearms below the star, the badge would be AVH or Border Guard.

Edited May 11, 2010 by Greg Collins

[hunyadi]

Yes Greg you are correct the badges without the crossed rifles are for the Border Guard and the AVH.

[Zsolt]

Charles, from 1. january 1950 the Border Guard belonged to the strength of the AVH. ("Green AVO")

Edited May 11, 2010 by Zsolt