Baják László Ihász István: The Hungarian National Museum History Exhibition Guide 4 - The short century of survival (1900-1990) (Budapest, 2008)

Room 19. From the Successes of Revision to German and Russian Occupation (1938-1945). István Ihász

a policing force backing up the German elite units. At first the hinterland could only feel the effects of war through a fall in living conditions (munitions factories, food ration cards, deliveries to the state), but the German supreme command urged increasingly serious military participation on the fronts. In the spring of 1942 Regent Horthy appointed Miklós Kállay as his prime minister and Vilmos Nagybaczoni Nagy as his minister of war. Through the latter of these persons he also achieved his wish as governor that the unarmed military personnel - most of them of Jewish origin - carrying out work alongside the fighting and hinterland units should not be exposed to the ever intensifying anti-Semitic atrocities. Initially what was supposed to be low-key, symbolic participation in the war became greater when General Wilhelm Keitei demanded in Budapest that the 2

nd Hungarian Army be sent to the front, after which catastrophe struck after the German defeat at Stalingrad. In the course of the January 1943 offensive of the Soviet Army, we lost around 120,000 killed in action, wounded and captured. Souvenir tray from the Russian front with carved, stippled drawings, 1943