Molnár József - Szilas Péter: Night Lights - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)

With the war in sight

In the mid-thirties there were 25,100 public lights in the capital, 92 per cent of which could be controlled in groups as a result of earlier development. To install a system in which all the lights could be centrally turned off, which was indispensable if efficient black-outs were to be implemented in the event of air raids, would cost another two million pengős. It was in 1937, as part of a general air raid drill, that the entire public lighting system was blacked out for the first time. The central controls worked perfectly, and the system included 93.5 per cent of all the lamps in Budapest. During the mock air raid held in October 1939, 1700 blackout shades were mounted on street lights, and 410 switches were equipped with step-down transformers. The Electricity Works was responsible for alerting the public to air raids and for implementing black-out measures, as the most efficient protection against a real bombardment was none other than the blacking out of the city. The central control of the siren network was also in the hands of the company’s specialists.

The lamps were shaded in such a way that only one shaft of light, directed to the ground, was allowed to escape. This light was virtually unnoticeable from the side. In accordance with black-out regulations, public lighting was restricted to the use of directed beams placed at junctions and bends. The lights of vehicles were also adjusted to the air-raid regulations.

January 1941 saw a city-wide reduction of public lighting in Budapest, involving a decrease of 26 per cent. Together with the reduction of street lighting the use of sign lights was banned altogether. In April and in June there were two occasions on which the reduction of public lighting was decreed. Mo decorative floodlights were turned on that year, as all available funds were channelled into war preparations.

In the event of an air raid the entire system was to be centrally blacked out, though in spite of every effort, it was impossible to eliminate the potential of error altogether. And what could go wrong, did in fact go wrong. On 9 September 1942, the public lights on the northern slopes of Gellért Hill were left on due to a partial breakdown of the system. These lamps were smashed up by the soldiers operating the air defence battery stationed nearby-after the raid.

Air raids were becoming more and more frequent, and in 1944 both power supplies and public lighting suffered severe setbacks.

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