The Place and Role of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior in the Law-Enforcement System of the Bourgeois Hungarian State, 1867–1944

Abstract

The study examines the place and role of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior within the law-enforcement system of the bourgeois Hungarian state between 1867 and 1944. Across four periods it traces the development of the ministry's policing remit: the departmental structures of the Dualist era and the supervision of the state police, the gendarmerie, the border police and the river guard; the reorganisation following the defeat in the First World War and the nationalisation of the police in 1919–1920; the consolidation of the inter-war years; and, finally, the reconfiguration of law enforcement in the closing months of the Second World War. Particular attention is paid to the ministry's relationship with the four law-enforcement bodies, to overlapping jurisdictions and organisational interconnections, and to the instruments of supervision exercised over local authorities. Drawing on archival sources and on the analysis of organisational regulation, the author shows how the interior ministry became the central directing authority of Hungarian law enforcement — and how that role was pushed into the background in 1944 by the rise of the state security apparatus.

Footnote markers [n] follow the numbering of the Hungarian original (1–70).

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Key concepts (Kulcsfogalmak)

Institutions and authorities

Hungarian term	English equivalent	Explanation
Magyar Királyi Belügyminisztérium	Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior	The central government department responsible for internal administration, public security and the supervision of law-enforcement bodies, 1867–1944.
Helytartótanács	Council of Lieutenancy	The highest governmental authority of the Kingdom of Hungary before 1867; its internal-affairs remit passed to the Ministry of the Interior.
minisztertanács	Council of Ministers	The cabinet; its decisions set the framework for the ministry's work.
Magyar Királyi Honvédelmi Minisztérium	Hungarian Royal Ministry of National Defence	Shared competence with the interior ministry over the gendarmerie's personnel affairs.
Magyar Királyi Honvédség	Hungarian Royal Honvéd Army	The Hungarian armed forces; limited by the Treaty of Trianon to 35,000 men.
Belügyi Népbiztosság	People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs	The interior ministry's form during the Republic of Councils in 1919.
Államvédelmi Központ	State Defence Centre	Established 26 June 1942 under the minister's direct direction; rose above the law-enforcement bodies in jurisdiction.
Állambiztonsági Rendészet	State Security Police	Independent political police organised on 28 March 1944 after the German occupation.
KEOKH (Külföldieket Ellenőrző Országos Központi Hatóság)	National Central Authority for the Supervision of Aliens	Central authority for aliens policing, also involved with refugees.
törvényhatóság	municipal authority	County or city self-government; the indirect channel of interior supervision over local police.
főispán	lord-lieutenant	The government's representative at the head of a county; his submissions brought local police matters to the ministry.

Law-enforcement bodies (rendvédelmi szervezetek / testületek)

Hungarian term	English equivalent	Explanation
rendvédelem / rendészet	law enforcement / policing	Umbrella terms for the maintenance of public order and the police-type activity of the state.
Magyar Királyi Állami Rendőrség	Hungarian Royal State Police	Created by the nationalisation of 1919–1920; from 1919 also simply Hungarian Royal Police.
fővárosi államrendőrség	state police of the capital	Budapest state police, organised from 1873, under direct ministerial supervision.
Magyar Királyi Csendőrség	Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie	Militarily organised guard corps providing public security in rural areas from 1881.
csendőrkerület	gendarmerie district	Territorial unit of the gendarmerie; six were created nationwide in 1881.
rendőrkapitányság / rendőr-főkapitányság	police captaincy / police headquarters	Basic and intermediate territorial units of the state police.
Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség	Hungarian Royal Border Police	Border-guarding law-enforcement body set up in 1903, merged into the state police in 1919.
Magyar Királyi Vámőrség → Határőrség	Hungarian Royal Customs Guard → Border Guard	Created as a customs guard, transformed into the Hungarian Royal Border Guard on 1 October 1932.
Magyar Királyi Folyamőrség	Hungarian Royal River Guard	Water-policing body; also concealed remnants of the Danube flotilla until 1939.
pénzügyőrség	financial guard	Revenue and customs guard; not counted among the four law-enforcement bodies.
detektívtestület	detective corps	Criminal investigation personnel; appeared at the Budapest police in the 1880s, at the gendarmerie only from 1930.
Vörös Őrség	Red Guard	Armed law-enforcement body of the Republic of Councils in 1919.

Concepts

Hungarian term	English equivalent	Explanation
közbiztonság	public security	A central concern of the period; its restoration was the primary task after 1918.
közbiztonsági szolgálat	public security service	Routine order-maintenance duty, as opposed to investigative or administrative policing.
igazgatási rendészet / igazgatásrendészet	administrative policing	Regulatory, non-criminal police tasks, partly left with the self-governments.
államrendészet / állambiztonság	state policing / state security	Protection of the state against political and subversive activity.
államrendészeti zsebkönyv ("feketekönyv")	state policing handbook ("black book")	Periodically reissued register of persons deemed to endanger state power, decided on 25 July 1931.
karhatalom	armed enforcement	Armed deployment of police/gendarmerie units to restore or maintain order.
különítmény	paramilitary detachment	Irregular armed groups of the early 1920s, frequently acting outside the law.
királyi biztos	royal commissioner	Extraordinary government agent with military force, used against outlawry from 1868.
betyárvilág	outlawry (betyárvilág)	The wave of brigandage in the Great Plain after the Compromise; liquidated 1869–1872.
pandúr / csendbiztos	pandúr / peace commissioner	Earlier county-level rural police personnel, replaced by the gendarmerie.
országos főkapitány	national chief captain	Held by Imre Nádosy from August 1921 over all public security organisations.
internálás	internment	Widely applied administrative measure in the early 1920s.
kihágási ügyek	petty offence cases	Minor offences, with competence shared between police and self-government.
fegyverhasználat	use of weapons	Broadened by the ministry in the early 1930s.

Periods, territories and events

Hungarian term	English equivalent	Explanation
kiegyezés (1867)	Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867	Established the dualist Monarchy and the Hungarian ministry system.
dualizmus	Dualism	The period 1867–1918 in the Kingdom of Hungary.
horvát–magyar kiegyezés	Croatian–Hungarian Compromise	Granted Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia autonomy in internal affairs.
első világháborús vereség	defeat in the First World War	Led to the disintegration of the Monarchy at the end of October 1918.
Tanácsköztársaság	Republic of Councils (Hungarian Soviet Republic)	The council regime of 21 March – 1 August 1919.
trianoni békeszerződés	Treaty of Trianon (1920)	Peace treaty that fixed Hungary's post-war borders and limited its armed forces.
(trianoni) területvesztés	territorial loss (ceded territories)	Roughly two-thirds of the territory and half of the population of historic Hungary.
csonka-Magyarország	post-Trianon Hungary	Hungary within the borders fixed by the Treaty of Trianon, before the territorial revisions.
terület-visszacsatolások	territorial revisions	The recovery of territories in 1938–1941 (Felvidék/Upper Hungary, Kárpátalja/Subcarpathia, Northern Transylvania, Délvidék).
kisantant	Little Entente	Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
nemzetiszocialista / nyilas (Nyilaskeresztes Párt)	National Socialist / Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement	Far-right movements; the Arrow Cross took power on 15 October 1944.
német megszállás (1944. III. 19.)	German occupation (19 March 1944)	Brought the Gestapo, SD and SS into the country and fundamentally reshaped the interior ministry.

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The Decades of Dualism

On the basis of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise concluded in 1867,¹ the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior took over the direction of internal affairs from the Council of Lieutenancy with effect from 10 March 1867. By 14 March 1867 the ministry's divisional and staffing structure was also in place. In the decades between 1867 and 1918, the law-enforcement and policing jurisdiction of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior extended over the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary of the day, including the city and district of Fiume. Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia administered its internal affairs independently on the basis of the Croatian-Hungarian Compromise,² and the Military Frontier likewise fell within its jurisdiction only after its conversion to civil administration, carried out between 1872 and 1881.³

In the decades of Dualism, within the apparatus of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior, law-enforcement and policing duties were attended to — depending on the organisational structure of the given period — by one or more autonomous divisions, sub-divisions, and, from 1907, main departments. Separate organisational units of the ministry dealt with the affairs of the police, the gendarmerie, and, after 1906, the border police. Documents concerning law-enforcement and policing matters always constituted a determining part of the flow of files. Thus, for example, in 1869 39,547 and two decades later 50,608 law-enforcement case files were registered and processed. This amounted to more than two-fifths of the ministry's total document traffic. The share of this traffic moderated after the turn of the century: in 1913 the number of policing and law-enforcement files accounted for 12% of the total.⁴

In the decades of Dualism, the following law-enforcement bodies were under the direct direction of the interior ministry: the state police of the capital,⁵ the border police built up after the turn of the century,⁶ the state police of Fiume,⁷ and the gendarmerie,⁸ which operated in the rural communes. Over the police forces of local jurisdiction and direction, interior supervision was exercised indirectly, through the municipal authorities (törvényhatóság) and by way of controlling the implementation of the statutes and decrees relating to these bodies. More than this was not possible in the decades of Dualism in this respect, given the size and competence of the apparatus dealing with law-enforcement bodies.⁹ Accordingly, the actual role of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior in these areas was confined primarily to supervision, while the operational direction of the law-enforcement bodies — with few exceptions — generally exceeded the ministry's capacities.

Following the Compromise, the primary central issue in the direction and supervision of law-enforcement activity became the establishment of public security and the elimination of outlawry (the betyárvilág).¹⁰ In this situation, the building out of a state police force understandably arose and, with varying intensity from time to time, remained permanently on the agenda, although its realisation did not come to pass in the decades of Dualism, partly on account of the lack of budgetary resources and partly because of the resistance of the self-governments. Since the establishment of a countrywide state police force was delayed, the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior concentrated its efforts in this field, in the last third of the nineteenth century, on building up the state police of the capital. The framework for the work was set by the session of the Council of Ministers of 12 November 1867, at which the interior and justice ministries were instructed to prepare a bill on the state police to be set up in the territory of Pest and Buda.

The completed bill was discussed by the Council of Ministers on several occasions, but for the time being it was not submitted to the House of Representatives.¹¹ In the meantime, the National Assembly adopted the statute on the capital, which provided for the creation of a state police for the capital and at the same time ensured that the nascent municipal authority of Budapest could actively participate in its direction.¹² In the spirit of the statute, following the unification of Pest, Buda and Óbuda, the organisation of the state police of the capital began in 1873, and in parallel with this the framing of cooperation between the leadership of the capital city of Budapest and the state police. The emerging capital police also performed nationwide tasks from the outset, the scope of which continually broadened over the decades.¹³

A peculiar attempt to consolidate public security in the country was the establishment of the institution of the royal commissioner, first in September 1868 in the territory of Somogy and Zala counties. The task of the royal commissioner was to curb the proliferating robberies through the use of military force. On the basis of the favourable experiences, on 4 January 1869 the ministry entrusted Count Gedeon RÁDAY with the leadership of the Royal Commission of Szeged, which directed the liquidation of the so-called betyárvilág over a region of the Great Plain as large as a province. The successful activity carried out until 31 October 1872 was met with well-founded criticism as regards the methods applied. The work of the royal commissioners was directed by the interior ministry, which also covered their costs.¹⁴

The institution of the royal commissioner was an attempt to restore the self-governmental police model, which had clearly failed. This initiative, however, proved unsuccessful, since upon the expiry of the royal commissioners' mandates public security dissipated and insecurity reverted to its former state.¹⁵ It therefore became necessary to create a new law-enforcement model in place of the self-governmental police model. The new law-enforcement model, introduced by Kálmán TISZA, essentially consisted in the maintenance of order in the countryside by the newly formed Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie, while in the cities with municipal rights — where the municipal self-governments had adequate budgets to finance an effective urban police — by the municipal police forces.¹⁶

The ministry shared the supervisory competence over the state police of the capital with the administrative committee of Budapest, on which the appointed Chief of Police partly depended, thereby placing him in a peculiar dual subordination. This peculiar situation was terminated by the statute of 1881 on the state police of the capital,¹⁷ which re-regulated the position of the state police of the capital and, in addition, provided for the building out of a police organisation consisting of a central police headquarters and ten district captaincies, and at the same time introduced two-level local direction, creating district police offices alongside the central police directorate.¹⁸

The number of state police forces was augmented by the creation of the state police of Fiume in 1916,¹⁹ and in 1908 the national criminal register was set up within the state police of the capital.²⁰ Then, in 1903, under the direction of the interior ministry, the Hungarian Royal Border Police was established, whose jurisdiction extended to the territory of the Governorate of Fiume as well.²¹

The question of establishing a state police was settled on the basis of the statutory article of 1912 on the development of towns, because, by way of a framework provision, it instructed the government to work out within two years the details of the nationalisation of the police forces operating under self-governmental direction.²² The work was carried out within the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior, and although its realisation was slowed by the outbreak of the First World War, by June 1918 the draft statute was ready which nationalised the local police operating in the towns and, in certain cases, in the rural communes, placing it under the direct direction of the ministry, while separating the administrative policing tasks from the state police to be built up and assigning them to the competence of the self-governments.²³

In the case of the gendarmerie, the direct supervision and direction of the interior ministry asserted itself more forcefully, even if it exercised these rights in certain cases with regard to the competence of another ministry. After the Compromise, the gendarmerie remained unchanged in Transylvania and in Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia. The Transylvanian gendarmerie was partly under the direction of the joint Ministry of War and partly under the interior ministry, while in Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia local interior direction prevailed. On the proposal of the Minister of the Interior, the Hungarian Council of Ministers decided in March 1875 that the Transylvanian gendarmerie should be maintained unchanged, but that it was necessary "to take measures that it be withdrawn from the authority of the joint Minister of War, and be placed in every respect under the Hungarian government, and that its administration and uniform be changed to Hungarian." In accordance with the decision, from 1 January 1876 the official language of command of the Transylvanian gendarmerie became Hungarian, and the jurisdiction of the joint Ministry of War was taken over by the Hungarian Royal Ministry of National Defence.²⁴

The nationwide establishment of the gendarmerie was first proposed in the 1870s by Béla ÚJHEGYI, a teacher at the Ludovika Academy. His conception was built on the premise that a nationwide gendarmerie would operate in dual subordination for the maintenance of the lawful government and the legal order, and for the performance of armed enforcement duties. According to the draft statute, in the rural communes a nationally organised gendarmerie under the supervision of the interior ministry would take over public security service from the pandúrs and the peace commissioners (csendbiztosok). Parliament gave the plan the force of law in 1881,²⁵ on the basis of which six gendarmerie districts were created nationwide.

Over the emerging, militarily organised gendarmerie, the interior ministry exercised supervision of the administrative and service relationship, while personnel matters fell within the competence of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of National Defence. For although the gendarmerie was a law-enforcement body, the gendarmes themselves were deemed to be soldiers. The Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie was — like its European counterpart gendarmeries — a militarily organised guard corps, which meant that the relations of subordination within the corps were military ones, the personnel held military ranks, and the rights and obligations generally applicable to soldiers applied to them.

On the proposal of the interior ministry, on the basis of the statute adopted in 1882 it became possible to deploy the gendarmerie in the territory of cities with municipal rights as well.²⁶ Availing itself of this possibility, by 1906 the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie was performing public security duties on a contractual basis in 16 cities with municipal rights.²⁷ However, almost without exception, in the territory of the towns the gendarmerie operated only in the outskirts, and its employment in towns did not render the maintenance of municipal police forces superfluous.²⁸

The Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior — deriving from its supervisory competence — submitted and implemented annually the budget of the gendarmerie, of the capital's police, and later of the border police. The divisions and main departments of the ministry worked out proposals and then, following approval by the Council of Ministers and in some cases by the National Assembly, provided for the supply of the law-enforcement bodies with uniforms and equipment, for the territorial deployment of their personnel and for bringing their establishments up to strength. In procurement, the system of public tendering became established practice.

The Minister of the Interior and the competent heads of the ministry could, in the form of instructions issued "by the short route", also assign detectives of the state police of the capital to the countryside to carry out surveillance and investigations. In order to facilitate the preparation and implementation of individual statutory articles and legal rules of greater importance, the ministry not only requested the opinion of the Chief of Police of the capital, but also sought to learn the position of the police captains of the larger cities with municipal rights.

The main types of day-to-day business of the ministry's official apparatus are well documented for posterity by the several thousand files preserved each year. Reviewing among these the documentary material of the years 1887 and 1907, it can be seen what kinds of matters were dealt with by the divisions, main departments and officials of the ministry concerned with law-enforcement topics.

According to the surviving documentary material, in 1887 the competent division, among other things, reviewed the gendarmerie's deployment table and took a position on the timing of recruitments, transfers, dismissals, retirements and grants of leave, and on substitutions. It dealt with the preparation of the personnel rating table, the review of marriage permits, the evaluation of promotion proposals, and proceedings against officers and non-commissioned officers who had committed common criminal offences. It adjudicated the tenders relating to the gendarmerie's equipment, and handled orders and payment authorisations.

In the case of the police, the bulk of the files related to the state police of the capital, but numerous documents concerning urban police forces also came into being through the submissions of the lord-lieutenants (főispán). The Chief of Police of the state police of the capital reported regularly and in detail, in the form of daily reports and by way of separate submissions, on the more important Budapest police events and on political and other movements. The officials of the ministry coordinated the investigative work of the capital and provincial police organisations and of the gendarmerie, which was directed, among other things, at exposing and capturing a gang of banknote counterfeiters. Prior to payment authorisations, they examined and evaluated item by item the invoices submitted by the capital's police. They adjudicated the tenders relating to the police's equipment. They reviewed measures concerning personnel, reviewed disciplinary proceedings, and decided on the disbursement of salary advances. That is, at the level of day-to-day practice they fully controlled and supervised the activity of the state police of the capital.

With regard to the activity of the provincial police forces, the supervisory competence was far narrower and was exercised indirectly, through the mediation of the municipal authorities. In connection with the activity of the police of the cities with municipal rights, they took a position on the appointments of police captains and deputy police captains, and decided in jurisdictional disputes and in disciplinary proceedings.

The general picture had not changed substantially even after two decades had elapsed. The interior ministry continued to supervise and keep under its control the gendarmerie, the police and the border police. As a new feature, they intervened more frequently and in greater detail than two decades earlier in concrete organisational matters and in the territorial deployment of personnel. Steps were taken towards the elaboration of the gendarmerie pension act, and its equipment and dress regulations were approved. In the case of the police, a new feature was the processing of reports on centrally ordered confidential surveillance and, in connection with this, the regular assignment of members of the capital's detective corps to the territories of the provincial police captaincies. So-called confidential expenditures, financed from a separate fund, appeared with increasing frequency. They also examined nationwide the complaints submitted in connection with police measures.²⁹

In the decades of Dualism, the apparatus of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior dealing with policing and law-enforcement matters made full use of the supervisory and control competences at its disposal, and beyond this frequently intervened, in informal ways as well, in the work of the local police and gendarmerie organisations. From the turn of the century, the ministry's apparatus strove increasingly to possess authentic, precise, almost up-to-the-day information nationwide on law-enforcement activity, to keep its eye — and, when decisions were taken, its "hand" — on the more important matters. After the turn of the century, the ministry — setting aside local matters of lesser significance — in its day-to-day practice fully embraced the competences relating to the country's public security and border guarding, in some cases also restricting the independent jurisdiction of the self-governments existing in this field.

The Consequences of the Defeat in the War

As a consequence of the defeat in the First World War, at the end of October 1918 the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy disintegrated, and independent national states came into being in its place. Within the Hungarian government, the interior ministry — embodying legal continuity — continued unchanged, in terms of its remit and its corps of officials, to direct the field of law enforcement. One of the most important tasks of the interior apparatus in these months was the restoration of public order and public security, which had loosened in the wake of the defeat in the war, and the bringing under ministerial supervision and direction of the newly forming armed formations — such as the civil guard, the national guard, the student guard, the factory guard and other similarly named organisations. In the case of the border police, the building out of the control of the new demarcation line — the boundary line — designated in the wake of the defeat in the world war became of primary importance.

During the few months of civilian government, continuity — the survival of the Dualist legal rules and the almost complete identity of the official apparatus — and change manifested themselves simultaneously in the work of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior; the change appeared in the field of law enforcement in the efforts to build out a nationwide state police, in the bringing of the new armed groups under supervision and direction, and in the strengthening of the personnel of the police and the gendarmerie.³⁰

On 21 March 1919 the civilian government was replaced by the Republic of Councils. The Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior was transformed into the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, but its law-enforcement remit and its corps of officials largely remained. With the creation and central direction of the Red Guard, a state law-enforcement apparatus of nationwide jurisdiction, built up in a centralised manner and directed exclusively by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, was brought into being, resting largely on the former police and gendarmerie personnel. Alongside the Red Guard, subordinate to the People's Commissariat — as a new feature — an independent political investigating organisation was built up.

In parallel with the council regime, a civilian government was formed in Arad and then in Szeged, whose ministries of the interior also worked in the field of law enforcement on the basis of the practice developed in the decades of Dualism, directing their attention primarily to the reorganisation of the police and the gendarmerie.

Between the Two World Wars

Following the overthrow of the Republic of Councils, the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior was reorganised on the earlier organisational and personnel framework.³¹ Within the interior ministry, the direction and supervision of law-enforcement bodies within the framework of autonomous organisational units remained one of the fundamental tasks; indeed, its significance grew compared with the preceding decades, because it became established practice to resolve social problems and difficulties by policing and administrative means, and moreover politics — occasionally on a daily level — appeared forcefully in the work and direction of the law-enforcement bodies. The significance of the law-enforcement activity directed within the framework of several departments over roughly a quarter of a century was reflected in the fact that among the files registered by the interior ministry such documents continued to carry determining weight — indeed, on account of the building out of the state police, documents of this type and subject grew in both number and proportion.

On 22 September 1919 the Council of Ministers decided that the provincial police would be nationalised and the separate existence of the border police would be terminated.³² To carry out the reorganisation, a separate department was created at the interior ministry. On the basis of the decree on the nationalisation of the Hungarian police forces, which entered into force on 1 October 1919, the Budapest state police, the border police and the self-governmental urban police forces were merged.³³ The legal rule made it possible to extend the scope of operation of the nationalised police to the territory of towns with a regulated council as well. In the case of the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie, specialised units performing detective service for the purposes of investigative work were created within the organisation from 1930 — much later than at the police, where the detective corps had already appeared in the 1880s.³⁴

The organisational basis of the Hungarian Royal State Police became the police captaincy, which encompassed the territory of one town each. The work of the police captaincies was brought together by the district police headquarters, whose territorial competence coincided with that of the gendarmerie districts and with the operational areas of the Honvéd mixed brigade commands. The directive, supervisory and control competence of the Minister of the Interior and of the competent departments extended completely over the entire police organisation, both in organisational terms and with regard to its activity. Within the Hungarian Royal State Police it became possible to direct and carry out state-policing and state-defence matters in a centralised manner, and a central investigating department was set up for this task. They precisely regulated the territorial and administrative competences, the division of the police organisation into public-security and administrative policing branches, and the jurisdiction of police criminal justice. With regard to administrative policing and petty offence cases, the competences were shared between the police and the self-governments, with the jurisdictional boundaries drawn precisely.³⁵

Into the personnel of the state police were taken over the officers and rank and file of the former urban police forces, as well as the border policemen. The police, working under the direct supervision and strict direction of the Minister of the Interior, were subordinated — first on 1 May 1920 and later on several occasions, together with the gendarmerie, in respect of individual armed enforcement deployments — to the territorially competent military district commands and station commands.³⁶ The organisation of the district police headquarters was completed by May 1920. Between May 1920 and the autumn of 1921 the border-guarding tasks were performed not by the police (border police) but by the gendarmerie.

The place and role of border guarding changed substantially compared with the Dualist period. In the second half of the nineteenth century — not least following the theoretical work on military science of Carl Gottlieb von CLAUSEWITZ³⁷ — the prevailing view was that the involvement of military units in border guarding weakened the armed forces. For the units drawn into border guarding suffered a significant reduction in their combat value, in order to perform their border-guarding duties effectively. The heavy weapons had to be withdrawn from these units, since they hindered the effective performance of border-guarding duties. Moreover, the personnel of the units had to be deployed along the border in a narrow strip, broken up into small organisational units. All this essentially rendered the units drawn into border guarding unfit both for offensive and for defensive operations. Consequently, in the Kingdom of Hungary of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy — similarly to the Austrian Empire and to other countries of Western Europe — the guarding of the borders was entrusted to law-enforcement bodies.³⁸

After the Treaty of Trianon, however — in the case of the Kingdom of Hungary — the situation changed considerably. The states of the Little Entente feared that Hungary would seek the return of the territories ceded to them, since the scale of the territorial loss was unprecedented among modern peace settlements: roughly half of the population and nearly two-thirds of the territory of historic Hungary were ceded to the neighbouring states, including areas where an ethnically Hungarian population lived in a compact block. The general staffs of the armies of the Little Entente states coordinated their plans for a possible offensive against the reduced Hungary. In these circumstances the Hungarian leadership had little room for choice as regards the guarding of the state borders. For the Treaty of Trianon capped the strength of the Hungarian armed forces at 35,000 men, prohibited developments of a military-technical character and reduced the number of heavy weapons. It was therefore obvious that Hungary could not resist a possible Little Entente attack, since the armies of the Little Entente countries were, country by country, several times larger than the Hungarian Royal Honvéd Army. The only chance could be to steer the resolution of a possible conflict onto a diplomatic path. Consequently, the Hungarian leadership subordinated the country's resources to this solution.³⁹

On the country's borders — under the guise of a border-guarding law-enforcement body — military units were concealed. For, on account of the Republic of Councils, the Entente was far more understanding with regard to the creation of law-enforcement bodies than it was with regard to the armed forces. This is why the possibility opened up for the establishment of the Hungarian Royal River Guard and the Hungarian Royal Customs Guard. The open task of the Hungarian Royal River Guard was constituted by water policing, while its concealed task was the preservation of the remains of the Danube flotilla.⁴⁰ The open duties of the Hungarian Royal Customs Guard were constituted by border guarding, while its covered activity was the securing of the borders.⁴¹ (Annexes I and II.) To this end, every third regiment of the actual Hungarian armed forces existed under cover of the Hungarian border-guarding body.

The concealed military units had to be deployed along the border so that:

• the already small Hungarian armed forces should not have to be broken up;
• deployment along the border should make it possible to prevent a surprise attack;
• the defence of the industrial centres located close to the border could be maintained for as long as possible, since the Hungarian armed forces could expect supplies from there;
• sufficient time should be available for the mobilisation of the male population of the hinterland;
• with the mobilised units it should already become possible to put up resistance capable of preventing the complete occupation of the country;
• and consequently, in the handling of a conflict steered onto the diplomatic path, the diplomats could find themselves in a far more favourable position than in the case of an occupied country.

The Hungarian Royal River Guard ceased to exist in 1939, and the riverine forces concealed within it were integrated into the Hungarian Royal Honvéd Army with effect from 15 January 1939 under the designation Hungarian Royal Honvéd River Forces. The water-policing duties were taken over — divided according to the jurisdictional territories of the law-enforcement bodies — by the Hungarian Royal Police and the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie.⁴² On 1 October 1932 the Hungarian Royal Customs Guard was transformed into the Hungarian Royal Border Guard, and then, with effect from 1 October 1938, it was integrated into the Hungarian Royal Honvéd Army under the designation Hungarian Royal Border Hunters (Határvadászok).⁴³

Prior to the territorial revisions of 1938–1941, in post-Trianon Hungary within the borders set by the Treaty of Trianon — disregarding the bodyguard, the government guard, the guard of the House of Representatives and the penitentiary administration, as well as the financial guard — a total of four law-enforcement bodies operated: the Hungarian Royal Police (12,000 men),⁴⁴ the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie (12,000 men),⁴⁵ the Hungarian Royal Border Guard (border service personnel only: 5,734 men)⁴⁶ and the Hungarian Royal River Guard (river-policing personnel only: 3,420 men),⁴⁷ altogether some 30,076 men.

Within the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior, the central investigating department operating from the early summer of 1920 dealt with state security tasks; it had to assist the work of both the police and the gendarmerie, and had to report without delay any anti-state acts that came to its knowledge.⁴⁸ In 1924 a separate detective group was created to monitor the rapidly expanding telephone network. The tapping of telephones was ordered by the head of the public security department. Working in strict seclusion on the top floor of the ministry's building in Országház Street in Budapest, the wiretappers were able to monitor the conversations of 80–100 telephone stations simultaneously. Few people, even within the ministry's apparatus, knew of their activity. The circle of those tapped extended alike to the right-wing and left-wing opposition to the government, and on occasion prominent figures of the governing party also came to be among those watched and tapped.

From the outset the interior ministry attached great importance to the training of police personnel, for whose direction the national inspectorate for professional studies was organised within the ministry. To strengthen high-level direction and control, on the proposal of the Minister of the Interior, in July 1921 the police, the gendarmerie and then the emerging river guard were placed under the direct direction of a state secretary. From August 1921 the office was held by Imre NÁDOSDY, as national chief captain of all public security organisations. The national chief captain directed the subordinate organisations by means of chief-captain's orders. However, the office of national chief captain was not filled after the resignation of Imre NÁDOSDY.⁴⁹

On the proposal of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior — in view of the poor public security situation — in early 1921 the strength of the capital's police, including the police reserve created for the performance of state security tasks, was doubled. From March 1921, in order to circumvent the Entente's military observers, the railway, postal, university and other similarly named armed detachments were also placed under the ministry's direction.⁵⁰ Thus, owing to the peculiar conditions of the age, the most significant armed force was concentrated in the hands of the Minister of the Interior. This situation changed in the spring of the following year, because, in implementation of the Treaty of Trianon, on the government's proposal the strength of the police and of the gendarmerie was set at 12,000–12,000 men each.⁵¹

The restoration of public security was the most important law-enforcement task in the first half of the 1920s. The ministry had to confront the public order that had loosened as a result of the lost world war and its consequences, the political and terrorist acts appearing alongside common criminality — bomb attacks, political assassinations and others — as well as the paramilitary detachments (különítmény) that frequently placed themselves above the law. The widely applied internment also represented a further task. As a result of the efforts of the interior ministry and the law-enforcement bodies — complemented by the fact that the political leadership gradually distanced itself from the members of the detachments — public order gradually improved and was essentially restored by the second half of the 1920s.

In 1926 the Minister of the Interior, in a circular decree, delimited the competences of the police and the gendarmerie and laid down the framework of their cooperation. On the basis of the decree the police could transfer to the gendarmerie an investigation it was conducting, but could not issue instructions in this regard. Despite the decree, friction between the two law-enforcement bodies persisted at the daily level, since they frequently crossed into each other's jurisdiction. In connection with the country's financial consolidation, for reasons of economy the police establishment was limited to 7,680 men, which fell far short of the tasks and of the previously authorised strength.⁵² At the end of the 1920s the rivalry between the law-enforcement bodies was supplemented by competition between the police, the gendarmerie and the army. With a view to eliminating this, the proposal arose that the police be placed under military supervision. This idea was not realised because of the interior ministry's resistance.⁵³

The coordination of the work of the two law-enforcement bodies in the performance of state security tasks was assisted by the publication of the state policing handbook, on which the Minister of the Interior decided on 25 July 1931. The handbook — or, by its more popular name, on account of the colour of its cover, the "black book" — drew its data from the national register set up under the direction of the public security department. Appearing regularly in new editions, the state policing handbook contained, grouped without regard to nationality, religion or place of residence and provided with distinguishing letter codes, the data of all those who, proceeding from any political orientation, endangered or might endanger state power. Behind the data published in the handbook there stood a centrally maintained register, relying on the information of the local law-enforcement bodies.⁵⁴

From the beginning of the 1930s the ministry had to face new challenges in the direction of the law-enforcement bodies. In the wake of the consequences of the world economic crisis — unemployment, economic austerity, financial crisis and others — extremist political forces of various orientations gained ever more ground, and action against them required firm measures. Particular attention was drawn to this by the far-right anti-state coup attempt uncovered in late autumn 1931. In the interest of more effective action, the interior ministry broadened the possibilities for the use of weapons, reorganised the direction of the police — the district police headquarters were abolished and, alongside the capital's police headquarters, a provincial police headquarters was created in their place — and, furthermore, in early 1932 a police armed company and then a battalion were established.⁵⁵ In 1933 the criminal investigation service was apportioned at the gendarmerie and the police on the basis of their area of operation, with the aim of more effectively assisting the maintenance of public security.⁵⁶

Following the coming to power of the German National Socialist Workers' Party, in 1934 the ministry prohibited the Hungarian National Socialist Party from creating a paramilitary organisation and from using the emblems of foreign states — namely the Nazi Third Reich. In 1938 the Minister of the Interior barred those employed in public service — including the members of the law-enforcement bodies — from being members of extremist political movements. Following the annexation of Austria, and then the disintegration of Czechoslovakia and its partial German occupation, the head of the interior ministry drew the attention of those under his direction, in a letter to be destroyed after acknowledgement, to the fact that some of the German agents who had earlier played a role in the creation of the independent Slovak state had presumably relocated to Hungary with a similar purpose, and that they should take this fact into account in their public security measures.⁵⁷

In view of the approaching new world conflagration, the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior, in the spring of 1938, planned the strengthening of the law-enforcement bodies in the interest of the more effective performance of law-enforcement tasks. In parallel with this, in accordance with the previously determined statutory framework and personnel establishment, the personnel of the police, the gendarmerie and the river guard were brought up to strength, their combined number thereby exceeding 25,000 men. This number grew continuously from the end of 1938, in parallel with the territorial revisions, since the Hungarian law-enforcement apparatus was built out in Felvidék (Upper Hungary), in Kárpátalja (Subcarpathia), then in Northern Transylvania, and later in Délvidék (the southern territories) as well, and new police captaincies and gendarmerie districts were formed. On the proposal of the ministry, from May 1939, in the interest of the more effective performance of state security and aliens policing tasks in the areas along the border, the border-control police captaincy and the border-control police outposts were built out.⁵⁸

After the outbreak of the Second World War, in the course of performing state security tasks, overlaps frequently occurred between the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior and the Hungarian Royal Ministry of National Defence, and tension arose. In order to eliminate this, within the framework of the interior ministry, under the minister's direct direction, the State Defence Centre (Államvédelmi Központ) was established on 26 June 1942; in terms of its jurisdiction it soon rose above the law-enforcement bodies.⁵⁹ In its personnel, gendarmes, policemen, military investigators and civilian officials were alike to be found. It was concerned with the detection of sabotage of nationwide significance, the prevention of actions aimed at loosening internal order, and the detection of acts detrimental to the interests of national defence.⁶⁰ In addition, it coordinated the activity of civilian and military organisations in this direction. A separate task for the interior ministry — which in many respects also concerned the law-enforcement bodies and the National Central Authority for the Supervision of Aliens (KEOKH) — was dealing with the large number of Polish and other refugees, and providing for them.

After 19 March 1944, the German occupation of the country, regular friction arose between the occupying military and police forces (Wehrmacht, SS, SD, Gestapo) and the Hungarian law-enforcement bodies, because the occupiers, disregarding the Hungarian legal rules in force, carried out independent actions and operations against Hungarian citizens. On 28 March 1944 the political police were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Budapest police headquarters, and the independent State Security Police (Állambiztonsági Rendészet) was organised for its remit. From this time on, in the activity of this and other law-enforcement bodies, the overstepping of the framework of the legal rules in force, inhumane treatment and unlawful procedure gained ground to a greater extent than before.⁶¹ Following the German occupation, the interior ministry and the subordinate law-enforcement bodies — as well as part of the administrative apparatus likewise under its direction — took part in the deportation of Jews, and later in their ghettoisation in Budapest. The measures concerning the Jewish population were ordered centrally, in the form of confidential instructions, by the persons whom the Germans had helped into the state secretary posts of the interior ministry.⁶²

As the Soviet army approached the country's borders, this time on the initiative of the Minister of the Interior, the reorganisation of the police, its conversion into a militarily organised body similar to the gendarmerie, came onto the agenda once again. On the basis of the decision of the Council of Ministers of 21 June 1944, the direction of the police was also taken over by the inspector of the gendarmerie. The provincial police headquarters ceased to exist, and alongside the Budapest police headquarters, district police captaincies were organised anew.⁶³ The rules on the use of weapons and other rules applicable to the police became identical with the prescriptions relating to the gendarmerie. As a further step, on 9 August 1944 the armed enforcement units of the army and of the law-enforcement bodies were also placed under unified command.⁶⁴

A fundamental change in the high-level direction of the gendarmerie was brought by the year 1922,⁶⁵ when the body's earlier subordination was terminated and the gendarmerie was unambiguously assigned to the jurisdiction of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior; covertly, however, the dual subordination continued to operate. Subsequently the ministry directed the gendarmerie with the same daily practice and method that it had earlier developed in the case of the police. In 1930 the head of the ministry regulated the territorial deployment and service relationship of the gendarmerie and the police,⁶⁶ transformed the structure of the gendarmerie and, with Budapest as its centre, established the gendarmerie's investigating department and its territorial organisations. In response to the growth of motor vehicle traffic, the traffic guards were organised, then in 1936 the network of the traffic gendarmerie was built out nationwide, and later the railway guards and the water guards were also created. On 12 October 1938 dual subordination was restored in the direction of the gendarmerie, and the handling of the body's personnel matters reverted to the Hungarian Royal Ministry of National Defence. Whether the handling of the body's personnel matters took place openly or covertly, it was always under the supervision of the ministry of national defence; between the two world wars the decisive majority of the inspectors of the gendarmerie came from the circle of the army's generals.⁶⁷

The activity of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior in directing the law-enforcement bodies in the quarter-century between the autumn of 1919 and the autumn of 1944 bore both positive and negative features and measures. Undoubtedly the greatest advance in the interior ministry's work in this direction was the complete building out of the state police, so long in labour, the coordination of the activity of the police and the gendarmerie, and thereby the creation of an organisation for the protection of public order and the prosecution of crime that was more effective than in the preceding decades. At the same time, behind the remarkable results there frequently lurked, in the decisions taken, the pushing to the fore of political considerations and the transgression of the limits of the legal rules in force. The traditions and working methods of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior, looking back over three quarters of a century, were, however, completely overturned by the German occupation of the country, which fundamentally reshaped them in numerous respects.

The Ministry of the Interior in the Final Months of the World War

With the coming to power of Ferenc SZÁLASI and the Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, from 15 October 1944 the activity of the interior ministry was also transformed.⁶⁸ The new Minister of the Interior replaced part of the ministry's apparatus and restructured its organisation. The interior ministry was commissioned to create a new body to watch over the civilian public security of the country's operational zones. This organisation operated in dual subordination, under the direction of the interior ministry and the ministry of national defence. At the beginning of November the party service, reorganised into armed national service, was assigned to the subordination of the interior ministry, and then, at the beginning of December, the police was converted into a militarily organised guard corps.

In parallel with the advance of the Soviet troops, at the end of 1944 part of the interior apparatus relocated, first to the western part of Transdanubia and then to the then territory of the German Reich. In the territory of the Third Reich the activity of the government and, as part of it, of the ministry of the interior became entirely weightless and nominal. In the first days of May 1945 the road of the leaders and the bulk of the officials of the interior ministry ended in American captivity as prisoners of war.⁶⁹

With the disintegration of the Arrow Cross state apparatus, the activity of the ministry of the interior of the bourgeois era came to a close.⁷⁰ The organisation and activity of the new state power built up in the territories withdrawing from the war, and of the new ministry of the interior, made very little use of the ministry's earlier experiences and the lessons of its operation, although several persons were taken over from its personnel — at least initially. Thus the experiences and lessons of interior ministry work in the bourgeois era sank into oblivion for long decades.

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The [n] markers in the body text link to this numbering. Latin abbreviations (op. cit., Idem, p.) are left untranslated, as in the original. The citation codes BOTOS:, PARÁDI:, KATONA etc. are resolved in botos-01-roviditesek.en.md. Hungarian legal and archival references are given in their original form (they are the search keys of the Hungarian legal and archival system); descriptive elements are translated.

Abbreviations in the notes: tc. (törvénycikk) = statutory article, Act · ME.r. (miniszterelnöki rendelet) = prime ministerial decree · BM.r. (belügyminiszteri rendelet) = decree of the Minister of the Interior · BM.kr. (belügyminiszteri körrendelet) = circular decree of the Minister of the Interior · PM.r. (pénzügyminiszteri rendelet) = decree of the Minister of Finance · § = section · MNL = Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, Hungarian National Archives · csomó = bundle (archival unit) · köt. (kötet) = volume · évf. (évfolyam) = year of a periodical · sz. (szám) = number, issue · p. = page · (a szerk.) = editor's note

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Notes

1 ↩ 1867/XII.tc.

2 ↩ 1868/XXX.tc.

3 ↩ 1872/IV.tc. ; 1872/XXXV.tc. ; 1873/XXVII.tc. ; 1873/XXVIII.tc. ; 1873/XXIX.tc. ; 1873/XXX.tc. ; 1873/XXXVII.tc. ; 1874/X.tc.

4 ↩ BOTOS: A Magyar Királyi Belügyminisztérium a dualizmus korában [The Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior in the Era of Dualism].

5 ↩ 1872/XXXVI.tc. 20. § ; 1881/XXXI.tc.

6 ↩ 1903/VIII.tc. ; 5692/1905.ME.r. ; 91 000/1905.BM.r.

7 ↩ 1916/XXXVII.tc.

8 ↩ 1881/II.tc. ; 1881/III.tc.

9 ↩ PARÁDI: A dualista Magyarország belügyi szervei [The Interior Bodies of Dualist Hungary] ; Idem: A dualizmus közrendvédelmi szerveinek jellemzői és tevékenységük tapasztalatai [The Characteristics of the Public-Order Protection Bodies of the Dualist Era and the Experience of Their Activity] ; Idem: A Magyar Királyság rendvédelme 1867-1919 [The Law Enforcement of the Kingdom of Hungary, 1867–1919] ; Idem: A magyar rendvédelem fejlesztési reformjai a XIX. század második felétől a XX. század közepéig [Development Reforms of Hungarian Law Enforcement from the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century to the Middle of the Twentieth Century] ; Idem: A dualizmuskori magyar rendvédelem [Hungarian Law Enforcement in the Dualist Era] ; Idem: A polgári magyar rendvédelem a XIX-XX. században [Bourgeois Hungarian Law Enforcement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries] ; Idem: A magyar rendvédelem 1867-1914 [Hungarian Law Enforcement, 1867–1914].

10 ↩ KATONA

11 ↩ MNL. K-27., sessions of the Council of Ministers of 12 November 1867, 25 March and 17 December 1869, 12 July 1871 and 7 December 1872.

12 ↩ 1872/XXXVI.tc. op.cit.

13 ↩ MNL. K-148. 1873-XIV. G-3309, 1874-II. b-183, 1874-II. b-3413.

14 ↩ MNL. K-148. 1870-IV. F-560.

15 ↩ CSAPÓ: Ráday Gedeon és a szegedi királyi biztosság. A betyárvilág felszámolása [Gedeon Ráday and the Royal Commission of Szeged. The Liquidation of Outlawry].

16 ↩ Idem: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség története 1881-1914 [The History of the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie, 1881–1914].

17 ↩ 1881/XXXI.tc. op.cit.

18 ↩ MNL. K-148. 1880-XIV. G-4133.

19 ↩ 1916/XXXVII.tc. op.cit.

20 ↩ BORBÉLY — KAPY: 32.p.

21 ↩ 1903/VIII.tc. op.cit. ; 5692/1905.ME.r. op.cit. ; 91 000/1905.BM.r. op.cit.

22 ↩ 1912/LVIII.tc.

23 ↩ MNL. K-27., session of the Council of Ministers of 6 June. ; MNL. K-148. 1917-3-33281.

24 ↩ MNL. K-27., session of the Council of Ministers of 9 March 1875.

25 ↩ 1881/II.tc. op.cit. ; 1881/III.tc. op.cit.

26 ↩ 1882/X.tc.

27 ↩ MNL. K-27., sessions of the Council of Ministers of 21 August and 26 October 1880 and 20 November 1881. ; MNL. K-148. 1875-IX-1328, 1881-III. a-8131, 1883-IX. C-4899, 1893-IX. C-2185.

28 ↩ CSAPÓ: Csendőrség és városok 1881-1914 [The Gendarmerie and the Towns, 1881–1914].

29 ↩ MNL. K-148., bundles 116, 117, 118, 322 and 323. ; MNL. K-149., bundle 9. ; MNL. K-150., bundle 1571.

30 ↩ BOTOS: A belügyminisztérium története a monarchia széthullásától a második világháború végéig [The History of the Ministry of the Interior from the Disintegration of the Monarchy to the End of the Second World War].

31 ↩ SZAKÁLY: A két világháború közötti rendvédelmi szervek tevékenységének néhány jellemzője [Some Characteristics of the Activity of the Law-Enforcement Bodies between the Two World Wars].

32 ↩ MNL. K-148., bundle 1192.

33 ↩ 5047/1919.ME.r.

34 ↩ SZAKÁLY: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség 1919-1941 [The Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie, 1919–1941].

35 ↩ 5047/1919.ME.r. op.cit.

36 ↩ MNL. K-149., bundle 282.

37 ↩ CLAUSEWITZ

38 ↩ PARÁDI: A dualista Magyarország határőrizeti rendszerének kialakulása [The Formation of the Border-Guarding System of Dualist Hungary] ; Idem: A polgári magyar állam első határőrizeti szakszerve a Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség 1906-1914 [The First Specialist Border-Guarding Body of the Bourgeois Hungarian State: the Hungarian Royal Border Police, 1906–1914] ; Idem: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség határőrizeti feladatai 1891-1914 [Border-Guarding Tasks of the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie, 1891–1914] ; Idem: A Magyar Királyi Pénzügyminisztérium határőrizeti feladatai az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia magyarországi vámhatárain 1867-1914 [Border-Guarding Tasks of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of Finance on the Customs Borders of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Hungary, 1867–1914] ; Idem: A Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség a magyar határőrizet szakmai vezető testülete [The Hungarian Royal Border Police, the Professional Leading Body of Hungarian Border Guarding] ; Idem: A határszéli csendőrség állambiztonsági feladatai [State Security Tasks of the Border Gendarmerie] ; Idem: A Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség [The Hungarian Royal Border Police] ; Idem: Rendőrség a magyar határőrizetben [The Police in Hungarian Border Guarding] ; Idem: A Magyar Királyság határrendőrsége [The Border Police of the Kingdom of Hungary] ; Idem: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség határőrizeti szolgálata [The Border-Guarding Service of the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie] ; Idem: A csendőrség teendői az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia Magyar Királysága külső határainak őrizetében [The Tasks of the Gendarmerie in Guarding the External Borders of the Kingdom of Hungary of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy] ; Idem: Az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia Magyar Királyságának határszéli csendőrsége [The Border Gendarmerie of the Kingdom of Hungary of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy] ; Idem: A dualista Magyarország határőrizete 1867-1914 [The Border Guarding of Dualist Hungary, 1867–1914].

39 ↩ Idem: Határőrizeti metodika a két világháború közötti Magyar Királyságban [Border-Guarding Methodology in the Kingdom of Hungary between the Two World Wars] ; Idem: A magyar állam határőrizete a két világháború között. A magyar határőrizeti struktúra változásai a két világháború között [The Border Guarding of the Hungarian State between the Two World Wars. Changes in the Hungarian Border-Guarding Structure between the Two World Wars] ; Idem: A polgári Magyarország határőrizeti szervezetének kialakulása, tevékenységének jellemzői, a két világháború közötti magyar határőrizet változásai [The Formation of the Border-Guarding Organisation of Bourgeois Hungary, the Characteristics of Its Activity, and the Changes in Hungarian Border Guarding between the Two World Wars] ; Idem: A magyar állam határőrizete a két világháború között [The Border Guarding of the Hungarian State between the Two World Wars] ; Idem: A magyar állam határőrizeti struktúrájának fejlődése a századfordulótól a II. világháborúig [The Development of the Border-Guarding Structure of the Hungarian State from the Turn of the Century to the Second World War] ; Idem: Határőrizet és kishatárforgalom a dualizmus alatt és a két világháború között [Border Guarding and Small-Border Traffic during Dualism and between the Two World Wars] ; Idem: A magyar határőrizet tere a kiegyezéstől a II. világháborúig [The Terrain of Hungarian Border Guarding from the Compromise to the Second World War] ; Idem: Útlevél és útlevélellenőrző szervezetek a két világháború közötti Magyar Királyságban [Passports and Passport-Control Organisations in the Kingdom of Hungary between the Two World Wars] ; Idem: Nemzeti határőrizetünk polgári szakasza [The Bourgeois Phase of Our National Border Guarding] ; Idem: A magyar állam határőrizete 1920-1941 [The Border Guarding of the Hungarian State, 1920–1941].

40 ↩ 1922/XIV.tc. on the organisation of the Hungarian Royal River Guard and the determination of its establishment, its modes of replenishment and its armament. ; 8270/1923.ME.r. on the implementation of Act XIV of 1922 on the exercise of river policing and on the organisation of the Hungarian Royal River Guard, and the determination of its establishment, its modes of replenishment and its armament.

41 ↩ 6200/1921.ME.r. ; 114 440/1921.PM.r.

42 ↩ 1939/II.tc. 80. § ; BORBÉLY — KAPY: op.cit. 144-150.p.

43 ↩ PARÁDI: A magyar állam határőrizete 1920-1941. op.cit. [The Border Guarding of the Hungarian State, 1920–1941.]

44 ↩ BORBÉLY — KAPY: op.cit.

45 ↩ PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség. Az első magyar polgári, központosított közbiztonsági őrtestület 1881-1945 [The Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie. The First Hungarian Bourgeois, Centralised Public-Security Guard Corps, 1881–1945]. 66.p.

46 ↩ PARÁDI József: A magyar állam határőrizete 1920-1941. op.cit. [The Border Guarding of the Hungarian State, 1920–1941.] 311.p.

47 ↩ BENCZÚR — CSONKARÉTI: 151.p.

48 ↩ 31 300/1920.BM.r.

49 ↩ MNL. K-148. 1021-5-5751. ; MNL. K-149., bundle 282.

50 ↩ MNL. K-27., sessions of the Council of Ministers of 12 January, 3 March and 8 April 1921.

51 ↩ MNL. K-27., session of the Council of Ministers of 10 February 1922. ; 1927/VII.tc.

52 ↩ MNL. K-27., session of the Council of Ministers of 4 September 1925.

53 ↩ Az 1927. január hó 25-ére hirdetett országgyűlés képviselőházának naplója [The Journal of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly Convened for 25 January 1927]. XXIII.köt. [vol. XXIII]. Budapest, 1930, 368-390.p.

54 ↩ MNL. K-149. 1931-1-4400. The surviving registration cards constituting the background material of the State Security Handbook are to be found, partly in original and partly in copy, in the Political Trade Union Collection of the Hungarian National Archives.

55 ↩ BORBÉLY — KAPY: op.cit. 111.p.

56 ↩ MNL. K-149., bundle 284.

57 ↩ MNL. K-150., bundle 4528.

58 ↩ MNL. K-27., sessions of the Council of Ministers of 10 January and 12 May 1939, 23 November 1940 and 29 November 1941.

59 ↩ ÚJSZÁSZY

60 ↩ MNL. K-149. 1942.

61 ↩ MNL. K-149. 1944-7-6000, 1944-7-7000, 1944-7-11200.

62 ↩ BRAHAM

63 ↩ 2300/1944.ME.r.

64 ↩ MNL. K-27., sessions of the Council of Ministers of 10 and 21 June and 9 August 1944.

65 ↩ 1922/VII.tc.

66 ↩ 60 374/1930.BM.kr.

67 ↩ MNL. K-27., sessions of the Council of Ministers of 28 August 1921 and 1 April 1938. ; MNL. K-149., bundle 282. ; SZAKÁLY: Akik a Magyar Királyi Csendőrséget 1919 és 1945 között vezették [Those Who Led the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie between 1919 and 1945].

68 ↩ KOVÁCS

69 ↩ MNL. K-755., bundles 1–5.

70 ↩ Although the Arrow Cross era cannot be regarded as an integral part of the history of Hungarian law enforcement, since the Arrow Cross system did not come into being as an organic part of Hungarian development but was the puppet system of a foreign occupying power, which had nothing whatsoever to do with Hungarian interests, with the Hungarian constitution or with the Hungarian legal order, and did not follow from Hungarian development. This system did oppress the Hungarian population — to that extent it is part of Hungarian history — but the exercise of power was carried out not by the bourgeois Hungarian state but by the Hungarian outgrowth of the Third German Reich. The law enforcement of the bourgeois Hungarian state came to an end with the loss of the country's sovereignty. Though there are some who dispute this, deciding the question is not the task of the present study. (ed.)

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Latin abbreviations used in the notes

In accordance with international scholarly practice, the Latin reference abbreviations are not translated; they are left in their original form. Those occurring in the notes of the present volume are listed below; the full list is given in the list of abbreviations.

Abbreviation	Latin term	Meaning
cf., vö.	confer	compare; see also
Idem, Id.	idem	the same — the author given in the preceding note
op. cit.	opere citato	in the work cited — a work already given in full
p.	pagina	page

Abbreviations of Hungarian origin used in the apparatus: i. m. = the work cited · i. h. = the passage cited · uő = the same author · szerk. = editor · (a szerk.) = editor's note · ford. = translated by · évf. = volume year · sz. = number · skk. = and the following · csomó = archival bundle · ülései = sessions of

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The bold code is the abbreviation used in the notes; it is followed by the full bibliographic entry. Hungarian titles are retained in the original (they are the search keys of Hungarian scholarly literature) with an English translation in square brackets. Latin abbreviations (op. cit., Idem, i. m.) are left untranslated.

Conventions: p. = page · köt. = volume · évf. = year of a periodical · sz. = number, issue · füzet = fascicle · (szerk.) = ed./eds. · Ford. = trans. · Kézirat = manuscript · melléklet = appendices · Magyarországi Rendeletek Tára = Collection of Hungarian Decrees

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Monographs, shorter monographs and volumes of a similar character

BORBÉLY — KAPY — BORBÉLY Zoltán – KAPY Rezső (eds.): A 60 éves magyar rendőrség 1881-1941 [Sixty Years of the Hungarian Police, 1881–1941]. Budapest, 1942, Halász Irodalmi és Könyvkiadó Vállalat [Halász Literary and Book Publishing Company]. 594 p.

BOTOS — BOTOS János: A Magyar Királyi Belügyminisztérium a dualizmus korában [The Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior in the Era of Dualism]. Budapest, 1994, BM Kiadó [Ministry of the Interior Publishing House]. 91 p. HU-ISBN 963 80 3610 9. /Fejezetek a Magyar Királyi Belügyminisztérium történetéből [Chapters from the History of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of the Interior]./ HU-ISSN —

BOTOS — BOTOS János: A belügyminisztérium története a monarchia széthullásától a második világháború végéig [The History of the Ministry of the Interior from the Disintegration of the Monarchy to the End of the Second World War]. Budapest, 1995, BM Kiadó. 95 p. HU-ISBN 963 80 3619 2. /Fejezetek a Magyar Királyi Belügyminisztérium történetéből./ HU-ISSN —

BRAHAM — BRAHAM Randolph L.: A népírtás politikája. A holocaust Magyarországon [The Politics of Genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary]. Trans.: Tamás ZALA et al. Vols. I–II. Budapest, 1997², Belvárosi Könyvkiadó. 250 p. HU-ISBN 963 76 7585 X.

CLAUSEWITZ — Carl Philipp Gottlieb von CLAUSEWITZ: Vom Kriege [On War]. Berlin, 1832-1834, Ferdinand Dümmler. 545 p.

CSAPÓ: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség története 1881-1914. — CSAPÓ Csaba: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség története 1881-1914 [The History of the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie, 1881–1914]. Pécs, 1999, Pro Pannónia Kiadói Alapítvány [Pro Pannónia Publishing Foundation]. 186 p. HU-ISBN 963 90 7940 5. /Pannónia Könyvek [Pannonia Books]./ HU-ISSN 0237-4277.

CSAPÓ — CSAPÓ Csaba: Ráday Gedeon és a szegedi királyi biztosság. A betyárvilág felszámolása [Gedeon Ráday and the Royal Commission of Szeged. The Liquidation of Outlawry]. Pécs, 2007, Pro Pannónia Kiadói Alapítvány. 204 p. HU-ISBN 978 963 94 98. /Pannónia Könyvek./ HU-ISSN 0237-4277.

BENCZÚR — CSONKARÉTI — BENCZÚR László — CSONKARÉTI Károly: Haditengerészet és folyamőrök a Dunán. A Császári (és) Királyi Haditengerészet dunai flottillájától a Magyar Királyi Honvéd Folyamerőkig 1870-1945 [Navy and River Guards on the Danube. From the Danube Flotilla of the Imperial (and) Royal Navy to the Hungarian Royal Honvéd River Forces, 1870–1945]. Budapest, 1991, Zrínyi. 291 p. HU-ISBN 963 327 153 3.

KATONA — KATONA Géza: Közbiztonság-védelem Magyarországon az I. világháborúig [The Protection of Public Security in Hungary up to the First World War]. Budapest, 1984, BM Kiadó. 174 p. HU-ISBN 963 03 1985 3.

KOVÁCS — KOVÁCS Zoltán András: A Szálasi-kormány belügyminisztériuma. Rendvédelem, állambiztonság, közigazgatás a nyilas korszakban [The Ministry of the Interior of the Szálasi Government. Law Enforcement, State Security and Public Administration in the Arrow Cross Era]. Máriabesnyő – Gödöllő, 2009, Attraktor. 370 p. HU-ISBN 978 963 98 5733 9.

PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség. Az első magyar polgári, központosított közbiztonsági őrtestület 1881-1945. — PARÁDI József: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség. Az első magyar polgári, központosított közbiztonsági őrtestület 1881-1945 [The Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie. The First Hungarian Bourgeois, Centralised Public-Security Guard Corps, 1881–1945]. Budapest, 2012, Szemere Bertalan Magyar Rendvédelem-történeti Tudományos Társaság [Szemere Bertalan Hungarian Scientific Society for the History of Law Enforcement]. 281 p. HU-ISBN 978 963 08 4794 0. /A magyar rendvédelem-történet öröksége [The Heritage of the History of Hungarian Law Enforcement], 2./ HU-ISSN 2062-8447.

SZAKÁLY: Akik a Magyar Királyi Csendőrséget 1919 és 1945 között vezették. — SZAKÁLY Sándor: Akik a Magyar Királyi Csendőrséget 1919 és 1945 között vezették [Those Who Led the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie between 1919 and 1945]. Történeti-statisztikai áttekintés a Magyar Királyi Csendőrség felső vezetőiről [A historical-statistical survey of the senior leaders of the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie]. Budapest, 2013, Magyar Napló Kiadó. 200 p. HU-ISBN 978 963 99 6127 2.

ÚJSZÁSZY — ÚJSZÁSZY István: Vallomások a holtak házából [Confessions from the House of the Dead]. Ed.: György HARASZTI et al. Újszászy István vezérőrnagynak a 2. vkf. osztály és az Államvédelmi Központ az ÁVH fogságában írott feljegyzései [The notes written by Major-General István Újszászy, head of Section 2 of the General Staff and of the State Defence Centre, while in the custody of the ÁVH]. Budapest, 2007, Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára [Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security Services] – Corvina Kiadó kft. 661 p. HU-ISBN 978 963 13 5336 5.

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Studies

Conference-note convention. The recurring Hungarian formula „A tanulmány korábbi változata …-én …-ban hangzott el, a Szemere Bertalan Magyar Rendvédelem-történeti Tudományos Társaság által szervezett rendvédelem-történeti tudományos konferenciasorozatnak „…" című N. konferenciáján. A publikált tanulmány az előadás javított, bővített és átdolgozott változata." is rendered below as: „Earlier version presented: [date], [place], at the [N]th conference of the scholarly conference series on the history of law enforcement organised by the Szemere Bertalan Hungarian Scientific Society for the History of Law Enforcement, entitled '…'. The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture."

CSAPÓ: Csendőrség és városok 1881-1914. — CSAPÓ Csaba: Csendőrség és városok 1881-1914 [The Gendarmerie and the Towns, 1881–1914]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis) [Papers on the History of Law Enforcement], year X (2000), no. 12, pp. 43–48. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 6 October 1999, Budapest, 12th conference, „Changes in the Relationship of Public Administration, the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement in the Period of the Bourgeois Hungarian State". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A dualista Magyarország határőrizeti rendszerének kialakulása. — PARÁDI József: A dualista Magyarország határőrizeti rendszerének kialakulása [The Formation of the Border-Guarding System of Dualist Hungary]. Belügyi Szemle [Interior Review], year XXX (1982), no. 10, pp. 44–51. HU-ISSN 0133-6738.

PARÁDI: A dualista Magyarország belügyi szervei. — PARÁDI József: A dualista Magyarország belügyi szervei [The Interior Bodies of Dualist Hungary]. Belügyi Szemle, year XXXIV (1986), no. 4, pp. 45–50. HU-ISSN 0133-6738.

PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség határőrizeti feladatai 1891-1914. — PARÁDI József: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség határőrizeti feladatai 1891-1914 [Border-Guarding Tasks of the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie, 1891–1914]. Hadtörténelmi Közlemények [Journal of Military History], year CIII (1988), no. 1, pp. 56–92. HU-ISSN 0017-6540.

PARÁDI: A polgári magyar állam első határőrizeti szakszerve a Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség 1906-1914. — PARÁDI József: A polgári magyar állam első határőrizeti szakszerve a Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség 1906-1914 [The First Specialist Border-Guarding Body of the Bourgeois Hungarian State: the Hungarian Royal Border Police, 1906–1914]. Hadtörténelmi Közlemények, year CI (1986), no. 3, pp. 541–570. HU-ISSN 0017-6540.

PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyi Pénzügyminisztérium határőrizeti feladatai az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia magyarországi vámhatárain 1867-1914. — PARÁDI József: A Magyar Királyi Pénzügyminisztérium határőrizeti feladatai az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia magyarországi vámhatárain 1867-1914 [Border-Guarding Tasks of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of Finance on the Customs Borders of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Hungary, 1867–1914]. Hadtörténelmi Közlemények, year CIV (1989), no. 2, pp. 177–196. HU-ISSN 0017-6540.

PARÁDI: A dualizmus közrendvédelmi szerveinek jellemzői és tevékenységük tapasztalatai. — PARÁDI József: A dualizmus közrendvédelmi szerveinek jellemzői és tevékenységük tapasztalatai [The Characteristics of the Public-Order Protection Bodies of the Dualist Era and the Experience of Their Activity]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year II (1992), no. 3, pp. 21–28. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 19 November 1991, Budapest, 3rd conference, „Tradition and Modernity". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség, a magyar határőrizet szakmai vezető testülete. — PARÁDI József: A Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség, a magyar határőrizet szakmai vezető testülete [The Hungarian Royal Border Police, the Professional Leading Body of Hungarian Border Guarding]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year III (1993), no. 4, pp. 21–50. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 29 September 1992, Budapest, 4th conference, „The Law Enforcement of Dualist Hungary". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: Határőrizeti metodika a két világháború közötti Magyar Királyságban. — PARÁDI József: Határőrizeti metodika a két világháború közötti Magyar Királyságban [Border-Guarding Methodology in the Kingdom of Hungary between the Two World Wars]. Rendészeti Tanulmányok [Policing Studies], year III (1994), no. 2, pp. 84–126. HU-ISSN 1216-5018.

PARÁDI: A magyar állam határőrizete a két világháború között. A magyar határőrizeti struktúra változásai a két világháború között. — PARÁDI József: … [The Border Guarding of the Hungarian State between the Two World Wars. Changes in the Hungarian Border-Guarding Structure between the Two World Wars]. Főiskolai Figyelő Plusz [College Observer Plus], year V (1994), no. 4, pp. 391–404. HU-ISSN 0866-4404.

PARÁDI: A polgári Magyarország határőrizeti szervezetének kialakulása, tevékenységének jellemzői, a két világháború közötti magyar határőrizet változásai. — PARÁDI József: … [The Formation of the Border-Guarding Organisation of Bourgeois Hungary, the Characteristics of Its Activity, and the Changes in Hungarian Border Guarding between the Two World Wars]. Határőrségi Tudományos Közlemények [Border Guard Scientific Papers], year IV (1994), no. 1, pp. 4–23. HU-ISSN —

PARÁDI: A magyar állam határőrizete a két világháború között. — PARÁDI József: A magyar állam határőrizete a két világháború között [The Border Guarding of the Hungarian State between the Two World Wars]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year V (1995), no. 6, pp. 64–75. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: October 1994, Budapest, 6th conference, „The Law Enforcement of the Kingdom of Hungary between the Two World Wars". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A magyar állam határőrizeti struktúrájának fejlődése a századfordulótól a második világháborúig. — PARÁDI József: … [The Development of the Border-Guarding Structure of the Hungarian State from the Turn of the Century to the Second World War]. Határőrségi Tanulmányok [Border Guard Studies], year VII (1999), no. 5, special issue, pp. 27–48 and 14 appendices. Earlier version presented: 6 October 1999, Budapest, 12th conference, „Changes in the Relationship of Public Administration, the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement in the Period of the Bourgeois Hungarian State". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyság rendvédelme 1867-1919. — PARÁDI József: A Magyar Királyság rendvédelme 1867-1919 [The Law Enforcement of the Kingdom of Hungary, 1867–1919]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year IX (1999), no. 10, pp. 98–147. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 22 September 1998, Budapest, 10th conference, „The Influence of Western Law Enforcement on Hungarian Law Enforcement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: Határőrizet és kishatárforgalom a dualizmus alatt és a két világháború között. — PARÁDI József: Határőrizet és kishatárforgalom a dualizmus alatt és a két világháború között [Border Guarding and Small-Border Traffic during Dualism and between the Two World Wars]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year X (2000), no. 11, pp. 42–53. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 20 April 1999, Budapest, 11th conference, „Free Movement in the Carpathian Basin". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A határszéli csendőrség állambiztonsági feladatai. — PARÁDI József: A határszéli csendőrség állambiztonsági feladatai [State Security Tasks of the Border Gendarmerie]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XI (2005), no. 14, pp. 91–94. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented in German: February 2002, Budapest, 2nd symposium of the „The Gendarmerie in Hungary" series organised by the Gendarmerie History Section of the Szemere Bertalan Society. The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A magyar határőrizet tere a kiegyezéstől a második világháborúig. — PARÁDI József: A magyar határőrizet tere a kiegyezéstől a második világháborúig [The Terrain of Hungarian Border Guarding from the Compromise to the Second World War]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XII (2007), no. 15, pp. 125–138. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 27 August 2005, Lendva, Slovenia, at a scholarly conference organised by the István Hajnal Circle. The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség. — PARÁDI József: A Magyar Királyi Határrendőrség [The Hungarian Royal Border Police]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XII (2007), no. 15, pp. 139–159. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: April 2004, Budapest, at an event of the „Szemere Conversations" symposium series organised by the Police History Section of the Szemere Bertalan Society with the cooperation of the Scientific Council of the Police. The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: Útlevél és útlevélellenőrző szervezetek a két világháború közötti Magyar Királyságban. — PARÁDI József: Útlevél és útlevélellenőrző szervezetek a két világháború közötti Magyar Királyságban [Passports and Passport-Control Organisations in the Kingdom of Hungary between the Two World Wars]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XII (2007), no. 15, pp. 160–169. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 6 November 2001, 15th conference, „European and Hungarian Law Enforcement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A magyar rendvédelem fejlesztési reformjai a XIX. század második felétől a XX. század közepéig. — PARÁDI József: … [Development Reforms of Hungarian Law Enforcement from the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century to the Middle of the Twentieth Century]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XV (2008), no. 18, pp. 98–112. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 14 October 2004, Budapest, 18th conference, „Armed Enforcement Tasks in the Service of Crime Prevention and Peacekeeping in Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: Rendőrség a magyar határőrizetben. — PARÁDI József: Rendőrség a magyar határőrizetben [The Police in Hungarian Border Guarding]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XV (2008), no. 18, pp. 88–97. Earlier version presented: 14 October 2004, Budapest, 18th conference, „Armed Enforcement Tasks in the Service of Crime Prevention and Peacekeeping in Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A dualizmuskori magyar rendvédelem. — PARÁDI József: A dualizmuskori magyar rendvédelem [Hungarian Law Enforcement in the Dualist Era]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XVIII (2010), no. 21, pp. 66–84. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 5 October 2007, Budapest, 21st conference, „The Development of Law Enforcement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyság határrendőrsége. — PARÁDI József: A Magyar Királyság határrendőrsége [The Border Police of the Kingdom of Hungary]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XVIII (2010), no. 21, pp. 101–116. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 5 October 2007, Budapest, 21st conference, „The Development of Hungarian Law Enforcement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A polgári magyar rendvédelem a XIX-XX. században. — PARÁDI József: A polgári magyar rendvédelem a XIX-XX. században [Bourgeois Hungarian Law Enforcement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XIX (2010), no. 22, pp. 60–76. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 10 October 2008, Budapest, 22nd conference, „The Effects of the Changes of System over a Century and a Half on Our National Law Enforcement". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség határőrizeti szolgálata. — PARÁDI József: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség határőrizeti szolgálata [The Border-Guarding Service of the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XIX (2010), no. 22, pp. 77–91. Earlier version presented: 10 October 2008, Budapest, 22nd conference, „The Effects of the Changes of System over a Century and a Half on Our National Law Enforcement". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A csendőrség teendői az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia Magyar Királysága külső határainak őrizetében. — PARÁDI József: … [The Tasks of the Gendarmerie in Guarding the External Borders of the Kingdom of Hungary of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XXI (2011), no. 24, pp. 100–118. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 3 December 2009, Budapest, 24th conference, „The Gendarmerie in Austria-Hungary, and in Austria and Hungary, 1848–2005". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: A magyar rendvédelem 1867-1914. — PARÁDI József: A magyar rendvédelem 1867-1914 [Hungarian Law Enforcement, 1867–1914]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XXII (2012), no. 25, pp. 80–84. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 6 December 2010, Budapest, 25th conference, „Public Security — Our Common Carpathian-Basin Heritage". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: Az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia Magyar Királyságának határszéli csendőrsége. — PARÁDI József: Az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia Magyar Királyságának határszéli csendőrsége [The Border Gendarmerie of the Kingdom of Hungary of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XXII (2012), no. 26, pp. 81–104. Earlier version presented: 11 November 2011, Budapest, 26th conference, „Militarism and Demilitarisation in the Law Enforcement of the Hungarian State in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

PARÁDI: Nemzeti határőrizetünk polgári szakasza. — PARÁDI József: Nemzeti határőrizetünk polgári szakasza [The Bourgeois Phase of Our National Border Guarding]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year XXIII (2013), nos. 27-28-29-30, pp. 141–154. HU-ISSN 1216-6774.

SZAKÁLY: A két világháború közötti rendvédelmi szervek tevékenységének néhány jellemzője. — SZAKÁLY Sándor: … [Some Characteristics of the Activity of the Law-Enforcement Bodies between the Two World Wars]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year II (1992), no. 3, pp. 29–34. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: 19 November 1991, Budapest, 3rd conference, „Tradition and Modernity". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

SZAKÁLY: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség 1919-1941. — SZAKÁLY Sándor: A Magyar Királyi Csendőrség 1919-1941 [The Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie, 1919–1941]. Rendvédelem-történeti Füzetek (Acta Historiae Praesidii Ordinis), year V (1995), no. 6, pp. 122–129. HU-ISSN 1216-6774. Earlier version presented: October 1994, Budapest, 6th conference, „The Law Enforcement of the Kingdom of Hungary between the Two World Wars". The published study is the corrected, expanded and revised version of the lecture.

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Manuscripts

PARÁDI: A dualista Magyarország határőrizete 1867-1914. — PARÁDI József: A dualista Magyarország határőrizete 1867-1914 [The Border Guarding of Dualist Hungary, 1867–1914]. Doctoral dissertation in the humanities (ELTE, Faculty of Humanities). Manuscript. Budapest, 1985.

PARÁDI József: A magyar állam határőrizete 1920-1941. — PARÁDI József: A magyar állam határőrizete 1920-1941 [The Border Guarding of the Hungarian State, 1920–1941]. Candidate's dissertation (Hungarian Academy of Sciences – TMB). Manuscript. Budapest, 1990. 264 p. + 562 p. of appendices.

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Archival fonds, document and source collections

Az 1927. január hó 25-ére hirdetett országgyűlés képviselőházának naplója. — [The Journal of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly Convened for 25 January 1927]. Budapest, 1930.

MNL. K-27. — Hungarian National Archives, Minutes of the Council of Ministers, convolutum.

MNL. K-148. — Hungarian National Archives, Ministry of the Interior, Presidential Papers, convolutum.

MNL. K-149. — Hungarian National Archives, Ministry of the Interior, Reserved Papers, convolutum.

MNL. K-150. — Hungarian National Archives, Ministry of the Interior, General Papers, convolutum.

MNL. K-755. — Hungarian National Archives, Ministry of the Interior, Circular Decrees, convolutum.

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Legal sources

1867/XII.tc. — Act XII of 1867 on the relations of common interest existing between the lands of the Hungarian Crown and the other lands under the rule of His Majesty, and on the manner of their settlement.

1868/XXX.tc. — Act XXX of 1868 on the embodying in law of the agreement concluded on the settlement of the public-law questions pending between Hungary and Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia.

1872/IV.tc. — Act IV of 1872 on the proportions of the common costs to be borne on account of the Military Frontier.

1872/XXXV.tc. — Act XXXV of 1872 on the determination of the war contribution falling to the lands of the Hungarian Crown in consequence of the conversion to civil administration of part of the Military Frontier, namely the territory of the three Banat regiments and the Titel battalion, and on the amendment of Act III of 1872.

1872/XXXVI.tc. — Act XXXVI of 1872 on the formation and regulation of the municipal authority of the capital, Budapest.

1873/XXVII.tc. — Act XXVII of 1873 on the enactment of the conversion to civil administration of the Banat Military Frontier and the Titel battalion, and on the other measures necessitated by the conversion.

1873/XXVIII.tc. — Act XXVIII of 1873 on the regulation, in the converted parts of the Military Frontier, of the relations falling under the common legislation of the lands of the Hungarian Crown.

1873/XXIX.tc. — Act XXIX of 1873 on the enactment of the royal decree issued on 9 June 1872 for the Banat Military Frontier and the Titel battalion concerning the regulation of household communities and aiming at the modification of certain administrative institutions.

1873/XXX.tc. — Act XXX of 1873 on the redemption of the forest servitudes due to the inhabitants of the Military Frontier in the state forests there.

1873/XXXVII.tc. — Act XXXVII of 1873 on the determination of the war contribution falling to the lands of the Hungarian Crown in consequence of the conversion to civil administration of the remaining part of the Military Frontier, namely the territory of border guard regiments nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, and on the amendment of Act XXXV of 1872.

1874/X.tc. — Act X of 1874 on the covering of the costs arising from the reorganisation of the judicature of the Hungarian Military Frontier.

1881/II.tc. — Act II of 1881 on the replenishment of the rank and file of the gendarmerie.

1881/III.tc. — Act III of 1881 on the organisation of the public security service.

1881/XXXI.tc. — Act XXXI of 1881 on the police of the capital, Budapest.

1882/X.tc. — Act X of 1882 on service performed by the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie in the outer and inner territories of the cities vested with municipal rights.

1903/VIII.tc. — Act VIII of 1903 on the border police.

1912/LVIII.tc. — Act LVIII of 1912 on the development of towns.

1922/XIV.tc. — Act XIV of 1922 on the organisation of the Hungarian Royal River Guard and the determination of its establishment, its modes of replenishment and its armament.

1916/XXXVII.tc. — Act XXXVII of 1916 on the Hungarian Royal State Police of Fiume.

1922/VII.tc. — Act VII of 1922 on the determination of the establishment, mode of replenishment and armament of the Hungarian Royal State Police and the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie.

1927/VII.tc. — Act VII of 1927 on the supplementation and amendment of certain provisions of Chapter I of Act XI of 1922 on the implementation of certain prohibitions and restrictions contained in the military provisions of the Treaty of Trianon.

1939/II.tc. — Act II of 1939 on national defence.

5692/1905.ME.r. — Prime ministerial decree no. 5692/1905 on bringing into force Act VIII of 1903 on the border police. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year XXXIX (1905), fascicle I, p. 1455.

91 000/1905.BM.r. — Decree no. 91 000/1905 of the Minister of the Interior, to all municipal authorities except the city of Fiume, on the implementation of the bringing into force of Act VIII of 1903 on the border police. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year XXXIX (1905), fascicle I, pp. 1455–1463.

5047/1919.ME.r. — Prime ministerial decree no. 5047/1919 on the nationalisation of the police. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year LIII (1919), fascicle I, pp. 752–767.

31 300/1920.BM.r. — Decree no. 31 300/1920 of the Minister of the Interior on the operation of the investigating department organised within the Ministry of the Interior. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year LIV (1920), fascicle I, pp. 691–692.

6 200/1921.ME.r. — Prime ministerial decree no. 6 200/1921 on the establishment of the customs guard. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year LV (1922), fascicle I, pp. 223–232.

114 440/1921.PM.r. — Decree no. 114 440/1921 of the Minister of Finance on the implementation of government decree no. 6 200/1921 M.E. on the establishment of the customs guard. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year LV (1922), fascicle I, pp. 1594–1623.

8270/1923.ME.r. — Prime ministerial decree no. 8270/1923 on the implementation of Act XIV of 1922 on the exercise of river policing and on the organisation of the Hungarian Royal River Guard, and the determination of its establishment, its modes of replenishment and its armament. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year LVII (1924), fascicle I, pp. 335–340.

60 374/1930.BM.kr. — Circular decree no. 60 374/1930 of the Minister of the Interior on the regulation of the territorial and service relationship of the Royal Hungarian Police and the Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year LXI (1930), fascicle I, pp. 125–132.

2300/1944.ME.r. — Prime ministerial decree no. 2300/1944 on the reorganisation of the Royal Hungarian Police. Collection of Hungarian Decrees, year LXXVIII (1944), no. 1, pp. 1063–1065.

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Latin abbreviations resolved

In accordance with international scholarly practice, the Latin reference abbreviations are not translated; they are left in their original form. The list below is provided for the reader's convenience.

Abbreviation	Latin term	Meaning
cf., vö.	confer	compare; see also
Ead.	eadem	the same — referring to a female author
et al.	et alii, et alia	and others; and co-authors
etc.	et cetera	and so forth; and the rest
ib., ibid.	ibidem	in the same place — same work, same passage
Idem, Id.	idem	the same — the author given in the preceding note
i. e.	id est	that is
Loc. cit., l. c.	loco citato	in the place cited — a work already given, at a specified passage
op. cit.	opere citato	in the work cited — a work already given in full
p.	pagina	page
pp.	paginae	pages
passim	passim	here and there — at various points throughout the work
q. v.	quod vide	which see — a cross-reference to another entry
s. a.	sine anno	without year — year of publication unknown
s. l.	sine loco	without place — place of publication unknown
s. n.	sine nomine	without name — publisher unknown
s. v.	sub verbo, sub voce	under the entry …
sc.	scilicet	namely; that is to say
sq., sqq.	sequens, sequentes	the following page; the following pages
viz.	videlicet	namely; that is to say

Abbreviations of Hungarian origin used in the apparatus: i. m. = the work cited · i. h. = the passage cited · uő = the same author · szerk. = editor · (a szerk.) = editor's note · ford. = translated by · évf. = volume year · sz. = number · skk. = and the following · csomó = archival bundle · ülései = sessions of

No matches.