"Utunk, harcaink a keleti vörös pokolban" : Bogdán József 1942-es beszámolója harctéri szolgálatáról

Abstract

Dr. József Bogdán, a dentist from Makó served on the Soviet front as a reservist lieutenant from April till September, 1942. His memoirs written in October, 1942 are the typical example of the publications produced for the purpose of war propaganda, in which well-known terms of the age intermingle with recollections of experiences gained on the front. As in most of the cases with similar publications, this also portrays the Soviet system, the people and the army in a negative light. They were written while victory was still taken for granted, and they show that the author had experienced many aspects of every day life, the inhumanity of Stalinism, but his return prevented him from forming a deep-going, versatile opinion of it. The memoirs are predominantly important source from the viewpoint of the working of war propaganda, they are interwoven with the fundamental ideas of the age: he identifies bolshevism with the sins of Jewry, and maintains that German invasion was only a pre-emptive strike before the Soviet invasion of Europe, he thought that collapse of the Stalinist system was imminent, the Soviet people expected their liberators, the army was ill-supplied, ill-equipped, and the soldiers were forced to fight by terror. The declaration of war is regarded by Bogdán as participation in the antibolshevist crusade, and he does not specify reliable data on the the real situation of the Second Hungarian Army and its shortages of supply.