BOOK REVIEW

The Hungarian Royal Fieldpost In World War II 1938-1948
Monograph, Handbook and Catalog

Page size: A5. Pages: 512. Paperback
Illustration: 1617.
ISBN: 978-963082625-9
Price: 20.-€ or 30.-$

I would like to intorduce a unique book to our readers. It is unique because such a comprehensive work about the funtioning of the Hungarian Royal Fieldpost during the Second Word War has never been compiled either from a historical or a philatelic perspective. It is unique because its publication was preceded by many years of research work in archives, museums, and reference books in addition to collecting actual examples. It is unique beause it illustrates the funtioning of the fieldpost through the use of 1617 previously unpublished examples, pictures, and tables. It is unique because, for the first time, it assigns catalog values to postally used examples.
The author deals with the subject in great detail, a subject that nobody paid much attention to in the past 70 years. He demonstrates how the fieldpost mailings were organized. He elaborates on the correspondence of the conscripts of labor batallions and the prisoners of war. He categorizes the cancellations used by the fieldpost offices. He expands the book to include the fieldpost used by the democratic armed forces, the field supply offices, the social organizations dealing with prisoners of war and the communication service organized by the Red Cross.
The book does not neglect to provide a historical background in order to supplement the operation of the fieldpost offices. The reader can more readily place each mailing into the proper historical perspective whether it was sent in wartime or at a time of POW captivity.
With the aid of this publication, collectors, interested parties, family members and other relatives an identify examples in their possession as to unit and and its assignment at the time a card or letter was sent by a soldier, who may have been their father or grandfather. The same identification is possible for the POW correspondence showing which camp in Russia the writer may have sent a card signalling that he was alive.
The book also functions as a catalog because of its extensive content of illustations, tables, and pricing indications. This can be of great help to collectors, who have been waiting for such a publication. It will allow them to organize their collections and contribute to the popularization of this topic. The author made a great head start with his thorough, dedicated, and knowledgable approach to the book. The author’s style lends itself for easy and enjoyable reading. This book is heartily recommended to postal history collectors and World War II afficinados interested in the story of the fieldpost and the correspondence of prisoners of war.