A Piece of the Hungarian Maginot Line

“A Piece of the Hungarian Maginot Line" – says the board in the courtyard of HM HIM, above the fort unit built on the basis of the original designs. The information board also tells us that in the period of war tension between Yugoslavia and Hungary — between 1951 and 1955 — a chain of fortified areas was constructed on the southern border of the country, streching to 630 kilometres. A considerable amount of the national income had to be expended on erecting the fort network – more than HUF 7 billion at the past value. Various types of fort units were built, the armour-domed piece is one of them and there are only two or three units of this kind. One of these was in the vicinity of the village of Matty in Baranya county. Relying on various documents, HM HIM’s research team searched the location of the fort and explored the armour tower in March 2008.

When the fort was built, the tank tower was placed upon a structure with thick stone walls, thus the tower protected the Maxim machine gun installed inside, and its operator. To increase the protection provided by the structure the whole armoured tower was surrounded with heaps of stones and covered with soil. Only the loophole remained free, covered by a camouflage net.

A further interesting feature about the fort unit is that the installed tank tower was a part of a WWII Panzer IV armoured combat vehicle. Among tanks manufactured by the German army, Panzer IVs were produced in the highest number. For the fort, the cannon, the spyholes, the covers of manholes, and the command tower were decommissioned, the holes were welded with an armoured plate, and the front armour was fortified. The loopholes for the machine gun were cut in the front armour panel.

“As we had promised, we put this unique armoured fort with a machine gun on display before the Night of the Museums" — commenced Lieutenant General (Ret.) Dr. József Holló his speech of inauguration. The General Director of HM HIM also noted that the fort unit is on display in the same corner of the courtyard of the Institute where there are a few metres of the iron curtain that separated Austria and Hungary earlier. The copy of the so-called SZ–100 system was erected in the courtyard in 2006, but they never thought that a piece of the fort ‘guarding’ the southern border will also be on display here.

The General Director highlighted: the fort network stretching from Makó to the Õrség in the southern border zone was constructed in the ‘Tito dog on a chain leash’ period, in the most fierce years of the cold war. Moreover, it had literally taken blood and sweat to build it, since it cost more than HUF 7 billion, a very significant amount that time.

“As the years passed, documents and designs on the basis of which the fort network had been built were declassified. These materials also reveal that the experts of our institute have more to explore at the southern frontier" – said Lieutenant General Holló.

Following the solemn celebration of the handover Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Lajos Négyesi, Head of Department of HM HIM and leader of the exploration works has shown the structure to the guests. He noted that the tower, weighing two and a half tons was concreted with the foundation in such a way that during these years nobody succeeded to carve it out — this is how it could survive for posterity.

When the handover celebration of the armour-domed fort unit has ended, a colleague dressed in traditional period uniform has demonstrated how one could ‘cover’ the designated territory with the Maxim machine gun regularly used in the fort unit.