Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
‘FABULOUS’ IN HUNGARY - Economic diplomacy
FABULOUS SPY GAMES luck over the first few years after the war mainly in the countries of the Soviet sphere of interest. In Berlin, he had access to all the embassies of the Eastern Bloc. It was the acquaintances of ‘Fabulous’ from the national socialist times, i.e. politicians who previously followed Nazi ideology and were mostly among the ranks of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), that seemed particularly useful to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The FDP was founded in December 1948 by the liberal parties of the Trizone. Its first president was Theodor Heuss, who was also the first person to hold the office of federal president between 1949 and 1959 after the Federal Republic of Germany was created in 1949. The FDP was a member of the coalition government up until 1957, but major conflicts broke out in 1956 between the liberals and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). They parted ways, and the free democrats were forced into opposition after the elections the following year.268 Hungarian foreign policy kept a close eye on the activities of the liberal party from the very beginning, since this was the organisation in the West German political arena they were able to cooperate successfully with even before establishing official diplomatic ties. Chancellor Adenauer and the Christian democrats behind him refused to negotiate with the countries in the Soviet Bloc, but the FDP saw a marvellous economic opportunity in the cooperation with the countries behind the Iron Curtain. Hoffmann believed that capitalist groups who were consciously readying themselves for the collapse of the socialist Bloc were behind them, and were making sure that their economic influence was beyond doubt in the region, just in case any of the satellite countries were able to break away from the Soviet sphere of interest, giving them an unbeatable advantage over other interest groups. Hoffmann pointed out as early as 1957 that Hungarian “industry underwent changes that rule out the possibility of ownership rights being restored, i.e. the pre- 1945 owners getting their factories and banks, etc. back. The same goes for agriculture. It is therefore not in the interests or the aim of this German capitalist group to restore the country to its pre-1945 economic order in every respect. 268 Ruff 1998, p. 1115 100
