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' IN HUNGARY

He assumed, however, that the government would later sell and rent certain companies, allowing Hungary to gradually return to the capitalist economic system. And this is why this capitalist group, represented by Hoffmann, sees a tremendous opportunity in building economic relations between West Germany and the peoples democracies, and in establishing a head-start over other western capitalist groups.”269

This means that West German capitalist circles already foresaw in 1957 that a change in the economic regime sometime in the future would not go hand in hand with re-privatisation, so they could therefore participate in the acquisition of state assets.

269 ÁBTL

3.1.5.

0-12344/1, p. 74-75 Confession by Ferenc Szolcsányi,

22

December 1959

270 ÁBTL

3.1.5.

0-12344/1 p. 31 MNVK-2 note, 16 March 1959 Formore on the magazine, see

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industriekurier

271 Ruff 1998, p. 1117

272 Ibid. p. 1120

273 Ibid. p. 1121

Emil Hoffmann acted as the intermediary between the FDP

and

Hungarian economic players and diplomacy, and undertook the role of journalist for the magazine Industriekurier,

one

of the leading business media outlets270

of West German capitalists according to MNVK-2.271

It is not surprising that West German, liberal economic policymakers had a preference for Hungary over the other countries in the region. As explained in the previous chapter, Hungary managed to build a significant network of trade nexuses after WWII, which created promising investment and cooperation opportunities. “The German free democrats commented on how much easier it was to negotiate with us Hungarians than with the Poles and the Czechs, let alone Germans from the GDR.”272

With active assistance from the ambassador to Berlin, Emánuel

Safrankó and

his colleague, Sándor Kurtán, continuous

dialogue was initiated between the two parties by the summer of 1956, and a visit to Hungary was scheduled for the eminent leaders of the FDP

for

October 1956. One member of the two-member delegation was Kurt Haller and he was accompanied by Willy Max Rademacher.273

Kurt Haller s name will be familiar. As a high-ranking Nazi officer, he was Veesenmayer s liaison in 1944 with the leaders of the Arrow Cross Party in Budapest, but his involvement in the Canaris intelligence organisation saved him from trial after the war.

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