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 - The role of Frankfurt
FABULOUS SPY GAMES other countries.293 The influence of German industry could not be curbed significantly, which is probably down to the lobby whose key figure was engineer János Sebestyén, then head of the Frankfurt trade office, who gained considerable influence later on. 293 ÁBTL 3.1.5 0-12344/2 p. 197 Instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Trade to the Chamber of Commerce, 3 March 1960 294 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-12344/2 p. 178-180 János Sebestyéns autobiography, 6 August 1959 295 Bölöny 1978 Sebestyén was born in 1911 to a petty bourgeois family. According to his autobiography, he was awarded a degree as a mechanical engineer with electrical specialisation from the József Nádor University for Economics and Technical Sciences in Budapest.294 In the autobiography he wrote in 1959, he described at length that he worked hard during university, because his parents, who later fell victim to the Arrow Cross terror, did not support their son’s studies. He had a particularly bad relationship with his father, who fought throughout World War Two. From 1936 onwards, he actively participated in the activities of the illegal Communist Party and claimed also to have worked with Endre Ságvári. During the war, he was exempted from forced labour service as he worked as an engineer in a military factory. In 1945, Sebestyén became deputy head of department at the Budapest Electricity Works before obtaining a position at the Reparations Office in 1946. In November of the same year, he joined the Heavy Industries Centre, where he was first appointed head of division, then deputy general manager in 1948. He played an active part in kick-starting heavy industry, and in elaborating and implementing the aggressive industrialisation of the country. At his own request, he was transferred to the helm of the Heavy Industry Investment Company in 1949, where he oversaw the construction of the Dunai Vasmű steelworks and the city of Sztálinváros as a government commissioner. From 1954, he worked as a deputy minister on developing the country’s power grid at the Ministry of Heavy Industry, and, on 9 October 1954, he became an official at the Ministry of Chemical Industry and Energy, led by Árpád Kiss. 295 “At my own request, I was relieved of my duties in May 1957 to be reassigned to lead the Frankfurt 110
