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 to Junger, so he must have made very good money at the Frankfurt office. It is not beyond the realms of fantasy that Sebestyén did not arrive in Germany as the technical representative of Hungary, but as someone who wanted to join the foreign trade network. This is supported by the agent report that, in addition to reporting in detail on Sebestyént illegal financial transactions, complains that “even though the office had to cope after the counter-revolution under extremely difficult conditions and with almost no assistance from home for a long time, as well as the defection of the head of the office and several employees and the hostile attitude of West Germany, the visiting leaders, Comrade Nyerges from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Comrade Fekete from the Currencies Directorate reported home that the office is politically and professionally weak, ignoring our challenging situation. However, barely a few months after Comrade Sebestyén arrived in Frankfurt, Comrade Fekete was singing the praises of the office.”299 299 ÁBTL 3.1.2. M-15247 67/b Report, 27 March 1958 300 On the procedure against István Dévai, see: Borvendég 2018 Under Sebestyént leadership, the Frankfurt staff was quickly replaced, filling the posts at the office with people loyal to him. The new arrivals included István Dévai, who later became a target of the state security investigation against Sebestyén, and fell like a pawn sacrificed on the chess board controlled by the increasingly powerful foreign trade lobby.300 Dévai worked for military intelligence. The economic and financial network that I identify as the foreign trade lobby could not possibly have operated without help from the secret services in a single-party state dictatorship, of course. We have seen that the intelligence services were very much present behind the foreign trade companies on the other side of the Cold War battleground too, which also applies to the Soviet Bloc. The situation in Hungary, however, has particular characteristics in this respect as well. In the early days, over the first few years after the war, the trade network, which gave rise to the interest group that strengthened by the 1960s, was already beginning to take shape. By that time, however, all the players we can identify worked for state security, i.e. civilian intelligence, without exception, including Nyerges, Fekete and Junger. The 112
