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' IN HUNGARY Soviet background is something to be considered here as Nyerges ’ activities in Switzerland went way beyond the scope of activity of the Hungarians, and Fekete is also known to have been in contact with the NKVD.301 301 “...Yes, they did always find me [i.e. NKVD]. I, however, never did anything of my own accord. I have principles! There is no need for people to threaten me for me to tell them someone is carrying out hostile activities against them. I’ll tell them that all by myself. To instruct me to do something like that, I just couldn’t. But if I didn’t like someone, I told them to look at that guy, he is up to no good. I was protecting our system wherever I could, simple as that,” recalled János Fekete with regard to the Soviet secret services. Benda 1999, p. 111 NKVD: People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, Domestic Commissariat 302 For the tasks and the organisational structure of MNVK-2 in detail, see: Magyar 2008; Okváth 2008 After the revolution, however, the situation began to change. It would require further organisational searches to establish why the control of the trade network (and the journalist line) got pushed more and more into the court of military intelligence after 1956, but the most striking change that could probably explain this was the Warsaw Pact, established in 1955. It appears logical that, after concluding the military alliance, the military organisations of the member states, including military intelligence, ended up under direct Soviet control and played an increasingly important role in the cooperation within the Bloc. This outlined economic network of nexuses was not built according to national competence and initiated by Hungary, but was clearly a conscious cooperation between the Soviet Union and the western countries, led by the US, which means it was probably easier to control this network through the military intelligence they had under direct control. Within the Warsaw Pact, the task of MNVK- 2 was partly to focus on the military operational corridor along the Danube (mainly Austria and Southern Germany),302 so the trade office in Frankfurt was an important base for military intelligence to begin with, given that there was no diplomatic representation in West Germany at the time where a military attaché could be delegated. Sebestyént appointment was seen as an opportunity to take control of the office from the rival civilian intelligence. “It seems to us that this will be the first time the trade office has a politically appropriate person at the helm in Comrade János Sebestyén,” a report by military intelligence reads, closing with the following: “What Comrade Sebestyén said made us understand 113
