Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
EMIL HOFFMAN AND HIS CIRCLES - Nazis reloaded
EMIL HOFFMAN AND HIS CIRCLES debited from the MKB account in payment of Bickenbachs debt. 77 Going on, Fekete also explained that Bickenbach could only be saved from bankruptcy if the commissions he would certainly earn in future were paid to him as advances. This “would be justified only if some extraordinary consideration necessitated saving the Bickenbach firm, known everywhere in the German markets as, shall we say, an advocate of the Hungarian cause, if it were of any interest to save the company from going bankrupt,” Fekete goes on.78 Although the ‘Editor’ went on in the report to say that this arrangement was rejected by the MNB, in the end, Bickenbach was still paid 100,000 deutschmarks followed by another 150,000 marks as advances on his commission fees.79 Quoting János Fekete: it was of interest to save the company from going bankrupt. Hungarian intelligence reckoned that the decision was reckless, as word spread quickly in trade and financial circles that the Hungarian state lent significant sums for an umpteenth time to Bickenbach, whom they had already bailed out in 1953 and 1954, although it was well-known that Hungary possessed a modest FX reserve, needed loans herself on a regular basis, and that she kept looking for loans everywhere.80 At that moment, Hungarian generosity was particularly remarkable, as national income dropped by 11 percent in 1956, and there was still no production at heavy industry companies even in December.81 The country was pushed to its solvency limits, and the Ministry for Financial Affairs was about to announce a moratorium for creditors, that is, it wanted to suspend the payment of the instalments due.82 At the same time, however, it was also obvious that Hungarian solvency greatly depended on foreign trade, helping out Bickenbach served the purpose of preventing foreign trade companies from losing their markets in West Germany; and doing so probably had a calming in 1950 precisely to finance foreign trade transactions, but it was not until the late 1960s under István Salusinszky that the bank achieved some relative independence to carry out its duties. 77 ÁBTL 3.1.2. M-14967 p. 39 Report, 31 May 1957 78 Ibid. p. 39-40 79 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-12344/7 p. 44 Executive report, 1 June 1960 80 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-12344/7 p. 49 Executive report, 1 June 1960 81 Mong 2012, p. 55 82 Ibid. p. 53 33
