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
FABULOUS SPY GAMES effect on creditors too, sending the message “we are solvent, nice and quiet, we could just as well reschedule repayments, as everything will soon be back to normal, we are in control”. Financing Bickenbach, however, was frowned upon even by circles that were also key economic partners to Hungary, so the story had to be communicated particularly carefully to them. One such rival was Gerhard Todenhöfer. Gerhard Todenhöfer also started his career as a national socialist party functionary and his extremely radical views made him stand out among his fellow party members. He was the leader of the local youth organisation at Marburg University, which shot him to a senior office in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs at a young age: Todenhöfer was a government councillor liaising between Joachim von Ribbentrop and Goebbels.83 During the war, he was briefly transferred to the consulate in Finland to serve on the front as a political officer to field marshal Ferdinand Schörner, later convicted as a war criminal. After 1945, Todenhöfer rightly feared being brought to trial, which he escaped in the end, even though he was the deputy head of the department in charge of Jewish matters while he was in the service of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.84 He had his high-level connections to thank for his escape, and his well-wishers even made sure he was not heard as a witness as he was afraid of being unable to escape trial.85 In his remaining years, he chose the business world, which was, however, closely entwined with politics, as he was smoothing the way from the shadows for his close friend, the future West German chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Their cooperation was, of course, mutual. Kiesinger could achieve success amongst the political elite, like saving Todenhöfer from being brought to court for his Nazi past, while Todenhöfer had extensive financial and economic connections. It was due to him that Kiesinger had outstandingly close relations with the prominent players of the Hungarian economy, but more on that later. Todenhöfer became involved in foreign trade after the war, building relations with Hungarian companies. 83 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-12344/12 270/41 Report by an MNVK-2 agent, 3 August 1957 84 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Todenh%C3%B6fer 85 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-12344/13 From MNVK-2 documents, 1958 34
