Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
‘THE HUNGARIAN MAFIA’ - A chink on the peace front: Frankfurt am Main
FABULOUS SPY GAMES December 1945 with a three-man committee comprising the prime minister and the ministers for industrial and transport affairs at its helm. The operational work of the Council was carried out by the secretariat, headed by communist politician Zoltán Vas.178 György Oblath said about the early days of the Economic Council that “they also had a pretty tight grip on foreign trade.”179 Zoltán Vas therefore tasked journalist István Brody to contact the economic politicians in the western occupation zone of Germany who were willing to establish business ties with Hungary. Brody conducted negotiations with Karl Werkmeister and Herbert Schellpeper, mentioned earlier as the man in charge of affairs related to Hungary.180 Both of them were Nazi officials, Werkmeister served as a diplomat in Budapest between 1936 and 1944. Following the German occupation, Werkmeister was Veesenmayer s deputy. It was his job to prepare Jewish deportations and he played a role in the Arrow Cross coup in October 1944. Werkmeister escaped trial after the war and became a key figure in German economic management, becoming the leader of the institution that supervised the distribution and use of aid from the Marshall Plan. In 1954, he was awarded one of the highest state honours and was appointed ambassador to Stockholm in 1961. As for Schellpeper s past, he was also a decisive figure in the Hitler era, maintaining a relationship with Hungary as a representative of Nazi 178 Zoltán (Weinberger) Vas (1903-1983) joined the Communists during the Budapest Commune before becoming a member of the Communist Party of Hungary and a soldier of the Red Army He was imprisoned for several years between the two wars. He was first arrested in 1921 but was transferred to the Soviet Union the following year as part of a prisoner exchange. Vas returned as a Comintern agent in 1925 only to be imprisoned again shortly afterwards. He was released in 1940 together with Mátyás Rákosi and returned to the Soviet Union. In 1944, he crossed the border again as a soldier of the Red Army. After the War, he was appointed secretary of the Economic Council and then president of the National Office for Planning. In 1953, he was stripped of all his offices and was among the intended victims of the Zionist trial being prepared, but Stalins death saved him from his own comrades’ prison. In Imre Nagy’s government, he was the head of the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, but following Nagy’s fall, Zoltán Vas was also forced to take a back seat. During the revolution, he acted as a government commissioner for public supplies, before fleeing to the Yugoslav Embassy with Imre Nagy and others. He was pardoned in 1958. 179 Oblath 1985, p. 6 180 ‘Neither butter, nor cannons’ by István Bródy, Haladás, p.9, 19 June 1947 66
