Cseh Valentin szerk.: „70 éve alakult a MAORT” – tanulmányok egy bányavállalat történetéből (2009)
Tamás Magyarics: The United States and the Issue of MAORT's Nationalisation
stands out. This company was created for the exploitation of the fields that its predecessor, the European Gas and Electric Company (EUROGASCO) - owned for the most part by Standard Oil of New Jersey - discovered. After World War Two broke out, MAORT grew in significance, since it was producing a raw material of crucial strategic importance, and its production was greatly ramped-up in a short time accordingly, perhaps to a level that would not have been possible to maintain over the long run. (One of the most serious accusations the communist authorities made in the MAORT Trial later on was exactly that during the world war, the company produced larger quantities of oil for the Germans, as it were, than it did after the war for the 'soviets'.) MAORT found itself in a very incon\ r enient situation during the war, the reason being was that in December, 1941, the Bárdossv cabinet informed the L'S Ambassador in Budapest that a 'state of war' had come about between the two countries. On December 12, Hungary broke off diplomatic relationships with the United States. Pursuant to the Minister of Industry's decree, MAORT was placed in the Ministry of Finance's management on December 20, 1941. Before this, Minister József Varga invited the company's President and CEO, Paul Ruedemann, to leave Hungarv. (Ruedemann was also EUROGASCO's vice-president earlier.) and requested Simon Papp to take over MAORT's management. We know from the subject's memoirs that Ruedemann appointed Simon Papp to be the company's vice-president and managing director on December 15. The American company manager left for the Unites States on January 16, 1942 and all his ties with MAORT practically broke from then all the wav undl the end of the war. In his remarks concerning the MAORT trial, Simon Papp mentioned that before he left, his former superior, Ruedemann instructed him to approach the Klassen, President of the German-American Petroleum Company (D. A. G P.), but this executive, a German national, diet! not long after Ruedemann left, and on the other hand he did not deal with production related issues, being a financial and legal professional. Ruedemann arrived in Hungary on November 14, 1945, and took back the company's direction as the Standard Oil Co.'s appointee. The fate of I lungarv - and that of ("entrai Europe - was already decided in Tehran, and not in Yalta, as conventional wisdom has it. Namely, a decision was reached about opening up the second front at the first summit the 'Three Majors' held between No\ r ember 28 and December 1,1943. The fact that this happened far from Central Europe, moreover a good six months after the decision was made, provided the chance - at enormous loss of property and life - for the Soviet Union and its leader, Stalin, to carry on with the intensified offensive against German troops and their allies, because as the Soy r iet dictator declared to Milovan Dilas: after the war, every country's zone of influence will extend as far as their troops reach. In addition, certain American leaders, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, later granted the Moscow leadership the opportunity to occupy positions in Central Europe that the United States could have secured as well, in the interest of recognising the Soviets' war efforts. In short: Franklin D. Roosevelt did not intend to impede Soviet expansion in Central Europe on account of high politics related considerations. His successor, Harry S. Truman and his advisors already cherished fewer illusions about Soviet leadership and its objectives, but the USA's Central Europe policy did not change fundamentally even then. The region's geopolitical and geostrategic perception remained unchanged, furthermore American notions known as nuclear diplomacy were also mistaken in the sense that the United States' nuclear monopoly really onlv existed on paper, and the Soviets
