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 - Economic diplomacy
'FABULOUS' IN HUNGARY the street’ - was a ticket for the German journalist and businessman to the Hungarian economic elite. This netted him acquaintances which enabled him to play a decisive role in Hungary’s foreign trade until the mid-1960s, and he even acted with goodwill’ to make sure that János Kádár became presentable in the eyes of the western public. Hungarian foreign trade diplomacy attempted to approach parties in West Germany outside the FDP’s circles, with much less success though. Officials started negotiating with the leaders of the organisation representing the interests of deported Germans, the Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten (BHE) and with social democratic politicians, at the same time as talks started with the free democrats, but they even found people amongst the Christian democrats who would listen to them. As mentioned previously, Kiesinger, a CDU politician in the 1950s and 1960s who equally had a Nazi past, and his right-hand man Todenhöfer, also had good relations with János Nyerges, and they too supported the Kádár regime, in spite of the news of the bloody retributions. When they commented to Nyerges on the martial law introduced in November 1956, warning the economic diplomat that they should keep quiet about applying this inhumane procedure if it was really necessary to use it (which means that they should not let news leak on executions based on martial law, ruling out the possibility of an appeal and a pardon), Nyerges replied that “these so-called outcries are not honest, and just as the Germans cannot be bothered by what democracy they have in, say, Spain, Iran or South Africa, and engage in trade with these countries happily, they should not allow themselves to be concerned by the domestic situation in Hungary either.”282 Nyerges and his fellow foreign affairs officials had no problem rejecting such criticisms as they were voiced by people who had previously assisted in genocide, so there was little moral justification for them to claim Kádár is usually seen as a pragmatic politician, but this opportunism had not been conspicuous before: the new power that turned its back on the sins of Stalinism’ in paying political lip service in its rhetoric, but practically 282 ÁBTL 3.1.2 M-25447/1, p. 56 Report, 9 April 1957 105
