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 - The road to the Stasi
EMIL HOFFMAN AND HIS CIRCLES American intelligence knew him to be a member of the SD.94 Despite all of this, he managed to escape trial after the War: a CIA report suggests he was acquitted of the charge of having been a Nazi criminal,95 although, according to Hungarian state security, the British arrested him and he was interned until 1947.96 94 CIA, FOIA, Special collection of Gustav Meissner, no date. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/MEISSNER%2C%20GUSTAV_0003.pdf (Downloaded on: 8 August 2019) 95 CIA, FOIA, Special collection of Gustav Meissner, 11 January 1965 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/MEISSNER%2C%20HANS%20 OTTO_0024.pdf (Downloaded on: 8 August 2019) 96 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-12344/5 p. 119 Report by‘ Reményi’ 10 December 1962 97 CIA, FOIA, Special collection of Emil Hoffmann, 12 April 1960 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/HOFFMANN%2C%20EMIL_0084.pdf (Downloaded on: 4 August 2019) The road to the Stasi Hoffman started work representing Atlas in the late 1940s, and he took over as the head of the Berlin branch in 1951.97 He lived in Berlin until 1953, but the CIA was trailing him, his telephones were tapped and they tried to hinder his movements between the two zones of the city, which made him leave the former imperial capital and move close to Bonn. He had extremely good relations in East Berlin, with access even to the Soviet Embassy, while appearing as a journalist and trader at a wide range of companies and offices. None of the secret services were able to map his network accurately, but we do know that he made contacts in the highest political and economic circles, where he used his tremendous talent to pick up dropped morsels of information and use them to his advantage. Until 1952, he often travelled to the countries of the Eastern Bloc, visiting the acquaintances he had made during the war to ‘do business’ with the information gathered as a slick professional. Most of the time, it was not secret information he obtained, instead he picked up sensitive and undisclosed information in private conversations. Being the shrewd observer 37
