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
FABULOUS SPY GAMES He felt his room for manoeuvre was stymied, and that he was forced into retirement. He took offence at being side-lined and made once last attempt to return to the world he knew, to the thrilling universe of the secret services. In 1976, he gave in to the Stasi and became a paid agent.103 It was his task to write smear articles on Radio Free Europe (RFE), in effect, the East German state security service expected him to discredit RFE. Hoffmann worked for the Stasi for years and barely left an official trace. Decades of experience in the world of secret agents made him shrewd, and he knew it was not a good idea to leave a paper trail, so his name was only mentioned in a 1981 catalogue as an influencing agent.104 Over these years, Hoffmann worked not only for the Stasi, but also for the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which was controlled by the Soviet secret service, the KGB.105 The IFJ operated as a front organisation for Communist International, and the National Federation of Hungarian Journalists (MÜOSZ) was one of the most important cogs in the wheel. Hungarian journalists were assigned the task of building relations with western publicists and making them receptive to socialist ideas, so it is no real surprise that Hoffmanns first business trip to Hungary took place in 1956 at the invitation of MÜOSZ. Hoffmann set about starting a number of magazines in the early 1960s, painting a very positive picture of János Kádár and the goulash communism’ that was taking shape. There is no proof that he did so at the request of the IFJ, but he published articles in their propaganda magazine, the Democratic Journalist, on a regular basis in the seventies. He even helped the federation with its illegal financial transactions: there is proof of the transfer of a large sum of money, which, according to the Stasi, came from money laundering.106 The IFJ pursued primarily propaganda activities, but became involved with the underworld of the underground economy through its mafia-like operation. After Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, shocking facts emerged about the journalist federation’s illegal arms trafficking and 103 Ibid. 104 Ibid. 105 Cf. Borvendég 2015 106 Selvage 2014, p. 127 40
