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’ - The key to success
FABULOUS SPY GAMES In addition to the German traders mentioned, the staff of the Hungarian trade office maintained relations with the representatives of several companies. It would be pointless to list each and every player in the hundreds of pages of reports, but it is safe to say that, over the first few years, the overwhelming majority of the cooperating persons were former supporters and members of the Nazi Party unable to come to terms with the war losses. One of these people was a Mr Jajce, who worked not only as the German liaison officer at Montan Export, but also had a full-time job in a senior position at the Salzgitter steelworks. According to Junger, the Dutch company Montan was known for having been in charge of trade between the Soviet Union and the Netherlands before the war. Montan did not sever ties with the Communist Bloc after the war, and the Hungarians were able to make arrangements through Jajce and his influence with the company Salzgitter, to be precise, for a licence to be granted to deliver 2,300 tonnes of boiler plates to Hungary. The significance of this lies in the fact that the American authorities put a ban on exporting goods manufactured with coal imported from the US to any of the people’s democracies. It pained Jajce to see Germany forced to purchase coal from the US, as he found this to be an unnecessary and loss-making move for Germany, so he was happy to circumvent the embargo on goods made from imported coal.226 226 ÁBTL 3.2.3 Mt-425/1, p. 122 Report, 19 September 1951 We can clearly see that the office in Frankfurt played a decisive role in preventing Communist Hungary from becoming isolated and in building trade channels. These relationships worked even during the iciest years of the Cold War and would then be used during the years of opening up to the West. This period was not merely about establishing a path to big companies in the West and to trade diplomacy, but also about building a unique mechanism that gave rise to the Hungarian offshore network by the 1970s: the activity known as reexporting. 80
