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 SPY GAMES was a close friend of the leader of the local Arrow Cross Party organisation at Derecske. He frequently visited the local headquarters of the Party and participated in their work. In the autumn of 1945, some ‘fascist’ press was found at his place when his home was searched, and a procedure was launched against him. However, his party membership could not be proven, so the investigation was discontinued on the basis that: “He was among the young village folks who came into contact with the ideological leaders of the Arrow Cross Party during their rural campaign, not out of political conviction as such, but because there were no other intellectuals who cared about young intellectuals of simple backgrounds, so these young people developed relations with the leaders of this harmful movement without themselves wishing to.”260 This means that Kurtán was one of the reliable pillars of the Communist Party who easily swapped one extreme ideology for the other as Arrow Cross members turned communists. The Embassy in Berlin was only the first step in his career in diplomacy, as he later represented the Hungarian Peoples Republic in Helsinki and in Vienna. Kurtáns Arrow Cross past was allegedly not known to the party and ministerial bodies until just before his posting in Vienna in 1970, the circumstances of which were investigated by the Central Control Committee. As a result, he was withdrawn from the Austrian capital after only two years’ service.261 260 ÁBTL. 3.1.9. V-84811, 16/b Executive report, 25 February 1970 261 Fiziker, 2013, p. 41-42 262 Ruff 1998, p. 1113 263 Ruff 2007, p. 305 264 The Hallstein Doctrine was named after Walter Hallstein (1901-1982), who was the foreign The interest of Hungarian politics in Hoffman was linked to Hoffmann’s deepening relationship with the West German Free Democratic Party (FDP) and to the fact that the Berlin office was building increasingly close relations with certain West German journalists from 1955 onwards.262 This opening was a highly visible consequence of the détente in post-Stalinist world politics. The state of war between Hungary and West Germany ceased on 18 March 1955, opening up the opportunity to start institutional dialogue.263 The resumption of official diplomatic relationships was greatly hampered by the hard line of the Hallstein Doctrine,264 so the ‘ détente’ took place through informal channels: 98
