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 ‘FABULOUS’ IN HUNGARY Economic diplomacy It was not in Hungary that Emil Hoffmann started to build his businesses. Bickenbach, Becher, Triska and the firms behind them had obtained monopolies on several important goods, so Hoffman decided to try his luck instead in the Romanian and Bulgarian markets he knew better, but he appeared in Budapest in the autumn of 1956 to become the main character in the Hungarian chapter of the Cold War game of spies. On 25 September 1956, Emil Hoffmann and his wife visited Budapest at the invitation of Ferenc Vadász, 258 chairman of the National Federation of Hungarian Journalists. Hoffmann arrived in Hungary as a journalist and foreign trader, but the invitation was actually initiated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it was the Ministry that footed the travel expenses.259 At the time, Hoffmann was already in continuous contact with the staff of the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin, particularly the senior officer Sándor Kurtán, who was head of the local Hungarian intelligence service. During the war, Kurtán sympathised with extreme right-wing ideas, so engaging in dialogue with a former Nazi cannot have been unfamiliar to him. Before 1945, Kurtán 258 The journalist Ferenc Vadász (1916-2009) held various positions at the Hungarian Workers’ Party, and then the Kecskemét branch of the Hungarian Communist Party between 1945 and 1948. He worked at the daily Szabad Nép in 1949 and 1950, until he was appointed general secretary of MŰOSZ. He held the position until 1957. He worked as deputy editorin-chief of Esti Hírlap between 1957 and 1959, and became a columnist at Népszabadság until 1984, when he retired. 259 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-12344/1-a, p. 275 Note by the German unit, Central European Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 26 September 1956 97
