Cseh Valentin szerk.: „70 éve alakult a MAORT” – tanulmányok egy bányavállalat történetéből (2009)

Lajos Srágli: Hungary's Economy, Politics and MAORT

Béla Binder

—the head of the production department, chief geologist Kálmán Barnabás, István Pőzel, MAORT's attorney, and Mrs. Lajos Derék, Paul Ruedemann's secretary-. Paul Ruedemann and George Bannantine - both of them US citizens - were apprehended on September 18. The arrest of Gábor Temesváry, head ot MAORT's legal department, and mining engineer Gyula Abzinger - who was Bódog Abel's successor at the helm of the procurement department - failed because of their fleeing abroad, along with that of mining engineer Ernő Pokka, the manager of the Budafapuszta plant, who committed suicide. After the detainees were questioned, Mrs. Lajos Deák was discharged, and István Pőzel was interned. The two US citizens were deported over the Austrian border on October 1, 1948 after questioning, and coercing them to sign confessions. Once in Vienna, they publicly revoked the confessions they- made under duress.

1 : The national and local dailies carried the arrests of MAORT's managers, as well as the accusations made against them on their front pages, using puffed-up wording starting from September 1948. It was what people referred to as the "Grey Paper" - its full title being: The Hungarian Ministry of Interior's disclosure about MAORT's sabotage case -, published in September 1948, that first disclosed the "crimes" of the arrested managers in detail.

1 3 This publication, serving propaganda purposes, also included the "confessions" that were forced to be written in the individuals' own hand. The "Grey Paper" later went on to become a fundamental source for compiling the bill of indictment. By combining true data and improvable, false allegations, the publication had the effect of shedding light on inappeallable facts, as if were. Its editors started out from the assumption that putting production and other operations related data in an appropriate sequence, and providing fitting interpretation for the said would be suitable for proving sabotage. Crude oil production's initially" growing, then slowly declining tendency- - determined by laws of nature - offered an opportunity to do so. The increase of MAORT's crude oil production, which lasted until 1943, constituted the basis for the accusations whereby the company strove to serve the German military machine with its wartime production, while its reducing of production after the war was intended to weaken the people's democracy. The "Grey Paper" unambiguously attributed the drop in output after the end of the war to sabotage by MAC )RT's management. According to its drafters, sabotage was carried out in the financial and technical domains, moreover by sabotaging the planned economy. The MAORT trial's bill of indictment repeated these accusations almost word tor word. The indictment was a work of editing in the most complete sense of the term. It was compiled from assumptions elevated to the rank of facts, the details of auditor's reports taken out of their true context, false witness statements, "confessions to the crimes", as well as the untruthful data and findings that were provided bv invited "experts". The better part of its argumentation was made up of political arguments and/or statements. Those who drafted it considered it important to serve "convincing" political reasons in addition to the technical arguments that were not conclusive, and indeed unacceptable to anyone versed in the profession. Deliberations in the MAORT trial started on November 26, 1948. The days just before were PAPP 2(101)., 193-205. US Ambassador Chapin immediately protested the arrest of American citizens. The L'S Department of State instructed the ambassador 10 negotiate with Mátyás Rákosi (the head of the Politburo), and to advise him that in case the two American citizens were not released, that will result in serious economic and other retributions on behalf of the L nited States. BAU Kill 1988,305. MOIM Arch.. Gy. 5.3/1.