A few weeks ago, Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled that the 30 year secrecy rule governing the classification of important historical records had expired in most cases and that researchers should be granted access to these collections. While the ruling allows for numerous exceptions, it nevertheless established an important precedent, with important implications also for the Raoul Wallenberg case. Are Swedish officials poised to take advantage of the opening? If last year’s Wallenberg centennial celebration is any indication, such hopes are dim.
The last celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Raoul Wallenberg’s birth are now concluded and it is perhaps time to reflect on one aspect that was curiously missing from the twelve months long commemoration: Any measurable progress on the question of Wallenberg’s still unresolved fate.
We know that Raoul Wallenberg never returned from Soviet captivity after his arrest by Soviet forces in Budapest in January 1945, so it can be assumed that he met his demise at some point shortly after July 17, 1947, when his trail in Moscow prisons grows cold.
Or did he? Even high-ranking Russian archivists from the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB) emphasize that important questions remain. As head of the FSB Directorate of the Registration and Archival Collections, Lt-Gen. Vasily S. Khristoforov wrote in the introduction to a recent book about Wallenberg’s cellmate, the German diplomat Willy Rödel, the “when and how Raoul Wallenberg died” remains to be determined.
Swedish officials have hailed this statement as a sign of progress in the search for Raoul Wallenberg. They are overlooking that the Russian side has made similar statements before, both in the Russian Working Group Report released in 2001 and in Mr. Khristoforov’s interesting article about Raoul Wallenberg published in the Russian newspaper “Vremya Novostei” in 2009. Each time these pronouncements were followed by very little meaningful action and continued Russian stonewalling on the question of archival access.
Regarding Swedish efforts in the Wallenberg question, they too have not always run on all cylinders. Instead, the general impression has prevailed for decades that Sweden has never truly mobilized all forces on Raoul Wallenberg’s behalf. Unfortunately, the just concluded Wallenberg year has done little to disperse that notion.
On the positive side, in January 2012, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt asked Ambassador Hans Magnusson to conduct a formal review of the Wallenberg case, to see if any new information was available and, if so, what steps could be taken to follow it up. The appointment was more than welcome, coming after months of requests from researchers for the Swedish government to take a more active role in helping them gain access to Russian archival collections, especially those of the Russian intelligence services.
As former Chairman of the Swedish side of a joint Swedish-Russian Working Group that had conducted a lengthy official investigation of the Wallenberg case from 1991-2001, Ambassador Magnusson possesses a deep expertise in the Wallenberg question. Unfortunately, far from issuing a determined call to action, both he and Carl Bildt voiced pessimism from the start that the new review would yield any significant progress. This, if anything, surely signaled Moscow not to expect much beyond the already familiar.
Not surprisingly, the stated pessimism proved correct. Ambassador Magnusson’s report, released in December 2012, in effect offers researchers nothing new or truly helpful.
The Russians will still not allow direct access to key archival collections, such as the investigative materials of Willy Rödel and other prisoners who had direct contact with Raoul Wallenberg in Soviet captivity. They will still not allow access to the file of the former NKGB agent in Budapest in 1944/45 M. P. Kutuzov-Tolstoy, and other important foreign intelligence documents that could provide information about Stalin’s reasons to order Raoul Wallenberg’s arrest in January 1945 and the failure to release him. And they still will not provide any documentation about an as yet unidentified “Prisoner No. 7” from Lubyanka’s interrogation registers (who may have been Raoul Wallenberg).
Russian officials did finally release previously classified diplomatic cables from 1945-1947 in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Unfortunately, this release remained the one positive exception in an otherwise vast sea of denials.
Ambassador Magnusson’s report does not seriously protest these restrictions. He fails to mention, for example, that researchers are still waiting to receive any formal confirmation that a “Prisoner No. 7” was indeed interrogated on July 23, 1947 in Lubyanka. In fact, even Hans Magnusson himself, in his formal role as an official Swedish representative charged with investigating the Raoul Wallenberg case, was not allowed to verify the information and was denied access to the registers on his recent visits to Moscow. (This although he had been allowed to see the lists in 1991. At the time he apparently did not notice any entry for a “Prisoner No. 7) All we therefore currently have is FSB’s statement from November 2009 that such an interrogation occurred and that the prisoner was “with great likelihood” Raoul Wallenberg. That is both an astounding and sorry state of affairs three years after the information was first released by the FSB Central Archive. Even more disturbing is the fact that Swedish officials seem resigned to accept this failure without significant protest.
Interestingly, Russian archivists are quite able to identify an earlier “Prisoner No. 7” held in Luybanka prison in 1945 as “a Russian national.” The identification apparently was made with the help of as yet unspecified “correspondence records.” Direct requests from researchers to Ambassador Magnusson to demand the precise identification of these records from Russian archivists, to see if the methodology could be applied to also identify “Prisoner No. 7” from 1947, have yielded no result.
Both Russian and Swedish officials have blamed Russian secrecy laws for the failure to provide adequate access for researchers. But so far, Swedish officials have not forcefully pressed the issue. As Ambassador Magnusson remarks in his report, a review of Mikhail P. Kutuzov-Tolstoy’s file , for example, would most likely not yield anything “sensational” and would provide information “only up to January 1945.” A most curious opinion, after stressing at the beginning of his report that learning the reasons for Raoul Wallenberg’s arrest remains a “central priority of the Wallenberg investigation.”
Needless to say, it is not enough for Swedish officials to speculate about the content of files they have not seen. The rules of scholarly research clearly require that researchers are allowed to make proper assessments for themselves, especially for such a vital file. To his credit, Ambassador Magnusson does stress elsewhere in his report that in order to “eliminate any lingering doubts it would be best to give increased access to independent researchers”.
And so it continues – the FSB Central Archive recently published a book containing the investigative material of Wallenberg’s cellmate Willy Rödel that they had claimed for decades did not exist. So far, FSB archivists have refused access to the documentation itself and also have not provided further information to researchers about the file in which the papers were discovered. Again, there has been no measurable protest from Swedish officials and no progress on the request for direct review of the documents by researchers.
A suggestion to form a small new international research group that in close cooperation with Russian experts would target the core questions remaining in the Raoul Wallenberg case and that should be given special authority to review essential files in Russian archives was not pursued further.
Instead, one of Ambassador Magnusson’s recommendations is to encourage more Russian researchers in the search for answers. This may hearten Russian officials, yet Russian researchers undoubtedly will quickly hit the same walls and restrictions international researchers have met (not to mention the difficulties they face in light of new Russia legislation that brands any Russian national cooperating with foreigners as “a foreign agent”) In spite of his stated wish to involve more Russian experts to clarify the unsolved questions of the Wallenberg case, Mr. Magnusson omitted from his report the call by the Co-Director of the Russian human rights organization ‘Memorial’, Dr. Nikita Petrov, for the launch of a formal criminal investigation of Wallenberg’s disappearance and death in Russia.
Another official Swedish recommendation is for intensifying historical, archival research — yes, precisely what researchers have asked for years. How can this occur, however, when the most important collections remain off limits?
To check off this point on the list Carl Bildt in December 2012 addressed a formal letter to his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, asking for Russian cooperation in the area of archival access. Lavrov’s answer came back before the ink on Bildt’s letter was even dry: Russia certainly supports the search for answers, he wrote, but of course only in compliance with “applicable Russian secrecy laws.” And with that, the by now familiar circle of routine Swedish requests and standard Russian replies closed once more for 2012. The result is that researchers find themselves exactly where they were before, on the outside looking in, and once again restricted to a tedious question and answer format in their exchange with Russian archivists.
It will be interesting to see if Mr. Bildt will press Mr. Lavrov on the ruling issud just last month by Russia’s Constitutional Court to allow Nikita Petrov to review collections of the Soviet Security Service’s operations in post war Germany from 1948-1953. The Court agreed with Petrov’s argument that the normal term of secrecy governing these record had expired. While the opening granted by the court is decidedly small – it also upheld many exceptions to the 30 year declassifcation rule – the decision sets an important precedent for similar requests, including those currently pending in the Raoul Wallenberg case.
Sweden currently does not seem inclined to take advantage of this opening. Ambassador Magnusson’s effort is laudable, but this past year has brought no change of the established Swedish approach to the question of Wallenberg’s fate. This approach has remained strikingly narrow, especially when it comes to the many pressing background questions in the Wallenberg case. In fact, both Russian and Swedish officials have shown a noticeable reluctance to delve too deeply into this important area. In that sense, neither side has been willing to maximize the search for the truth. Swedish officials instead appear content to move in circles and to accept the Russian position that few meaningful options exist to make progress in the issue.
And so the momentary ripples on the deep, wide pond that is the Raoul Wallenberg case are dissipating and the many unsolved questions surrounding Wallenberg’s fate loom as large as ever.
Susanne Berger´s and Vadim Birstein´s appeal is of course very justified, from all hum-an and historical reasons. But what is the right method to have Russia, the key, opening up, in the Wallenberg-case ? If there´s one ? The international mobilization, has not reached much results, since 1945. The case could in it self, have been so inflamed, dur-ing the years, it seems impossible to reach a solution.
Is the prize of publishing real facts, much higher for the Russians, than to drag their feets, in this, year by year ? We can just speculate, why the USSR, didn´t release Wallen-berg, alive, in time, or gave a convincing answer and reason, of what caused his pres-umed, involontary death. After not at least, a long painful,isolation, incarceration, in prisonconditions, aimed and able to deprive anyone, of his common sense, judgement, and normal defencemechanisms.
Berger / Birstein sounds more hawkish, than the Swedes, themselves, the Nordic doves, in the near neigbourhood of Moscow, and that´s in a way understandable. (Add then that the Swedish ÖB, (the supreme military commander) is absent from office, and suff-er from a workplace “burn-out”, since, one month, what the Russians are scorning, in an Tv-trailer, even that the Swedish Minister of Defence is a woman, playing the ABBA-hit, ” Mama Mia…” (but commissioned officer,captain in the Amphibious corps.)
A good sign, perhaps,the Russians don´t often turn to jokes. Sweden is more used with the “GrimGrom”-stoneface, (U.S. nick-name of the former USSR/foreign minister, A.Gro-myko, started up,as assistent in the Allies Jalta-agreement 1945, what could have dra-wn some attention from Wallenbergs situation. ), often looking, like his mouth was filled, by small pebbles.)
Of course, putting energy in an active focused, campaign, serves the goals better, “either – or,” the only language the Russians understand is….
But the present Swedish foreign minister (UD) Carl Bildt, has “walk the talk”, a tough language, as long one can remember, and nothing, not much, have come out of it. Already 1982, Bildt,(as MP) decided that alleged submarine incursions in Swedish nautical waters, near vital navybases, “was beyond all reasonable doubts” , performed by the, then Soviet Navy. Today , this opinion is in question. Was it instead a shoal of fish, or minks, making the “ping”-sounds in the Swedish hydrophones ? Or, worst of all, a most successful, secret U.S./Nato-Navies “PsyOp”, in the military/political “greyzone”, (perhaps with help of U.S. sympathizers in the defence navystaff,) where most sinister submarines use to dwell, and frighten us, the landlubbers, with the “periscope-disease ” ? (Add to that ,a short time ago, the mysterious death (drowning) of a colonel in the Defencestaffs most secret militaryintelligence service, and friend of the ÖB.)
The submarine -operations could perhaps finally caused the deadly, “45” pierced, shot in the back, of prime minister Olof Palme, and strayed his wife, that late cool evening of 28th February, 1986. The same questions as 40 years earlier. : Who and why ? In this
more marked national trauma, that don´t lack some similarities, by the way.
(But Palme wasn´t perhaps that occupied by the Wallenberg-case. As labourpartyleader, he was even the Vietnamwar, as of 1972 USAF, Christmas B-52, carpetbombings of Hanoi. The serious political violence, terror, arrived at home, at the same adress, where Meropa and WRB/OSS, 1945, resided, The Strandvägen nr 7 , in Stockholm. Two Ust-ascha-fascists, shot the Yugoslavian ambassador, Rolovic, to death.1971. Following year the Ustascha-cell in Sweden, hijacked an domestic aircraft, in Malmoe, demanded the two convicted released, from a highsecurity-prison, and then forcing the crew to fly them all to Paraguay, where they became bodyguards to the dictator, Stroessner. 1975, the Baader/ Meinhof attacked the BRD-embassy, killing brutal, one official, MA. From 1976 -82, the conservative opposition ruled, but the submarines came the same week, the Palme´s government took office.)
Carl Bildts interventions to the East, last years, made him temporary ” non grata”, after the Georgia /Russia-war, 2008, comparing Russia with the West´s Münich- betrayal, of 1938, aggression by the “irridenta-excuse.” Last year, 2012, the Swedish embassy was thrown out of Belarussia, Minsk, accused of unproper intervening in Belarussia´s dom-estic affairs, by then locking up, even one of the Belarussian opposition´s most impor-tant window – to Sweden. Bildt hasn´t got much right, nothing than the “cross-drought “, (well-tried Zhdanov-tactic, of Gulf of Finland, 39´) with Russia.
This “diplomacy”, looks, like “a lame duck”, at present. But, Russia is said to be one of the most corrupt nations, you can claim, so why not try bribes, what Wallenberg never sorted out, in his mission. Or a big reward, some Russian archivist, in some FSB-archive, could fail the test, give in and deliver the solution,or is it, perhaps the last sector for Soviet die-hards of secrecy, where no bribee´s are in sight ?
In fact Sweden´s own handling of the secret police, (säpo) political registration, 1940-1990), was much criticized, during the 1990s, when the then, labour goverment gave green light, to open up, this secret archives. Many Swedish authorized researchers ret-urned their projectfunds, and gave it up, when they found out, so much information was still concealed, or files reduced, or just had been sorted out, and throwed away.
Some files was/are still denied, to take part of, as for instance, the wellknown, now late, diplomat/ UD Sverker Åström,(2012) the man, Susanne Berger suspects, knew more about the Wallenberg-case, than was healthy to tell, most based on his indifferent op-inion of Wallenberg´s fate, in his memoires, (and his UD-service in Washington, 1946,/ 1947 in duty, of the Wallenbergsphere as it was threatened with economic blacklisting of the U.S.) and that Åström was the Foreign department´s (UD) escort-official, when the Soviet ambassador Aleksandra Kollontay left Sweden, by airplane, for the last time, the 18th of March, 1945, next Monday, 68 years ago.
So, there is, no doubt, some reasons to share Berger´s and Vadim´s pessimistic future,
expectations , concerning, both Sweden´s and Russia´s ability, to cooperate. Perhaps
Raoul Wallenberg, has arrived, alreday, as a Hero from the Holocaust, and a victim of the Cold war. But the Budapest ghetto´s 1944, was the first, and only one, to be liberated, by Allied forces (Red army), it was not emptied by force, of the SS-formations and nat-ive collaborators, and transported to German, Nacht und Nebel-camps, in trainsets with 1.000 people each, as in France from 1942-1944, (82 trains) one as far north as Tallin, Est-onia, Kaunas, Lithuania, and very few survivors, 1945.
But, there´s, still much interesting general facts, to publish, (for perhaps just ordinary people) dealing with Raoul Wallenberg´s times, perhaps not from the Lubyanka prison. As for instance this source: – – -” The Russian colony in Budapest, continued to function even during the siege.(November/December 1944). Its members included a number of historic figures: Count Kutuzov -Tolstoy, General Shulgin, the late adjutant of the Czar, and Count Pushkin, the pastor of the Pravoslav parish. Kutuzov-Tolstoy, as represen-tative of the Swedish Embassy, remained in charge of a hospital for severely injured Soviet POWs,manned mainly by Polish doctors, who were allowed to work undisturbed, during the siege.” – – – (1998)
(1.) Count Michael Kutuzov-Tolstoy.
There is one memoir written by Count Michael Kutuzov-Tolstoy,(1986) and one of his wife Myriam,(1987. But as dr Craig McKay writes, (Excerpts…) not any Swedish rese-archer dealing with this persons, presumed as very important people,(VIP´s ?) concer-ning Raoul Wallenberg´s disappearance 1945, makes no references to this sources, what McKay finds, strange.
And that opinion seems quite justified, because these two memoirs, is not even acces-sed to, any public Swedish research library, what seems to be a bit (of expected) narr-ow-minded, and lazy. And why should the Russians and FSB hand out a sensible pers-onal dossier, about MKT, (or anyone´s else ) to ignorant and perhaps biased Swedes ?
I think that´s ordinary common sense, habit, worldwide, because there´s often rum-ours, gossips, phantasies, and imaginations of things happened, that could be totally wrong interpreted. And as Adam Michnik, the former Polish Solidarnosc-man puts it :
– ” It´s a judicial problem, to have secret service-agents,from 1940s up to the present
day, ruling peoples lifes of today, from the other side of their graves. ” It don´t have to be the ” truth”,and archivalinformation, perhaps, based on exchanges between many intelligence services, could easily be distorted. And as I have written before, all these
“intelligence coups, as ” Stella Polaris, Edmund Sala, Gehlen-org., 1944/45 don´t just boost the credibility, of that sector.
What can be probably found in the MKT-file ? That the Count denounced Wallenberg, to NKVD/, as a German spy ? And then ? (NKVD/NKGB = 1941 the two branches of the
Soviet police= internal+ external threats = were merged in July 1941(Barbarossa), =
was separated again in April 1943 = and in March 1946 renamed = NKVD, then MVD/ internal affairs= NKGB, then MGB/state security.
They were in the same business, all rescuers in Budapest 1944, Wallenberg, Langlet, Kutuzov, Danielsson, Anger, Berg, and the rest, with contacts here and there, and every-where. Any name here could have been secret a agent, not at least Wallenberg. And why didn´t Sweden/UD and USA/WRB/OSS/Olsen arrange the mission, in good time with the Russians, as McKay writes, without sneaking ? A piece of cake, if the attitude had been different, and there wasn´t something to hide. Here Wallenberg become another victim, perhaps by being imprudent, unsuspecting, when dwelling in one of the most danger-ous situations and theatres , of the war.
Lev Bezymensky, (former KGB-man) even argues that Wallenberg, could have been recruited by the OGPU already when he made his bankpractice in Palestine, Haifa, 1936, where he possibly could have met many wellknown Jewish Zionists, fighting for the Jewish cause, as Leib Domba (Leopold Trepper), leader of the the later famous,Soviet international, network “Red orchestra”, with many important agents “in place” in Third Reich, (but routed 1942/43, by Gestapo.)
LB even asked why Wallenberg behaved so cool, calm and selfassured from when the Russian apprehended them, they came over to the Russians by their own will, and that whole week, 11-16 January Wallenberg´s case was managed only at the armylevel. Was that a traditional debriefing, as even Trepper, was called up to Moscow, and was in prison there up, to the mid of the 1950s, what even the Swedish historian, Wilhelm Agrell suggests. ( The British SOE-agents in Poland, in 1944, arrested by the allied Red army units, used to demand to see an “high officer”, before any interrogation. The Russians then used to dress an ordinary soldier in the uniform of a major, and things could develop, further.)
– – – ” Count Michael Pavlovich Kutozov-Tolstoy (MKT) was b.96., at Czarskoie Selo, 20 miles from S:t Petersburg. His father, squadron leader, in the Imperial Hussars. Died after been wounded in Russian/Japanese war of 1905. His mother remarried 1907, with a baron von Knorring, landowner in a Baltic province. MKT lived in Baden-Baden, his new stepfather was Russian diplomat to Hessen. MKT met the topbrass, the Czar, Mars-hal Hindenburg, the German Kaiser, during his youth. With the Revolution 1917, that old Russian world broke down. – – –
– – – MKT fled to Finland , was lucky to have residence permit, by a personal letter to Marshal Mannerheim, he was of the same promotion as MKT´s father, Imperial Cavalry School, of 1889, and befriended with his mother. 1918, went to Copenhagen, Brussels, France, where his first wife died. Then to Latvia, where he married Myriam de Villers, a Belgian countess, in Riga november,1939,the Belgian ambassador had sent a dozen bottles of cham-pagne. They were anti-nazi, and was refused by the Germans, to leave for Switzerland, where his mother lived, but the Belgian ambassador, gave them visa as diplomatic courier to Belgian ambassador, Count d´Ursel in Berne. Then in december 1939, they went to to Belgrade, outside the “war-zone”. Then Roumania. A son died in a car accident, June 1940, (14 yrs). Then to Budapest, real ” migratory birds,” friend with Countess Rose Bethlen, sister-in-law, of Horthy, they was viewed as “anti-Hitler”, in Budapest, and had then to leave Budapest , and lived in a little house, in a village near the Slovakian border. (Seemed always short of money, had to sell their goldrings etc., but they had a lot of friends and contacts, you name it…) – – –
(But, were they moving around as refugees, by chance, or due to an organised intelli-gence activity, directed from Moscow ? Could be – but seems a rather miserable exist-ence for a Count, and presumed “Cheka/NKGB”- ace ? )
– – -But In april, 1944, Professor Waldemar Langlet landed outside, (Langlet even lector in Swedish, and delegate of the Swedish Red Cross, to help SRC with the Jew´s situa-tion. ) MKT ´s speaking German,Russian, his wife, French, English, what Langlet could have use of, and they were themselves eager to find some background, within the imp-ending showdown, in Hungary, as for instance a humanitarian SRC filiation.
– – -The Hungarian civil servants was very polite, and cooperating, “what was intended to create an alibi for the future. ” Red army was within 200-250 miles, from Budapest. MKT was the local boss in a villa on the Buda heights, 10 personal, in an little office. The task was to make a first cross-examine of applicants, and the recommeding them to Langlet´s attention, the big boss in Budapest city. There was among the Jews a consid-erably, able percentage of ” agents provocateur” who had sold their services to the SS or SD, for the sake of their own freedom or for funds. – – –
Then a second examination followed by a Hungarian woman, and if contradictions, the man and his case was dismissed for ever. Only greenlight cases reached Langlet. An arr-angement between Sweden and a dozen Central American republics, hade produced several thousand passports ” in blank”, with stamps but no name. The Swedes filled in the mans name, and he become a : Nicaraguan, Paraguayan.- – – (*I never heard of that
Latinamerican connection… )
– – – Late summer, the Russian siege was closing in. The Swedish minister Ivar Daniels-son, , who rather liked MKT, was one of the first to approach him, with , they met once / twice week in Budapest. He foresaw many horrors, also for his safety and of his legat-ion. – What can I do to placate them? MKT: – ” I could be of use, build up a reputation, for Swedish charity, and humanity, which would benefit your legation, later. How ? – There are several in Hungary, Soviet POWs, and MKT could distribute help, and visit this camps. The two Belgians could do the job, if Danielsson could persuade the Hungarians. Three month later, when the siege was on, Danielsson seemed to have benefited from this Swedish kindness. Veszkeny, near Budapest, hold 1.000 Soviet POWS, 1944.
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Other printed, different versions concerning some aspects of Michael Kutuzov-Tolstoy´s activities, and the whole situation in Budapest.
Waldemar Langlet (Book: 1946) :
– – -From Rome come our military attaché, and wanted to supervise this POW-camp, and he visited the site./ July 1944, the deportations of Jews, ceased. / Kutuzov and * Dickinson ( *British employee, heard by the Swedish Foreign ministry, after the war, but a protocol was never printed or disappear without a trace/McKay), were very buzy, with the registration, of the Jews, those people, whom wanted to come in contact with their deported relatives.
But Kutuzov and Langlet, realized that this, measures, was in vain, and that this regist-ers, (60.000 names), could later be dangerous in the wrong hands, of the SS and the Arrowcross-men. / MKT, had a salary, what he later denied, what Craig McKay under-stands can be a matter of prestige, as Langlet´s offer, saved MKT:s, in his then (and al-ways?) bad economic situation./ But when Langlet employed both MKT and a Swedish Red cross-delegate, in charge, an administration level to much, and again MKT, felt transgressed, a characteristic behaviour, for him, due to McKay. (* what perhaps can´t be associated with a devoted, experienced NKGB-agent) / But MKT manage the ” soup-kitchen”, brilliant, and then the ” hospital”, all what ceased when the Arrowcross-men arrived…./ – – – /Langlet.
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Lars Bergh.: (Book: 1949)
– – – 1944 a protection “passport”, was valued to at least 1.000:- Swedish crowns (today = 20.000:-/ or 2.000€) All this passports and legitimations, created an inflation, of it´s worth of protection, everyone possessed one, or made copies, or stole them/ The Swedish military attaché, Harry Wester, (1944) was withdrawn, but no successor arrived, what would had been much needed, or a legation secretary, with a military rank.
It was much of military experiences to aquire in Budapest,those days. – – – ( * To me, a good question: weren´t there any brave, experienced Swedish MA, taking office in Budapest, when most needed, by the embassy ? Instead Sweden´s C-bureau, sent illegal radiotransmitters, in courierbags and secret agents, for contact with the very weak Hungarian resistance, “The Kid” and nobleman, Thorsten Akrell. but offered no skilled people to protect the Swedish personell.) How come ? / – – – Kutuzov and his wife was an invaluable help./ – – –
– – – When the Hungarians wanted to evacuate the POW-camp, MKT and Berg, had a serious conflict with them, concerning the most serious wounded,Russians not able to endure a transport./ MKT had against his own will, of the Russians been forced to take resonsibility, for all the foreign citizens repatriation. / Berg later told MKT to return the warrant to represent the Swedish embassy, but due to MKT, the Russians had kept it. (See McKay, Letter of…) / The passports was distributed, to many Hungarians, but even to known Nazis,and Hungarian aristocrats./- – -Lars Berg 1949.
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P. Sudoplatov : (Book: 1993). (former NKVD-sectionchief)
– – – MKT is said to be an early Soviet recruitment, already by the “Cheka”, in the 1920s. (And Wallenberg´s death, as a failed agent recruitmentprocess, 1947, by the Soviets.)
A few words of of MKT´s activities,in Budapest, and he is accused of denouncing Wall-enberg, in Budapest, as, “a German spy.” But the general facts is not much checked, by the editor, as, ” MKT is said to have returned to Moscow, (together with Wallenberg 1945 ? ) but was released, and was 1952 permitted to return to the West, and settled down in Ireland, and died there 1967. (MKT lived for 13 years after that. Lots of errors, just there, but that´s not a motive, to dismiss, the informations, as such in general. )
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MKT continues: :- – – Then I suggested to open a Swedish Red cross (SRC) hospital, open to all belligerents, that if Danielsson could sponsor me. First, the Swedish Red Cross, crusade for the persecuted Jews, they did all what they could, but now the major events superseded it. Swedish SRC disagreed with this view, and delayed the Minister´s decis-ion. Danielsson granted permission to open this, under his sponsorship, in the evacuated Hungarian, 10th Military Hospital, on Robert Karoly street in Pest, for the needs of those soldiers of many nations being maimed at the battlefield. MKT: – ” Sure Danielsson was right, Northeastern Pest, become the scene of the worst fighting, and we were the only hospital within miles, of the sector. Danielsson should be remembered, in this context. – – –
– – – But problems to collect a staff, not enough with the ten, (10) S:t Vincent de Paul nuns, supposed medical trained, but not convincing. Three doctors were available, Polish military doctors, interned in Hungary, since the collapse of Poland, 1939. Dan-ielsson got them free, and they formed a valuable nucleus, in the staff, and besides a radiologist, and Sister Maria, a trained first class semi-German nurse, godsend. Kitchen personal were 4 women. Myriam kept a strict eye on the general order, together with, St Vincent de Paul´s , and my secretary mr Berendt, a Jew, with faked Aryan passport.
From november to mid december, the hospital occupied the first and second floors of the building. Shortly before the Christmas the fighting and bombs, forced us to go underground, a huge concrete subterranean stronghold. The cellar hold four (4) big wards. The Russians, (20 heavily wounded from start) , one for the Germans , one for the Hungarians, and one for those unhappy civics, (Jews) caught up in the Holocaust. – –
– – – An unexpected visit, a group of German Wehrmacht officers, headed by the medical superintendent, of the army corps, at that front. They inspected, were satisfied, with their own woundeds, but offered MKT´s – ” To fly out of the siege, with a light aircraft Fieseler Storch, to Vienna, this hospitalbusiness will be suicidal.” But they ref-used. They now had 400 inhabitants, was without electrical light, but they find gallons of castor (ricine) oil, instead, as source of light. The Polish doctor, Dr Wongrowsky, a Polish surgeon, had to operate in a cellar, filled with gas-gangrene. New wounded, arrived, others were carried up, and thrown out in the snow, for an early spring burial. From Christmas eve to early January 1945.- – –
– – – Russian assault troopers arrived January 8th or 9th ,some hundred, young, boisterous, noisy, but splendid fellows, and obviously delighted to discover a hospital, full of their own wounded,country men, with a real Russian as manager, and they were hospitalized by Myriam, by some bottles of vodka. Just half an hour, then, orders and shouts, from officers outside to join the fight, again.
24 hours, later, arrived, the Russian´s, “Die Etappe”, (well defined word, in German), the well politically trained, rear guard, of the Red army. No friendliness, to anyone, or even the wounded Russians. Then MKT contacted the Red army Medical HQ, and arran-ged a meeting the next day, 10th or the 11th of January.They met the Soviet chiefsurg-eon, stayed for lunch, with Myriam and mr Berendt, – but suddenly MKT him- self, alone was told to stay behind.(!)- – –
“– – The two worst weeks of my life. Grilled, by an expertteam, treated like a spy or ? – during a period of 15 days. The 25th/26th, he was released. Then MKT had to report, every day, was forced January / February, 1945 to the Russian HQ , east side of Dan-ube, of ,about the situation in his site, in spite of the Germans shelling just these streets from the heights of Buda, every day. Buda fell in the end of February. The Russ-ians decided then for MKT to as go-between all of the citizens of allied, neutral coun-tries. Report to General Zamertzev, of about 50-60 British, nurses /governesses, 500-600, French and Belgian POWs, having escaped from the Germans, some 100 persons from Spain or Egypt, hard to repatriate.- – –
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MKT: (his own PM about Raoul Wallenberg, version, dated 10 March 1955) : – – -Was taken by the Russians on January 10th 1945, to Malinowskis HQ, some 20 km from Pest. Was held for 8 days, interrogated about the Swedish legation. Released the 18th. (That´s the day after, Wallenberg disappear.- – – )
MKT: (version/personal memories) 1986. – – – Was grilled for 15 days. Then released the 25th/26th.- – – (A week later)
– – – MKT wrote a letter to Ivar Danielsson, in January 1955, claiming the idea that, Wallenberg, had died during, a robbery, what ended up in murder, in January 1945. This is what made him to be very suspect, in the eyes of the Swedish foreign ministry, acting like a Soviet agent, trying to cover up the Soviet´s detainment of Wallenberg,in January, 1945. – – –
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– – -1945, MKT:s gave language lessons for the staffmembers, a villa at distant Buda hills, Myriam, teacher of the army General Sviridov, a hero from the Leningrad siege. They learned German to the Soviet officers. The Red army had of course been fond of MKT, and his Kutuzov-ancestors, and that historical past, the war against Napoleon 1812) , (then even the name of a high, “nationalhistoric “, Soviet Order of War merits, WW2), but not the diplomats, and the Hungarian communists. (A Swiss diplomat, det-ained by the Soviets, as Wallenberg, had problems to believe that just MKT, had caused his own dire situation, and that the Russians didn´t, “especially appreciate” the Count, due to McKay´s readings. )
Then he worked in a Hungarian bank, The Hitel-Credit, as the bank´s interpretrator, to go between Hungarian and the Russians. All personal, 250, was Jewish, as Dr Kalman. MKT:s was expelled January 1951, then arrived at Irland, in a village, Collon in County Louth, 8 miles north of Drogheda. But FBI or CIA, made an intervention, and a man from Budapest during the war, put us down as “fellow travellers” .- – –
– – -Count Jaques de * Lailiang, former Belgian ambassador, in Ireland, and Count de Chastel, then present Belgian, ambassador, made an appeal to the, then new Irish government, and they approved the MKT:s residence permits. Later they moved to Easton house, Delgany, county Wicklow, and make a living, by their own language school. Myriam died, 1971, and Michel K-T, 1980. – – –
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( * By the way Lailang was the Belgian ambassador in Sweden from 1949-)
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