Did Raoul Wallenberg try to leave Budapest in January 1945 with jewelry and 15–20 kg of gold hidden in the gasoline tank of his car? On sensationalism in popular history and Soviet disinformation

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the claim made by the American journalists Frederick Werbell and Thurston Clarke (in 1982) and the Swedish author and researcher Bengt Jangfeldt (in 2012) to the effect that the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, when preparing to leave Budapest for Debrecen in January 1945, hid jewelry and 15–20 kg of gold in his car. As is evident from the examination conducted here, the testimonies referred to in support of this theory are all fraught with serious problems. Most importantly, there is not a single witness making such a claim before the July 1947 issue of the American journal Reader’s Digest, where it first appeared. The article concludes that the sources referred to are not sufficiently solid to support the claim that Wallenberg tried to bring anything of value out of Budapest, except for the small number of bills of different currencies that was handed over to his relatives by the KGB in 1989, together with his personal belongings. The article also describes a number of known and suspected Soviet attempts to furnish the Swedes with disinformation regarding Wallenberg’s fate and discusses whether the gold-and-jewelry claim is in fact the distant echo of an almost 70-year-old Soviet attempt to discredit Wallenberg.