ALFRED REDL

'Alfred Redl' (March 14 1864 – May 25 1913) was an Austrian officer who rose to head the counter-intelligence efforts of Austria-Hungary. He was one of the leading figures of pre-World War I espionage. His term in office was marked by innovation, and he used very high technology for the time to ensnare foreign intelligence agents. But he was himself a spy for the Russians.
Born in Lemberg, Austrian Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine), Redl came from a poor family, his father being a railway clerk. An exceptional intelligence enabled him to rise quickly in the officer ranks of the Austrian army, a position usually reserved for the wealthy and privileged.
Redl's motives for treason are unclear, since he committed suicide upon his exposure in 1913. He may have been caught in a compromising position by Russian agents, since he was homosexual and being exposed as such would have been fatal to his career prospects. At the same time, he was paid well for his services, and had a lifestyle far above what his official salary could cover. It is not unusual for people to be blackmailed into spying, but then being well-paid for it as a means of ensuring that they continue. The blackmail is to get them started, the money keeps them going. Such cases have included John Vassall and, if he is to be believed, Harry Houghton.
Chroniclers of the last days of the Habsburg Empire, as well as historians of espionage ranging from the Central Intelligence Agency's Allen Dulles to the Soviet Union's Gen. Mikhail Milstein, concur in calling Redl an arch-traitor.
From 1903 to 1913, Redl was Russia's leading spy. He had supplied Plan III, the entire Austrian invasion plan for Serbia, to the Russians, who turned it over to the Serbian military command. In addition to giving away all of his country's military secrets, he fed totally inaccurate estimates of Russia's military strength to Austrian battle strategists. Redl has been called one of history's greatest traitors, since his actions helped cause the slaughter of half a million of his countrymen.
Redl is thought to have sold to Russia one of Austria's principal attack plans, along with its order of battle, its mobilization plans (in an age when mobilization could be the key to victory) and detailed plans of Austrian fortifications soon to be overrun by Russia. He is known beyond question to have sent Austrian agents into Russia and then to have sold them out to St. Petersburg. He also had Austrian agents within the Russian Imperial Staff, but sold them out too, to be hanged or to commit suicide. He also is believed to have betrayed various Russian officers who contacted Austro-Hungarian intelligence, allowing the Russians to capture them.
When he left the counter-intelligence service Redl was succeeded by a man trained by Redl himself, Major Maximilian Ronge. Ronge instigated the practice of checking suspicious mail. One suspect envelope — a poste restante letter to be returned unclaimed — was found to contain a large sum of money as well as references to known espionage cover addresses^[1]. On May 9, 1913, a duplicate letter with money was posted to the same cover name, ''“Nikon Nizetas”'', and police detectives assigned to monitor the post office and follow whoever claimed it. When the letter was finally claimed on May 25, police pursued but lost contact. They finally found a pen-knife sheath which the suspect had lost in a taxi. Tracking him to the hotel ''“Klomser”'', they told the management to ask the guests if any of them had lost the sheath and waited in the lobby. When a guest arrived to claim the sheath, the detectives were shocked to recognise their former boss, Colonel Alfred Redl.
When informed of his exposure, Redl committed suicide by gunshot, which was regretted both by Emperor Franz Josef, who would have preferred that Redl avoid dying in mortal sin, and by Austrian Intelligence, which would have preferred to interrogate him on the exact extent of his betrayal.
Redl's treason is thought to have contributed to the defeats Austria-Hungary suffered in the early months of World War I, since the plans for the attack on Serbia were quite complete and could not easily have been changed in the time between Redl's suicide and the onset of the war.
Claims that Redl also worked for secret services of France and Italy have appeared much later but they were neither confirmed nor disproved reliably [1].

Contents

In fiction

References

In fiction

★ Redl was played by Klaus Maria Brandauer in the 1985 István Szabó film ''Colonel Redl''
:(see )

★ COLONEL REDL: THE MAN BEHIND THE SCREEN MYTH (1985, István Szabó) [2]

★ John Osborne's 1965 play ''A Patriot for Me'' is based on Redl's story

★ A summary of Redl's career and its effect on the course of the Great War is provided by Dennis Wheatley in his historical novel "The Second Seal"(1950). Redl's successor, Ronge, also appears as himself - chief of Austro-Hungarian Intelligence. He is trying to foil the attempts of British Intelligence to find out what Austria intends for Serbia in 1914.

References

1. Janusz Piekalkiewicz, ''World history of espionage: Agents, systems, operations''. ISBN 978-3517008493


★ Georg Markus, Der Fall Redl, 1984. ISBN 3-85002-191-2

★ Robert Asprey, The Panther's Feast, 1959. (Jonathan Cape)

★ Col. Alfred Redl [3]