Espionage Aficionados discussion
Classics
>
Colonel Alfed Redl: 'worst traitor of all time'?
date
newest »
newest »
Feliks,I just added a book called "Spy of the Century: Alfred Redl and the Betrayal of Austria-Hungry", by John Sadler: it's a February 2017 release. But -- outside of the movie -- my knowledge of Colonel Redl comes from a 10 page section in Stefan Zeiwg's "The World of Yesterday", starting at page 209 in my edition.
Mod
Another source: Frederic Morton's excellent "Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/14", Chapters 6 and 7.
Wiki overview:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_...
Now, this guy is really astounding. Don't confuse him with Colonel Abel of the 1950s. The name is similar; but the men are very different.
Colonel Redl is a man from the time of Sidney Reilly, a spymaster too, and one found not in Russ. but rather far to the south, in the Austrio-Hungarian empire. His story is frankly amazing; and I'm dismayed we've never talked about it around here before.
Redl was an innovator in the craft of espionage. He was first to emphasize training in the use of cameras and listening devices; mail interception. keeping dossiers and databases on enemy agents; and fingerprinting. He was gifted and talented at his career; a pioneer.
And the irony is that it was by his own advanced techniques, the manner in which he trained his men and the new methods he introduced that he himself was eventually caught.
For Redl himself was secretly a spy for the Tsar. Astounding! The head of intelligence for the Austrian Empire; himself was a double agent. Why? Closeted homosexuality which he had to hide at all costs. He wound up having to burn some of the spy network he himself had established under the eyes of the Okhrana.
What's more, his perfidy was so effective that when the Austrian Empire eventually went to war with Serbia in WWI, half a million men were cut to ribbons. Good job there Redl. You scumbag!
So what happened? How was he eventually trapped? It turned out this way: he was sending/receiving payments in an envelope via opera boxes and hotel and gradually the paper trail put his own men on his trail; all the while his agents not knowing that they are actually tracking their own boss.
Redl gives them the slip outside a hotel in Vienna, by hopping in a carriage and getting away. His pursuers are left stymied and so they just wait there, not knowing what to do.
While in the carriage, (really, the hand of fate here) Redl drops a sheath for a pen-knife or something. It lands on the floor of the carriage and he doesn't notice it.
What happens --get this--the carriage driver naturally just returns to the same hotel where he picked up Redl. Ouch! So the tails pounce on the carriage and get all sorts of info and especially, they find the dropped pen-sheath. They take that into the hotel and the front desk identified it as belonging to one of their guests, who is none other than their boss.
Groan! This has been made into a movie, (no wonder) but since the period in question is so distant I'm not sure how good a job they could have done. Oscar-nominee for best foreign film.
What I want to know is what might be a really good book on this saga. Whew!