The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s Chief Spy Catcher Was a Spy
The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s chief of counterintelligence from 1900 to 1912 was Alfred Redl (1864 – 1913), an army officer in charge of tracking down and rooting out traitors and spies. Unbeknownst to his bosses, however, Redl was himself a traitor. He betrayed his country and sold its secrets to its main rival and likeliest future enemy, Russia, whose chief spy in the Austro-Hungarian Empire he became. He also spied for both the Italians and French in exchange for money.
Redl was born into a poor family, the son of a railway clerk, in Austria Hungary’s Galician province – part of today’s Ukraine. Wealth and family connections were the usual prerequisites back then for joining the Austro-Hungarian Army’s officer ranks. However, Redl had been precocious from an early age and was highly intelligent, which enabled him to secure a commission.
Redl had a gift for languages, and his fluency in Russian got him assigned to Army Intelligence. There, he impressed its chief, a General von Geisl, who adopted Redl as his protege. Geisl promoted Redl in 1900 and made him his deputy, placing him in charge of counterintelligence. Redl quickly gained a reputation for innovation in what had been a disorganized and backwards branch. He streamlined the system, and introduced new technologies such as the use of recording devices and cameras.
However, Redl had a serious problem: he was gay, in an era when homosexuality was a taboo that could ruin a person’s social standing and career prospects. Russian intelligence learned of Redl’s homosexuality, set out to entrap him, and captured him on camera committing homosexual acts. They used the photos to blackmail him into turning traitor, and sweetened the extortion by offering him money in exchange for secrets. Redl accepted, and in his first major act of treason, he gave the Russians Austria-Hungary’s war plans in 1902. When word reached the Austrians that the Russians had a copy of their war plans, General von Geisl tasked Redl with finding the traitor.
Redl covered his tracks by unmasking minor Russian agents, who were fed to him by his spymasters, and by framing innocent Austro-Hungarian officers with falsified evidence. That burnished his reputation within the Austro-Hungarian establishment as a brilliant head of counterintelligence. Over the next 11 years, Redl sold the Russians Austro-Hungarian mobilization plans, army orders, ciphers, codes, maps, reports on road and rail conditions, and other secrets.
His treasonous career finally came to an end because his handlers got sloppy. In 1912, Redl’s mentor, von Geisl, was promoted to head an army corps, and he took Redl with him as his chief of staff. Postal censors working for Redl’s successor in counterintelligence intercepted envelopes stuffed with cash and nothing else. However, they had registration receipts tracing back to addresses abroad that were known to be used by Russian and French intelligence. A sting operation was set up, and the envelopes were delivered under surveillance. Redl showed up to claim them, and was arrested. After confessing to treason, he requested that he be left alone with a revolver. His request was granted, and after writing brief letters to his brother and to von Geisl, Redl shot himself in the head.
