6. Background of a Traitor
Alfred Redl was the son of a railway clerk, and was born into a poor family in the Galician province of Austria-Hungary, in what is now Ukraine. Wealth and family connections were the usual prerequisites back then for joining the Austro-Hungarian Army’s officer ranks and advancing. Redl had neither, but he had been precocious from an early age and was highly intelligent, which enabled him to secure a commission.
He had a talent for languages, and his facility with Russian got him assigned to the intelligence branch. There, Redl impressed his boss, a General von Geislingen, whose protege Redl became. In 1900, Geislingen promoted Redl and made him his deputy, placing him in charge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s counterintelligence corps. Redl quickly gained a reputation for innovation in what had been a disorganized and backwards branch, streamlining the system, and introducing new technologies such as the use of recording devices and cameras.