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Spy of the Century
€ 29,00
Alfred Redl & the betrayal of Austro-Hungary
SANDLER John, FISCH Silvie: Spy of the Century. Alfred Redl & the betrayal of Autro-Hungary
Englisch, 170 Seiten, Bibliographie, Register, gebunden mit Schutzumschlag
During the night of 24 to 25 May 1913 three high-ranking military officials wait for hours outside a house in central Vienna. At around 2am they hear the shot of a Browning. They know that one of their own has just ended his life: Colonel Alfred Redl, the former deputy head of the Evidenzbüro, the Austro-Hungarian General Staff’s directorate of military intelligence. His suicide note reads: ‘Levity and passion have destroyed me’.
Redl would later be called the ‘spy of the century’, and this is his story. For a decade he had betrayed damaging secrets to the Italians, French and Russians.
Redl owed everything to the army he deceived. For almost 100 years there was no definite explanation of his motives. The true story has only recently been reconstructed when Austrian historians gained access to documents in Russian archives. Redl was forced to hide his homosexuality and used his wealth to please his love, a young cavalryman. Vienna might have been a fount of end-of-empire decadence, but the taint of homosexuality was wholly unacceptable.
