History RaeTold

The Super-Cool but Probably Ill-Advised Treason of Colonel Alfred Redl, or: It’s Really Easy to be a Russian Double Agent as Long as You Don’t Get Your Shit Monogrammed

You know what we haven’t talked about for a while? Spies. Juan Pujol Garcia was one of the first posts I ever made, way back when, and I know you guys are sluts for a good spy story, so let’s settle the fuck in and talk about another mental double agent.

Colonel Alfred Redl was born into a poor Ukrainian family, which was a really stupid choice for anyone who wanted to make something of themselves. Dude. Be born rich. Idiot.

Despite this dodgy start, wee Alfred managed to get himself a place in the prestigious War School in Vienna (which I believe is like music school but for war), which only took 50 out of around 1,000 applicants each year, who were generally exclusively rich boys. But still, they took a chance on our boy Alfred, which was a good call because he did exceptionally well and quickly became head of the counter-intelligence branch of the Austrian intelligence bureau.

Oh shit, I forgot to mention this was just before the start of WWI. That’s important.

Actually let’s take a quick break for some general background. Pre-WWI, Austria was part of a dual monarchy with Hungary, and Vienna was the seat of power of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which stretched across a good chunk of central Europe, including Slovenia, Czechoslovakia, Bosnia and Ukraine. Unfortunately, as with most empires, the people in the non-Austrian or Hungarian parts were dicked around quite a bit, and thus were pretty ready to throw Austria under the bus at any moment (if we all recall the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, we’ll remember that Franz was Austrian and was assassinated by a bunch of Serbs).

Alfred, as I said, was Ukrainian.

Right, there’s your relevant background needed to understand what’s going on. BACK TO IT.

After being made head of the counter-intelligence branch of the Austrian intelligence bureau, Alfred did what any of us would do in this situation and instantly began boning Russian spies. Because literally what is the point of working in intelligence if you’re not having hot spy sex? Yeah sure, doing a service for your country, yadda yadda, patriotism, wang wang wang. Fuck all that. It’s all about the spy fucking.

Unfortunately, Alfred specifically chose to bang male spies, which was far more problematic because it was the early 1900s and people were raging homophobes. Like sure, risk national security for a lay, but make sure the person doesn’t have the same genre of genitals as you. Jesus. The Russian government seized upon this fact and threatened to out Alfred if he didn’t turn on his government and start selling them state secrets. As an added incentive, they offered to pay him ludicrous amounts of money for his service.

Come on. What would you do in this situation?

Historians generally agree that Alfred actually gave very few fucks about people knowing he was gay, because he was a motherfucking spy boss and he could kind of do what he wanted, but, like, this was a good offer. So he was all “oh no, this is so terrible, whatever will I do? Guess I’d better get paid obscene money to be a boss-ass double agent and sell the secrets of a government who’s been dicking over my people for decades while I continue to have great sex with hot spies”.

And that’s just what he did.

Working with the Russian government, he would deliver Austrian secrets (including their ENTIRE plan to invade Serbia, which would turn out to be PRETTY FUCKING IMPORTANT when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated because it LITERALLY STARTED WWI), while feeding the Austrians some mildly useful information as a cover. He was also suspiciously good at catching out Russian double agents within the Austrian government. I WONDER WHY THAT WAS, ALFRED? Regularly, he would throw a few other, more junior, double agents under the bus to show his loyalty, meaning that the Austrians thought he was the absolute tits at catching traitors and continued to give him more money and power as he strategically undermined them at every turn.

(Apparently they never, like, questioned any of the other double agents he turned in? Or were they all still super invested in Russia and were just, like, fine with being grassed up for treason by someone who got paid more than them? Because none of them thought to be like “oh yeah, Alfred Redl, that guy’s also selling your shit to the Russians”? Idiots. They didn’t deserve to invade Serbia).

Despite being a LITERAL RUSSIAN DOUBLE AGENT, Alfred also did quite a lot of good in the intelligence bureau. He was the first person to realise that cameras and sound recording might be kinda helpful in spying activities, and also revolutionised the way they ran things by introducing a detailed fingerprint database.

Look. He was a spy-fucking double agent. He also made a really good database. He was a multi-faceted person and all his hobbies weren’t cool. I don’t come up with this shit, I just relay it. I can’t make it all interesting. History was built on databases, guys.

Unfortunately, the man who was a spy-fucking Russian double agent at the eve of WWI was, amazingly, not known for his subtlety. As he was paid a fuckton by the Russians, on top of what I can only imagine was a healthy wage as head of Austrian counter-intelligence, he was pretty fucking minted by the time he retired, and was quite the fan of wantonly splashing the cash. He was known as a bit of a slut for danger, and really didn’t keep his suspiciously large bank balance quiet, which isn’t smart but is also, frankly, tacky. C’mon Alfred. Nobody likes that guy.

It was probably this embarrassing display of wealth that led his successor and protégé, Major Maximilian Ronge, to get a bit suspicious of his predecessor. He started subtly checking suspicious mail, and eventually came across an unclaimed letter with the address of a well-known espionage spot, along with a large quantity of money, addressed to one Nikon Nizetas. Perhaps the most obvious fake name until Lemony fucking Snicket came along (oh hey sidebar: did you know R.L. Stine, who wrote Goosebumps, is ACTUALLY CALLED R.L. Stine? What a fuckin' great name).

Ok Alfred, why would you get your spy letters sent to your ACTUAL OFFICE, which was also the INTELLIGENCE BUREAU FOR THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE? Jesus Alfred. Bit of common sense here.

At this point, they obviously hadn’t worked out that Nikon Nizetas was actually Alfred Redl. Who would guess that? He was the ex-head of counter intelligence. That would be crazy.

So Ronge replaced the letter, with the money, and sent a couple of agents to monitor the post office where it was due to be collected. Eventually, someone came and picked it up but, like, it was raining, and the guy had his hood up, and these particular spies were clearly not very good and didn’t see who it was. The guy got into a taxi, and for some idiot reason the spies didn’t follow it, but instead hung around the post office hoping that specific taxi would come back.

Surprisingly, this worked (I imagine they were as surprised as us). They got into the taxi and asked the driver to take them to wherever he took his last fare. The driver did so, because the one constant of history (aside from fucking, incompetency and death) is that no taxi driver has ever questioned a single mad thing they have witnessed or experienced, but just gone along with it as long as you don’t vom in the back of their car.

While in the back of the taxi, they did a quick search and found a penknife, monogrammed with the initials A.R.

Ok, at this point they probably should’ve twigged. They didn’t, because these guys were clearly idiots, but come on Alfred. Stop getting your shit monogrammed if you’re going to take it on a spy mission.

Instead, they waited until the taxi arrived at their destination, which was a hotel (from my experience, all anyone in Vienna does is eat cake in hotels. I was there for three days last summer so I know). They nipped into the hotel and asked them to make an announcement, asking the owner of the lost knife to come to reception.

Obviously, a military veteran and experienced double agent wouldn’t fall for something as blatant and embarrassing as that.

SURELY.

SURELY FUCKING NOT

He did. Because of course he did. Because every single person in the entirety of human history is a moron.

And EVEN THEN, the spies who’d been following him weren’t 100% sure what was going on. Confused, as I assume they were about literally everything that had ever happened, they rang their superiors, who were like “YES VERY OBVIOUSLY ALFRED REDL IS THE DOUBLE AGENT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TREVOR HAVE A CLUE”.

I can’t confirm either of the spies were called Trevor but I assume.

So the Austro-Hungarians were known for a handful of things – cake, spies, the inevitable collapse of their empire and, most importantly for this story, cover-ups. They fucking loved a cover-up. They covered up everything. It’s a miracle a single person knew what was actually happening at any given point. So, of course, they wanted to cover this up.

Exposed, Alfred was called into a meeting with the Austro-Hungarian chief of staff. What was said in the meeting is unknown, but he left Alfred alone with a revolver and an ultimatum.

The next day, Alfred Redl was dead.

In the spirit of covering shit up, they published fawning obituaries in every newspaper, wanging on about how incredible Alfred was, and how he was a hero of the nation, and how tragic it was that he died of a HEART ATTACK IT WAS DEFINITELY A HEART ATTACK SHUT UP TREVOR NOBODY ASKED YOU.

And that was it. Nobody questioned the newspapers in those days. They wouldn’t lie.

It would have been a terrible time for the birth of investigative journalism to happen, wouldn’t it?

So, naturally, the birth of investigative journalism happened. And everyone found out the truth about Alfred Redl, double agent, spy fucker, super-cool traitor. Which was lucky for us, because it’s a hilarious story.