Der Wiener Spionagezirkel

Austrian emigrants played leading roles in international espionage in the 1930s and 1940s. The historian Thomas Riegler follows in the footsteps of agents such as Engelbert Broda, Arnold German, Alice ("Litzi") Friedmann, Edith Tudor-Hart (née Suschitzy) and Peter Smolka, who provided important support to the Soviet secret service and the Communist International (Comintern). This "Viennese espionage circle" did the groundwork for one of the biggest espionage scandals of the Cold War.Arnold German, born in Vienna at the turn of the century, is still regarded as the most diligent agent leader of all time. Under the pseudonym "Otto", he recruited a total of 20 comrades-in-arms in London between 1934 and 1937, and the Brit Kim Philby rose to fame. He first became enthusiastic about the communist cause during a stay in Vienna in 1933/34. The decisive factor was his love affair with the activist "Litzi" Friedmann and the fact that they lived through the February battles of 1934 together. He later infiltrated the British foreign intelligence service MI6 and was only finally exposed in 1963. Engelbert Broda, the brother of the long-serving Austrian Minister of Justice, also spied for the Soviet Union as an eminent physicist after returning from exile in 1945. Peter Smolka, in turn, provided the template for Graham Greene's screenplay for "The Third Man".