Topic: SPY - on September 27, 2008 at 11:45:00 AM CEST
Austria’s Little-known Intelligence Community since 1945
There exist several persevering clichés about the small Alpine Republic of Austria; one of them, and not the least beguiling, pertains to the fact that since its creation in 1918/19 as a result of the disintegration of the old Habsburg Empire it has assumed the distinction of being an eldorado for spies, peddlars of misinformation and dozens of meddling intelligence services. If this is true – and we know that most clichés are valid to a great extent – then we are confronted with a strange phenomenon as to this day relatively little reliable information exists about this aspect of life in Austria, neither about the dealings of foreign intelligence elements within Austria nor about the Austrian institutions created and sustained to foil these alleged intelligence intrusions.
This article focusses on the intelligence situation of and in Austria since the end of World War II when the people of Austria, perhaps surprisingly for most of them, were given a second chance at nation-building, albeit under totally different conditions from those in 1918/19. By early May 1945 it was occupied by the four major victorious Allies of World War II who, at least initially, were determined to direct and control every facet of public life in Austria until, by their estimation, stable and secure democratic conditions were established. This control, total at first but progressively loosened over the ten long years of military, diplomatic and civilian dependence under occupation, was soon coloured by the emerging differences and controversies among the Allies themselves as their attention, already by mid-1946, started to switch from epuration of Austria and of Austrians from Nazism and fascism to mutual observation between the Western Powers on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other; this was done in pursuit of larger ideological aims and military interests in Central Europe. Thus Austria rather quickly became an intelligence battleground of the Great Powers against each other and particularly of the two Super-Powers, „defending“ their territory of influence at the geopolitically crucial but increasingly more ideologically determined dividing line running through the country from Upper Austria in the north to Burgenland in the south-east.
got to know the last chief of the heeresnachrichtenamt, a Mr. deutsch, back in the 60s in vienna - he had to step down now due to bribery allegations regarding a deal with eads of the austrian army under the conservative/extreme right coalition from 1999-2006.
his father worked under my father in the gestapo in the early 40s.
just cleared some boards recently from old correspondence after 1945 of my father, will give all politically relevant letters to the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (= documentary archive of the austrian resistance)
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