Mitrofan Konstantinowitsch Martschenko

Mitrofan Konstantinovich Marchenko ( Russian Митрофан Константинович Марченко ; * 3. November 1866 , † 7. August 1932 in Paris ) was a tsarist Russian officer , the 1905-1910 military attaché in Vienna and thus quasi "team leader" of Russian espionage against Austria- Hungary . Martschenko is one of the most successful of all Russian military attachés in Vienna involved in espionage tasks. He is also considered to be the one who recruited Alfred Redl , a high-ranking employee of the registry office , the "headquarters" of the Austro-Hungarian military intelligence service , for the Russian secret service.

Life

Early years

Martschenko graduated from the military school in Konstantinovsk (located in today 's Rostov Oblast ) and graduated in 1896 with the general staff examination. From 1897 to 1905 he was chief adjutant in the staff of the 1st Cavalry Division of the Guards, then chief adjutant in the staff of the Guard Corps . He then advanced to head of troop transports for the St. Petersburg and Moscow military districts. In this function he was responsible for the transport of troops by rail and water.

Activity in Austria-Hungary

Since June 24, 1905, Marchenko, now with the rank of colonel, was a Russian military attaché in Vienna. As such, he also acted as the control center for agent activities directed against his host country. The respective military attaché generally worked very closely with the Raswedka , the Russian military intelligence service, whose section in Warsaw was mainly responsible for espionage against the German Reich and Austria-Hungary.

The “ extremely capable ” Martschenko was “ well prepared ” for his new task . He “ knew particularly well how to hire unfounded Austro-Hungarian officers for Russia ” and to make use of their human weaknesses. His informants included, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Hekajlo, the judicial chief of the Lemberg corps command , who delivered news from Galicia , Major Wiekowski, the commander of the Stanislau supply station , who informed about the supply system of the Austro-Hungarian army , and the adjutant of a corps commander who procured officer personnel.

As early as the autumn of 1906, Marchenko had reported "about the wishes of an extremely high-quality man" "who would be willing to provide military information for money. It is believed that this man was Alfred Redl. The offer was initially rejected, whereupon - as Marchenko reported - the person concerned started working for the Italians. In October 1907, Martschenko sent his superiors a description of Redl, whom he had now got to know personally. At that time Redl was already working as a Russian agent.

Martschenko's “espionage career” in the Danube Monarchy finally came to an end in 1910 after his meeting with Adolf Kretschmar von Kienbusch, an officer at the Vienna artillery depot, was observed by the Austrian police . The records office did not completely miss the fact that Russia's general staff was apparently quite well informed about the Austro-Hungarian army - a fact that was in turn linked to Martchenko's work. The house search near Kretschmar carried out in January 1910 finally revealed that he was working as an informant for three foreign powers: for Russia (since 1889), for France (since 1902) and for Italy (since 1906).

Captain Maximilian Ronge , who in the Registry Office , the counterintelligence headed, now pressed for an immediate "removal" of the involved in the espionage affair military attaches Marchenko. However, since he had diplomatic immunity , arrest was not possible. The head of the registry office , Colonel August Urbański von Ostrymiecz , urged the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Aloys Lexa von Aehrenthal , to get Martschenko to leave the country. As expected, Aehrenthal hesitated, whereupon Urbanski presented him with a letter in which he had requested the recall of a spying Austro-Hungarian military attaché during his time as ambassador to Russia. In this way, Aehrenthal was now compelled to suggest to the Russian ambassador that Marchenko “should take a vacation soon and not return from it”. “It was not until September 2, 1910, however, before Martschenko finally left Austria-Hungary.

Last decades of life

After returning to Russia, Marchenko commanded the 19th Dragoon Regiment until 1912 . In the same year he was also promoted to major general. From 1912 to 1917 he was the commander of the cavalry school in Nikolayevsk (now Pugachev in Saratov Oblast ). In March 1917 he was released from the Russian army . From 1919 he was one of the numerous white emigrants who were defeated by the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War . Marchenko went to France, where he had worked on various publications before his death in 1932.

literature

• Heinz Höhne : The war in the dark. Power and influence of the German and Russian secret services. Unabridged edition, Ullstein publishing house, Berlin – Frankfurt / M. 1988, ISBN 3-548-33086-X .
• Gerhard Jagschitz , Hannes Leidinger and Verena Moritz : In the center of power. The many faces of the head of the secret service, Maximilian Ronge. Residenz-Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-7017-3038-4 .
• Albert Pethö: Agents for the double-headed eagle. Austria-Hungary's secret service in the World War. Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz-Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-7020-0830-6 .
• Same: Colonel Redl. In: Wolfgang Krieger (ed.): Secret services in world history. Espionage and covert actions from ancient times to the present. Verlag CH Beck oHG, Munich 2003, pp. 138–150, ISBN 3-406-50248-2 .
• Helmut Roewer , Stefan Schäfer and Matthias Uhl (Hrsg.): Lexicon of the secret services in the 20th century . FAHerbig Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7766-2317-9 , pp. 286f. (Keyword: Martschenko, Mitrofan ).

Remarks

1. ↑ Pethö (1998), note 929, p. 381f. names 1865 as the year of birth.
2. ↑ Pethö (2003), p. 144.
3. ↑ Höhne (1988), p. 66.
4. ↑ Quoted from Pethö (1998), p. 232.
5. ↑ According to Pethö (1998), note 959, p. 387, the work of the Russian major general MA Millstein, which was published in a Russian military history journal in the 1960s, suggests that Marchenko hired Redl and not Colonel Nikolai Stepanowitsch Batyushin , the head of the Military Intelligence Service (Rasvedka) in Warsaw. Pethö considers the version of the recruitment of Redl described by Georg Markus , an Austrian bestselling author and long-time columnist of the Kronen Zeitung , in his book Der Fall Redl , published in 1984, to be implausible, as there is no evidence of this in the Russian sources. Markus took "his" version - like others before and after him - from an extremely unreliable source. Höhne (1988), note 46, p. 568 also relies on Millstein and says that Redl was not recruited by the Russians before 1906. Regarding Markus' book, he says that it “ offers first solid approaches without… really seeing through the secret service background [Redls]. “Ibid., Note 44, p. 568.
6. ↑ Because of espionage, Martschenko's predecessor, Colonel de Roop, had to leave Austria-Hungary; His successor, Colonel Mikhail Ipolitovich Zankiewitsch , was destined to suffer the same fate. After 1905, three Russian military attachés were recalled from Berlin one after the other for espionage . Pethö (1998), p. 195.
7. ↑ Quoted from Jagschitz et al. a. (2007), p. 87.
8. ↑ According to a typescript from August Urbanski stored in the war archive in Vienna , this only happened after Martschenko and his wife were demonstratively "overlooked" by the emperor at a court ball . As a result, Marchenko was " " sick ... " " and finally left. Pethö (1998), note 929, p. 381f.
9. ↑ According to information from Roewer u. a. (2003), pp. 286f. Pethö (1998), note 929, p. 381f. According to Martschenko, the last lieutenant general was.