Sándor Radó

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Portrait of Radó

Sándor Radó - also: Alexander Radolfi , Sándor Kálmán Reich or Alexander Rado (born November 5, 1899 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary ; † August 20, 1981 ibid) was a Hungarian geographer and cartographer .

As head of the Soviet intelligence service in Switzerland, Sándor Radó (code name: Dora ) was also a resistance fighter against Nazi Germany in the service of the Red Orchestra , the part of the Soviet espionage network responsible for Western Europe during World War II . There he was the head of the Swiss resistance group Rote Drei , which embodied one of the most productive residences of the Rote Kapelle .

Life

Alexander Radó, born in Budapest in 1899, came from the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie. Sándor Radó came to the communist movement early . In 1918 he became a member of the Communist Party of Hungary. He joined the Red Army in 1918 and became political commissioner in the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 . After their failure, Radó fled to Austria and began studying geography at the University of Vienna . In 1921 he took part as a delegate at the 3rd Comintern World Congress in Moscow . In 1922 he continued his studies in Jena and Leipzig and from then on lived in Germany. In 1923 he married Helene Jansen .

In 1924 Radó published a political map of the Soviet Union in Westermann Verlag and, according to his own account, "invented" the abbreviation USSR . In the years that followed, he was used by German publishers as an expert on the Soviet Union and was responsible for their maps. Radó also wrote a travel guide through the Soviet Union ( Guide through the Soviet Union ) in 1925 , which was the standard work on the Soviet Union for the next 20 years. In the following years Radó worked in different countries, but mainly published in Germany. In 1929 the Atlas for Politics, Economy, and Labor Movement was published under the name Alex or Alexander Radó . Part 1: Imperialism also a widespread work, the cover of which was designed by John Heartfield . In 1932 the first air travel guide appeared and Radó founded the first cartographic press agency .

After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 Radó fled to Paris , where he was founder of the independent press agency Inpress . Arthur Koestler was one of his employees there. In 1935 he joined the Red Army Intelligence Service (GRU) . In 1936 Radó moved to Switzerland and founded the cartographic agency Geopress in Geneva, which supplied newspapers with the latest maps. The establishment in Switzerland happened at the request of Moscow and with the aim of taking over an espionage activity, especially since Radó was "not a newcomer to the conspiratorial activity". In 1938 he was appointed head of the Soviet intelligence service in Switzerland. From April 1938 Radó led a small group of agents from his agency "Atlas Permanent SA" in Geneva, which ranged around the Bernese journalist Otto Pünter .

He was one of the GRU staff members who informed the Soviet Union of the date of the planned German attack . As part of the Rote Kapelle resistance cell , he obtained information from Switzerland about German war preparations. Ruth Werner worked for him as a radio operator for a while. When it left Switzerland in 1940, MI6 double agent Alexander Foote became its radio operator. Rudolf Rößler was one of his most important informants.

In 1943 the Swiss police tracked down the location of his three radio operators . His brother-in-law Hermann Scherchen hid him in Geneva for a while until he was able to leave Switzerland in 1944. In 1947 he was sentenced in absentia to three years in prison and 15 years expulsion from the country . Radó was forcibly taken from Cairo to the Soviet Union, where he was immediately interned. Because he had made contact with British secret services in Paris and Cairo, a military court in Moscow sentenced him to death for disobedience - although his previous work for the GRU had been honored with the Order of the Red Banner . It is not known to what extent it was good relationships or his technical knowledge that brought him to a geophysical observatory near Moscow. The CIA knew, however, that Radó was a "prisoner with privileges" there, who dealt with map problems and military navigation systems. Stalin later pardoned Radó to ten years in a labor camp . After serving this sentence, he was released in 1955 and returned to Budapest, where he was employed by the State Office for Surveying and Geography. Later he was also head of the Institute for Economic Geography at the Karl Marx University in Budapest .

People of the "Red Chapel"

Works (selection)

  • Avio-Führer - guides for air travelers. Berlin W 50, undated
  • Atlas for politics, economy, labor movement. Publishing house for literature and politics: Berlin o. J.
  • Political and Traffic Map of the Soviet Republics; G. Westermann: Braunschweig 1924.
  • Leader through the Soviet Union; New German publisher: Berlin 1928.
  • Greater Hamburg ; New German publisher: Berlin 1929.
  • European Russia and the border states: Westermann-Verlag: Berlin et al. 1933.
  • World Handbook - International Political and Economic Almanac; Corvina Published by Budapest 1962.
  • Под псевдонимом Дора ( under the pseudonym Dora ), Wojenisdat Moscow 1973. (Russian)
    • German: Dora reports ... , Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1974, 3rd edition 1980.
    • Dóra jelenti - újra, Riport Tromm Andrással, a Könyv szerkesztőjével (Publication of the uncensored manuscript on Dora reports ... ), Budapest 2006.
  • Magyarország autóatlasza; Kartográfiai Vállalat: Budapest 1979.
  • Travel guide and Atlas Danube Bend and Surroundings. Kartográfiai Vállalat, Budapest 1979.

literature

  • Bernd-Rainer Barth : Egy térképész illegalitásban: tények és legendák nyugati és keleti titkosszolgálati archivumokból. [Sándor Radó - a cartographer in the underground: facts and legends reflected in western and eastern secret service archives. ] In: Ábel Hegedüs, János Suba (ed.): Tanulmányok Radó Sándorról. A Budapest 2009. nov. 4-5-én rendezet konferencia elöadásainak szerkesztett anyaga. [Studies on Alexander Radó. Edited versions of the lectures at the scientific conference held in Budapest on November 4-5, 2009]. HM Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum [War History Institute and Museum of the Hungarian Ministry of Defense], Budapest 2010.
  • Bernd Ruland : The eyes of Moscow. Swiss publishing house, Zurich 1973.
  • Arthur Koestler : The secret writing. Report on a life from 1932 to 1940. Desch, Munich / Vienna / Basel 1955, pp. 318–326.
  • Karl Schlögel : We read the time in space . ISBN 3-596-16718-3 , p. 229 ff.
  • Ute Schneider: Cartography as imperial spatial design. Alexander (Sándor) Radó's maps and atlases . In: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History. 3rd year 2006, issue 1 full text .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Perfect Spy ( English : The Ultimate Spy Book , by Dorling Kinderslay Ltd., London), The World of Secret Services, H. Keith Melton,… ISBN 3-453-11480-9 ; P. 38 “The Red Orchestra” ... Red Three.
  2. ↑ a b c d Cartography as imperial spatial design - historical research. In: zeithistorische-forschungen.de. Retrieved July 14, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Zoltán Kaszás: Sándor Radó. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . December 16, 2011 , accessed July 14, 2018 .
  4. ^ Sándor Radó, Dora reports, Berlin (Ost) 1974, p. 89.
  5. ↑ "Werther never lived" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 1972 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Radó, Sándor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rado, Alexander; Radolfi, Alexander; Dora (alias)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian cartographer, communist and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH 20th August 1981
Place of death Budapest