Former Hotel Klomser (Herrengasse 19)
Behind the baroque facade of the Palais Batthyány once operated the elegant Hotel Klomser, where in May 1913 Colonel Alfred Redl, the empire's own counterintelligence chief, was unmasked as Russia's master spy. Fellow officers left a loaded Browning pistol in his room and walked out, ending the greatest espionage scandal of the age with a single shot.
Sobre este lugar
The calm aristocratic front of Herrengasse 19 gives no hint that the twentieth century's first great spy scandal ended behind its windows. In 1913 the palace housed the refined Hotel Klomser, a favorite of officers and gentlemen, and among its guests that May was Colonel Alfred Redl, longtime head of counterintelligence in the Austro Hungarian army. Redl was the man who modernized imperial espionage with hidden cameras, secret recordings and fingerprint files, yet for roughly a decade he had been selling the empire's deepest secrets to Tsarist Russia, which had blackmailed him over his hidden homosexuality and then paid him a fortune. He betrayed Austrian agents abroad and, most catastrophically, Plan III, the complete invasion plan for Serbia. His own methods trapped him: detectives shadowing suspicious cash letters addressed to a certain Nikon Nizetas followed a trail from the general post office to this hotel, where Redl unwittingly claimed a pocket knife sheath he had lost in the getaway taxi. Near midnight on 24 May 1913 a commission of officers entered his room, heard his brief confession, placed a loaded Browning pistol on the table and left. Before dawn, Redl was dead on the floor at the age of forty nine.
Datos clave
- 1913 year — Colonel Alfred Redl shot himself in his room at the Hotel Klomser on 25 May 1913 after being unmasked as Russia's master spy.
- 10 years — For roughly a decade Redl sold the empire's most sensitive secrets to Russia, including Plan III, the entire invasion plan for Serbia.
- 1 Browning pistol — Fellow officers placed a single loaded Browning on his table and left without a word, a silent order to execute himself and avoid a public trial.
📍 Herrengasse 19, 1010, Wien