and objective inquiry into Germany’s espionage past. It should be stated
at the outset, however, that the country has no major claim to make
regarding the provenance of its intelligence tradition. Both Spain and
Great Britain can point to gifted individuals in the Elizabethan period,
while the Russian practice of espionage derives from the Oprichnina,
created during the 16th-century reign of Ivan the Terrible to purge signs
of disloyalty in the population. It was not until roughly 200 years later
that the first significant stirrings of intelligence work began to occur
in the German lands. For the shrewd 18th-century enlightened despot
Frederick the Great, a covert network of informants quite understand-
ably became an indispensable tool. Not only did he face an array of for-
midable neighbors in his quest for great-power status, but Prussia—or
“mes états” as he frequently stated—was a scattered possession, lack-
ing a plentiful treasury and sparsely endowed with natural resources.
Even though he created no organized system of information-gathering,
individual spies proved to be an acknowledged asset in the warfare that
comprised the bulk of his long reign.
The innovations ushered in by the French Revolution and the Napole-
onic Wars found strong resonance in Prussia as well. It is certainly true
that the chief military theorist of the age, Carl von Clausewitz, accorded
intelligence little value. As he noted in On War, “Many intelligence
reports in war are contradictory; even more are false; and most are un-
certain.”^2 Nevertheless, a recommendation made by Colonel Christian
von Massenbach in 1800 was to have profound implications for the
future. He urged that officers earmarked for high command spend time
beforehand in the major capitals of Europe in order to acquire greater
familiarity with rival countries. Stationed in the diplomatic missions,
these military attachés, while admonished to avoid any domestic politi-
cal involvement and observe utmost caution in their personal behavior,
carefully scrutinized the daily press and developed extensive social
contacts. As Prussia struggled to unify Germany in the latter half of the
19th century, the attachés proved their worth in more than one instance.
Particularly those officers serving in Paris prior to the Franco-Prussian
War were able to provide detailed and accurate reports regarding the
manpower changes and mobilization plans of the French army, thereby
contributing significantly to its swift defeat in 1871. It was also a Ger-
man military attaché in Paris, Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, who
emerged as a key protagonist in the Dreyfus Affair.
xxvi • INTRODUCTION