personal ties ever developed between the two men, and Stieber is
barely mentioned in Bismarck’s three-volume memoirs.
The overriding purpose of the Central-Nachrichten-Büreau was to
collect information about activities hostile to the Prussian govern-
ment, both at home and abroad. Stieber’s first major operation was
directed against the Welfen Legion, a group formed by the recently
defeated Hanoverian monarch George V to regain his former king-
dom, now incorporated in Prussia. Stieber succeeded in capturing the
king’s couriers and confiscating his secret bank accounts (Stieber’s
bureau was itself financed off the books by the disposed monarch’s
former properties). Ultimately, Prussian agents so thoroughly pen-
etrated the Welfen Legion that Bismarck knew their plans better than
the Hanoverian king.
Shortly before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870,
Stieber traveled to Paris to collect information about new military
equipment acquired by the French army. He then visited Switzerland,
the hub of spy activities during the war, to meet with his agents.
During the war, the direction of the Feldpolizei again became his
chief responsibility. Even though Stieber was ostensibly under mili-
tary command, Bismarck called on him with special instructions. In
one instance, he asked Stieber to reprimand the mayor of Reims for
having proclaimed his allegiance to the new government in Paris,
thereby provoking objections from the military leadership for un-
authorized interference. Still the Prussian military command under
Helmut von Moltke clearly profited from information acquired from
one of Stieber’s agents, the Austrian August Schluga Baron von
Rastenfeld, who, as a Paris newspaper correspondent, had close ties
to the French war ministry. In the immediate aftermath of the war,
Stieber had the task of blocking communication—including balloon
traffic—between Paris and the unoccupied provinces.
Awarded the Iron Cross, Stieber returned to Berlin and his earlier
espionage post, this time concentrating on Bismarck’s chief political
rivals, the Social Democrats and the Catholic Center Party. As very
little lay concealed from public view, the bureau lost much of its ra-
tionale and was dissolved in 1873 by Roon, Bismarck’s successor as
minister-president of Prussia. One more opportunity for service arose
in 1877 when Stieber was approached by the Russian government
and asked to organize a military police force in the impending war446 • STIEBER, WILHELM