LUXBURG AFFAIR. A serious rupture in Germany’s relationship with
Argentina during World War I, the Luxburg Affair had its origins in
the ciphered traffic between Berlin and Germany’s diplomatic mis-
sions in Latin America. Unknown to the Germans, Room 40, the cryp-
tographic unit of British naval intelligence, succeeded in decrypting a
series of notes sent by Karl von Luxburg, the German ambassador to
Argentina, and relayed them to Washington, D.C. Not only had they
been transmitted from the Swedish legation in Buenos Aires—in viola-
tion of the country’s declared neutrality—but their contents included
some highly inflammatory remarks. Besides referring to the Argentine
foreign minister as an “Anglophile ass,” Luxburg recommended that
submarine attacks on Argentine shipping be carried out “without leav-
ing a trace” of German involvement. In September 1917, President
Woodrow Wilson authorized the publication of the messages in the
American press without disclosing their British source. Argentina im-
mediately broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, while Sweden
suffered an international embarrassment.
– M –
MADEMOISELLE DOCTEUR. See SCHRAGMÜLLER, ELS-
BETH.
MADER, JULIUS (1928–2000). The leading writer on espionage
in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as well as an officer
of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), Julius Mader
was born in Radzein (now Radejcin, Czech Republic). Expelled
from Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1958, he resettled in the
GDR and, 11 years later, earned a degree in economics from the
Deutsche Akademie für Staats und Rechtswissenschaften (German
Academy for Political Science and Law). While employed at the
GDR publishing house Die Wirtschaft, he attracted the attention
of the agitation division of the MfS and began his collaboration
in 1958. Four years later, the MfS designated him one of the Of-
fiziere im besonderen Einsatz with the rank of captain. To the
general public, Mader (code names document, x 54, jäger, and
faingold) appeared to be merely a freelance writer. Because of
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