led to his execution. Redens had married the sister of Stalin’s second
wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, and remained for many years a member
of Stalin’s small inner circle. He served as the chief of the security
service in the Ukraine during collectivizationand the famine of
1933–1934, and as a reward he became head of the service in
Moscow from 1934 to 1938.
In January 1938, Redens was demoted and dispatched to Kaza-
khstan. Arrested in November 1938, he moldered in jail for 13
months. He was tried for treason in January 1940 and shot a month
later. His arrest and execution have been explained by Stalin’s deci-
sion to reduce the authority of his in-laws in party politics. Redens’s
Polish nationality may have hastened his fall as well: almost no Pol-
ish or Latvian “Old Chekists” survived the purges. The Russian
archives also indicate that Nikolai Yezhovdenounced Redens under
torture, and that this convinced Stalin that Redens should be exe-
cuted. Redens’s wife was not formally informed of his death, and she
and her children continued to visit Stalin at his Moscow dacha.REDL, ALFRED (1864–1913). Redl, a colonel on the general staff of
the Austro-Hungarian imperial army, was recruited to spy for Rus-
sia by a Russian military intelligence officer. He was run by the
Russian military attachéin Vienna. Redl was in charge of Austrian
intelligence operations inside Russia; needless to say, his agents did
not do well. He also had access to Austrian war and mobilization
plans. The Redl case was a major victory for Russian intelligence
in the run-up to World War I. It allowed the Russian authorities to
detain more than 100 Austrian agents operating inside Russia, and
it provided the Russian general staff with detailed information
about Vienna’s war plans.
Redl’s motivationin serving Moscow was complex: he report-
edly was compromised as a homosexual while serving in an ex-
change program in Russia, but he was also paid for information. He
also spied for Italy, providing intelligence information under the
cryptonym “K.K.” According to recent literature about his case, he
became increasingly dependant on Russian and Italian money for
his lifestyle. Redl, when confronted with proof of his treachery on
25 May 1913, was allowed to commit suicide by his colleagues in
the general staff. The story of Colonel Alfred Redl has spawned a218 •REDL, ALFRED (1864–1913)06-313 P-Z.qxd 7/27/06 7:57 AM Page 218