Colonel Maximilian Ronge (November 9, 1874 – September 10, 1953) was the last director of the

Evidenzbureau The k.u.k. Evidenzbureau (modernized spelling ''Evidenzbüro'') was the directorate of military intelligence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, headquartered in Vienna, Austria. Foundation Founded in 1850 as the first permanent military intell ...

, the directorate of

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...

of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

. Ronge played a key role in the 1913 exposure of Col.

Alfred Redl Alfred Redl (14 March 1864 – 25 May 1913) was an Austrian military officer who rose to head the '' Evidenzbureau'', the counterintelligence wing of the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Redl was one of the leading figures of pre-Wor ...

as a double agent.

Life

Ronge was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1874. He was a career officer in the Austro-Hungarian army; one of his classmates in officer training was Theodor Körner, later a notable Social Democrat and personal adversary of Ronge, who was to become President of the

Second Austrian Republic The history of Austria covers the history of Austria and its predecessor states. In the late Iron Age Austria was occupied by people of the Hallstatt Celtic culture (c. 800 BC), they first organized as a Celtic kingdom referred to by the Romans ...

in 1951. In 1907, Ronge was transferred to the

, the directorate of military intelligence, where he became a student and protégé of Col. Redl. There, in 1913, Ronge directed the investigations following the discovery of an unclaimed letter containing a large sum of money, which eventually led to the exposure of Redl as a Russian

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

and Redl’s subsequent suicide. Ronge was promoted to Colonel and head of the Evidenzbureau in 1917, a position he held until the end of the monarchy brought about the dissolution of the Bureau in 1918. In the

First Austrian Republic The First Austrian Republic (german: Erste Österreichische Republik), officially the Republic of Austria, was created after the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 10 September 1919—the settlement after the end of World War I w ...

, Ronge was deputy director of the government office for

Prisoners of War A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

and

Civilian Internee A civilian internee is a civilian detained by a party to a war for security reasons. Internees are usually forced to reside in internment camps. Historical examples include Japanese American internment and internment of German Americans in the Unit ...

s in Vienna. At the same time, he was a member of a secret society preparing to overthrow the social-democratic Republic. Ronge retired in 1932, but was recalled to duty in the following year as director of the ''staatspolizeiliches Sonderbüro'' ("state police special bureau"). In 1934, Ronge was posted to the ''

Bundeskanzleramt The German Chancellery (german: Bundeskanzleramt, , more faithfully translated as ''Federal Chancellery'' or ''Office of the Federal Chancellor'') is an agency serving the executive office of the chancellor of Germany, the head of the federal gove ...

'' ("chancellery") in the Dollfuss regime; his counter-espionage staff was however unable to prevent the assassination of Dollfuss by

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

agents in the same year. Maximilian Ronge Dachau Arolsen Archives

When Ronge refused to join the SS after Austria’s ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

'' to the

German Reich German ''Reich'' (lit. German Realm, German Empire, from german: Deutsches Reich, ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty ...

in 1938, he was arrested and deported to the

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

. From prison, Ronge wrote a “declaration of loyalty“ to

Wilhelm Canaris Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the '' Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi r ...

when the latter was promoted to vice admiral, upon which he was released in August 1938. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Ronge lived in Vienna. After the war, aged 71, he supported the American troops in

allied-administered Austria The Allied occupation of Austria started on 8 May 1945 with the fall of Nazi Germany and ended with the Austrian State Treaty on 27 July 1955. After the in 1938, Austria had generally been recognized as part of Nazi Germany. In 1943, however, ...

in the creation of a new intelligence service, but died in 1953 before the ''

Heeresnachrichtenamt Heeresnachrichtenamt (Army Intelligence Office) is an intelligence agency of the Austrian Armed Forces. Heeresnachrichtenamt researches information on military operations and projects abroad and conducts data analysis of gathered intelligence. The ...

'' ("Army Intelligence Office") was formally established in 1955, the year Austria regained its independence. He appears in

Dennis Wheatley Dennis Yeats Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was a British writer whose prolific output of thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series ...

's 1950 historical novel ''The Second Seal'', which deals with the run-up to war in 1914 and the first few months of the war. As chief of Austrian Intelligence, he is the main antagonist and foil of the British agent, the

Duke de Richleau The Duke De Richleau is a fictional character created by Dennis Wheatley who appeared in 11 novels published between 1933 and 1970. Dennis Wheatley originally created the character for a murder mystery ''Three Inquisitive People'', written and ...

, who visits Austria-Hungary several times in various guises. They conduct a running battle of wits throughout the story.

Life

References

See also